Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Weekly News Update 2.12.21: Valentine's Day Weekend, Experiential Marketing, and The Shoe Surgeon Creates Hot Sneakers with Chips Ahoy

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

This week's marketing news is naturally focused on Valentine's Day Weekend. There's so much happening in experiential marketing. In this episode, Ryan and Reiley share what Lowe's, Dunkin Donuts, and 7-Eleven have in mind for the sweet holiday. The Shoe Surgeon, Dominic Ciambrone, is creating some pretty hot sneakers for Chips Ahoy. People who vote on their favorite sneaker are entered into a sweet sweepstakes!If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and share the word if you love what we discuss, 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 it's friday february 12th 2021 and it's valentine's weekend riley clark yes it is um are you excited? Because I'm excited about it. Hey, roses are red, violets are blue. There's nowhere else I'd rather be than sitting here with you. Aw, that's awesome. That's so sweet. I just made that up.

I was going to say, I was like, is this like a... That might be the nicest thing I've ever done for someone. I don't think I've ever made a poem right in here. Yeah, that's good. It worked out good, though.

That's good. No, that's super good. That's impressive. No, it is Valentine's Day weekend. do you have any special plans with nicole yeah we have about four boys and we're gonna i love all of you we have we have a blended family and uh we every other weekend we either have nash who never goes anywhere he's our together son. And the other boys are at our other halves. And it's a weekend. We have all of them.

Nice. And so we, you know, I'm going to try to surprise her with something tomorrow. Oh, that's sweet. But it's not going to be, you know, and we agreed. We've done a couple of things here recently. Yeah. And we're going to Vegas in April. And we have the Mexico trip with the boys.

So we've got a few things kind of coming that are going to celebrate each other. Right, right, right. That's exciting. What's your feeling on the Valentine? I mean, you're a woman, obviously. Thanks. Yes, I am. Quite clearly.

You're a woman, obviously. Thanks. Yes, I am. Quite clearly. But are you a – but not all women are Valentine's Eve. I mean, not every – most of them like it. Yeah, I mean, like, but I'm more romantic. Like, I mean, so, you know, my boyfriend and I, like, we have plans,

but, like, I mean, we're also in a distance relationship. So, like, we have, like, this virtual long-distance date we're doing, and it's, like, this thing that he found actually. And it's like specifically targeted for people in long distance relationships, which is actually really cool. But it's like this date and you like go explore like different things. And it's it's interesting. So we're going to be doing that. And but yeah, but I mean, I love I mean, I think the sentiment behind Valentine's Day is just like a beautiful thing. And I just I like I like the sentimental holidays, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. I've always enjoyed a good Valentine's Day. I like doing surprises. Right, right, right. I think I've done more of my surprises for Nicole have been on Valentine's Day. Not always just flowers or something. I don't know. I mean, and I'm not a huge, like, you know, jump out and scary surprise person, you know, trying to be sweeter surprises,

you know? Right. So, uh, yeah, but, uh, it feels like love was in the air. Absolutely. I mean, I think especially, you know, speaking of love being in the air, would love to say, you know, we love you to all of our listeners, you know, not even to be cliche about it, but genuinely, like we talked about this this week, and just looking at our heat map of where everyone is in the world that's listening, and it's awesome to egypt listening people in sydney australia um in south america all over the all over europe and all over the united states we're just thankful for you guys and um yeah yeah riley you showed me this the heat map from our uh analytics i was like holy cow we are a international podcast now we are very clearly yeah very very clearly it's like the heat on like 15 cities like worldwide none of them are exactly near each other right it's cool and we hey if you're listening

we appreciate you wherever you are absolutely however you're listening absolutely yeah what's uh what's something that's happening uh radcast or wise or radical wise it's coming up for you on on uh well i've enjoyed the Super Bowl. We did part one of the Super Bowl. If you haven't listened to that, talking about the impact of ads as a whole, not only with Super Bowl, but because it was such an ad advertisement experience and time of year and moment in time where everyone's kind of glued to it, it was a good time to talk about the impact, how we think ads impact us and our feelings on the super bowl you know our general

reviews our likes and things like that and then next week uh we've got tyler coming back from neuro insight to talk about what the real neuro uh responses were to the ads so they put the brain pads on people. I mean, it is high tech. Oh, yeah. It's cool. And if you haven't listened to that episode yet that came out this Tuesday, definitely take a listen because they really get you all, you know, it was you, Mike, Josh, and

Tyler, and just really dissected kind of obviously the ads and then next week just giving all the data. So that's going to be an incredible episode. Really looking forward to that. And then our Tuesday episode release, though, is going to be with Michael Loeb. And I'm really excited about that episode. You all had a great conversation.

And again, that one will come out Tuesday at 7 a.m. And that's kind of Radcast stuff. Obviously, our merch. Go ahead. We're wearing our merch today. We're very merch heavy. We're really rocking it. We didn't even plan it. But I was like was like you know got so many options now like seriously and i love our options and the sweatshirts are so cozy we have champion sweatshirts guys so definitely

definitely go uh purchase one of those for sure things are good or radical you know we've had a busy week we've got a lot of new clients kind of either coming in or getting at various stages so that's been good working on a lot of websites a lot of we got an experiential project uh like it's kind of all over the map uh but they're fun and exciting and uh have a pretty cool company that we're going to look at tomorrow that does steel and copper. They make hoods and things for kitchens and staircases. Oh, cool. Really cool. That's awesome.

Potential client to be named. Right, right, right. Excited to go. We're going to go explore the quote-unquote factory. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Get a feel for them and you think about ways we could bring their story to life so cool kind of pumped about that yeah i know i i do have a weekly wine tip i think i'm going to start oh yes yes it's valentine's weekend this is so appropriate

let's like let me think here if it was like a chocolate covered strawberry thing what would you what would you pair it with well i do want to say this so i used to do a segment called secret wine tasting so if you followed any of my content even here at radical we did like this little thing where we'd shoot it in a random place and i would taste a wine and talk about it it was part of my content and kind of got away from it as we've gotten busier you you kind of have to pick and choose and so the podcast has kind of taken the forefront so we might get back to a secret wine tasting here and there but i do have collected wine for like 20 years i do not claim to be a connoisseur though i know and like wine and so yeah i i try to keep it like approachable i'm not like hey hoity hoity toity, like, you know.

Right, right, right. I've been known to stir a glass or two, you know, to really get the scent out of it. Right. And, you know, one of my best buds now these days is Austin Hope, who's been coming on our podcast. So I won't, you know, I plug Austin in, you know, on another. Sooner or later, he will be in the tip.

But for this, we talked a little bit about this, and you didn't tell me exactly what you were going to name. But that's a perfect Valentine's type of dessert. Yes. You know, chocolate-covered strawberries, sensual. You know, it's what you think of with Valentine's, like feeding each other, holding it over. No, right, right.

But here's the deal. If you've ever had the prisoner wine, it was made originally by a guy named Oren Swift. And it's now owned by the prisoner wine company. He sold it. But he still is super popular. If you're a wine drinker, you're probably not in your head right now. You've heard of the prisoner. He makes probably eight to ten of his own bottles.

Somebody's listening and going, he makes 14. Sorry. It's somewhere in there. He makes a number of bottles. But the bigger point is there's probably five or six that are really popular. This one's kind of under the radar. It's called Abstract. It's a Grenache, a Petit Syrah, and a Syrah.

It's a blend. Super rich, which all of Orange Swiss wines are super rich and approachable. They're kind of a mouthful, but they're delicious. And when I was thinking like strawberries and chocolate can go, red wine and chocolate are kind of like perfect matches. But the strawberry and some of the flavors you get with the abstract you almost get like a blueberry strawberry in there and so abstract by orange swift it's not completely outrageous i know depending on where your your budget levels are you probably can find it from 25 to 40 there's so much a difference there's such a difference in markup with wine right uh it just depends on where you shop you gotta know where to shop maybe we'll do a tip on that oh that would be a that would be a good thing i can tell you where to get their

best deals but yeah there is your wine tip of the week awesome awesome awesome love it cool well here's riley with the news here is the radcast news basically most of our news topics today are going to be covering actually what you even mentioned that Radical as a company we're going to be doing more of is this experiential marketing. And a lot of these companies are doing it in lieu of Valentine's Day weekend and all this kind of stuff. So a couple of topics here. First of all, Lowe's is doing a night of Lomance. And I think this is so cute. It's in 10 cities across the US.

And basically you're going in and you're doing like this paint kind of excursion thing with your partner and you're just like painting all this stuff. And I just think that's such a fun way, obviously, for Lowe's as a brand, bringing in your partner and you're just painting. I always wanted to do one of those like big body painting things and you like have this huge canvas and you're like in that suit and, you know, you just spray the paint everywhere basically and you just go and just have fun. Like I just think that would be such a fun thing.

I like this. It reminded me when we talked about it and I was reading more into it, the places where you can go and do art, you know, like Van Gogh. I think there's some around here in South Carolina called something Van Gogh. I don't know. It brought me, it reminded me of that idea, doing something together and painting and building art. So I like the play.

I like the play on words, the Night of Lomance. You know, it's not Lowe's, Lowe's-mance. Right. Probably a little awkward but uh you know these are those things where i'd love to see um what the impact is like what's you know it's it's small it's 10 cities you got 50 couples so roughly 500 but you know again some of these brands have money and one x and want to test different things. So I applaud that with getting your brand out there and making and tying in.

I do think that brands like Lowe's or Home Depot or other can very easily slide into, we're just the place where you buy stuff. And we just get there and there's not a ton of brand connection and i think things like this are meant to create a connection with the brand and not just with the stuff the tactical thing like i'm going to get my lawn seed or whatever you're doing right the typical thing yeah these are things they're doing this to create an emotional connection with the brand so that you tie that experience with them. It's smart, especially for transactional brands like this.

I just want to know what the mechanism is for kind of how it works. I guess if people do it, great. You get a lot of social content, maybe it's worth that. See, that's what I'm wondering. I'm wondering if this is like that social engagement aspect where they're asking their community to just like blast it basically and just create that social engagement. And we saw a lot of that over the Super Bowl as well. Just that social engagement and increasing your social media content and TikTok, Instagram. I mean, so many people can make many just fun posts and animations out of this kind of, you know, experience with their partner.

So maybe that is interesting. I'll ask you this. I maybe that's – It is interesting. I'll ask you this. I do not – mine is purely convenience-driven, like Lowe's or Home Depot. Like if there's one that's closer than the other, I just go to whichever one's the most convenient. That's a good point. I mean, yeah, there's something aesthetically more pleasing for me. I don't know if it's the blue with Lowe's.

But if I need paint or a random lawn thing, I go whichever store is in the shortest distance for me. I mean, yeah, that's a good point. And I'm curious, though. I say this as a focus group of one. I do think a lot of people probably are more specific on which one they choose but i mean i know you don't go to lowes and on depot but do you have a preference of either brand no it just kind of depends on what i mean it's like which one's closer like lowes is closer to my apartment so i do go to lowes more but it's yes you know but night but

now doing night of low man's you might be more of a Lowe's person. I'm more inclined to do Lowe's now. Tugging your heartstrings. See, it's sweet. It's a sweet little sentiment. You got me, Lowe's. You got me. Yeah, no, but I think that's a fun thing and I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what comes out of it, but we'll definitely be keeping track of it. And also, 7-Eleven is creating a Gamer Palace, another experiential marketing kind of deal. They are really incorporating just gaming, social content, and also pulling at Airbnb. So you get two nights to stay in this gamer palace at this 7-Eleven. And it's, you know, two one night stays, excuse me, for $11 on Airbnb.

And I just think it's super cool. I'm going to pull up a picture here. But, you know, what did you, I mean, you saw this. What was your opinion on this? I mean, another example, I think we have them almost every week in the news, not even purposefully, of the power of eSports now and kind of the whole modern culture, pop culture, eSports, and now you've got the convergence with Airbnb and all those things. So I think it's another one of those that's a cool experiential thing. You know what sucks right now is just my head goes, when I see these things,

I also get into like, is it time with COVID and different things like that? And obviously they're limiting it to the two family members or whatever, I think, that can go in. But it's like can kofi just get gone so that like these kind of experiences can be like maxed out right right because i think what they probably would do they would probably turn this into almost like a esports arena within the thing i think they pivoted a bit if i had to guess don't know this you know to the air, get two people in the

same family. And it's still a cool concept. But again, it just shows the power of esports and the integration that every brand is kind of looking for with gaming. Absolutely. And I also just like this idea of Airbnb being involved, or the travel and leisure kind of idea of like all the industries kind of coming together for this one moment. Esports, luxury, palace, gamer heaven, and Airbnb like basically coordinating this event. I just think that's really cool. Well, you're going to start to see and we're in what's called the sharing economy now. And so you have this going on with how people think about,

no different than a brand in the 7-Eleven thinking about their store in a way that you could rent. It's the same thing now where you're seeing this convergence of things like Airbnb are thinking more than just a random nice place on the beach that they have extra rooms at.

They're thinking of ways that consumers can share other things, whether, and I'm not saying Airbnb specifically is getting this, but you see bike sharing. You see, I even saw people share their pool, like their backyard pool. They'll rent their pool. That's interesting. You're seeing, you're seeing you're gonna see increases in it like tools i don't know if there's an app where like people that have tools because think about it tools sit in a toolbox 99 of the time you and so they're not used i know and so

does everyone need to own we need 47 million hammers in the world or could we we have someone, a library where we check out hammers? And so some of the tool stores already do that, but you're seeing this with consumers and experience with brands. And so not 100% related, but I do think it's a good pivot point for thinking about the way the economy is being built around this notion of sharing and conservatism and it's it's all of those things but it's also just smart because a lot of us have things that sit there that never get used right so i mean it's a good point and i wonder if it has anything to do with like the minimal culture that was really circulating do you feel like it has anything to do i think it's minimal cult you know tiny home like similar all types of mindset, you know, just minimalist, but also just, I don't know, it's that just that notion of sharing. Right. Yeah. And I like that. I mean, I think it brings more of that community aspect,

more of just, we're all human and we're all in this together. Why not share or, you know, just share the experience, share, you know, share the experience share you know share the hammer like whatever it is whatever it is that's a little detour from the you know this the the convenience store airbnb but so i i digress a bit but i do think it's all related and we are talking marketing consumer behavior and all those things so yeah i think it's interesting it's good to know good to know uh in other news february 9th so this is already passed but it's definitely worth bringing up notion of valentine's day experiential marketing all these things dunkin donuts which personally i love dunkin donuts i'm such a big i'm a fan love their coffee

oh my gosh favorite coffee ever but in vegas they did a renew their vows like event basically and you do a drive through through this vegas chapel and you go and you renew your vows and you have this really cool bouquet of these donuts and they look like a ring, you know, they look like rings. They have a munchkin on top and everything. They looked so cool and fun. I mean,

again, I know it's already passed, but it's totally worth mentioning. And you know, if you went, I would love, it'd be so cool to see like how, how that affected everything.

Another slight detour i'm taking detours here today it's okay i got turned on to dunkin donuts living in new york and there's a dunkin donuts on every corner and extra extra extra cream extra sugar like i lived on that yeah like every day like i think i put on weight too because I didn't realize wow, this tastes so good, but it's coffee. I'm putting an extra 1,200 calories in my body. A large coffee, extra, extra. God, it tastes so good. I digress. Another cool this is fun. I don't know all the ins and outs of what's happening with the Vegas chapels and all that,

but it's still a fun brand play. The bouquet of donuts. Who wouldn't want a bouquet of donuts? I do. I would love a bouquet of donuts. No complaints here at all. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Who wouldn't want a bouquet of donuts?

Absolutely, of course. Because think about it. Is there anything like, I mean, bouquets come and go. They have no real, you use them in the moment, and then they store and get dried up and don't do anything great. If you could eat it. As long as everybody's not touching it, I guess. Ew, yeah, no, that wouldn't be fun, yeah.

I mean, you could share it. I mean, you know, it's a bouquet. Everyone gets a little piece of the donut. I have to tell Nicole that if they do this, we'll renew our vows next time. Oh, you'll got to make a scene with it. We're going in April. Here, honey, I got you a do it again here honey i got you a bouquet of donuts this happens to be my favorite flavor yeah with your uh with your uh oran swift abstract and uh we'll put it all together put it all together full circle they're fun you know again content play here i think you know social media social, how do we create experiences that we can

film? And I mean, hopefully they're filming, shooting, atomizing all that content. I'm sure they are. Well, and it's interesting because I feel like with all these examples we're talking about, even the next example we're going to be talking about too. And this is so obvious because it's happening so much more, but the consumers are basically your, your marketer or your advertisements because they're just posting it on social media and they're sharing it and they're tagging you and they're hashtagging and all this stuff. And it's like such an easy way to just increase the eyes on what you're doing as a business or as a product. And I just think it's really great to see it just continue happening. CGC, consumer generated content.

Yes. That's the best that may, if you can get that going, number one, it shows an affinity to the brand. They're willing to do it. It gives you content to share and show, and it's social proof, almost like reviews, because you're getting validation that they're sharing these. I mean, so it's like check, check, check, check.

Anything you can do that generates that user content is huge. And again, last topic for today, but it's definitely worth mentioning. And this also just shows, well, I'll say it first. Chips Ahoy is partnering with Shoe Surgeon, excuse me. And he created basically different kinds of sneakers for the new Chips Ahoy, like kind of mascot kind of deal. different kinds of sneakers for the new Chips Ahoy, like kind of mascot kind of deal. And they're just, I think this really shows the integration of streetwear culture, sneaker culture, and just the rise of that. I mean, you see it all the time with, you know, companies like eBay's doing it now, StockX is doing it and things like that. It's just really creating the streetwear culture.

And I think it's such a cool thing that now you see something like chips ahoy you know bringing that in too i think that's awesome but you know yeah shoe surgeon i've been following on instagram for like five years by the way badass like unbelievable the designs he does they're so cool like i want to say it renewed my my sneaker uh interest like five years ago and bought like all these jordans that i'd rarely rarely rare rarely wear yeah but uh he's incredible and so they they knew who they were going after as far as influencers in the sneaker game the customization that you can do uh i don't remember you know i guess i do i mean i'm old enough I mean I'm the old man in the room but it's like Chip I'm trying to remember like the commercials or the uh character Chip you know like what he

did necessarily you know like I can remember I couldn't tell you I could I could remember you know like Kool-Aid man or or uh you know in certain brands like I remember the the thing I don't remember Chip being you know like some incredible character I remember the thing. I don't remember Chip being some incredible character. I remember on the side of the box maybe. Yeah, I couldn't even tell you. I just like the disintegration of Shoe Surgeon again. He has super cool things. Oh, my gosh.

I think it's awesome. So that's interesting to see. And again, basically, you can enter in for sweepstakes as well. So you can go in and vote on which sneaker you're really loving. And then from there, you get entered into sweepstakes, you know, all that, all the good stuff with that. But yeah, so that's kind of what's happening from a Chips Ahoy marketing standpoint. And yeah.

Had some good news this week. Absolutely. Valentine's themes for sure. Had some good news this week. Absolutely. Valentine's themes for sure. And just be sure to continue to listen to our upcoming episodes that we talked about earlier. And you definitely got to listen to what happens with the neuro research. Oh, yeah.

That's going to be awesome. We're going to see what really tested well. So I'm really excited about that. But thanks as always, Riley. Yes, absolutely. You know where to find us. We're at theradcast.com and at the dot rad.cast on Instagram and 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, 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.'t wait another minute let's get your business going 864-729-3680 we'll see you next time