Right About Now with Ryan Alford - A NEW Pepsi flavor; White Castle partners with rapper Coolio; Walmart and Ibotta give away free Thanksgiving meals; More Weekly Marketing News

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Happy Thanksgiving week and Happy Black Friday!In this episode, host Ryan Alford, and news co-host Reiley Clark, break down this week's Thanksgiving marketing news. Pepsi is launching a new flavored drink, but you have to submit your Thanksgiving fails to Pepsi on social media for a chance to grab this new flavor!White Castle is teaming up with rapper Coolio while highlighting a new way to make Thanksgiving stuffing.Walmart and Ibotta give away free Thanksgiving meals.  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. 

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 latest Radcast News Update. Here's Ryan and Riley. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast News Update. I'm joined by my lovely co-host, Riley Clark. Hello, thank you. What's up, Riley? Nothing much. This is our weekly news update, Thanksgiving edition. Yes.

Yes. And hey, happy almost Thanksgiving to you. Yes, thank you. I'm thankful for you. Oh, I'm thankful for you to you. Yes, thank you. I'm thankful for you. Oh, I'm thankful for you, too. Yeah, I appreciate you. But that was not rehearsed, even. You know, I kind of caught you off guard.

We could have made like a thing for it. I know, I could have, but that's okay. No, thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family as well. How are you spending, you know, I know this is going to, by the way, release. We record these pre, and for anyone listening first this is going to by the way release we record these pre and for anyone listening this is releasing the day after thanksgiving so a very happy post thanksgiving to everyone listening absolutely absolutely hope you're recovering well what's

your plans for thanksgiving um i am going down to see my dad um he's in georgia um and so i'm going down to see him and um his wife and their family and everything and we're doing thanksgiving down there okay um yeah yeah what about you cool we're around here one of my wife's family my dad's coming over tonight which would be wednesday night when we're recording the episode here uh and we uh doing dinner with him at our place and then doing smaller groups we're doing my wife's parents tomorrow, but a smaller group. Right, right, right. I wouldn't call us the COVID fearful group.

I think we're all pretty, I don't know. We live our lives and do what we do. But at the same time, just being responsible like Americans can be, which is you have elderly people in your family, and they probably shouldn't be at a group of 25 locked in a house. Exactly. So we're not doing that.

So yeah, we'll be at her family and down the road here from G Vegas, Greenville. So we'll be around. And one thing I won't be doing is Black Friday shopping, but I'll be shopping online. I was going to say, I'll be doing the Cyber Monday one. I guess I'm still conditioned, you know, being in my 40s. And I know, I still think it's popular. I don't think this is a generation. I think it's pretty mainstream before COVID at least. For sure.

That you would go to the store on Black Friday and be in line and all that. But we've definitely been more online Friday, cyber monday shoppers for a few years same same no i've yeah can't imagine getting in the line necessarily but uh of any store right now i don't know it just sounds terrible like i don't know at some point in my life i thought i've definitely did it there was something that rush of like i'm getting this 75-inch TV for $800 instead of $1,200. I'm like, oh, yes. Right, right, right. Now I think online and just life in general,

things aren't quite as important as they were then. Yeah, exactly. Things like that, necessarily. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I know. But happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Yeah. And a couple things around here, I guess.

We're having some upcoming things happening. GVL Hustle is next week, which is crazy. December is a week away. Surprise. Hey, here it is. Yeah, this is your news update, actually. December's next week. That's your news.

You've got five weeks to finish your shopping. Exactly. That's the news. Okay, well, when you put it in that perspective, now we need the buzz or whatever. Whatever you were getting me, you've got five weeks left. Yeah, well, so that's happening next week. And again, if you want, if you're in the Greenville area, I know like more people listen to this than just the Greenville community. But if you're in Greenville and you listen to the podcast,

be sure to come to GVL hustle. There's a link on our Facebook page. So be sure to check that out. It's $12 pre-order and then $15 at the door. And there's going to be a food truck and alcohol is provided. So that'll be a good time. Yeah, it'll be a ton of fun. We're going to do a good Q and a myself and Tyler Harris,

who we started. We're also together about three or four years ago. And obviously COVID's put a little dent in in-person gatherings, but we're ready to get back together. We're going to have masks and indoor-outdoor stuff, so it'll be totally safe. And, you know, we're going to network and do this little Q&A. Tyler and I like to do that where people can ask any kind of questions, it's marketing or business or uh i mean you can ask me anything i might not know accounting and legal but i'll answer it if you give me a question i'll respond to it uh but more from the business personal growth those kind of things and so excited to have that next thursday night yes six to nine six to nine so that's cool.

And, you know, business is good at Radical. We've onboarded a few new clients. We're really growing in a couple areas. Textiles, fabric, marketing, B2B marketing. And then in the finance sector, financial, working with a lot of finance institutions, banks, those kind of things. And then, you know, some of our mainstays are restaurants and different stuff. But we were kind of niching down on a few things. And we've got, I don't know, one, two, three, at least 15 to 20, like, active e-commerce or website projects going on.

A few wrapping up. So digital is, digital goes. But it's good. That's exactly right. Exactly right. Cool. Well, here's Riley with the news. Here is the Radcast News.

Okay, so articles for today. Obviously, we already discussed this is kind of post-Thanksgiving kind of stuff, but it's still important regardless. post Thanksgiving kind of stuff, but it's still important regardless. Uh, if you have not already at this point, um, make sure you are sharing your Thanksgiving fails to a Pepsi, especially if you do it via a Tik TOK or Instagram. I think they specified those two things. And if you do, then you get to, uh, have like a pre, uh, you're like one of the first people to get the new pepsi flavor which is the apple pie flavor which you know who knew but you know apparently that's happening so a thing you know like apple pie flavor i will say this a couple things uh that hit me

uh flavor development within the drink category especially energy drinks has been a boom uh especially with things um whether it's rain which is made by monster and monster energy drinks coming out with stuff but then especially just like the growth of the category has been driven by new flavors um and bang uh is the fastest growing energy drink um in the country and so they've got a flavor every month they do all their their growth has been driven not only with a good product and great marketing but really through that growth of flavor development. And I see this potentially, this certainly strikes me as falling in that realm with maybe soft drinks trying to pick up. There's been a little stale, you know, with growth within just the general soft drink segment

with seltzers and waters and all these other things growing. So it's an interesting way to, you know, be both seasonal being apple pie, but also playing into that trend of growth of people wanting different tastes and flavors. And so I like this. I also like playing off the fails, ironically enough, and maybe, you know, good taste has company. We do some great social campaigns in the fails for a couple of our different clients. It's great engagement. People love seeing it.

There's a real following on it. There's like Fail Army on YouTube and other channels. My kids watch it all the time. We watch it. That's kind of like our guilty pleasure. We'll get together and they'll be watching the next one. They'll be like, guys, let's watch a few fails. So we'll throw them on.

It's like the best of America's Funniest home videos combined with uh fails and so great love how they're using um all the social media channels and you know building awareness around it so it's great yeah that's excellent our next topic is um white castle is having a special thanksgiving recipe that that you obviously use the sliders for a Thanksgiving stuffing. I don't necessarily know how I feel about this, but I know a lot of people, really good family friends back in West Virginia, he loves sliders and they always have sliders in their freezer, or the White Castle sliders. And I can sliders in their freezer and it or you know the White Castle sliders and I could almost see them maybe doing this so Rich if you're watching probably I want

to know if you try this or not but yeah I mean it looks interesting it's a again it's just kind of like a Thanksgiving stuffing kind of deal I guess but you use the slider and I guess they have the recipe on the back of the box or you can go on their website or whatever to find it. But yeah, and this is something they're teaming up with rapper Coolio, which this brings in a whole nother thing that I know we're going to dive into probably more next week on our, on the podcast, as far as cross industry, you know, influencers, celebrities, rappers coming into the space with the brand, promoting the product. And this makes sense because Coolio used to have a, or I think he

still does, the Cooking with Coolio. And, you know, he had that YouTube channel. And so I think that makes sense for White Castle to then come in here. But, you know, yeah, that's kind of where this is all going. again i like innovation i like thinking out of the box and as much as i like as much as i think thinking out of the box is not out of the box as a statement so it's kind of overplayed uh innovation using social media using you know the mcdonald's travis scott avenue of rapper pop culture with your brand. What I don't know is, and I think I asked you once, it's like, you recognize Coolio, the name, but he's not the hippest of in,

you know, unless he's done some special that I'm unaware of in my, you know, Gen X mindset. Does he have relevancy right now necessarily other than being the old school rapper? No, but I don't know if this is something else that White Castle is trying to do as far as playing on nostalgia because I know, not that I was alive for this,

but I know 30 years ago they had a food Thanksgiving kind of deal they were promoting about 30 years ago. And so I don't necessarily know if they're trying to tap into like more of this nostalgia kind of marketing, which I know is really big anymore. And so, you know, I don't know if that's trying to be the tie-in, you know. I'm wondering if the song, come along and ride on the fantastic voyage. I get paid for my voice. So if you really want to use my demo voice, you can. I am not a singer, but, but Fantastic Voyage. I wonder, I assume that will be used somehow in the campaign. I just imagine that it will. Again, I like the usage of pop culture. I like tying it in with the brand. I like that, you know, White Castle's trying to do something a little different. The stuffing thing doesn't sound appealing to me personally. The White Castle burger.

I don't like onions on my burgers. And all I think about is like, and I know you can get it without it, by the way. But it's just something about the White Castle dressing is just not really appealing to me personally. But again, hey, we'll see where it goes. Yeah, I know. Exactly. Next topic. Moving right along here walmart is partnering up with the cashback uh rewards app i hope i'm saying this right i feel like i always butcher this name i bought i bought a you bought a one or the other

i always messed it up but anyway uh they are teaming up to give away free thanksgiving dinners and i just love the initiative of obviously teaming up to try to give back to the community it's what we did with our can drive and i think it's just an excellent way to obviously give back so that you know props to them and props to that campaign i hope it you know hope it goes The one thing I don't know is, like, is this just another, like, play? Like, I guess when you have the scope, scale, and volume that Walmart does, any kind of initiative that they do or get involved with takes off in some way shape or form and so if it's helping um you know families feed families and do good over the holidays great right i just don't know how this is i'd never heard of this and there's i feel like there's a lot of things on my radar

and so if it was for thanksgiving i imagine it's been around for a bit right um so a free Thanksgiving dinner that's effectively tomorrow and so you know like again maybe they're going to feed a hundred thousand families which would be amazing absolutely but I this promotion has not hit my radar no and the timeliness of it to your point is kind of yeah and so uh if it works great anything that that does good I'm all for sign me up for it. But from a marketing perspective, how it's been marketed, how the awareness has been driven beyond maybe point of sale and different things at Walmart, it hasn't hit my feed of both subscribing to a ton of services,

other than us seeing this today. I know. It ran across our radar like right before the episode um so we'll see but um we'll see how it goes exactly uh yeah so that's kind of it for us this week um i super quick episode just a little thanksgiving recap you know a news edition here but feel free to follow us along on social media that way you can stay you know in touch with everything that's going on our instagram is at the radcast and then um our youtube is at the radical company and that way you can see all these live videos that way

if you missed any you know graphics or whatever that you want to catch up on that's where you can find all that kind of stuff and that is it for this yeah and so uh you know if you're listening we're very thankful for all our listeners everyone that that falls along uh it means a lot that you choose to listen to our podcast we try to make it entertaining and uh both entertaining and educational uh from a marketing standpoint sometimes you may learn more than others. You learn how bad I could sing today, nothing else. But, you know, we do appreciate it.

And, you know, I just encourage everyone, you know, show some empathy this holiday season. You know, think about others before yourself, as hard as that may be for all of us, myself included sometimes. You know, we all get kind of locked in our world, but someone always has it worse than you, and just know that things are going to be better. I feel it coming.

Yes, yes. We're going to manifest a great 2021. It's going to be fantastic. All right, guys. Thanks so much. See you later. See you. Bye.

Yo, guys. What's up? Ryan Offord here. Thanks so much for listening. Really appreciate appreciate it but do us a favor if you've been enjoying the radcast you need to share the word with a friend or anyone else we'd really appreciate it and go leave us a review at apple or spotify do us a solid tell more people leave us some reviews and hey here's the best news of all if you want to work with me directly you want to get your business kicking ass, and you want Radical or myself involved, you can text me directly at 864-729-3680.

Don't wait another minute. Let's get your business going. 864-729-3680. We'll see you next time.