Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Weekly News Update 12.18.20: The Golden M Haircut; What will happen with 2021 Super Bowl Ads?; Uber Vouchers; American Standard has the Perfect Way to Flush 2020 Away

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

Happy Friday and welcome to another weekly news update with your host Ryan Alford and co-host Reiley Clark.In this episode, Ryan and Reiley break down the best marketing news headlines from the week:McDonald's virtual barbershop in Sweden is bringing back the classic 90's haircut with a twist.The Super Bowl will look a little different in 2021, so what does this mean for the ads we'll see during commercials?Uber has a way for you to receive discounts for Uber Eats and Uber. Welcome, Uber Vouchers to the stage.American Standard creates a toilet paper roll that will make you want several. What's the radical factor? - Listen to this episode see what makes this roll worth flushing!Enjoyed this episode? Then share it on Instagram and tag us @the.rad.cast | Do you want to hear more from our host? - Give him a follow @ryanalford on Instagram. | The Radcast is a product of @radical_results | #theradcast 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 Holiday Edition number, I don't know what, my days are running together, three. Riley, what day is it? Is it episode three of the news in the holiday of December? I think this is our third. Yeah, this is our third one. Okay, whatever it is, but always joined by the lovely Riley Clark, the producer and content extraordinaire. I'm running out of adjectives for Riley, but good to have you, Riley. Thank you, thank you. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.

So what's shaking over there? We're in the new podcast studio, which I'm really enjoying. We've got dynamic camera angles going. We've got a warm, cozy fire keep us nice and toasty i'm feeling it like on my shoulder like it's subconscious i know it's it's just a digital video going there absolutely no it's a little warm little good here today yeah it makes up for the cold kind of outside that's kind of going on today you know it's kind of a chilly day it is a little dreary cold for the for the winter months here in south carolina you don't have many, many days that are as kind of blistery as I would call it.

No, I agree. I agree. Yeah, but I like what you've done with the podcast studio. Thank you. Yeah, I think it was good. Looking good, feeling better. I'm feeling loose. I mean, if I could dance in this chair, I'd be dancing in it. That's where we're at. I'm so glad. I'm so glad that's where we're at. No, that's good. That's good. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, it. That's where we're at. I'm so glad. I'm so glad that's where we're at. No, that's good. That's good.

Yes, yes, yes. Oh, yeah. That's good. So, cool. How's the week been? How's we getting geared up for the holidays? Lots of Christmas shopping, all those kind of things. Yeah, lots of stuff going on.

You know, it's funny. You get all the stuff for your family, and you've, like, mentally been preparing, getting stuff for your family, and then you realize, okay, I actually have less than a week now to really get everything together so this is your news flash you want to talk about news you know like literally if you listen to this on the day it releases you have t minus one week so t minus one week to uh to uh get it all done and get it all in my wife's freaking out we have a few more things to buy the boys. And, you know, my wife's getting, like, one large gift. And so I always play, you know, like, do I need to get her, like, a few small things? Like, one big thing.

So it's like, you know, it's always that dilemma of, you know, I think we all think about someone, did we get enough? The consumerism in this, you know? Yeah. Or, like, you want it to be, like, was this meaningful? Like, was this good? Like, did this, like, really, you know, hit all the things that they really, you know, want, need, you know? Yeah.

But, yeah. She knows what she's getting, so she'll be happy. That's what's important. Yeah, exactly. That's important. We'll see. But what are, like, do you have holiday traditions or foods or things? What's like any go-to, like my dad always makes, we call it TV snacks, but it's like Chex Mix.

Let's call it what it is. But that's like, any go-to foods or traditions for you? I feel like I have a, i love sweet potato casserole and my mom makes like the best sweet potato casserole and it's just like um she's southern she's very she was a southern cooker so um it has all the sugar that you know you probably shouldn't be consuming but you want it it's the holidays and you know the marshmallows that are glazed just perfectly on top like nothing about it is too only half the calories count no right around the holidays it doesn't matter exactly exactly but um but yeah so that's kind of just what's been going on there and uh i love i do i hate to say it but you love the turkey or the ham

and then it's almost like a thanksgiving part two in some ways but then you have the cranberry salt like just oh i just love it and i love the pies the pies and the cakes that can come from christmas it's just oh spot on if you're listening you should be getting hungry by now i'm over here it's you know we record these right around lunchtime so i'm uh it's making me hungry might be blistering through this episode like fast as possible to uh to get to some like leftover sandwich or something that's just not as exciting but uh but nonetheless yeah i think half the calories count during the holidays that's that's all right that's that's what we say no for sure but what about you do you have a favorite

food or yeah like my dad makes the che mix my one of my moms this weekend okay we do the you know before christmas kind of mom she's in columbia south carolina or thereabouts right outside of it on lake murray area and yeah and so we go down there and she it's normally a mixed bag like we don't have sometimes it's similar to thanksgiving sometimes it's a random casserole that she's testing out right right she always cooks she's a great cook so it's always something delicious but you know we're not like dead pan set on like exactly this one dish for christmas i get turkey dressing and all that thanksgiving it's pretty set right uh but the christmas meal is usually just something

good and you know yeah then with my dad we typically have done um like a prime rib or something else oh yum yeah that sounds awesome we've done that last few years what about uh do you all have anything else like going on do you feel like you have something that's like like like this notable thing that's either about to get you crazy hyped for new years or something that's like okay like this is about to happen and i just can't wait for it you know like you know honestly not we don't have an event um this year that's like somewhere or something that may be like driving that right i will say like you know i'm, you know, I'm taking, you know, a few days off around, you know, probably a week total around the holidays, either before or after Christmas or around New Year's. And so I'm looking forward to just a little bit of, you know, and Nicole's going to be off and we'll have the boys.

And, you know, strangely enough, with everything going on and other things, I'm kind of just looking forward to just some nothingness. And it's all kind of like chilling and I guess watching some really bad bowl games or something like that with how this year is going. That's funny. And then Clemson plays Notre Dame this Saturday. You may listen to this and the game's already over by now. A lot of people listened to it past. But Clemson-Notre Dame for the ACC Championship

to go to the college football playoff. I went to Clemson, so huge college football guy. I'm glad they got through the season with COVID and everything. So I'm pulling for the Tigers this weekend. I'll be at mom's, eating my face off, but watching the Clemson-Notre Dame game. Watching the football game, yeah. I'll be honest, I haven't even followed

WVU as much as I wish I should have this year. You didn't miss much. You did not! You did not! You say that! What are they, like four and three or something? Half their games have been canceled? I mean, touche.

That's not their fault. I'm not really knocking West Virginia as much as just some of the realities of the season no i know i know i know it's just it's just funny but i feel like um i wish i would have caught up more on wvu and i feel like their basketball team's actually been doing really well this year though no yeah they are started off well yeah yeah but all that to say i know that's not you know necessarily completely related to what we're talking about but i'll i'll do better next year yeah but cool well here's riley with the news here is the radcast news okay guys our news topics for today the first one we're going to get into is mcdonald's in sweden decided to uh bring back officially the Golden M haircut.

And we know what we're talking about here. We're talking about Leonardo da Cunha, young Leo, which, you know, heartthrob. Leo still is for the Rock Community Series. You know, between him and Brad Pitt with that, you know, blonde kind of shaped haircut. I mean, they're really they're trying to bring that back. And McDonald's Sweden is doing a virtual barbershop deal where, you know, you can come in, get your golden haircut. But I like how this is bringing in. I mean, obviously, we talk about this all the time. This is a marketing podcast. But it's like, you know, what is this doing for the brand of McDonald's? I think it's doing more than just like, oh, this is funny.

They're bringing back, you know, this golden hair. I think this is a cool a cool thing for mcdonald's to be doing this falls into the realm of we have more money than we know what to do with in our marketing efforts like don't get me wrong it's i think it's fun and it's it's great social content and they're doing it sweet and i'm not poo-pooing the idea i like it but it's like you know some brands that are out there they're just trying to find the one idea to make hay with and donald's has like a hundred things going on exactly like because it's a you know it's a worldwide brand and you know so the golden arches the golden in here and i know it was a thing i'm well aware of it and right actually like both of those guys, Caprio and Brad Pitt. Good actors and good-looking guys. Hey, call a spade a spade.

They're studs. But it's just, I don't know. Some of these things I just look at with a little bit of a slanted eye. I liked, in some of the other news, I liked more of the play on the No Shave November. They gave away, you know, the McRibs just relaunched and they gave away like the first, I don't know, 100,000 people came in and shaved or something like that. So I like that for viral content. Absolutely.

Maybe that related to me more, but it's cool. I mean, you know, when you got the money, just spend it. I guess you're spending it when you have the money to spend it. I know, right? I can just imagine how many ideas they sit around between the agency I'm sure they're working with and internally. It's like, you know, how many ideas hit the board and how many they actually implement. The scale of that is probably hard to even comprehend. Right, right, right.

No, I hear that. scale of that is probably hard to even comprehend. Right, right, right. No, I hear that. I hear that. The other topic we have for today is obviously about the Super Bowl. It's coming up very quickly. And I feel like, and we were just talking about this, you know, whether it was WVU or Clemson, and obviously I haven't been keeping track of WVU, so sorry, guys. But it's like when you think about what's even been happening with just the course of NFL football this year, I mean, it's been very weird. People can't even go to the stadium. I mean, all those other things,

games were canceled, whatever. It's like, I think a lot of marketers right now are kind of like, okay, are we actually going to have our Super Bowl moment this year or not? Because like, where does, how does it even play in? Like, where is it going to come in? And you know, where are we putting our ads? And, you know, that's kind of just a big question that's kind of circulating right now, too. Yeah, it's like $5.5 million for 30 seconds. And I will say this, like, as much as linear TV, I think, is a bad buy a lot of the times now, as far as, you know, the audience is just so distracted and very few millennials or Gen Z or like even my demographic.

It's just not a lot of linear TV. So I'm kind of down on TV as a whole, the traditional commercial. However, the Super Bowl is that time and place in that moment where there's so much attention on it. You've got people over for parties. You've got stuff and people watching the commercials. It's become an event. And so if $5.5 million on air to reach 250 million, how many people it is,

it might actually be impression for impression the best buy you can make if you can afford it. And so it's been interesting to watch that I think they're almost 80% sold out of all spots by November, December. I think it started off a little slower than previous years, but now it's picked back up because people realize it. I saw where we talked about Pringles and some of their brand play. Pringles is going to be on there, the stacking of the flavors. That'll be cool. Budweiser's back. They've been in

mainstay. They have, I think, exclusivity in the beer category. I don't know how much they paid for that win, but it's got to be hundreds of millions of dollars. Are they bringing back the Clydesdales and the puppies? I wish that they would. No, they're not. Yes. But I haven't seen any

mention of exactly what they are. That was an iconic campaign. I love when those came on. And it's going to be interesting because of the dynamics of the game. Don't get me wrong. It's made for television. If any of the NFL games are made for television, and they're all made for television,

there's hundreds of camera angles and all that, but you've got the crowd and all that. The Super Bowl is so produced for tv it might have less of the impact of the no crowd or no people there than you might realize uh because again it's such a spectacle on television with the halftime show and all those things no touche and so i think i think they're gonna probably even take it a step further with the whole, you know, knowing. I mean, you're not going to obviously show crowd shots of the cardboard figures or not at the Super Bowl. Maybe they'll become, you know, for the Super Bowl, they'll be dynamic 3D versions of the cardboard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say, like, have you noticed that even, you know, Kelly Clarkson show, we have stuff like that on the office TVs or whatever. But they have the virtual, it looks like a screen or whatever, and it's just people that are basically coming in from Zoom or whatever. Do you think they would incorporate something like that at all? Or do you feel like that's just completely not something that's probably going to happen? Maybe. It's hard to say. I don't know.

But I did see Turbo um turbo tax who's been doing some pretty creative stuff uh mars and m&m right back uh well said that toyota will be there but but ole skincare brand like oil of ole will not be coming back and neither will uh avocados from mexico they've had some pretty creative spots they they ended their streak so i don't know if the avocado sales are down or it's just not worth the money not at my supermarket i'm obsessed with avocados i i eat like two or three avocados a day if i'm being completely honest i love avocados i had them on my uh my uh coconut chicken tacos last night oh that sounds good are you a cook uh you know i heated it up oh i mean i made the tacos but the the coconut chicken was kind of like a pre-made from

you know publics or something oh i got you okay nicole bought it yeah yeah all right she was doing some shopping last night so it was uh fending for myself but they were pretty tasty i had avocado and all that on there that sounds super good as we get hungrier and hungrier i know now we're gonna keep talking about food and and all the things about food now but um but yeah uh well we're gonna continue on our food topic here too as we talk about uh vouchers from uber so i think this is super smart and i know you have lots of thoughts about this but let me tee it up a little bit so uber's businesses you know they have uber eats you know they have um obviously uber itself driving service but they are creating a way to incorporate both the discounts on rides and

discounts on food and just like crop like bringing in businesses that can either participate in giving a voucher for more food or, you know, giving a voucher for a ride. And I think that's a really cool concept. Again, I know you have tons of thoughts about it. Yeah, you can do branded plays with this so that you can brand the certificates and things that you're doing. certificates and things that you're doing. You can literally, and I think there's a lot of different angles for this. When you think about services and businesses that where the customer has to either get rid of their car or they might need a second person or something. Right. I think this could be huge. Think doctor's offices, maybe things like that. Think dealerships. So if you're a dealership and you have a service department,

to be able to offer your customers pickup, drop-off, those services in a branded way, I think it would be brilliant for literally every service dealership should have that. And again, obviously for a $20 oil change, you probably can't do it. But for anything over $100, $150, give your client a branded experience for how they get uber how they pick it up but it's provided by you sponsored by you for the pickup and drop off that's the biggest pain point for like service of vehicles is you know in the loaner programs put

such a stress on the dealerships because they don't have enough cars the liability involved all that stuff you put it on u, but you brand it for yourself. It could be a differentiator, or at least it probably would become table stakes eventually. I know there's some dealers that do it or will offer it here and there, but I would be branding the hell out of it. No, absolutely. I think it's a super smart play, and I'm looking forward to using it. Yes. Big Uber Eats person, so looking forward to using that for sure.

When weather gets bad, everybody has got to come to work because I'm going to Uber you here. Okay. All right. No, I'm just kidding. Weather doesn't get that bad in South Carolina. I'm just kidding. We'll see.

That's good. But I do like it. Great play by Uber, and I think bringing things to get on top of it can really differentiate themselves. Absolutely. Our last topic for today. And this is, I just think it's hilarious. It's super smart.

American Standard is, you know, flush the year away. And they have this toilet paper that has basically all the icons of things that have happened throughout the year that have been you know well for lack of a better word let's just say a shit show like we're talking about toilet paper let's just bring it all like all in full circle um and you can just throw away the toilet paper and it's just hilarious and but there's a thing with it i'm pretty sure if i remember correctly, there's like a way to enter in to be able to get the toilet paper. What's it called? Not a raffle. Yeah, a giveaway.

A giveaway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, an online contest where they give their information and you get a chance to win a roll of the limited edition toilet paper. They're also giving away 450 rolls randomly, selecting the winner in three drawings. Right. I think this is brilliant. I think what it would be added to it,

and I didn't see this as part of it, you should be able to customize your own toilet paper for everything you want to flush away from this year. That's actually really kind of cool. If you could come on and add personalization to it, put in your things, and then they send it to you. They could sell this on their store at e-commerce. Here's your idea. This is what you should do. American Standard standard call us if you want to take these ideas a little further and maybe they thought about it they didn't have the infrastructure and it might

have been an idea that came up like a week ago but they wanted to implement it uh which strikes me as possible but i think it's a great brand play hilarious plays on the mindset absolutely uh good good pr for the brand we're talking about it so it must be good pr obviously if it's made our uh cut on the news it's uh it's got to be good so uh a good play by american standard but let's personalize it and you want to think about this could be an ongoing thing you know what else what do you want to flush away in your life hey that's actually a really good like whole campaign and of itself to your point i mean like you know what else happened this year

that you know you're like i just want to forget about that or just ever like like if you're wanting to you know bad habits to go away like the uh this could be a customization at all times what are you trying to flush out of your life and And every time you're used to the bathroom, hey, we all use the bathroom every day. You're reminded of what you're trying to get rid of. Absolutely. Uh-oh. American Standard, you might have to call us. I'm just kidding.

Or there you go. You just do it. Yeah, or you just do your stuff. That one's free. Yeah. No, just kidding. Just kidding. But yeah, no, that's it for us today, news-wise.

And by the time this releases and we have our next episode, Christmas has already passed, so if you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to everyone else as well. For sure. Appreciate everyone who listens. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Whatever you celebrate, celebrate it safely.

Merry Christmas to you, Rob. Merry Christmas to you Merry Christmas to you too you know we'll be together for another week I know we'll see each other so but you know

to everyone else happy holidays exactly alright guys we'll see you next time on the Radcast follow along at theradcast.com

and we'll see you next time happy holidays 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 See ya. the best news of all. If you want to work with me directly, if 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.