Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Weekly Marketing and Advertising News: Audi Denmark Cookieless Test; Federal Judge tosses out Facebook Antitrust suits; Bumble Dating App Cafe; Brand Equity Building

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Welcome to this week’s episode on The Radcast! In this week’s news episode, Ryan and Josh catch up on the latest with Google Trends, JoeyJoeSean Partnership, and the Best of Tiktok.They also discuss the following headlines: Audi Denmark claims 70% conversion rate for cookieless test leveraging 'exclusion lists'Federal judge tosses out Facebook antitrust suits, citing failure to prove social giant's monopoly powerDating App Bumble Will Open its First Cafe in New York in JulyBuilding brand equity whiles sales are greatIf you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that’s radical from @ryanalford @radical_results @the.rad.cast If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here. What better time than now? You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up?

Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast News and Advertising edition. I'm Ryan Alford. And I'm Josh Hill. Welcome to our show. It is Friday, July 2nd. 2021. We are in the future, folks. It's 2021.

And it's almost July 4th. We're going out with a bang here this week. Oh, yes. Dad joke number one. Yep. Right off, right off the bat. I'll start my tally. I know.

What's up, Josh? You have a good week? It's been a good week. Yeah. Good, good. Any huge, exciting, special July 4th plans? Big cook out with some friends. Okay.

Yeah. Kind of what it is. Kind of like, you know, throw some old meat on the Barbie. Oh, yeah. Old, what was that, dumb and dumber? Yeah. I'll get Zuckerberg on here. Smoking these meats.

Smoking these meats. We have the meats. We have smoking some meats out here. I know. July 4th, fireworks. There's no fireworks in Greenville this year. What the hell? Oh, is that real?

Yeah, like they, they like, they're so much construction going on. They're like, they're afraid they're going to light something on fire. And then, like, the area that normally does it has so much, you know, you can't have progress for on here. That makes sense. You got babies crying. You got kids upset. Like, moms are going, what are we going to do? There's no fireworks downtown.

I've already seen some means about the, uh, the northwest with all that heat and dryness going on out there. Oh, yeah. They don't need fireworks. Yeah, they're like, this is, this is a great. Um, good thing. There's no, uh, explosion, century holidays coming up. Yeah. I think they need to stay away from the fireworks.

117 degrees out there. Just bring up a YouTube video and watch that. That would be enough. So it's been a good week. It's been a good week. I know we're going to start a new segment here in our kind of upfront for these, looking at some of the Google trends of the week. I know these were yesterday's trends.

And something caught my attention, and I wanted to, you know, bring it to the forefront. If you're watching the video, you're going to see the description. of what's trending, but a certain gentleman that used to play baseball for the New York Mets. I think it's Bobby Bendyia. Bobby Bindia Day was yesterday. And do you know this, do you, are you aware of a little bit of this story? Kind of the cult nature of it? Recently.

Yeah. It's a name that's popped up here and there throughout history for me. So for anyone listening that doesn't know this story and yeah, it was yesterday. So you're probably like, oh, already heard this. Well, you're going to hear it again. So I'm going to condense it really quickly. Bobby O'Neillia was a huge baseball player, made millions of dollars, huge contract. Well, he declined one year, and the owner didn't really want to pay their remaining like

six million bucks all at once. But he told him, and Bobby made the deal of a lifetime, that he'd pay him $1.2-ish million for 25 years, starting 11 years in 2011. It was 2000 when this happened. And Bobby took that deal. It was only $6 million that he's owed. And he took that $25 million. And the owner of the Mets who was investing with Bernie Madoff, Madoff, Madoff,

made off with a lot of money. He used the Ponzi schemer, if you don't know who that is. Anyway, he stole everyone's money, including the Mets owner, who seemed to have enough for it to go around. But nonetheless, he thought he could invest over those 11 years and make more than the contract was worth. Well, he was dead wrong, kind of like Bernie Mesa. Adolf and he's been paying

$1.2 million for over 25 years since 2011. We're in year like 10 of this. He's got 15 more to go, but it's become a cult following. It's like there's Bobby Benny a day at the ballpark. There's been bobbleheads and everything else. And Ryan Reynolds, of course,

has struck a commercial with mint. We won't go to that. That's not part of our news. Ryan, we've given you enough props on this. You should come on the show. We're going to get you on as a guest, Ryan Reynolds. But in all seriousness, Bobby Bonilla day. Bobby Bonilla was trending in the top like 10 yesterday significantly. Yeah, it's, gosh, the things I would do for a contract like that deal.

1.2 million. They just kind of put it in savings for them. Yeah. Like it became as like, you know, instead of like some of these guys spending more than they should have, even with financial advisors, he signs the deal of a lifetime. And it became like a savings account because he gets 1.2 million, almost like living on the dividends of, you know, much larger. or contract.

So, gosh. And this, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's for you, Bobby. Oh, absolutely.

Anyway, I, I just, it makes me laugh, you know, like that the owner was, I don't know, arrogant enough to think,

yeah, that that was a, a done deal. So, yeah. It's a good, a good life lesson of the, don't catch,

catch your chickens before the eggs hatch. I don't know. Yeah. No, that's exactly how you say. Yeah. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh. I promise. I promise. I promise. I promised I was going to give Josh lots of awes today.

And no distractions. Yeah, that's your, that's your cue to make an awe at home. Wherever you're listening. Yes, yes, yes. So I know a bit of news. So we're radical. And we're doing a little partnership. If you go look them up, especially on TikTok, Joey, Joe, and Sean.

S-E-A-N. Go look them up on TikTok. Thank me later. hilarious dudes. They're actually here at Greenville, a little comedy troupe. I know Joe from college, but I'm actually hiring these guys at the agency. They're going to help with writing and doing some skits

to really kind of take our content to the next level. So I'm excited about that. I might even make some guest appearances on the podcast, Josh. So funny guys. Josh is probably funnier than you even realize. So I can't wait for how this all kind of comes together when we get

lots of funny people talking. And so I don't know. It's like trying to shake things up, it just strikes me is the people that are making great content that are really talented in this day and age, how do we partner and leverage that, especially when our fucking name is radical? Yeah. You know, like, it's starting to be radical, so let's be radical. So I'm excited about that.

More to come, more content. They're going to be coming on the radcast. We're doing like a weekly segment. I'm looking forward to that. Josh, did their humor crack you as funny? Oh, yeah, that was... It was kind of right down the path for you a little bit. Oh, for sure.

There's a couple of moments, even just meeting with them. I was like holding back in the lap. Yeah, they're funny. Lots of parodies. Look them up. Joey, Joe, and Sean coming on the Radcast team and the radical team in a any time now. So speaking of TikTok,

anything you hit your radar this week? A few things. And I'm going to bring Ryan back in. Ryan Reynolds got on. And of course, his first fucking, like, TikTok video gets four million likes. Not views, likes. It's just huge. So he's just hitting base hits at this point.

I know. But we had our own TikTok blow up. Yes, we did. We had one featuring our wonderful graphic designer, Sawyer, and one of our, the recent trends. So this is another trend of the, I don't even know who does this song, but it's just like, I'll be damned. I'll be damned if I listen to the opinion of a man with an unwashed rear end. Keeping it clean. Keep it clean.

But, yeah, he's got 125,000 views. Got a few hundred followers from that. It's great. It is a case study. Okay, people. So I'm just going to say this. So, like, I give our team latitude with time to create TikToks for the agency. Most agencies suck at marketing themselves.

We're marketers, so we market ourselves. So I tell the team, hey, come up with TikToks, do all this stuff. We've got a lot of creative people, a lot of talented people. And they come up with videos. We've had some with 10,000, 5,000 views here and there. And you think, well, what's the point of that? Well, we had like three talented people apply to work here. It's a recruiting tool.

You know, it's awareness for the agency. It's awareness for our team. It gives them, you know, a creative outlet. But this is why you do it. And so if you're listening out there and you run a business, this is why you give your team latitude to do these things. And, you know, who knows what comes of it, but it adds value. It's fun. Look, everything's too serious.

Like, let's fucking stop taking everything so damn serious. Like, let's have fun, people. That's why TikTok's blowing up. I know we've had a couple, like, new people on the team. We're like, all right, let's make a TikTok. And they're like, don't we like have a meeting, some kind of formal discussions? Should we shoot? Like, no, we just hang.

Like, calm down. Yeah, calm down. This is not playing. We're not like that kind of workspace. I like the cool workspace. Yes, yes, yes. So check that out. Check out the radical company, TikTok page for all of the greatest hits that are going on.

And Sawyer's mullet. Yeah, I don't think he had the mullet yet in the video, did he? Yeah, he didn't yet. That hair is something else. We'll get it. We'll get it back in there. Yes. He might play a character himself.

Yes. anything else hitting your radar on tic-tok a couple great great more sounds uh pay my bills by destiny child killing killing it love those and then one of my favorites is the like pit bull did a song a while ago and then he was like for everyone going through tough times remember i've been there done that and everyone's like posting the most like obscure like really deep traumatic events in their lifetime and he's like just me you like pushing through this moment just remembering that Pitbull's been there with me. Yeah.

Like playing out the fact that maybe he had tough times at one time, but really he's not having tough times anymore. But he's Mr. Worldwide. What hasn't he experienced? This is true. Is Pitbull still popular? Or is he only popular in a parody instance?

I want to say he's popular in a parody. Like way, but like, I also still see him everywhere. So I don't think it, I think there comes a point where, like, even if you are a meme, like, yeah. It doesn't matter. I hope I become a meme.

Don't you want to become a meme? I'm okay with that. Like you've made it, I think. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's when you're like, for sure, a part of like history forever. Yes. Cool.

There's your latest on TikTok and we'll get started on the news. So first, number one, Audi, claiming a 70% conversion rate. This is coming from Ad Age, by the way. Find it on adage.com. you can find it a lot of places. I did see it multiple places, but Adi's picked it up, so I want to give them props. Audi claims 70% conversion rate for cookie-less testing, leveraging exclusion list.

So essentially here, you know, cookies are going away eventually, though Google just announced they're extending another two years. No one's quite ready. It's like, wait, wait, wait, hey, can we extend another one? Hey, you know, like the lobbyist in Washington shoved a few more hundreds that they get some. Or millions, whatever it is, in pocket. to extend this because no one's quite ready for it. But it is interesting because this goes in line. I've wanted, this kind of struck me because it's some of the things that we are about

to start testing or already are testing with this notion of contextual combined with first party, combined with behavioral, minus, which is where the exclusion list, customers that are showing behaviors that would show them not to be interested in whatever you're selling in this case an Audi. Right. But who's not interested in an out. But, you know, there's got to be a small exclusion list. Yeah.

Just the ones that can't afford it, maybe. Right. But that was the only thing. They would have minor like affordability. That was the one factor. Like, you know, whatever the income level. Yeah. Credit level.

Probably have credit scores. But thoughts on this? Yeah. I think it makes a lot of sense. and going for contextual stuff is something like we've been like really pushing for last few months especially. Yep. And that's been really successful in what I've seen in our results. But it makes a lot of sense, especially with the exclusion list.

I think a lot of people, I mean, everyone talks about targeting. Yeah. You know, I think everyone's, everyone talks about targeting audience targeting who are you going after. I think a key thing is like you got to exclude people you're not going after. One, it saves you some ad money. because you got to keep them out. But I think it really says a lot. I mean, people are really focusing on being all things to all people.

It's like, no, you got to cut out some people. Well, it's kind of like negative keywords on paper click campaigns. That's like, people forget about that. Oh, we're going to go after these keywords. No, you need to exclude some lists, some keywords too, because that will get the trash kind of out of the, out of the opportunity. Right. It's like, it's like finding a partner to date and you like focus on all the good things.

And you just ignore the red flags. Yeah. She's cute. She's nice. She cleans. But she's also a psychopath. Yeah. She stole my wallet.

Yeah. Like, she's so awesome. Like, she's so good to me. Yeah. You know. You got to get.

She emptied my bank account that one time. But, you know, it was okay. I didn't have $700 in there. So I was okay with it. Well, it's a life lesson and ad lesson. Remember your exclusions. Exclusionless people. Oh, yeah.

exclude. Get some deal breakers in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Number two. So not surprising here. So Facebook's been under scrutiny for the last few years and there's been a huge

lawsuit, this big lawsuit, just to summarize, we could talk about this for an hour. But they've been called out for essentially being a monopoly. And they've had antitrust laws and everything's been trying to throw the book at. And when the judge threw it out, their stock price went through the roof like when this happened because I think a lot of people weren't. expecting it to get thrown out, but it did get thrown out. And, and, you know, like, I'm, I believe in capitalism. I'm, like, you know, I'm, I'm independent, probably as far as a voting goes. I voted both sides in my, I don't know, 20 plus years of voting. So I wouldn't

call myself one, one party or another as much as I just believe in capitalism. And it's kind of the lifeblood of America of it. And so I don't have a problem. problem with Facebook growing, becoming what they are. Hey, everyone's got the same opportunity. It's who makes the most of it. However, at a certain point, like, I don't know when it's something gets so ingrained in the society and everything else that it might be too big. I don't have a firm, absolute judgment on that other than just my own intuition goes, maybe getting a bit big. Yeah. We have a habit of letting. entities like this

become the like too big to fail thing. Yes. And that's when you just completely remove competition and everything is like working to keep them in power. And it's just like that that's when it falls apart. My problem with Facebook goes back to just like personal freedoms and stuff. It's like they have

so much size and scale which they've done and they've built and I admire from a capital to standpoint. But when they become the judge jury and censor censorship of anything. And again, I'm not being political here. I'm just talking like on anything.

That's when I get to have a little bit of or a lot of heartburn. You know, it's like when they're censoring things, when they're dictating what's real news, what's fake news, what's absolute gospel and what's not. Right. Because that's, and look, I'm not saying you shouldn't have some censorship and like you don't want your kids seeing bad stuff. and like, you know, like all and all, like criminality, of course, should we need some sensory. Right. But I think if you're paying attention,

we're creeping into lots of realms now, which is where some of that's happening. And even that like a, just like a more, I guess a different look, like you get your algorithm feeding you stuff that you either get mad about and react to or just the stuff that you like and so it's kind of only feeding you the extremes

and so you get caught in this feedback loop of your own perspective so I mean really the easiest key for getting rid of this monopoly is just stop using it Yes Hey take a break Don't say that too loud

We do make money off of Facebook But it's a great stuff for just It's great for discovery Great for like experiencing like new things Finding new things But like Yeah if it's if it's coming your reality It's time to take a few more

That I agree with that. And that is the problem. There's like, you know, it's why you have screen time and different things now. Like, take a break, people. Like, you know, it can be a source, but don't be the source of all things. Yeah. Let it be a tool. Yeah.

Unless you're just shopping for, like, everything that I have for sale in the marketplace. Didn't use it as much as you want. Yeah, yeah. That is your life now. Whenever I sell something on marketplace, please use it as often as possible. But, you know, if I don't have anything for sale, then, you know, don't worry about it. that random yard lawnmower that I'm trying to get rid of from my storage or whatever you know I'm always having some random on Facebook marketplace if I'm selling something

you know yeah a few cars on there kind of nice oh yeah like got rid of it I'm new some furniture it's like I've been careful what I asked for like I'm not saying let's get rid of Facebook I'm just saying like you know let's just make sure we get whatever you know we're all uh know who's driving the bus here yeah so third on our list, the dating app Bumble, is officially opening its first cafe this has been talked about for two years in New York City. Bumble, the dating app, opens a cafe. I liked where they were going to go at first.

I read the article, and I'm like, the first plan was no soups or spaghetti because you're going to be going on dates and you don't want to get embarrassed. That was kind of funny to me. At least I could troll that a little bit more. Now it's like, you know, we're going to be. be all things for all people and like oh come on yeah it's just obviously like a PR move but it's it's so funny to me because I don't I know it's going to be such a turn off when someone's like oh you've been talking for a little bit on this app and like the other person's like oh let's

let's finally go out and then you you're like uh where should I go where should I go uh how about the Bumble that's what I'm understanding it's like I remember okay good story I lived in New York I had gotten divorced and was only there for a few months before I moved back to South Carolina. And I used the app there and, you know, went on a few dates. And it always felt like, you know, you walk into barn and like, oh, God, there's like, you know, eight people here. You know we're on match.com dates. Yeah. It's a little bit of the walk of shame.

I don't know, like why you'd be shane. Everybody's dating. Everyone used it. This was nine, 10 years ago. Right. Everyone's used the app then in New York. Well, before anyone else.

Everything in New York is mainstream before anywhere else. And so it was like, it wasn't, like everybody was doing it. So it was fine. But it was more just like the, you knew everybody was on it. And that's how people met. But walking in and knowing there were like five other match dates. Oh, yeah. And then people snickering like the bartender going, oh, match date.

Yeah. Yeah. So thus, if you're on a Bumble date or whatever you do with Bumble, that you really want to go to the fucking Bumble Cafe. Gosh, are you going to wear a bumble t-shirt there? I would be as far as possible from that. You know, like, I don't want to go to the fucking Bumble Cafe. Gosh, yeah.

Like, it just says, hey, let me have a T-shirt that says we're on a Bumble date. It just feels uncomfortable. Yeah. But you can always tell. Like, I've been on a few Bumble dates myself and I've seen other people, but you can, you can always, like, see someone at a, like, bar and you can be like, they're waiting on a Bumble date. There's going to be, like, all these, like, you know, 40, 50-year-old men and women that are,

like, you know, married, like, trying to escape or something hanging out at the Bumble Cafe. It's just the shadiest people in New York. Do people, can you go there without, like, can you make a Bumble date while you're at the Bumble Cafe?

Like, you know, like, just like have it, have like GPS like locked in, like, hey, I'm just, I'm hanging out at the Bumble Cafe. Are they checking, are they checking your matches to make sure it's you? Yeah, exactly. I have so many more questions I just thought of.

I know. Like, this is what, I just think it's like contrary, but like, I don't know. This is what I think about it. Yeah. Do not choose the Bumble Cafe. I'm going to let that one go all the way down. No Bumble Cafe for me.

And I don't get it from a business perspective. Other than branding, okay, I get it. But like we talked about New York, how many fucking restaurants do they have? It's like a million restaurants. They got every concept ever. Oh, yeah. If this doesn't flame out in two years or less, call me shocked. I called the demise of Clubhouse.

house for the fucking record and it's already demising and which may or may not be a word but its demise is imminent yeah and call this what you want that's what i'm going to think about that gosh i'm getting on the soapbox on this one oh yeah for sure i mean you struck me in the in the you know like this this this this could have been in our like you know bad idea episode yeah God, it's so bad Because like Just being in New York City Like compared to a lot of other countries

Like New York City is like our only like actual city in America Right And like You have all of those places Places that have been there for over 100 years And you go Yeah I don't want to go to any of those spots Let's go to the Bumbo Cafe

Yes, yes Thank you for that Josh You're so right And uh So we'll see what happened And last on our list, this is not a news article. This is a little bit of, hey, we're on Soapbox Friday here a little bit. I'm going to get on my soapbox a bit.

Not even the soapbox. But now I want to get your perspective on this, Josh. But so we're in kind of a start of a boom a bit with the economy, with people getting back out. Everyone's excited. There's money in the market, money being spent. A lot of our clients, a lot of potential clients, a lot of just brands in general. life's good right now. Yeah.

You know, sales are going up, money's in the market, things are happening. But here's what I'm going to do. I do want to give a point of view on this. So it gets real easy, I think, to think, well, we can pull back on marketing and maybe spend a little less on marketing because sales are great. And this is not self-serving. It may come across that way because we do owner, I own ad agency. But it's actually, I want to go a different angle.

It's less about, oh, don't pull back on marketing. We need your marketing. No, it's more of the opportunity to start building brand when sales are great. Because pull back on your performance campaigns, because maybe this performance is happening as they are, but those equity building brand opportunities, you've been thinking about starting a podcast as a business. You've been thinking about ways to maybe sponsor a local sports team. You've been thinking about some outdoor board campaign. I'm going to cover the gamut here.

This is the time to build brand because it's not always going to be great. You know, and the more equity you can build and put in your brand now, while you've got a little extra cash or the sales are good, you can win the long game. Absolutely. This is another thing to keep in mind is like most people, a lot of people get caught in the ruts of thinking of marketing as a like a fix. Like things are going bad, better start doing some marketing that'll fix it. It's not a Band-Aid. Like, yeah, it can help, but it's like taking medicine, like, when you should be just like, be better. And also, yeah, when things are good, like, this is your preventative maintenance, I guess.

When things are good, this is also going to be way easier, too. Yes. It's going to be way harder when sales are not bad. And it's going to take. And the cosonomies in the tank and people don't have as much money. Right. It's going to take way more money to invest in marketing to get. the results that you could get when you're when things are great like you're going to get more

for your money more response and just like when you have when things are good that's when you already have attention yeah that's that's your time to say something that's it's absolutely right so if you've been thinking about a rebrand you've been thinking about uh you know ways with which to kind of grow your overall awareness now's the time the fish are biting so don't stop throwing your line out there and don't start creating a halo around that pond. This is the time to start really doubling down because not only can you afford it because sales are good, but you want to play the long game with your business. Yeah, if you're selling your business next year, sure. Pull some money out and save some money, make the books look a little better. Yeah. But most 99%

of companies are in it for the long haul. And so now is when you have, just like Josh said, attention is there, you have money in the market, you have the opportunity, because another way to look at is there's people buying, so get more of your competition share, you know, like, you know, because they might be being more conservative because that's the natural play here. You're actually going out of the norm, you're being radical by thinking about how do I double down when things are good instead of scrolling back. Well, I'm going to save for that rainy day. No, don't you make this this heyday even bigger of a heyday so that then you're well positioned when things are slower because when things are slower that brand halo those things that awareness people

knowing your name being top of mind is so much more valuable because then you don't have to play the growth game of i got to make people know about me i've got to get my stuff out there because you know everything's you know so harder you know but like now's the time yeah branding and awareness can always be built. You're not going to max that out. No, absolutely not. Until, I mean, even Apple and Nike, the biggest brands in the world spend millions and millions of dollars. Obviously, that's within their budgets on these awareness drivers. They're doing it because they want to be top of mind. And top of mind is a fleeting position. It's a fight every day against the competition no matter what you do. You're a chiropractor. You're a bank. You're a lawyer.

you're a fabric company, whatever you are, awareness and top of mind is leading. So now's the time to stake a position. Coca-Cola hasn't slowed down. You shouldn't either. Exactly. That's it for this week. I hope everyone has a great July 4th. Have some hot dogs.

I am not in the hot dog eating contest this year. Maybe next year. I can eat three, I think. How many hot dogs could you eat, Josh? Five. Okay. All right. I'm going to put a safe, safe number in there.

Five, yeah. I can name that tune in five. Cool. We'll have a great holiday, Josh. And everywhere out there, you know where to find us, the radcast.com. I'm at Ryan Offord on all the channels. Josh Chill on Instagram. Go look them up.

Go follow them. Go follow us. Go follow our YouTube channel, the Radical Company, YouTube channel. All the contents there, all the video highlights, everything. We'll see you next time. Happy Fourth of you, lot on the radcast. To listen to full episodes or to contact us, visit us on the web at the radcast.com

or follow our host at Ryan Alford on Instagram. Thanks for tuning in.