Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Weekly News Update 2.5.21: News about The Big Game, Amazon's new CEO, Robinhood, Instagram updates and more Marketing News!

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

Get ready for this week's marketing and pop culture news update!In this episode on The Radcast, host Ryan Alford and news co-host Reiley Clark, discuss this week's biggest marketing news... and with the big game on Sunday, you can guess a big topic for today!These are the following topics we hit in today's episode:Which brands will have ads in the Big Game, and which brands won't have commercials during the Big Game.Amazon's new CEO and what this means for the company.Instagram's vertical swipe.Robinhood's commercial during the Big Game is still happening, despite recent events.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 | @roseyrei_ We'll talk to you soon! #theradcast #radicalmarketingresults  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 february 5th and i hope you are having a wonderful friday or whatever day it is wherever you are in the world listening to the Radcast, whether that's Apple, Pandora, YouTube, anywhere and everywhere, I am joined as always by my co-host for the news episode, Riley Clark. What's up, Riley? Hello. It is a great week, and we just have a lot of content today, so I'm just excited to get this going. We are jam-packed here on the week of the Super Bowl.

It's a marketing and advertising podcast. It's Super Bowl week here, which is kind of a big deal. You got Mahomes, Brady, the Chiefs, the Bucks, Tampa Bay. Who you got in the Super Bowl? You even got a winner? I was going to say, this is all over my head in the best possible way. Like, I love football, but it's just been, it's been a weird year. Like, I feel like I normally follow so much. You could just say Tom Brady. Tampa Bay by default. 43 years old.

He's as old as I am, and he's playing football. I mean, that's awesome. A 20-year-old is chasing me around, and he's still doing it. I don't know how he does it. That's awesome. Who do you have winning? I think Kansas City's got too much firepower but i would love to see brady win oh yeah that's interesting i feel like that's a big uh

it's like a lot of they're favored you know yeah but uh we'll see what happens i would love to see tom win just purely i'm not even like a brady fan but i'm more of a 43 year old that's playing football or playing at a high level. Like, yeah, for the, for the, for the middle-aged. Represent is proud. Represent is proud. Yeah. But it's been a good week. We had a good ad gab episode this week on Wednesday.

We had Josh and I talked about search retargeting, which we mentioned last week. It's a really cool episode. If you're into digital marketing and want to learn the latest and greatest, it's definitely one of those buzzworthy episodes. So that was a good episode. And I know we've got some great guests coming for the month of February. Yes. Can you talk about some of those?

Yeah, I'm super excited about these guests. So our first one that we have, Tyler Lewis, he's going to be coming on next week right after the Super Bowl. And we're really going to be dissecting just a little bit of why neuroanalytics is an important part of the marketing and creative strategy for your brand and your brand's positioning, specifically how that looks in the Super Bowl, right? So Tyler Lewis is a neuroanalytics expert, a part of the company he works with. And I'm just excited for him to just bring the insight he has. It's super cool stuff.

And see how your brain looks and feels when you're watching commercials. Yes, yes. And it's going to be a really cool dynamic because you're going to be bringing like this marketing perspective. Josh will be on and he'll be bringing like a super cool culture consumer kind of perspective. And then Mike, our creative director, will be on and he'll be talking about the creative side of it with the brand's positioning. And I just think it's going to be a really nice way to showcase why it's important to consider the brain in your marketing strategy. So it's going to be a great episode. Well, everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them.

In our secret lab, it definitely works. Exactly. We have some news for you about that. All of our secrets given out on this episode. Exactly. No, you're going to want to listen to it. It's going to be a super cool episode. And then our next guest that we have is this guy named Arjon Ray. And he is a CEO and founder of it's a cool like social

media content management builder kind of platform. It goes to all platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, all that kind of stuff. And you can basically build your content and then distribute it out to your necessary channels. But it also does image recognition, things like that. So super cool guy and really looking forward to him joining us on the Radcast in a couple of weeks. That'll be fun. And then our next guest is Michael Loeb. And this was an incredible, incredible episode that's already been recorded, but it'll come out in a few weeks.

And you all had a great conversation i feel like you yeah michael's awesome i mean huge name uh if you've watched the show uh billionaires or uh yeah his his home is uh one of the featured right at the beginning that's all you need to know right michael's a super smart guy he's been involved with lots of magazine subscription things with time and Priceline. Like I could drop name drop forever companies he's been involved with, but he's, he's really changing the startup game and flipping it on his head,

bringing a lot of resources together for how he builds startups. It's really smart. He's a really bright guy and you know, I just let him go. Like I might ask Michael bright guy and you know i just let him go like i might ask michael a question and you know he's brilliant and he's done a lot of things and so it was fun kind of i mean i learned a lot just listening to him so uh super cool episode oh i'm excited for it and we have a lot of other stuff happening on the radcast too we've been talking a lot about our

merch that's out and just would love for you all to look at it here. I'm going to pull it up on the screen if you're watching our video version of it, but oh my gosh, guys, this stuff is just so cool. And there's tons of it. So this is just four examples of them that I have on the screen, but we have so many different types of sweatshirts, mugs, pins, laptop sleeves, like whatever you want to get your rad gear. And I'm like, you know, it's rare. I have a white t-shirt on today, but it it's like i'm usually garbed and kind of got we've gotten samples in exactly i'm excited every day sweatshirts are cozy oh yeah so uh lots of merch lots of fun especially if you're in marketing advertising maybe fun if you're not you know oh for sure i

think i think it's great stuff and then we also we also have someone who's been really on your radar a little bit, Charlie Rocket. He's been doing some really awesome stuff to help small businesses that's been affected. He was actually the producer or manager of 2 Chainz or 3 Chainz. I'm, you know, it shows my rap knowledge, but a really popular rap group. He's done a ton of things in LA, but he's been in the last year during COVID. He literally moved out of his house. He got into an RV and he's been driving around helping families and small businesses during COVID. And it's been amazing. I've been watching his journey. And, you know, so I – he's – their RV broke down, and so he's been collecting money.

We were fortunate enough to be able to give to him. And, you know, just watching what he's doing, the families he's impacting. It's just one of those things. We have causes that we give to. We've done some stuff here locally with Greenville United Way. But it's always hard because you don't see where your money goes. And it's not to mean that we won't ever donate and that we're not involved with things that you don't see.

But Charlie documents everything. You see the family he's engaged with. You see where the money's going, because it's been really great watching his journey, and I was just really proud of, you know, that Radical and even the Radcast, you know, could donate a little bit. And just more, less about the donation

and more to encourage people to go follow. He's just at Charlie on Instagram. You should go follow the story. It's fascinating. His van looks super cool. Yeah. The dream machine. They're making dreams come true.

It's kind of like make a wish a little bit on wheels. Right. It's like if Scooby-Doo decided to donate to small businesses instead of the mystery machine. It's like the dream machine. It looks retro and groovy. This is what it's all about now. There's been a lot of suffering from what's happened with COVID, with businesses, with families. And to see people kind of rally, it's really meaningful.

But it's been cool. But here's Riley with the news. Here is the Radcast News. Our first topic for today, we're really going to dissect who we're going to see in the Super Bowl and who we're not going to see in the Super Bowl. So to start out, who are we not? Or no, who will be in the big game on Sunday?

The people that will be in the big game debuting are Huggies, DoorDash, Klarna, Chipotle, and Jimmy John's. That's just some of the names. So I think these are really big names, and a lot of these, again, are their first time debuting in a Super Bowl commercial, which is awesome. And, yeah, I'm, like, excited about this and all the, just the ad.

Well, it's always so fun. I mean, it's become about the game, and then the other game, which is, you know, watching the commercials and, you know, being in the marketing, advertising industry,, you know, watching the commercials and, you know, being in the marketing advertising industry, it's definitely fun watching and seeing things and been lucky enough to be involved with brands that have had commercials on them before. And that's always a fun, exciting time watching, you know,

your spots come on TV. It's, it's amazing. But, but it is interesting. If you look at the names, DoorDash, I mean, you think about stuff that's that has really boomed because of covid doordash delivery carna another one of those um and then chipotle and jimmy john jimmy john's is known for super fast sandwiches delivery you know locally stuff like that so it kind of plays into it and they're that's a growing franchise they have one here in greenville with good sandwiches i do like it oh. Oh, yeah. Not quite as much as Jimmy John's. Sorry, excuse me. Jersey Mike's.

Oh, yeah. Jersey Mike's is my favorite, but not quite. It's good, but I'm more of a Jersey Mike's guy, which is another brand that's booming. I don't know if they're going to have a spot. I wouldn't be surprised if they do.

No, I wouldn't be surprised either. They're probably going to be in competition with Jimmy John's. And then you talk about kind of turning things around. Chipotle. I mean, people have almost forgot where they were two years ago they were having people getting sick in their stores and all this and they've made it with the lettuce yeah it's like a 180 though

yeah uh they've done a good job rebounding and i do enjoy their food as well i mean oh yeah who doesn't like a good burrito gosh i love the burrito bowls it's my favorite i love getting like the lettuce and just all the good stuff. But no, I'm excited for that. There's going to be brands that we're not going to see. So some of the brands that won't be there that normally are there, particularly Budweiser, which we talked about last week, but they're doing more an initiative to bring awareness to the COVID vaccine and to donate more to people that have been affected by the pandemic. Similarly, with avocados from Mexico, Hyundai, Coke, and Pepsi.

So some of those brands we won't be seeing, but they are using that space and that time and that money for the COVID. So we're not going to see Coke coffee on the Super Bowl? I have no idea. I guess they don't want to kill it like they did Coke energy. All right. I kind of beat them up last week with that. Yeah, you really did.

Oh, my gosh. You did. We may not get any business from coke anytime soon but yeah right gee thanks pepsi you know where to find us uh in all seriousness yeah coke the coke energy bombed i think uh so maybe they're figuring give it a chance so let's do some drone deliveries but uh in all seriousness budweiser we talked about this brilliant play for them you know donating the money and you know still love that we talked about this brilliant play for them you know donating the money and you know still love that we talked about in the previous episode it was interesting i do remember the fun

avocados from mexico you know it's never like it never stands out i was like that was the best commercial but they're always fun and engaging oh yeah uh so you know that and hyundai's had a couple good good spots here and there i think like pdy or somebody was in the one last year or the year before. It's always pretty extravagant. Last year was the, actually, the Boston accent guys. SmartPak. Yeah, SmartKa. SmartPak.

SmartPak. SmartPak. SmartPak. SmartPak. Wasn't that Hyundai? I think so. Oh, God. I'm really doing awareness. We don't know the brand. We're messing up. We're messing up. Maybe. I think we're good. But then Pepsi's usually got something fun.

So, you know, we'll miss all those. But Bud has the best. I know we're going to talk about some of our favorites from the past, but Budweiser not being there. Though I think it's brilliant, I am going to miss because they've always got some great spots. Yeah, I agree. It's weird. I always love – I mean, i'll talk about like my favorite

super bowl commercial i feel like of all time is probably the lost puppy uh budweiser commercial where the dog like gets stuck and then gets lost in the sweet little yellow lab i'm very biased i was raised with labs my whole life so it's like labs for me just have a very special place in my heart most people yeah who doesn't love a lab i know but it's like unless you have a puppy of a lab i know those are the people that don't like them right i love when they get older when they're a puppy though they're all over the place but no it's still so sweet oh i just love it but what about you what was your favorite i mean stay on that budweiser line. I mean, Bud's had so many great commercials. I just think we talked about this a little bit pre-episode and thinking about the old frogs. This is probably before a lot of our maybe potential audience's time,

but go look it up, the Budweiser. The frogs are calling it out, and they call us for the classic. The Bud Bowl with the bottles playing football and the commentary it's classic oh yes uh fun just lots of fun stuff like that and then i mean the e-trade e-trade baby commercial funny they had a whole series with the e-trade came out i totally forgot about those until you mentioned it pre-show and i was like those i remember when they came out it's just like i don't and i know that historically that super bowl commercials have been you know warm engaging and and memorable but those e-trade ones i think that was like the first time i i can and i'm sure there was i was a kid there's probably

something that was belly laugh out loud but like the E-Trade ones was like belly laugh out loud oh gosh yeah for sure no those were so funny I had totally forgotten re-looked all the ones up and I was like oh the baby and the throw up and like the I just you just saw me trade my favorite of last year though was Google uh Loretta we watched that pre-episode we both i think we're tearing up as we were watching it a little bit i genuinely cried last year when i saw that commercial i shed a tear too i won't lie i mean i just having had you know grandparents and older and thinking about my wife and like just like want how you want memories and things to stick around that use google assistant the the older man has whose wife had had passed and he was just giving himself reminders of every reason that he

you know loved his wife and memories that they had had and i don't know i thought it was beautiful there was a tissue box beside me to think the thank goodness last year because i was over there like oh my gosh and the other one the love one the um the different uh words of love and like the meaning of it i forget whose brand that was too but i remember that one and it was oh that one was so good too but no all the good ones and i'm excited for this year's this year's commercials and just to see where they go me too yeah fun we don't have any big plans i mean yeah obviously well see that's what i i mean that same boat like it's like it's coveted still but i know so you don't want to go you're nobody's going to i mean maybe

some people are but we're not going to like 50 people on top of each other parties yeah i don't yeah i just i don't know there's too many people you get to sit and watch and relax and gorge yourself with food yeah exactly i'm just gonna make a bunch of guacamole and have some chips i will have some dips or seven yeah yeah exactly exactly i'll start mixing my box of white claw and my in my guacamole and i'll be set i'll be like how many this is kind of like the uh pringles of mixing the flavors right right right i'm like oh the sour cream with peanut butter sure i'm kidding have you ever done that i didn't know but i will okay that's good i will mix some dips together.

That's good. Yeah, that's okay. That's okay. I would have been concerned though, if you actually did the sour cream and peanut butter. No dill pickles and peanut butter. No, that's good. That's good. In other news though, Amazon obviously got a new CEO. If you haven't heard this yet, this is big news. And this is big for a lot of reasons. if you haven't heard this yet, this is big news. And this is big for a lot of reasons.

I think most notably, in my opinion, is because this guy came from the cloud inputting computer system of Amazon and grew this substantially and is now CEO. I mean, what is your opinion? Well, here's my initial thought. This is, you know, an announcement. But Jeff Bezos isn't going anywhere like he's still gonna be on like the board or whatever he's still gonna have a hand on the company right and i'm sure

maybe it's lessening some of his load maybe he could spend some of his billions i don't know but you know but he's still gonna be involved and andy jassy who i had never heard of you know obviously behind the scenes guy must be brilliant if jeff is trusting him but you wonder if he's just going to be like i don't want to say a figurehead but like you know i mean jeff is jeff isn't going anywhere so uh we'll see yeah how much impact it has but it was big news anytime one of the biggest if not the biggest company in the u.s yeah uh has a change and like the second richest man in the world yeah yeah that's a big uh i just don't know

that he's stepping down we'll see what was that thing you saw or something yeah it was uh you know el arroyo who's if you don't follow them on instagram you need to uh it's a mexican restaurant they they're every one of their posts is the their outdoor sign it's just an old sign that they changed they put funny stuff on and it said jeff bezos has stepped down as ceo and he's now officially the prime minister so funny to me i love that very funny that's gold yes gold but uh yeah so he's now the prime minister yes i'm just gonna steal that and just call him that. That's cool news.

We'll see what happens though. Yeah, we'll definitely be following it here. Either way, Amazon's not going anywhere. Not hurting. No. Sometimes the CEO just steps down, the stock just tanks because they think he's going away, really going away. Amazon stock's just fine. Yes, didn't even budge.

Another news, Instagram. i think this is so interesting that just shows you the impact that tiktok is having on social media instagram is now incorporating or they're about to change basically how their stories are laid out to where you're going to be swiping vertically through your stories not horizontally anymore you're going to be going vertically and again this just shows like the impact that TikTok is having because it's just like it's this mindless scrolling now and it's just making use of vertical formatting and it's just crazy. No, I mean, we're in a copycat world.

It's no different than Instagram kind of one-upping Snapchat eventually with stories and everything else. And so now, hey, you know, you see someone being successful. You see how user behavior's changed. People are getting used to it. And I don't even use TikTok as much as most people, I would say. Maybe being in the industry, I do. But, like, I guess the average consumer of TikTok.

But I've even gone into Instagram and swiped a couple times, like, I guess the average consumer of TikTok, but I've even gone into Instagram and, and swiped a couple of times, like thinking, thinking I'm on the other app. Yes. And so, Hey, it's user behavior that's established. It makes sense, but the apps are copying each other. And what's, why wouldn't they, you know? Well, I mean, yes, but I guess it's just interesting to look at it from a viewpoint of who's impacting who in the space. Because I feel like Instagram a couple years ago was outdoing Facebook because Facebook is still a huge player. Don't get me wrong. Obviously, Facebook bought Instagram.

But it's like before that happened, I feel like Instagram just had this like one-upping like Facebook and Snapchat. And now it's like now you see TikTok is like having the power and it's just interesting to see the shift, you know. I know. And, you know, you're going to continue to see that. And I think it'll be interesting how much of an impact it does. I mean, I assume their user testing showing, you know, positive results or whatever. Right, right, right. You know, you've got people used to doing that, wanting to see the next one.

And it actually is, I find, kind of a natural behavior now doing tiktok you know kind of like just so it's mindless but how am i gonna swipe up to get the link i don't know you know what they're gonna do with that yeah that's a good point you know yeah interesting yeah we'll have to we'll follow that here too um our last bit of news robin hood despite everything that has happened last couple weeks they are still debuting their commercial in the super the big game yes and not surprising i mean i would have stayed with the commercial as well now they've taken a beating and i i actually use them i'll just admit this i do buy stock through them and have reconsidered it after what happened them shutting down like and i guess all the reasons and you know they can't really win this situation but at the

same time you know if you're gonna promote yourself as robin hood as the defender of all the small guys and then the small guys come in and drive the stock price up and it knocks everyone batty and all the rich people get all pissed. And yes, I get there's all these rules and stuff. And then you're going to shut it down. Say it louder for the people in the back. I saw I did see there. They were hiring. Someone posted they're hiring a PR person for handling a corporate issue.

Oh, gosh. It was like a listing. It's like they completely didn't know how to handle it. And I'm on the platform. I got some emails. And, you know, they were well-written, and it was okay. But it was like, you know, you can't be Robin Hood and steal from the poor. Except, yeah, you can't put little asterisks on when you're Robin Hood and when you're

not. But look, you know, they say all press is good press. Yeah. There's no such thing as bad press or whatever. So, you know, it's a blip. The company's not going down. It may have hurt them. I'm sure they had a lot of people jump from there, but if you're going to run the commercial,

I don't know. This is going to be about what is the commercial though well right right it better be appropriate like if they're really playing off the whole robin hood thing and trying to to be that and i guess that's the brand so they're gonna have to play off it somehow but the tone of this better be right that's all i gotta say all i'm saying is they better not become the sheriff or King Richard because that's just going to be bad. So, you know, it's like you just got to keep being Robin Hood here. You can't switch up the roles.

No. You're not the sheriff of Nottingham. You're Robin Hood. Come on. We got to stick with it. Yeah, we'll see. If I were them, I would be, you I would let the dust settle a little bit. They have reenacted some of the things that make them good and all that,

but they need some amount of goodwill. I don't know if I were them, they need something to rebound. I don't think they can just bury their head. I'm not saying they are, but they need some kind of, I don't want to call it a gimmick but you know i give everybody a free stuff like something like give everyone a free share of gamestop or something i don't know yeah no it's i mean i don't know that they could give every a million users a 25 share that's 25 million dollars yeah but something like they need to do they gotta dig out somehow so we'll see maybe they'll promote that in

the super bowl ad we'll see i'm sure there was a lot of editing oh i'm sure whoever the agency is managing yeah i'm sure the creative team right now it's changed in the last couple weeks different now it's like but that's it a super bowl week you know a jam-packed episode um yeah hope everyone enjoys the Super Bowl. If you're listening to this in 2025, I hope you can look back and go Tom Brady won or lost here at 43 years old. I hope he wins, but we'll see.

Patrick Mahomes is hard to root against. He's a good guy, too. You know where to keep up with us. theradcast.com and the.rad.cast on Instagram and certainly check out some merch and you'll see the new website soon but we'd love

it if you continue to share the news and get other people to subscribe leave us some reviews good bad or indifferent hey hey we just leave real honest reviews whatever it is we want the feedback. Absolutely. And we really appreciate it.

All right. Enjoyed it, Riley. Yep. 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. Don't wait another minute. Let's get your business going. 864-729-3680.

We'll see you next time.