Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Jeff Beer - Fast Company and Editorial Passion for Marketing

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

Welcome to this week’s episode on The Radcast! In this episode, host Ryan Alford talks with Jeff Beer, Staff Editor at Fast Company covering marketing branding. Ryan and Jeff discuss Fast Company and Jeff’s editorial background along with the evolution of social media marketing.In this episode, Ryan and Jeff discuss:Writing for Fast CompanyMarketing TrendsSocial Media Marketing EvolutionSocial Platforms: Discord, Tiktok, ClubhouseBrand CreativityYou can learn more about Jeff Beer by visiting his LinkedIn or Instagram account @jeffcbeer This episode was inspired by: https://www.fastcompany.com/90635684/inside-discords-risky-push-to-position-itself-as-the-anti-facebookIf you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and share the word if you love our podcast, so we can keep giving you the strategies to achieve radical marketing results! You can follow us on Instagram @the.rad.cast | @radical_results | @ryanalford | 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. 

What my former colleague had brought in to combine with that was the audience being the North Star. More recently, my colleague Nicole Laporte and I wrote a cover story for the Mostly Innovative Companies issue on LeBron James' company, the Spring Hill Company, and how they've built this hub of really purpose-driven around the idea of empowerment. To me, that exemplified what every brand should be looking for in how they create content or how they should think about creating content for their audience. TikTok, the next YouTube or always somewhat niche? Oh, no, not niche. Whether it's the next YouTube or not, it's a monster.

It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now? Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. Hey guys, what's up? It's Ryan Alford. Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I got a good one today, folks. You know, being in the industry, marketing and advertising and business, right at 20 years, I'm going to age myself and it's my birthday. 44 years old, Jeff Beer. But a staff editor for Fast Company, a long admired publication and media giant. I'm really excited to have Jeff Behr, who is the staff editor with them.

What's up, Jeff? Hey, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. Love it, man. We interview and have a lot of people on the show that are in business in general and in marketing and all that. But one of the first that I can recall that are so, you know, ingrained in the business side and the writing side and the understanding the story side of advertising, marketing and branding, which I know you write for Fast Company, really enjoyed reading and

getting to know some of your stories behind the scenes. I've read a few, not knowing they were yours until I met you. But thanks so much for coming on, man. Yeah, no, of course. Thanks. Yeah, pleasure being here. Let's start right down the path. So we have a lot of our audience is pretty diverse in business and marketing and all that. But maybe we start by talking a little bit about, you know, Fast Company and what you do for them, you know, maybe intermixed with, you know, some of your background and what brought you there, you know, and, you know, kind of your journey to get there. Yeah, no, sure. So Fast Company, for anyone who doesn't know, is just a business magazine that sort of sits i think tradition's been around for like 25 years i think that was last year they celebrated the 25th anniversary

um it sort of sits in the pocket between like hardcore business magazines like a forbes or a fortune and like tech magazines like wired like it's sort of always been in that in-between space. We definitely skew our audience, we skew younger and more diverse than a lot of our business publication competitors. The tagline for us is the future of business, which I think points us in a direction of both talking

about what large global corporations are doing, but also small companies that are pushing the envelope, whether that's in through their products or through their, through their, how they're affecting culture and society with what they do. And yeah, so I mean, when you think about the future, the future of business, I mean, so we talk about and cover, you know, climate change, and how business has a massive opportunity there. We talk about, you know, racial equality and injustice and the role of business, because I think we, you know, in a lot of ways, we talk about business and technology and how in the context of culture in general, right? Like it's not, it's not in a vacuum. It's not like, oh, how's the stock price?

So that's, that's the only thing that matters. How's the growth? That's the only thing that matters. This is not, those aren't the only thing that mattered. And so there's a lot of nuance and different aspects that go into it. So for me, I cover marketing and advertising, which I like because I'm not, I don't have a necessarily business background. I like it because marketing and advertising for most people, I think, is where they meet business, where business meets culture, where a business expresses itself and tells you who it is, not just what it makes. And so I find that kind of fascinating. How do you build? Why are you a Pepsi guy and I'm a Coke guy? I'm just saying.

Why is your dad a Ford guy and your father-in-law a Chevy guy and I'm a Coke guy. I'm just saying, why is someone, why is, why is your dad a Ford guy? And, you know, you know, your, your father-in-law, a Chevy guy, you know, there, there's these like emotional attachments that sometimes it's through a lot of times it's through the quality of the product, but a lot of times it's, you know, all things be equal. It's about that, that connection. So I find that fascinating. Um, you have to be a curious creature. I, you know, you must like, I always think about, you know you must like i always think about you know the best editors the best writers i'm like to uncover some of these things and you must have a fascination or a natural born curiosity about you yeah i think so i mean i i i certainly yeah i've always kind of been a a pretty racist reader and wanting to know how things work but

like a lot of times i i'll for example like so in journalism i got my start writing for snowboarding and skateboarding magazines so like i i was in those worlds this was many years ago those worlds are brand centric like back in the 90s. Like I could tell if you were standing in front of me and you were wearing, you know, X, Y and Z shoes hat. I could tell what kind of music you listen to. I could tell, you know, based on the brands that you were wearing. And, you know, that's true to a certain extent today. But I think that the idea of these weren't team sports. These were sports. These were these were cultures that were very brand centric and the brands came from within those cultures. And, uh, I always, as I got older, I started to think like,

well, why did I gravitate towards, you know, Volcom for example, or Vans, or as opposed to, you know, uh, uh, uh, what's the one I didn't really like. I can't remember anyway. So like, well, why did you, why, why was that? And, and I find that curious. And, and so actually that got me, um, weirdly enough, it was kind of, it wasn't planned, but to get into business journalism, my wife got, I'm from Toronto. My wife got into NYU grad school and we moved to New York and I ended up talking to the editors at Advertising Age and talking about this background, talking about why I thought brands were interesting and why I thought the way brands talk to people was super interesting and really, and how much money, sheer money was spent on this and why.

And anyway, that that that sort of got me in the door there and that was that was back in 06 so uh it was a while ago and so ever since i've sort of just been covering with a few with a few uh detours along the way but i've been covering market advertising pretty consistently since then how does does, you know, I've always been fascinated by guys, girls like yourself that cover the industry as long as you have. And, you know, like I've been in the industry, like in application of it, like where, how much knowledge you have to have compiled to date. And is the only difference in is that, that you know us guys that are in the advertising

we're just applying it daily but in a way you guys are as well you write about it do you feel like you could write a book about it that's uh that's high level or or do you feel like if you had to go run a marketing department you could do it at this point you know i always wonder like how much application is being absorbed versus like you know is it just the topic of the day i don't know if that makes sense no no i hear you i hear you yeah yeah uh well you know what i think it depends a lot on the person i personally don't have no ambition and i have no ambition to run my own marketing company. But I do think that having a arm's length relationship with, I'll say anything, but like when you're covering something and having the perspective of not being in it, like your livelihood depends on the work you're doing for your clients. Right. Mine is about reporting what's going on. Part part of my job is to especially when you're at it. When I was at trade publications and trade publications, a lot of the goal there is to you're a mirror.

You're a mirror to what's happening in the industry. You're basically a law historian. So when someone like you is starting out, you can go there and pretty much get a sense of what's going on in your industry and get a historical context by sort of going back and seeing how what's been covered. After you've been covering these things for a while, you start to see cycles. You start to see, you start to see, let's say trends, but you start to see approaches that work no matter what the trend actually is, you know, the tool, whether, whatever the tool is, you start to see approaches from brands and stuff that, uh, are successful, uh, no matter what that platform is. So, yeah, I mean, I may not have that vision, but it's, it is interesting. I think about it, I think about it though, like, you know, in a way of what that relationship is, because I have had colleagues, uh, like my first editor at Adage, Scott Donaton, it was just named, I'm going to screw up his title,

but like head of content marketing or head of marketing at Hulu, like last week. Yeah. But he wrote a book back in like 2000 and I want to say five called, uh, Madison and Vine about the, the, the merging of the advertising world and the entertainment world. You know, another former editor, Jonah Bloom, went on to be president of Kirshenbaum Bonham Partners, I think. Yeah. Anyway, like plenty of colleagues that have gone on.

My editor who hired me at Fast Company, Teressa Etsy, was at Wieden & Kennedy for years afterwards. So there have been plenty of jumps. So I do think it does provide you with kind of like an unofficial master's or PhD in this industry that you can't get otherwise. I, but, you know, I think it depends on the person. I did have an interesting conversation. I was asking one of my former colleagues, one of their workers, I met them up with them one time and there was a guy who had come up traditionally through an agency education, like agency industry career. And I asked him, an agency education, like agency industry career. And I asked him, I was like, well, what's, what's, what's, you know, what's this guy bringing from journalism, like from covering this to the actual day to day. And he had an interesting point. He said that, well, I, my perspective traditionally had been from like, what's the best for the client, which is great. Like,

what's the best from the client? What can I do to help the client? This is, that's, that's the main goal. That's the North star. It's like, he said what my former colleague had brought in to combine with that was a, the audience being the North star. So the consumer, which I mean, this to me right now, this was a number of years ago, but you know, I hope this is somewhat commonplace now, but like that, that was to him as someone who had been, you know, working in advertising for a number of years, you know, a fresh perspective to have in the room. A couple of things done. You went right down a couple of paths that are, uh, you know, I, we tell clients all the time, like, and I tell clients like you hire me to understand your consumer.

You don't hire me to make you happy. And that is the dynamic. And ironically, we're doing this right now, the Radcast, it is a media entity. It creates content in a way. And a lot of agencies or brands are creating media companies within themselves. And so you've got this fascinating, I think, cross-pollination going on with the media itself and entities like that. So there's a few things there that are certainly hot and heavy at the forefront of the industry. This is my dog.

He's knocking on my door we've had uh we've had cats on uh you know we've had uh lockhead uh christopher lockhead was on his cat jumped on the on the thing what was his name bean oh yeah we've had a many of animals we welcome all animals on the radcast it's interesting what you're saying i think you're right about the, you know, brands as media companies, that was a very, you know, common sort of phrase I would say on the, on the sort of conference circuit for a number of years, you know, what it really comes down to is,

and a lot of brands will say they want you to be their eyes and ears for what consumers and what people want. But it really comes down to, you know, you can tell by some of the work that there's a difference between the clients than the brands that say it and the brands that mean it. And sometimes they say they want you to be that person, but they actually do want you to be the person that makes them happy. And sometimes that's clear in the work. And I mean, I've had plenty of conversations with agency folks where they're like, yeah, you know, talk about difficult clients that, you know, there's all, it's all, it's all good and ambitious and optimistic at the beginning of a relationship. But sometimes when, I mean, obviously they're under their own pressures, but, you know, it's tough for, for brands sometimes to navigate

that because ultimately I think many are wary either an individual, whether it's a CMO or just collectively of risk of, of trying things. And, and that can be having that lack of control can be uh yeah discombobulating for for a lot of for a lot of people we try to cross that bridge before we even get to it our fucking name is radical you didn't hire radical to do what you were always doing it doesn't always work jeff but we at least try to cross the bridge before we even start the battle. At least we put it over the door. Exactly. But let's talk a little bit about you, man.

I want to talk about some of your favorite stories, you know, that you've written, you know, most recently, maybe in, you know, your whole history, but definitely with Fast Company and things like that. Anything that really stands out to you as, you know, whether, whether you know most recent or even lifelong you know some of your most favorite stories that you've you've been able to tell yeah sure uh i well i'll say i like i've written a number of i've over the years i've built up a number of different stories but i do enjoy writing about patagonia because I think it's a company that, um, you know, with little exception really is an example of whether you agree with them or

not is a company that sort of puts who it is out there, knows who it is and acts accordingly, both, you know, through from everything from its supply chain to the films it makes. And that's how I sort of got into the company was through was actually through its film work because it's obviously covering marketing advertising. But, you know, I've written a couple of features with them and talked with the founder, Yvonne Chouinard, a few times and just a really fascinating place, the way they've been able to push both themselves and their sort of the apparel industry and the

outdoor industry when it comes to sustainability and, and, and, and frankly, quality of content. So that, those are, there's, there's been a couple of features there. We had a cover story, um, two years ago with Yvonne Trinard talking to him about capitalism and like, uh, uh, how climate change and business just don't mix and how, how he sort of, uh, uh, balances running a business while also trying to improve the planet. And yeah, just a fascinating guy, like 80 something years old. Um, more recently, uh, my colleague and I, my colleague, Nicole Laporte and I wrote a

cover story for, um, the mostly innovative companies issue, um, on LeBron James's company, the Spring Hill company and how they've built this like hub of, of yeah, like really purpose driven around the idea of empowerment, um, company, whether that's through the marketing or the films and TV they produce or the podcasts or their, uh, it's a separate entity obviously, cause it's a, uh, it's a NGO, it's a charity, but the it's a uh it's a ngo it's a charity but the more than a vote initiative i mean just a fascinating group of people i mean obviously lebron and maverick carter are like the face but and the way they run i mean maverick is very and even lebron to to a certain extent are very much in the day-to-day more than you would think you know yeah

but the people they have there are are super interesting talented folks and that was just a great story to to be able to sort of dig into when you when you get to work with entities as big as patagonia as big as lebron james uh and i used the word entity you were talking about a brand and a person but lebron james is a brand yeah obviously uh but how how much interaction do you end up having when you have stories with names and brands like this directly with them? And maybe as a second part to that, how much follow-up after you write the story do you ever hear back from them or get comments? I'd love to hear kind of perspective on both of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, for sure. I know what you mean. Well, we'll take the LeBron story, for example. That was a tough one. He was in the middle of a COVID NBA season. Yeah. We were writing that. a COVID NBA season.

Yeah. We were writing that. So we basically, how that story came about was, or how we put it together was, we basically talked to everybody else first. Yeah. Right.

Then we talked to Maverick Carter, who was also incredibly busy. And we did get a couple of different sessions with them. And then we had one session with LeBron, one like hour long Zoom call with LeBron for that story. And they're usually open for like, and I've talked to him before. I think it depends on off-scene, because I've had things that were much smaller than this feature story that they've made LeBron available to talk about. Like a couple of years, a few years ago, it was like his nature of his investment in Blaze Pizza. Like as an entrepreneur, I talked to him about that, but that was like off season and it was a little easier. So they're definitely available.

And the afterwards, I think sometimes it depends on the story, right? Sometimes you hear good things, sometimes you don't. I mean, I certainly, they, I mean, this was a most innovative company's story. So we obviously. It wasn't shock talk or shock writing. Right, right. It wasn't a takedown. This was a celebration of what they're doing and how they, and more importantly importantly trying to show some insight to our readers of how they do what they do uh

so yeah no they were they were very appreciative of that and you know they spread it on their social and all that which was great but you know other times yeah you do get uh we were disappointed to not with this story but but you know, other stories, if I've reported on, uh, what a company's done, I mean, I, I, my, my coverage sort of mixes between straight reporting on, you know, brand X is doing thing Y and here it is. And, uh, here's the context around it to, um, a little more analysis where someone's doing something and my sort of opinion is in there as well. And that's usually when I get the emails. But to be fair, I do try to, to be as, um, yeah, I try to be as fair as possible. Like it's almost like if you and I disagreed on a sports team or, or a certain layer of, of,

on a team, like you thought he was playing well, I don't think he's playing well, but we don't hate each other at the end of that debate. We're, we're, we're just, we're just, we just disagree, fundamentally disagree. Uh, that's kind of how I try to approach it. I try to be respectful and fair. And usually they'll be like, you know, I'll get emails that are like, yeah, wow. Didn't expect that, but you know, maybe next time, maybe next time we do. So, and that's, that's all you can offer. I try to, and I, and I, there was an, I, I did do some sports reporting when I was first starting out. And one of the pieces of advice, and I think this is true across should be true across all media is, uh, this, this guy, he was covering, he was covering the blue Jays anyway. And he said, you know, if you

criticize a player or a coach or a, or, or the team, you have to show up the next day. Like you have to be, you don't have to like, you just have to be there. If someone wants to get in your face and, or, or, or have a conversation about what you said about them, you need to be available. You can't hide behind, you know, uh, your, your, you know, your access or up in the press room or whatever. And I think that, I mean, if someone emails me or calls me about anything, I write, it's, it's, I'm, I'm all ears. I'm more than happy to explain my position or whatever, but yeah, it does happen. And, and yeah, that's cool. That's part of it. What's the balance for, for you and fast company,

you know, being in the position that you are in the entity, the respected entity that is Fast Company of the LeBron James, the Patagonia stories versus maybe the lesser known? I mean, I know it's the future of business and that sometimes crosses the path of the nobodies versus the somebodies you know yet but is there what's the balance of the that from a story because look you're a media company and you know big names sell you know let's let's be honest uh but at the same time and i i have seen this from fast company so it's a little bit of a leading question because i know you do cover this, but I am curious the decision process in the evaluation of big name story versus context, all of those things. What are maybe some of the variables that we wouldn't

know that go into those decisions? Yeah, that's a good question. I think that what you said is exactly right. I mean, obviously the magazine is one thing. I'm just going to sort of separate two things. The magazine, we have like, I'm trying to, I may screw this up. We have six or seven. It's sort of adjusted over the last couple of years, but we have six or seven print issues a year. So this is, that is just like sort of a, you know, say a tent pole of, of the brand, you know, that comes out. But the cycle of our coverage is online, right? So the magazine is a bit different because especially now, I believe almost every issue is anchored by a program like most innovative companies, most creative people

in business, innovation by design, these kinds of things, which, and this applies to those programs as well. I think our goal is to both report on and reflect what the big brands and companies that people know and are interested in, what they want to know about those companies and brands. At the same time, want to celebrate and shine a spotlight on maybe the smaller players that are doing things that bigger players and everyone else can, can maybe learn from. Uh, so, you know, um, I'm trying to think of a specific example, uh, in the, in the ad marketing recently. Um, I know, I know when it was, when it was smaller, it's, it's obviously a bigger company now, but I, I've been sort of writing about their

content for, for years, but like Yeti, for example, right. Right. Cooler brand, right. This is, I mean, it's big in the cooler space and it's, but it's not Pepsi. Right. Right. This is I mean, it's big in the cooler space and it's but it's not Pepsi. Right. Right. But but but so so, you know, five or six, seven years ago, you know, it's they're creating these really cool little films that, you know, it's a cooler. I mean, you could just look at a cooler and be like, well, how do we market this? you could just look at a cooler and be like, wow, how do we market this? This is what do we do? But these people are telling, you know, amazingly emotional, uh, uh, beautifully filmed stories about, you know, outdoors people like hunters or skiers or, you know,

all this different cross section of the people who would use their product. To me, that exemplified what every brand should be looking for in how they create content or how they should think about, you know, creating content for their audience. It's not about necessarily, you know, the actual thing, though it is, that's obviously a core thing, but it's about who they are as a company and as a brand. And, you know, in that case, Yeti was about being exploring and being the most you can be outdoors. So they were telling the most compelling, interesting stories of their, you know, sponsored folks or just people they knew to illustrate, you know, that possibility. And so I think, you know, you try to find that balance hearing you reinforce certain things, like I think of it as inspiration, you know, and I thought, you know, like about the, the future of business,

that makes sense. But for me, it's maybe the business inspiration. I, you know, it's kind of where my mind went when I think about fast company. So it makes total sense. And it aligns at least with my own mental image of the brand. So, uh, I don't know. That's good. That's good. I know. Um, what are some of the trends that are sticking out? I mean, you know, covering advertising, marketing, branding, creative, everything that you cover.

Are there things that are boiling over, uh, to the top that are like coming up over and over again that are maybe even going past, you know, maybe some of the up and coming stuff or just like just repetitive, whether it's platforms or messages or things. I know we talked about, you know, brands as media companies, you know, a few years ago was like all the rage and whether they've delivered that, we can argue that. But but I am curious if there's just things here that just keep bubbling up that are just on your periphery every day. Yeah, I mean, it's hard.

You know, there's different. I mean, what do you say? You could just say, you know, well, you know, TikTok's big. NFT, if someone wants to do an nft that's ridiculous but fine uh yeah but but to that end though i mean is is tiktok just gonna be the it it is the raging video platform that started teenagers and now you've got adult you know it's like in your mind i didn't mean it like that i I meant that like, I think that, um, to me, the, the tools are one thing, but the, and, and, and then there's the, the approach to, to, to this multimedia world. I think the trend overall, it's like, look, you're, you're entire, just like us as people, our entire media budget

is completely fragmented. Right. And you've got all these different places where you, uh, should be, I guess. Uh, but as a brand, as brands go, I think it's interesting to see, I mean, a lot of what it was like, you're looking and you're watching, you're seeing how brands are experimenting with a lot of these different platforms. I think that's great. But I think what a lot of times it comes down to the ones who are most successful, it seems, are the ones that like, I sort of touched on this earlier, but when you talk about a company who sort of knows who it is and how it wants to put itself out in the world.

And I don't mean this as a cookie cutter way, but then you can go out to all the different, then you can find the best people who are the most uh uh literate in each platform like whether that's tiktok or discord or snap or or whatever that like to to to execute that but first you need to know like how what you want your voice to be in in those in those areas and i think that like sometimes you've got brands that are, it's almost like a person, right? Like you are on, I imagine you're on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, right? You're still you, but how you behave or how you communicate is, is, is a little different on, on, on each platform. And I, and I think that, um, the ones that get

that, that have that consistency. And I, I feel like that's a big thing. Like brand consistency is something that I'm finding, you know, whenever there's a screw up or someone does something just completely off, uh, tone deaf or whatever, it's usually not consistent with what they're doing elsewhere. It's like, why is this company? I don't know, just be weird to have to be one voice on Instagram and then have a completely different personality on Snapchat or, or TikTok, these, these things where, and I think the consistency idea extends to nowadays, we could argue whether that's valid or not, but it extends to, you know, the political parties a company donates to, where it shows up in society. Like if I'm sort of blocking voting rights bills in Georgia and then putting a black square on my Instagram to say, you know, I support all,

you know, you can't kind of do that anymore. You can't sort of do one thing on one hand. You can, I mean, obviously companies do, but I think it's less, you're more visible than ever before. So I think that consistency across all the platforms and just company behavior, how it treats its employees, there's nowhere, there's not a lot of places to hide. And so that sort of consistency of behavior and knowing who you are is something that we're seeing a lot more of. I have totally unscripted, not that most of this is unscripted, but I have a, you know, I know you cover these things. I want to see if you'll play along with me. Because you cover them.

So I know you're probably forming somewhat of an opinion on them as platforms, right? Can I do a speed round of platforms and what seems to be overriding perspective? And you give either one or five words or less kind of responses are you game are you game yes all right here we go i'm going to start with platform and then i'm going to give you kind of a yin and yang of what seems to be the prevalence um clubhouse uh Fad or rad? You know what? I'm going to say rad fad because I'll say that because this is more than five words. I actually can handle some context on Clubhouse.

Okay, this is what I'll say. This is what I'll say about Clubhouse. Okay, this is what I'll say. This is what I'll say about Clubhouse. I think that it is super interesting, but I think that it could be a bridge app to, I mean, you look at just in the short time since it's become sort of a fad, a rad fad, that Twitter comes out with spaces. Right. Discord this this week last week came out with stages discovery or whatever it's called yeah uh basically an audio basically a clubhouse challenger so so what happens to clubhouse when you have these other platforms that already have

a scaled user base that is much bigger. And, uh, I think that the idea that Clubhouse brings or that, that, that, that the idea of that audio live audio connection is super interesting. And I don't think that'll go away necessarily. I do think it'll be interesting to see what happens to Clubhouse itself. Now people said the same thing about Snap. So yeah, Now, people said the same thing about Snap. So all bets are off. But I think that pragmatically, if all these bigger players are recreating your essence of your product, you could be in trouble. All right.

So it's a gateway drug. It's marijuana. And you might do some heroin. I get it. All right. Not what you said. That was just my interpretation. Facebook.

On the way out. Or. Still growing. Still evolving. How about that? On the way out or evolving? Too big to fail. I'll throw a third one at you.

Yeah. I think maybe the third one, unfortunately. I'm not a fan. I think that, yeah, it's too, it's so prevalent. It's hard to see. And I don't mean this from a major brand perspective i think you go anywhere you're in south carolina i'm on the east coast of canada like the amount of small businesses that rely on facebook as their like public window to the world is is is staggering so uh i do think that i i'll say evolve i'll go with the evolve one because

i think and not from their own volition i think it's still going to be around and it will evolve but it will evolve because hopefully it will be forced to evolve by regulation and and because it's not going to evolve on its own in the in the in the in the sort of right way would you lump because they're owned by them instagram in with that same thing or would you hold them a little bit of an outlier at least being just a different platform from a business behavior and like sort of data privacy and all that i would lump whatsapp and instagram in with them as a consumer product i think uh instagram is much healthier particularly with the younger audience though i was just reading this morning that, you know, Gen Z is disproportionately on TikTok.

Like TikTok's the thing. Instagram is much less popular. But yeah, I mean, as a product, I think Instagram is cooler, but it's all part of the same problem as a company. So yeah, it's all part of the same problem as a company. So yeah, yeah. It's, it's a complicated one. Since you just brought them up, Tik TOK, the next YouTube or always somewhat niche. Oh no, not niche, whatever, whether it's the next YouTube or not. It's,

it's a monster. It's a monster. I think just now, I think it was last week, they just introduced, they're introducing shoppable posts. So that'll be really interesting to watch. And there's a super, I don't know, I just think that it's such an interesting thing that There was a really great story who wrote it. It was in Bloomberg and it was, oh, Shelly Banjo at Bloomberg wrote a story called How TikTok Chooses Which Songs Go Viral. I recommend everyone read it. It's basically tracks, it's basically tracks, uh, Megan, the stallion, um, track and how Savage sort of became this massive thing. And spoiler alert, it wasn't organic. Uh, but, but it's fascinating just how much, how, how, how vast and how tenacious their ground game is in, in, in promotion and, and manipulating the, game is in, in,

in promotion and, and manipulating the, uh, the, the feeds. It's, uh, it's pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy. So, and, and just the fact that everyone from, you know, middle school and up is like obsessed with it. I think it'd be a monster. Do you get, do you get in the vortex? I call it the vortex, the tick tock vortex. Do you get in the vortex? I call it the vortex, the TikTok vortex. Do you get stuck in it sometimes? You go down the rabbit hole?

I actually don't use it that often because I know it's going to be like three minutes. Time zap. You thought it was two and it's 27 minutes later. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That should tell you right there, right? Is it niche? Is that niche?

No way. I know it's not. Some of these are leading. Hey know uh what else uh what am i leaving out any other good ones what else is hitting your radar clubhouse has just been like at least in my genre of you know i do a ton of personal branding and everyone that seems to does that like and the big brands are coming you're starting to see more of the transition, but every coach and marketing guru and everything else is all over Clubhouse or has been the last six months.

It's a fascinating platform to me. For sure. I would throw Discord in there. Yeah, Discord discord of course i think it's i i think what what makes it really interesting to me is how it's there's no like there's no feed or likes or the familiar say metrics or behavior of other um social platforms um and you know they don't have advertising, but I think that's, that's, that's coming or some in some form especially with those, the new audio and video features,

they certainly work with brands about like their presence on that platform. But I, I, I think, well, for this audience, I think it's also one of the more interesting ones because I think it's going to be super, one of the toughest ones for brands to, to, to break through or use effectively probably in a lot of the same ways that Reddit was challenging because you have this really like the complexity of that, the complexity and the sort of, I'll say passion of the, of the, of the communities there. And, and the sort of general passion of the, of the, of the communities there. And in the, in the sort of general vigilance against BS,

you really got to like, I like that. I need to write that down. That's much more eloquent that I've been able to come up with a cancel culture. Is that kind of what we're discussing? You got to be really you got to be there. I mean, I think, I mean, and again, look, I'll go back to something I say, I don't want to talk in all broad strokes, but I think that it actually, this, this, the idea of discord and how you show up there is, comes back to just that idea of, of, of who your brand is and how you want to show up in the world.

And I think you can't just jump in to something, whether that's a social app or a social cause, uh, without putting in the work or having the ground game first and like having sort of that cultural permission to be there. Um, I've talked to a lot of, uh, CMOs that, that, that talk about that. Like, uh, not long ago, I was chatting with, um, someone at Ben and Jerry's and you have this, like you have this ice cream brand from like the whitest state in the U S maybe not the whitest, but one of them definitely up there. And, you know, they are, you know, doing things that you would not necessarily expect from, from that company. It's, it's ice cream, it's fun. It's, you know, but, you know, they're tweeting about, you know, anti-racism,

but at the same time, not just tweeting about anti-racism. I mean, this is a company that, you know, has teamed with organizations. There was one recently where they successfully lobbied to shutter a, like a dilapidated jail in, in, I think it was St. Louis that that had been used to house people who couldn't afford bail. And like, like they're basically, they're, they're doing the, they're sort of partnering with the, with organizations. They're doing sort of like, I say like the ground, the groundwork before they're doing the of, like I say, like the ground, the groundwork

before they're doing the broad media stuff of likes, Hey, you know, supporting stuff. Anyway, I think that's, that's, that, that, that also plays into, uh, how you show up on some of these platforms. Like don't be a, don't, it can't be superficial completely. You know, that brings up a good one, you know, for me me i have a lot of people on we've talked a lot about purpose marketing purpose branding the importance of that and then i've had the other side of that coin with other people that are in ecom and kind of the amazon type base and those kind of things that there's an argument brewing you know amongst marketers not in public with general public around if yes you can't be a complete sleazeball brand

of course not in this day and age like you said there's so much transparency and all these things but the argument of the importance of having your purpose out there and having all those things and people aren't going to buy from you versus convenience and price. And, you know, that's kind of been the purveyance of, well, you know, when you're in it, certainly, I guess, have a considered, the more considered the purchase is maybe the more it answers that question. But there's been this prevailing you know not argument but you know i'll have that perspective you know purpose you have to have your purpose you have to talk about your purpose you have to have it out there and then but at the end of the day they're

in the line at the shopping center and they're buying that gum and they're not making sure that you know you you know are involved with blm or something you you know, like, right. Right. What's your perspective on that? A hundred percent. I hear you. And I think that is a completely valid discussion. I do think that it's not a, uh, zero sum game, right? Like, I think that, I think that again, and I wouldn't even be go back to saying you need to have a purpose. I just think you need to know who you are. And if you're, if you're not about a social, a certain social issue, and that's not something you want to be publicly out there or tied publicly to your marketing, whatever, Hey, that's fine. But I think your, your brand can have a purpose of, we want to give people the best damn gum they've ever had. We want to have the coolest packaging on that shelf that shows we're into

like, we're creative. And like, this is like, there, there's like one of those things where, and, and maybe that's, it's just me, but like if, if all things being equal, the convenience and the price, right. Which is a lot of things are commodified that way. Right. The price is the exact same. a lot of things are commodified that way. Right. The price is the exact same. The company with the funniest, like me growing up, this is my, like, if there was a funny ad, something made me laugh and I remembered it, or there was a, or maybe it is the packaging, but there's something that makes someone choose the one next to you over you or vice versa.

And if it's, if, if, if the price and the convenience is the same, what, what is your deal? Like what, what are you giving people that? And, and I think there are so many things that are commodified like that. Generally speaking, obviously there's going to be like specials and discounts and yada, yada, yada. There's, you can, you can play that game, but, and you, and you should, but like when you're in those sort of commodified areas like part of this part of it is like these are the who you are and how you show up is is sometime is the only i mean if we're getting down to brass tacks here is the only thing that separates you know you from your competitor uh so what is that and it doesn't have to, you know, you from your competitor. Uh, so what is that? And it doesn't have to be,

you know, necessary. It doesn't have, you don't have to be way out front with climate change or whatever the issue is. It could be, you know, if I knew a company treats its employees awesome, or like, do you think of like a company like, like Chobani or something like they, you know, uh, or, or yeah, I don't know, like things, I mean, for me, a lot of that, those yogurts, they're priced basically the same or, uh, yeah, I don't know. I just think that, that there's, there's so many areas where your price and convenience, and we can talk about that all day long and work really hard to get it better. But I think that is, if that's the only thing i mean you're basically

a private label who are you that's right if you haven't built your brand then it doesn't mean anything to anyone and i mean i think that's what it comes back to is the power of branding that's that's true uh and then i have this discussion sometimes you know what you know gen z's and millennials are changing everything because they're not turning into our parents. They're going to they they care about the purpose and all this. And then, you know, I see the progressive commercial that's like, don't become your parents. And I'm like, well, are they just going to become the parents or are they really going to care about it forever? I don't know. Yeah, that's a good question.

Yeah, that's a good question. I know. What do we tackle every day? Being consumer-driven and working with brands and things like that. It's always a fascinating discovery. Is it the mindset of today or is it the mindset for forever? Yeah. Hey, if I had the answer, I'd be probably in a better tax bracket jeff as we close out here um you know what's

what's the future for jeff and fast company and like you know any uh passion projects on the uh horizon or stories or things that that you'd want to mention what's in the future. I was thinking that I'm like, uh, hopefully gainful employment. Um, yeah, I most honestly, I like, look, I just want to like, uh, keep progressing and improving as a writer. I think that a healthy, uh, imposter syndrome is, is, uh, is, is good for, for, for self-motivation. Um, you know, I've always been a printed word guy. And over the last year we've been sort of experimenting with a video series I do called brand hit and miss of the week. And so that sort of pushed me out of my comfort zone. And so I I'd like to keep, keep improving and pushing it there. I like those. I watched them. I saw some of your most recent ones with Mountain Dew and talking about the commercials. I almost called it Hotter Now, but Hit or Miss. I do enjoy it too. If you're listening, you need to check out Fast Company's Instagram page, Hit or Miss. Jeff does a great job with those. I actually did enjoy quite a few of those. I didn't know you did those.

My editor, Lewis, is the genius. He does all he's, he's great. Um, and then, uh, the only other thing I'd mentioned is we have a upcoming issue in the fall, but we're, I'm working on it right now, uh, a series called, uh, brands that matter and looking to highlight brands, big and small that, that succeed in sort of, uh, setting out like a lot of things we were talking about setting out who they are whether that's you know who they are and their values and embodying those through their their products policies and and marketing so that's that'll be interesting it's the first year for that so this that'll be that'll be fun to do and yeah other than that just have you picked them all

out yet no well i might send you a couple that means uh not even self-serving more just uh you know it might be helpful or not you know i'd be on your radar yeah great man um that's sweet well uh where can everybody keep up with all things jeff beer fast company etc i'll keep it easy fast company.com and uh i'm on twitter at jeff c beer wait jeff c beer you you're funny on twitter i do i have been uh reading some of your your your stuff and you know it's a good good company you fit in well with the twitter crowd for sure you've got to and i say that in a good way with the good side of the Twitter crowd. The trolls drive me crazy.

No, talking about the industry and perspective and things like that. Have enjoyed Hit or Miss. Look, guys, if you haven't read Fast Company, just Google Jeff Beer, Fast Company. You'll see all of his stories on advertising, marketing, branding, creativity, everything.

It's really great work, and we really appreciate you coming on, Jeff. No, I appreciate you having me. Thanks. Thanks very much, Rod. Hey, guys. You know where to find us, theradcast.com. All of our content, all of the videos, all the highlights from this, you look it up, you find it there. Anything and everything.

Instagram marketing, Fast Company. You can find all the highlights there and we're at instagram d.rad.cast and you know where to find me on all the platforms at ryan offord we'll see you next time on the radcast