Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Weekly Marketing and Advertising News: The Future of TV and Streaming; Sour Patch Kids TikTok April Fools Prank Fund; Pepsi and Anheuser Busch TV Shows; Anthropology Digital Catalog on Pinterest

Episode Date: March 26, 2021

Welcome to another weekly marketing and advertising news update from The Radcast! In this episode, host Ryan Alford and co-host Reiley Clark, dissect this week's marketing and advertising headlines.These are today's topics:The future of TV channels and streaming is changing. With the ongoing shift to streaming, The NFL is beginning to shift too. Big brands are creating their version of TV Shows. There's a unique marketing strategy hidden from these brand's efforts. April Fools Day is approaching. Sour Patch Kids is on-top of the day of pranks. Listen to see what's in this prank for you.Anthropology put its first digital catalog on Pinterest.If 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. 

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 it's friday march 26 2021 and we're here with the latest and greatest in marketing advertising news for all you ad junkies out there. I'm always joined by my lovely co-host, Riley Clark, who's also the producer of the Radcast and Content Extraordinaire. Thanks. I love all the titles. I just come up with new ones every week. I know, I know, but it's fun. It's fun. How was your week? So you were gone in Mexico

and how was your trip? It was great. We had a really good time, took all the boys. The first international trip with the boys and, you know, lots of safety protocols in place. But, you know, we sped through, we went through Charlotte and we sped through customs on both ends. There was definitely a lot of safety stuff, which was good. But very nice getaway. It was four nights, and so the boys loved it. I mean, who wouldn't want to be in Mexico at a resort with all you can drink, like slushies and everything else and lots of water slides.

It was nice, like 80 degrees and got a taste of summer here early and uh so we had a great time it was a very good family getaway oh nice i'm happy to hear that happy to hear that i know gearing up for the the spring it definitely had me you know we we've been seeing a little warmer weather, but it like took another step for me. I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm ready for that. Gosh, I'm so ready. I just, I like miss the sun. It's been so rainy here in Greenville. If you're in the Greenville area, then you know.

But, and, you know, I think like most of the East Coast anyway, it's just been kind of dreary weather. But it, yeah, I mean, the rain, I'm just like, can you go? I'm just ready for the sun. Rain, rain, go away. Ready for the sun, very, very excited. Yeah, so, you know, short work week for us, but it's been good. We've got a lot of new projects gearing up and pretty excited for that. We've got several new clients and lots of exciting things happening on the Radcast.

And excited for our release next week. And if you didn't listen, we had Jan Bednar on on Tuesday. Go take a listen to that. The hardest part of e-commerce is actually getting the product in your customers' hands. And Shipmunk and Jan's team are really focused on that and growing. Shipmunk and Jan's team are really focused on that and growing and doing, you know, turnkey fulfillment and, you know, being a kind of e-com junk junkie. It was just fascinating kind of talking, you know, that side of it. So I really enjoy that episode.

So if you haven't listened, go give it a gander. Yeah, it was a really good episode. I liked your all's conversation and you all said a lot of things also about the entrepreneurship journey and you all talked about you know the risk of entrepreneurship and even just understanding what that means for the business you're building and just general entrepreneur characteristics things like that and I think I think that was a really cool part of the episode too and just the conversation was great so definitely would recommend that episode to anyone especially if you're trying to get in the e-comm space or if you're an entrepreneur yourself,

there's definitely a lot to take away from that one. Yeah, it was, we definitely dove down that entrepreneur path and some of the pivots they had and just, uh, talk to even about the, the,

the gene or, you know, what it takes to kind of have that entrepreneurial, uh, mindset. And so pretty fascinating on multiple levels. And then looking forward to next week's release. We had a really good talk.

You know, if you haven't been in a cave somewhere, you've seen the growth of TikTok, the video platform. No. Just a little bit. Yeah. What's TikTok? In the vortex that you go down while watching tiktok videos i know and then you scroll too much and it's you've been on tiktok too long you should take a nap you should go drink some water and it's like wow thank you for calling

me out right now but uh yeah some right um and i talked about uh all the growth and they did a really interesting study on what it takes to be successful on the platform, why the platform has been successful, the ingredients of it. So really great. Good informational for any marketers or any business out there

for what and how to leverage the TikTok platform. Yeah, it was a really good episode. To kind of relate everything a little bit, he works at Neuro Insight where Tyler Lewis worked. And if you remember the Super Bowl episode, he, Tyler Lewis, was the kind of analytics expert that was kind of walking us through the TikTok, TikTok, NFL halftime and advertisement stats and how those advertisements performed.

And so Samrat, when he comes on, he's from that same company and he'll be talking with us about TikTok and just kind of looking at, again, you know, Ryan, you already explained all that, but that'll be a great episode and it'll be a two-part episode. So we'll have one really good conversation with him and then we'll have another one where we dissect a little bit more like what brands and ads and big brand plays can look like on TikTok that can live appropriately on that platform. Because, again, you can't look at TikTok like every other platform. And you all kind of talk about that a good amount. Yeah, so it was good. So hopefully everyone's been keeping up with the NCAA tournament and your bracket hasn't been busted.

You know, I think Riley and I, both our teams, my team went out even earlier, so I can't say much. Clemson knocked in the first round, and WU had their issues as well. That was such a sad game. So no love for the home teams here, but it's been fun. It's been a little weird, though, because the schedule's been different. Because you usually have that Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and the games didn't start until Friday.

It threw me off a little bit. Even being in Mexico, I was kind of like watching a couple of the other games or whatever, and I'm like, wait a second, I hadn't even started. But it's been good. But they're all happening in, they're all in the same place, aren't they, this year? Yeah, all in Indianapolis. Yeah, isn't that weird?

That's normally not the case, right? Isn't it normally like very spread? No, they're spread out all over the country. So they've had them in their little bubble, you know, trying to be a little more safe and keep it a little more controlled. So it'll be interesting how that plays out in future years. But yeah, but it's been fun to watch. And I guess that's it.

And here's Riley with the news. Here is the Radcast News. All right, so our first episode, episode, topic for today on the news episode, all the words here. NFL, you know, used to feel like you won the lottery when you like bought a spot on the, on an NFL, you know, whether it's Superbowl or advertisement or whatever it is. And, you know, to be able to put your ad in a Superbowl or football game, it was like a big, big deal.

But obviously we've talked a lot about this on the radcast tv is not really what it once was and so there is this question of streaming platforms and you know what that's going to look like in the future years and the nfl um is looking at transitioning into streaming platforms and things like that so you know i know you have a lot of thoughts on this so i'll let you uh take it away i mean so it's interesting it's kind of like what in some ways little changes even though viewership and different things a lot of cord cutters are out there but the same players that have always been there have won the rights again for the nfl nbc c ESPN, and others. And you've had this growth of streaming platforms happening between Netflix and Amazon and Disney, all these channels, while the one thing that's kind of held paid TV subscriptions together

has been sports. And thus, you saw in the most recent bids a lot of those same entities have held on to their rights to the games and really just to keep alive their legacy products of tv subscriptions while they're also trying to grow their streaming platforms and so i don't think this is great for consumers because you know what's happened is, I think people understand you have to pay for content. You know, like it's not like Netflix is free. It's not like Amazon's free. Right.

You know, none of these. But it gives you it's on demand. You get what you want when you want it. And TV subscriptions have remained a you got to buy 400 channels for the three that you really want to watch. And a lot of people have maintained those TV subscriptions for sports. And so it's kind of like what's old is still new. Like, you know, like there's going to be a little bit more streaming within these platforms. But I think this is why i'm even taking a step further

you know there's been a decline in overall sports viewership overall and i think you can actually point to this because consumers want to digest content differently than they have there are changes and that's why you've seen the growth of these streaming platforms and so fewer people are watching live sports because it is certain there was there was great enough affinity to overcome that but what you're seeing is consumers are going you know i'm gonna cut tv yeah i love the nfl i love my teams but they're getting to the point where they're just not going to tolerate the format and paying for stuff that they don't want. And so I don't know that they're helping themselves in the long run. And they're trying to maintain these legacy dollars.

And I get it. Look, you've got to pay all this stuff works in a cyclical manner where the reason that you can pay what you pay is because you have the volume of people watching and the advertising dollars coming in that that offset that cost i understand that it all works together but the reality is the behaviors of people are changing have changed well past this So you're going to continue to see a decline of, you're going to see a decline in people paying for TV. You're going to see more card cutting, and you're going to see a decline in sports viewership.

And they're on a real slippery slope, if you ask me, because if people get used to not seeing something, not doing something, then they might lose that infinity altogether. I even have relatives that I swear would have never stopped watching Pittsburgh Steelers football that just said, I'm not paying for cable TV anymore. I don't mind paying $17 for the content that I want on Netflix,

but I'm not going to spend $95 a month for when 80% of the content I don't want. Exactly. And it's a real problem. in $95 a month for when 80% of the content I don't want. And it's a real problem. Yeah. And I think, you know, and I understand, look, it's not, these are multi-billion dollar decisions. It's not easy decisions, but I don't think it's consumer beneficial that these same large media entities have maintained these rights, uh, and bought them. At the end of the day, it's a free world, free market.

They paid for it. They bid for it, and they won it. But I think it's a real slippery slope with, you know, the reason they can charge the money they can is because people love their teams. They love the NFL. If they decide that my behavior is such that I'm not going to pay for it and you stop and you lose that affinity, they may never come back. And then they won't pay for it when you do move to streaming in seven years.

Exactly. And that is kind of a danger if you think about it, because, you know, you bring up like obviously and I've said this before on the podcast, like I don't even have cable like, you know, we've talked about that before and like what that's doing anyway. But, you know, games for me, I'm either streaming them or like the WVU Syracuse game the other day. I streamed that game, you know, from the ESPN app, like on my Roku and did, you know, the free trial or whatever, because I also don't want to pay just for one game, you know, for this whole subscription or whatever. but you know from there if you need to go and watch another game that's when you go out to you know a sports bar or you go to you know a buffalo wild wings where you know they're going to have the game on or whatever because those i think would be the places that would stream

you know like they would stream or would keep the tv yeah but it's not benefiting everyone the same way it used to just because of how things are moving. But, you know, they make a point, you know, it's very ironic how this is transitioning. Well, and everything that we're doing is becoming more consumer friendly. And then this seems to push against that. seems to push against that. And it'll be interesting because if you looked at like some of the details of the contracts, like they can stream like 1%,

like, like only a percentage of this, like Disney can do it. Amazon bought the rights to Thursday, which is, you know, one, one inkling of hope towards this type of streaming and all that,

but it's not enough because,, because, you know, NBC and CBS and Fox are going to, you know, maintain like 95% of it is going to only be through paid, you know, traditional TV, uh, service. And so, I don't know, I think it is what it is, but I think you're going to, I just think it's a dangerous slope they're on with, you know, how much, if you ignore consumers long enough, they don't always come back. And so we'll see how it plays out. We'll see how it plays out. of companies like Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch have been looking towards creating TV shows as another way to promote their brands, which is really interesting because it does create a different engagement level with their consumers for how their brands, you know, live and breathe on,

you know, on a TV platform. But this will also be done on streaming platforms as well, which kind of leads us into the point we're just kind of talking about. But as far as a brand play, I mean, we can talk about the TV part of this and we can talk about the brand play part of this, but I like this a lot because this is something that you see these kinds of brands living. I don't think they're changing their brand perspective or their brand narrative as much as just trying to interact on a larger level with more people and how do you do that? What's in front of them with their phones or what's with the screen or whatever it is.

Yeah, and it goes hand in hand with the first one in a way because this is the opposite. This is going and changing as consumers are changing because what's happening is all these streaming platforms are bringing around ad-free content and so as a brand how do you get and keep your brand in front of consumers and stay relevant and this is how you do it you build content around your brand and you you build it in a way in a way with which consumers are consuming and they've said you know consumers are quietly telling us i don't want 17 commercials in my one hour tv uh slot that i'm watching oh yeah you know but i understand that there has to be you know a give and take give and take exactly

and so thus brands like pepsi and heiser bush building content building show content that that still gives brand attribution and you know i haven't seen the content itself but i have to imagine you know be entertaining it'll be today content that's engaging and it makes sense hopefully you know but it makes a ton of sense and i think you're going to see more and more of this i think you know we talked about the you know the old spice and I think you're going to see more and more of this. I think we talked about the Old Spice Barbershop. You're going to just see more of these experiential and overall brand plays that live outside of the norm of the 30-second TV spot. And I think that at the end of the day, this is all about the death of the 30-second TV spot.

And there's a lot of people in our industry that don't want to hear that. They hear that, they roll their eyes, and they go, well, you know where all the high-bives still are. Well, this bus is moving fast. It is because generations are changing. Not to be funny, but it's just changing. And if you're not going to keep up with the change, you're going to get left behind. Oh, yeah.

just changing and like if you're not gonna keep up with the change you're gonna get left behind oh yeah and it's not like a narc on what you've done or like what tv has done for us in a today sense but like if we can't move on this train forward it's not gonna be a great look for your brand well you know it's no different than like you know anzu.io we had uh the cmr benedict yeah We had the C- Itamar Abinity. Yeah, Itamar Abinity. In-game, you're going to just see more unique, more ways for brands to get out there. You know, they're doing programmatic in-game advertising. Literally, I'm racing the car and there's a billboard up on the side of the road and that's programmatic. That's auction real-time. That changes. Now, this is where you get into the other you know

going to where the consumer is in a digestible way in an interesting way this is no different in in more of the tv and long form format um i think you're going to see more and more product placement like you know like from amazon being in the room on some iteration of Saved by the Bell or whatever the TV shows are now. Exactly. I mean, they're everywhere. I mean, you can't watch a Netflix show without someone being like, well, I'm going to take a Lyft. And it's like, okay, wow, I wasn't paid or anything. Or, you know, you see like someone casually have their Microsoft whatever.

And it's like definitely a flash of the low. I mean, you're seeing. really have their Microsoft whatever and it's like definitely a flash of the low I mean you're seeing what's forcing innovation yeah in how how the product placement and how how brands pivot into you know getting those impressions in a different way and I think the winners and losers will pan out by the ones that are most innovative looks like any any other thing. And it's just forcing the media changes and the way that people are consuming media, the way that people are using their time

is forcing these changes at a rate that's never been seen before. Because forever and a day, there was just so many, there were only so many ways with which to consume media. And now it is endless. You know, the hundred ways you can do it on your phone, with which to consume media. And now it is endless. You know, the hundred ways you can do it on your phone, much less to how you do it at home on your Roku or your Xbox or, you know, insert video platform here. Right, right, right.

And so there's only so many screens, but there's a lot of different channels within those screens that don't live within the framework of a TV box. No, I mean, it's true. It's true. And I mean, you see it on collaborations, you know, with influencers on apps or, you know, things like that. I mean, you're seeing this breathing in a different way as well. And I think it's just a different way to show the social proof of like what, you know, the brand,

what the product should do and what it can do, you know. Yep. How many times will they say Pepsi in the Pepsi spot? The 30 minute show or however long it is. I know, it's going to be an interesting. You know, there's like these boardroom discussions.

Well, okay, I'm behind it. But how many impressions are we getting in this one hour video? Well well and i will say this too so this is a very interesting way so like pepsi is also using this kind of platform as a way to even showcase new flavors like the pepsi mango pepsi mango flavor which i'm very curious to try about you narc on coke so i'm gonna see what you i'm gonna say about you know of all the ancillary flavors of things, of like stuff, I get behind cherry, grape, all that. Mango is kind of a not so favorite flavor of mine.

But watch it be good. Watch it be really, really good. I'll try anything. So we have like a Pepsi's Mango Zero. I'll try it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just refuse to have calories in my soda now. Ever since the invention of coke zero i

never liked diet coke because it has that that kind of weird taste or whatever but coke zero like hit the spot for me yeah like yeah pepsi zero is close it's not quite as good as coke zero but see i'm not hating on coke all the time coke zero is like the bomb that's awesome that's awesome um see coke we love you yes um no but but no so i mean i think that'll be an interesting way for them to you know show new products things like that and i think obviously that's part of a takeaway from this kind of uh this kind of um move from them yeah next topic is sour patch kids we oh yeah as soon as you had this topic up on the board, I was like, yes, I love me some Sour Patch Kids. Yes, right. And also, it makes me want to go to Gatsby's real quick.

My favorite movie candy is Sour Patch Kids. Oh, my gosh, yeah. I don't eat much candy anymore, and it's around me all the time with my kids. But if I go to the movies, I'm getting me some Sour Patch Kids. Or the Airhead Extremes. Oh, my kids love those.

But Sour Patch Kids, give me a box of those and just let me go to town. And let your feel horrible yeah all it does is like it's like an hour later i regret it you know but like but this is a really cool move so they're doing a um an april fool's uh tiktok uh they're calling it a prank fund and essentially they're trying to get people to prank um on tiktok it's a big trend on tiktok trying to get people to prank on TikTok. It's a big trend on TikTok anyways to create these pranks and so they're doing, which is smart because you know we've got to be thinking about these things. April 1st is coming up so if it makes sense with your brand obviously hopefully you've already been brainstorming that kind of day. But this is a

really cool way again to interact with the TikTok community, create natural and organic user created generated content. And then essentially you have to include a hashtag and then Sour Patch Kids will essentially, if I remember correctly, they comment on the video, tell you that you were one of the winners and they're giving out like a thousand dollars and a couple other things. I think it's like 20 or 25 people get this, get this fund. Yeah, I like it. It feels like a good dollars and a couple other things i think it's like 20 or 25 people get this get this uh fund so yeah i like it feels like a good organic play playing off tiktok playing off uh you know the brand of sour patch kids it did make room i don't know if you you're probably too young to remember this but garbage pale kids there used to be these cards i don't know what it is about it too young anyway they were like kind of gross. It was like these mixed characters of like semi.

It was like a weird time, like the early 90s maybe. Yeah, what a weird time. No, I'm just kidding. Way back yonder. Anyway, but yeah, it feels smart to me. The only thing I was thinking was like, you know, planning ahead for April fools. I guess you have to, to have the best pranks, but it's like, is it kind of like giving it away?

If people were planning and you're promoting April fools, is it really, are you going to fool people? Like, I hear you on that. I hear you on that. But I think it's an interesting way to like, it will throw other people off because in the moment you're not going to be expected to be pranked because tiktok videos the way you see like pranks done on tiktok or whatever there's a phone hidden or something i mean yes i think some of them are still going to be scripted because if you look at any of the you know content creators on tiktok they've scripted their stuff you know

but um it it's going to be interesting well it plays naturally to the to the platform because i do feel like every other video on Tik TOK is someone pranking, you know, like some guy cutting his finger off is in his mom's kitchen and, you know, blood spattering everywhere. And she's like,

it's kind of like the natural play, but you know, if you could get in on that borrowed interest, I just think it makes sense. And it's cool. And Hey, you could tell me the Sour Patch kids were like, I don't know, doing something completely stupid.

And I'd still like them because they're delicious. Yeah, that's great, Sour Patch Kids. Yes. Guilty pleasure. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then our last topic for today. I love this because, first of all, I love Pinterest for the reason that Pinterest to

me is just, I'm a very visual person. And so Pinterest is just my go-to when I'm trying to look up something, when I'm trying to do anything about a trip or whatever. My first go-to actually is Pinterest. And then I go to Instagram and see, you know, the location. And then I try to find the spots from Instagram, but Pinterest is doing a really cool thing, or I should say anthropology is doing a cool thing with Pinterest and they're creating a digital only catalog. And it's the first time anthropology has done this, but they're putting it on Pinterest, which I think will be a really cool place for this kind of thing to live. I think it goes perfect with anthropology brand, you know, what are your thoughts? Yeah, no, I think it's great. It's this convergence, you know, to, you know what are your thoughts yeah no i think it's great um

it's this convergence you know to you know you've normally thought of catalogs as these printed things that come in the mail you've seen this shift to digital you know you started with like very rudimentary like pdfs that you know turn the page or whatever like you swipe and it goes to the next page. And, and now you're seeing the integration of shopping tools and things like that. I did play around with this a little bit before our episode and it's really pretty cool, but like half the products were already sold out. So it seems to be working. The only thing that I didn't love was like, if you go within the catalog and you create like tap on the lamp

and you hit lamp, it brought up all the lamps that were for sale by a lot of different brands so i was like that seemed a little weird like if i'm anthropology why would i want you know to bring up that guy i think it's just the way that that uh you and maybe you know i'm you know on the platform like and i can like if you need to you can like hit the magnifier whatever and you can like click or if there's a tag on a lamp or a lamp or if you need to look up something particularly you can basically uh create a crop of what you're wanting to focus on and it will generate the exact same image from other vendors or other people are selling or

whatever so it's very interesting that anthrop like it's not anthropology stuff and you there was tons of links to anthropology so it wasn't like they were missing out completely but i just clicked on like the categories it was like tables lamps you know lampshades whatever it was and then on the right populated all these other stores and like okay i don't know if that's the execution i would want from a brand perspective but you could definitely get there from the other links on the page, but that was one of the observations, but it, look, you're going to see you. This is not a completely new thing, but you're going to see more and more of these visual catalogs like this

playing out. You know, a lot of people were pretty hot on Pinterest here this year and next this travel and other things start to come back into play. this year and next as travel and other things start to come back into play. Pinterest is kind of owns the kind of visual search category. I mean, I guess, you know, Instagram could definitely fall in this category as well. But Pinterest has got to be, you know, the leader, you know, with kind of that visual catalog. And, you know, it's definitely grown their capability.

You know, I used to buy ads on there like three years ago, and it was like a nightmare, but they've gotten better with their ad buying platform. They're getting, you know, kind of the whole system and integrations into play, which are better. So I think you're going to see a lot of growth potentially for Pinterest if they can continue to kind of improve their UI and some of their ad tools. But, yeah, you're going to see more and more of this integration. And if you have a catalog, it's kind of a natural extension, especially with their audience and skewing, you know,

female and younger a little bit, anthropologies. And then I think, I don't know if it's Crate and Barrel, someone else had done their catalog on here as well and seemed like a success. And again, like half the products, at least the ones I clicked on, sold out when you went to the website. Yeah, it's clearly working. Yeah. It roosts in the pudding.

So, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, one more thing, one more less printed piece of paper. Honestly, save the trees. No, I'm just kidding but i honestly but it's it's a good thing i think it'll be a fun space for pinterest to keep developing and growing i mean like people are saying you know it's funny when i was looking this up and then like every other article that followed up with it was like put your stocks in

pinterest yeah it's like no i think their ads note yeah i think there's a lot of potential growth but if they keep uh refining their ad tools and things like that. Exactly. But now that's it for the Radcast. Cool. It's been a good week. We appreciate everyone following along. You know where to find us.

We're at the.rad.cast on Instagram. You can find us on the web at theradcast.com. And I'm always at Ryan Alford on Instagram. And as always, I appreciate you, Riley. Absolutely. Yeah, I appreciate that too. We'll see you next time. See ya. Yo guys, what's up?

Ryan Alford here. Thanks so much for listening. Really 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.