The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Chase Friedman, Founder of Vanquish Media Group on Brand Strategy And Impact Marketing For Purpose-Driven Organizations

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

Chase Friedman, Founder of Vanquish Media Group on Brand Strategy And Impact Marketing For Purpose-Driven Organizations vanquishmediagroup.com Vanquish Media Group empowers purpose-driven brands to achieve sustainable growth and societal impact through impact marketing strategies and solutions.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. The big podcast tent in the sky.

I don't know why it's in the sky. I'm sitting in my chair. But I don't know. It sounded good at the time. But the technology, the audio rain, the audio hail that will shower down upon you as you listen to podcasts on iTunes will bring you a freshness, an effervescence, an effervescence? I don't know. I flunked second grade. An effervescence.

There we go. Of joy, of knowledge, of learning, and you'll feel it wash upon you and source you this brilliancy of brain intellect, which I have none, but the podcast does. And the brilliant guests we have on the show do. We're going to be talking with an amazing guest today about his deal, what he does. His deal, what he does, he helps people unlock brand profit and purpose, how to be a better brand. So we'll talk about brand strategy, impact marketing, and purpose-driven organizations because God knows if you're an organization that's not purpose-driven,

what the hell are you doing? You're just kind of wandering out there in the dark. Anyway, guys, as always, refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. You know the drill. Do I have to guilt you again? I guess so because there's only new people listening to the show the way it goes. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Foss, youtube.com, Fortress Chris Foss, linkedin.com, Fortress Chris Foss. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter. Follow us over on TikTok. We're trying to be cool over there.

Two really cool announcements that we have on the show. We've booked a lot of CNN guests over the years, and lots of Pulitzer Prize winning guests and journalists as well. We shouldn't diminish The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. But CNN, we have a lot of CNN people on. We just booked one of their top anchors. You may have heard of him. Jake Tapper is going to be on the show in August.

So stay tuned for that. And next week, we have an amazing gentleman on the show who wrote a book called The Patriot's Promise. Master Sergeant Israel Del Toro is on the show. He's burned over much of his body in an accident serving this country. And he had a 100% disability rating. And he's one of the few, he's the first airman with a 100% disability rating to be allowed to reenlist. And cover his book. He's chatting a lot with President George W. Bush.

So it's going to be an honor to have him on the show. As always, we have the most brilliant guests and minds on the show. And of course, none of them are me. Flunk second grade. That should be a t-shirt. Maybe we should sell that. We have Chase Friedman on the show with us today. He's going to be talking to us about his company, Vanquish Media Group. We'll get into some of the things of what he does. Chase is an impassioned brand storyteller and marketing strategist who believes in the potential for businesses to do good and do well. As the founder of Vanquish Media Group, he has bridged the gap between inspired branded content and digital marketing activation, transforming audiences into brand ambassadors.

With a diverse client portfolio, including VC-backed startups, SMBs, and nonprofits, Chase provides strategic brand marketing leadership, resulting in sustainable growth and societal impact. If I can learn to say that. I flunked second grade. Did I mention that? Having produced over 1,500 brand content assets with over 500 million views.

That's quite a few views, actually. It's more than two or three. Resulting in $ million dollars plus in revenue and donations he's proven a potential for any business to profit with purpose and now he's on the show to help you and us do it as well welcome to the show chase how are you glad to be here i'm taking a breath that intro is like a meal i feel like it's a meal oh here we go thanks it's tasty it's got the it's got that chewy, tasty little bit of chocolate.

I think. Yeah. Combo burrito. Yeah. I think it's one step up from taco bell. I think that's a, I think that's a street taco. It's like a,

it's like a Chipotle. Like, you know, it's a three pounder in your belly, but we don't want people to get food. You've done this once or twice, man. Bravo.

Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for coming. We certainly appreciate it. Give us your.com, sir, so people can find you on the interwebs. VanquishMediaGroup.com. Check us out. Check out a little bit of our work, capabilities, impact.

You can also see me on LinkedIn, Chase Friedman. There you go. You didn't butcher it at the beginning of the show, Chris, so thank you very much. There you go. Yeah. Now I'm thinking about burritos so i might call you a different show earlier in the green room but uh i mean i get those fries in the brain but uh so give us a 30 000 overview of your company and what you guys

do yeah for sure so um you know my my mantra as you said my belief is that we have ability to do good and do well in the world right what does that mean you know, my mantra, as you said, my belief is that we have ability to do good and do well in the world. Right. What does that mean? You know, profit with purpose. OK, my company and I help empower purpose driven people, subject matter experts, organizations of all shapes and sizes through brand strategy, storytelling and digital marketing activation to do exactly that, right? To grow your business and your brand and profitability with a deeper impact, whether that's for yourself, your team, your community, your consumers, you can have your cake and eat it too, right? Do good and do well. There you go. And that's the beauty of being an entrepreneur, building brands is being able to give back to communities, or at least it's supposed to be. We're always trying to struggle to get to that perfect union, if you will.

Uh, and, and it seems like today, this matters more than ever before. Like I know that generation Z is really concerned about brands and okay. Does this maybe, you know, whatever their flavor is, help the environment or build better social structures or fight endemic discrimination or different things like that. And so there's lots of different ways that this is important to the consumers as well. It is. And honestly, it's not just consumers, right? This is something that encourages people to buy from, endorse, work for, work with, invest in your company, right? Like this commitment, when we say to brand purpose, it's not just a nicety. It's not just a thing that feel good,

say good, do good, right? This is proven and the data is backing this. Limited to brand purpose, drive business growth, right? The brands that are not committed to it, the brands are not consistent with it, or that are just checking a box and promising and not performing, they're going to be left in the dust, right? This is a stakeholder capitalism at its finest. We're in this movement where, just to throw a few stats, consumers are four to six times more likely to purchase, protect, and champion purpose-driven companies. Oh, wow. Yeah. Consumers are 82% more inclined to make purchase decisions with purpose in mind, right? Or brands that have aligned with their values, two and three will pay more pay a premium on a product billions of dollars for organizations in recruitment, retention.

So how do we combat that? Again, millennials, just millennials, we're not even getting Gen Z, they're going to make up 75% of the workforce in two years. Oh, God, we're fucked. I'm just kidding. I'm teasing you, millennials. Yeah, they want to work for companies that commit to environmental social causes. Now, I get it. A lot of people rolling their eyes.

They're saying, oh, save the world. That's not what purpose is about, right? That doesn't mean you have to be on the front lines of saving the planet, saving the world, right? Meet the problem where it's at. That might be purpose-driven in your own organization with your team and your employees, right? You know, for me, for my company,

I'm not on the front lines of climate change. You know, we're a member of 1% for the planet that gives back a portion of our revenue, but our superpowers, I believe in helping support the people that are rolling their sleeves up, doing big things in the world, right? This is, this is a team effort for all of us. So a lot of people say, well, I don't know the first thing about establishing social justice and combating climate change. Purpose is simply a matter of what you believe beyond the bottom line. It's not just about turning a buck. It's what do you stand for

that's beyond that. In a lot of cases, you can call it triple bottom line. People, profit, planet. Purpose is the fourth if you want to go real deep. Our podcast is a purpose-driven podcast. We're here to make the world more intelligent and smarter and raise the world up and defeat Dunning-Kruger disease.

I think that's part of our purpose. Whatever purpose means for you, it's just stand behind it, be authentic, plant a flag in the sand because people have options. What's going to make me listen to you or buy from you or want to work for you beyond the rest of the competitors out there?

There you go. And then our other purpose is to feed my narcissistic need for attention. There you go. You're doing great. My 14-year audience is going, yeah, that's what's going on. So tell us a little bit more about yourself and your journey. How did you get into this business, this line of work? Tell us about your origin story, if you would.

So big secret reveal, don't come from a branding background, don't come from a marketing background. I'm a storyteller at heart. I started my career working my way up, kind of school of the hard knocks in the film and entertainment industry. From a lowly PA to executive assistant, all the way to writing, directing, and producing independent film and TV. So story and storytelling is in my DNA, right? I got wise. I'm a recovering filmmaker. Yes, because that is a tough and rough business.

You know, you spend years kind of birthing a child or a show or a film out into the world and hoping and praying for the best. But even a great story can fall flat without the right action, right? If you're not reaching and inspiring and activating people in the right way. So I started getting kind of hired by brands to say, hey, we know how to reach people or we have these products, these services, help us tell a better story. So I started consulting for a variety of Fortune 500 brands, lean startups, nonprofits in helping develop their brand identity, their messaging, their storytelling through content, through a lot of different form agents. But obviously there was still a gap. Unless you can connect and transform audiences into activists and ambassadors, you're doing a lot of work for nothing.

So that's what led me to create Vanquish Media Group, kind of a 360 agency where, you know, our model is discovery, getting real clear and understanding who you are as a brand, your positioning, where you're trying to go, identity, how you're going to showcase that and tell that to the world, and then growth, right? So connecting that dots between telling great stories, creating great content, and making sure it is intentionally delivered to people that are seeking what you're offering. There you go. And stories are the things that we collect in life. My audience has probably heard this from me ad nauseum. But stories are the owners operating manual of life.

And your film background, you know, telling great stories is the same thing brands are trying to do. You know, people are trying to do with their own stories when they write books and come on the show or, you know, TV, movie, radio, all these different mediums that we consume, reading books, we're learning stories. We're learning about each other. We're learning how to do better. And, of course, people are using usually brands and products or services to problem solve. You know, like how can I, I don't know, get more vitamin D and my body will operate better? Oh, well, maybe I should buy XYZ brand of vitamin D.

You know, stuff like that. Think of any good story. Think of any good movie you've ever watched, right? There's a problem. There's stakes. There's a hero. There's a guide that helps them along the way the guide being the brand these are frameworks that are like ingrained into our you know in brains right and the truth is people buy on emotion first yes second right so how do we have what is the most powerful tool we have to create a connection, create an inspiration, create a need, a desire? It's through storytelling. And I know that's kind of an overused term today.

It's kind of in vogue. But the truth is it's connecting that story with a clear strategy. You can tell a great story. If you don't have a strategic framework for how you're going to deploy that, implement that across your brand, your business, again, you need to have that kind of conjoined approach for it to really truly stick and land. There you go.

And no one wants the in-your-face selling crap. I mean, I don't know if there ever really was a time for that, but it seems like maybe there were. It was just like, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. You're like, what does that do for me? We've talked about this a lot on this show. Consumers are really more about, what is it about me? I don't care what your employee XYZ is on your page telling me about how he likes his job.

I don't know, maybe that's great for purpose brand stuff, but I'm more first worried about me. Like, what's going to be my experience with your product? And so by telling a story, I go, oh, I can see how I might experience the same thing through the story that's being told about some guy who bought a sleep mattress that heats and cools, you know, and how that changed his life, maybe changed his health, et cetera, et cetera. That's right. No, no, you're spot on. We're

looking for that sort of aspirational transformation. Get me from where I currently am to where I want to be. Right. That's the transportation vehicle, you know, of a great story. And to your point, you know, it's it's it's not a lot of brands kind of tend to overthink it, right? Quick flashback in terms of marketing. Companies used to market based off of a tangible feature of a product or service. Then it kind of evolved to benefit, right? We're in this era of identification, like you said. That is the selling point of a business a product service

how are you identifying with your consumer um and as i said with consumers with employees with investors they want the brand that they're doing business with or purchasing from to align with their values it's a very interpersonal exchange and when people say brand they're like oh you mean my logo no brand is not a. It's not even a story. It is greater than some of its parts. A brand is determined by the perception of your audience. So it's kind of outside in, in a way, which is tough for business owners to wrestle with. Like, you mean I don't control it? Well, you control some of the levers, but ultimately your audience needs to personally resonate with them. Definitely. You know, one thing that's interesting is I'm looking at your website here

and there's a stat, 84% of eligible employees will choose to work at purpose-driven companies and brands. You know, right now we're going through this huge, you know, great resignation and fighting over employees. And, you know, it's crazy.

I mean, technically we're supposed to be in a recession, but we have these jobs being created and people fighting over, you know, it's crazy. I mean, technically we're supposed to be in a recession, but we have these jobs being created and people fighting over, you know, I remember right before 2020 and COVID, you know, we were all sitting around going, should we raise minimum wage beyond $7? No, should we go to $15? No, you know, everyone's freaking out about, no, I shouldn't go so much, you know. And now people are fighting over $30 an hour. It's like crazy.

And you're just like, okay, well, that escalated quickly. But it's interesting to me that people, you know, in so many of these corporate cultures we've talked to and authors and professors on the show who talk about remote working and stuff, you know, being able to keep employees that feel like they serve a bigger purpose. And I know millennials and Gen Zers, you know, they're looking for that as well. They're like, you know, why am I doing this? And how does this help the world? Yeah, no, it's, you're spot on. I mean, look, this, like I said, this is not just a trend, right? This is a, this is a paradigm shift. This is a movement that we're undergoing and it's not going away, you know? So, you know, you already heard the numbers, you know, and this is, this is not, oh, 50, 50. This is the

overwhelming majority of the populace and getting even stronger, like you said, with Gen Z who want to buy from, work for, invest in these sort of companies, you know? And in terms of investments, right? You know, a lot of that stuff is drying up for VCs. But, you know, 77% of millennial investors, they are looking for sort of some degree of ESG, environmental, social governance concerns in regards to their investment opportunities. Right. This is where the movement of a more conscious, a more educated, a more demanding audience of consumers and investors and employers are taking us. And, you know, excellent. So we can do good and still be able to grow our business, have greater margin and market share along the way. There you go. This is kind of interesting stat off your website as well. Consumers are four times to six times more likely to buy from trust and champion companies with a strong purpose.

Yeah, that's the biggest thing I look for. Like even when I'm on Amazon, I have the thing where I select the top four stars or top four or five stars level. I'm usually looking for the highest reviews. And then I'm analyzing those reviews for trust because I know there's a lot of gaming and buying reviews you can take and do. And I do that in a lot of different things that I buy. You know, when I go on Yelp, I'm choosing a restaurant. I usually look at, you know, are these guys trustable? Does it look good?

I even look at the plate and I can tell you if it's a cheap restaurant or not or if it's a place that can, you know, at least plate well. and usually, you know, stuff the plates well, it's actually done by better chefs, even though it may not be expensive. And, and so, uh, you know, we're, we're looking, I think for that trust more and more, especially as, you know, we find more brands that maybe betray our trust or, you know, we buy something off of amazon or we buy something and you know we get at home and open up the box and you're like wait this isn't one i saw or pretty much anytime you buy anything from ikea um no i'm just kidding we lost the key as a sponsor damn it damn it damn it and all five swedish listeners but we do like swedish meatballs please come back

um so you know this is a really important factor. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's and it's not just value signaling, right? You know, you're going, we're going through a lot of this sort of greenwashing, purpose washing from companies that they're just kind of saying the right things, they're checking a box. So again, that's only going to get you so far, you know, that's, you know, I always preach to, you know, clients and peers and partners, you know, how always preach to, you know, clients and peers and partners, you know, how do you bridge the gap between promise and performance, right? It's one thing to just promise, say you're going to do good, put it on your social media, put it in your website,

but how are you activating and how are you committing to it? And again, you can walk before you run. You don't need to do this world saving initiative to be purpose driven. But you better be consistent about it, right? Because when times are lean, times are tough, down economy, and we're seeing it. I'm not going to name names, but you see a lot of big organizations that have previously invested in ESG effort, corporate social responsibilities, even DEI, they're pulling back. They have this knee-jerk reaction. Well, Q2, our numbers were down.

We're going to trim back all that other stuff and just focus on what we do is selling products. And, and, you know, let's see what happens. It's a cyclical effect because I guarantee you, it's going to come full circle around based on, you know, consumer and stakeholder demand. People know that, you know, we're living in this age where information is out there. So, you know, be cautious about not just promising and talking good talk, but be ready to back it up. And there's a lot of money behind this. I believe BlackRock is one of the

venture capital firms or private equity firms, actually, that really pushes brands that they invest in to have a sort of higher purpose to this. Am I right on that? Yeah, absolutely. it's in the mandate to not just generate revenue for our shareholders but do a greater good in the world

and it'll come back to us right creating shared value shared value that's a that's a really key two pieces of words and what you're trying to create. You know, being an entrepreneur, I've always loved the concept of becoming an entrepreneur because usually for most entrepreneurs, they find something that is broken for them. They could either perfect it or it doesn't work as well as it could. And they go, you know, this, this paperclip sucks. It could be better. How can I make it better? Because it's, it can't do a certain thing for me or, or maybe it's just not as good. And I see a better vision of how this could be better. How can I make it better? Because it can't do a certain thing for me or maybe it's just not as good.

And I see a better vision of how this could be. And then usually that translates by them improving it to something that maybe everybody or a lot of people would want to have access to. And thereby, they really can enhance and make a difference in the world. A lot of authors do that sharing their stories uh that come on the show and uh and and then of course the great thing about being an entrepreneur is is a lot of times you can get successful enough and make enough money to give back through charities donations and and that's probably a good question are charities and donating to things another good way to uh signal i mean i don't mean signal in the virtual signaling shallow sense of the word but but you know messaging that hey we're we care and we're

giving back of course you know that's arguably kind of one of the oldest models of philanthropy and giving back right you know that's that's an that's an easy thing to do right partner with a local a regional and national whatever charitable organization foundation um and sure honestly philanthropy kind of giving donations once you get there is one thing but i would argue you know it's one dimensional you know um buy a man a fish a lead for a day teach a man a fish you need for a lifetime right so you can do if you can support along the way and part of identifying what means something for you, your values, your purpose as an organization,

you don't have to go it alone. Find the existing nonprofits that grassroots, that boots on the ground movement that already is doing that day in, day out. They've got the passion and purpose, partner together. It's a mutual win on both fronts, right? You get a lot of that goodwill and support from people that are active on the front lines and they get a bigger platform with your organization to spread their message, right? So, you know, I think you got to not just wait till you made it to give back, but do so along the way. And I do believe, and I've seen it's proven, you know, it will, it will pay it back, pay itself back exponentially. One of the first things we did with my first super successful company was in the second or third month when we achieved profitability, we were a small company,

sweat equity and all that. And so we, we leaned and meaned it and when we started achieving profitability we started giving money to something that was important to me it was primary children in Utah's hospitals child child wing for child abuse and child it was it was their child abuse wing basically it's for children that had suffered trauma and child abuse and domestic violence, et cetera, et cetera. So we started giving money to them. And at first it was just a stipend because we, you know, we were making huge bucks. But it gave us a purpose in our company as entrepreneurs to want to drive for something more. And, well, we weren't signaling anybody.

You know, no one was sitting around going, Hey, these guys do this. So we should care about them. And there was really, it wasn't a story to sell, just the value of giving back and, and having us feel like we were, you know, it made, made a difference when we woke up in the morning after 18 hour days going, going, yeah, well, we're helping somebody in this. And it gives us an extra little

juice to drive a little bit harder. And so I highly recommend that as, as a thing to do. What are, what are some of you guys have been doing this for 10 plus years, 174 campaigns launched, 25 million audiences activated. What have we talked about that, that people should understand more about, about branding and purpose and profit? Yeah. I mean, I think everyone's looking for how to – we're in this growth mindset, right? How do we grow? How do we scale?

How do we get there, acquire more customers pretty quickly? A lot of clients come to me and say, hey, help me with a paid media campaign, a new website. These are tactics, right? In the, marketing realm, these are tactics. If you don't have the foundation in place, that's wasted time and energy and money, right? Shouldn't say wasted, but diminishing returns, right? So I think it's important, I believe in measuring twice cut once, right? You got to get your foundational messaging, positioning, identity locked so that it can inform everything else along the way. I see whether it's a product or a service or a SaaS company throwing money at marketing. It's not working.

Why not? Well, you've got such a convoluted and confused messaging that no matter where you go, what ad, what website, what collateral you're interacting with, it's saying something different. And none of it really says anything. Oh, so there's no consistency. There's no through line. So again, it starts with really brand identity. How are you unique and different? Start with why, right?

The golden circle of Simon Sinek, right? What is your why? Then how are you uniquely positioned to deliver on that why? Business unit. And then finally, it's what, what we do to do that, right on the,

how, why the products and services. So everyone loves to kind of start with, well, our features, our products do this and our services do that. Well, what are you all about?

What do you stand for? There's, there's a, there's an exponential amount of people in your, any industry vertical that I could go to and work with and buy from. So why you, um, it's a great differentiator,

but that only comes with being vulnerable and being willing to look at your, your message, your identity and get your North star so that it can guide all your efforts moving forward. There you go. And I noticed on your website, you have several tools that you offer people, and,

website design and development brand identity uh branded content and then there was something else i saw uh that was i think some workshops or something yeah i mean you know it's it's uh i used to basically as a you know young agency doing all things for all companies right we? We were arguably being led by what the clients needed of us. And after kind of hitting pretty much a low point, financially, structurally, et cetera, soulfully, I had to have that awakening and that wake up call for myself and say, well, why am I doing this?

What is the joy that I get out of this? Like the beautiful story you just shared. And it realized that I want to be able to help empower people on their path and their journey. A lot of people have passion or purpose or maybe both, but are lacking that clarity. So I'm taking what I know how to do in the world and help them elevate in their careers and their lives.

That's the reason, you know, we don't basically pitch the services because yes, we do all those things. It's more of a sequence. It's more of a model for growth. So like I said in the beginning, start with discovery. Discovery is all about creating a brand blueprint, a clear framework for your messaging and identity, right? That strategic blueprint for where you're going to go, how you're going to get there.

Then let's move into identity, okay? What is the outward-facing stuff that your audience needs to see and hear that story, web design and development, videos, content, collateral. Then we move into growth. And those are all the tools and tactics, social media, grassroots activation, paid media. So it's more about the sequencing and modeling of how you're deploying those tools than just any singular or bundle of tools themselves. There you go. And you guys have, it looks like, a couple of books on brand strategy guides, et cetera, et cetera, that people can download and get involved with. Yeah. got some eBooks that are basically kind of archetypes for guiding you on how to think

strategically, the framework for how to build and grow your business in those phases I just outlined. Create your own brand blueprint. It's not rocket science. You can do this for yourself. And if you need help, obviously would love to have a conversation and explore that. But I want to empower entrepreneurs. I'm an accidental entrepreneur, raising my know, had to learn the hard way.

Still learning. So, you know, if we can pay it forward, some of those learnings along the way, it's a win. There you go. So what is the best way for people to reach out to you and explore building a relationship with you folks? Great question. Thanks for that. Yeah. Check us out on vanquishmediagroup.com.

You can look at our resources, download some eBooks, contact us directly. Message me on LinkedIn, Chase Friedman. I'll give you my email. I'll drop the email in here. Hey, chase at vanquishmediagroup.com. There you go. Let me ask you this, because a lot of people in the marketing space are talking about AI, you know, chat GPT and all this, some of the, some of the marketing firms are coming down and saying, no, we don't want people using that because of plagiarism concerns.

And, and the kind of the human, you know, I love chat GPT. I've been having fun with it, but one thing I can tell is that it's a robot, like it, it spits out stuff.

And, and you know, I have to, if I want to use something from it, from a marketing aspect, I have to go and inject my humanness to it. What little of it there is. That humor, that pathos.

Yes, my little bit of humanness and maybe some humor that's like, hey, some bot didn't fully write this. And there's some people who... As you're plugging the chat TV. I need to do that. You know, taking my little eagle hands going.

But any thoughts you have on AI and the contribution and brand building? And is I think the question I'm trying to get to with as many segues as I can possibly interject. And I just put that one there. So there's the irony. See what I did? And I just did another. And we'll try and see if we can get off the train here of segues. Is there a risk that brands that maybe use AI and chat GPT or other variations, that that could hurt their authenticity, that could hurt their – if I'm a brand who talks about authenticity and different things like that and values, can that hurt my brand?

In the book, like a weapon, it's a strong weapon. In the wrong hand hand it could do yeah it could do some damage and backfire for sure you know i look at i look at ai and i think it's got some incredible capabilities um like any new and emerging platform you know much like data in marketing right too much of any one good thing is is is just results in kind of bad news you know we have more access to data than ever before. That doesn't mean more data, the better, right? It's how do we make synthesize

and get real true human understandings and narratives and insights from said data, right? So it's a great starter, right? It's a great starter from your CHAPS GPT or whatever you're using, but it's gotta be put through a humanist lens, right? You've got to put your personality, your touch, your mustache twist into it to make it approachable. Because, you know, like any of these technology-driven companies or platforms, great capability, great use case when used correctly, but not as an end game, not as the end result, right?

When I'm looking at a blank page and I need to start something, great, great idea starter, but then allow it to kick you off. Same thing with data, right? I'm not presenting pages of data to my clients. I'm distilling that into, here's the three actionable points we're seeing that are going to help you take the next steps there you go you know and this brings me into an interesting discussion because i i'm seeing more and more use of brands using ai bots talking to me yeah and i'm trying to remember the effect of what it's called there's a certain effect that it's called in the mental brain and we've we've had some authors on we've talked about it uh but anytime i see something that's acting robotic it sets off a very small uh fight or flight sort of

mechanism in me and and i recognize you know we recognize when something's not right about another human being talking to us or what we perceive is another human being talking to us and so i've seen brands starting to use these these uh you know ai humanoids to talk to people and sell stuff yeah and it really bugs me and i and i asked one of the scholars we had on him uh who's a neurologist i'm like why does it bother me like am i just you know i have issues and we all know i do uh ask my psychiatrist um the uh but but he told me i can't remember the effect, but there's actually an effect that we have in our brain and the reason we don't trust it. And I, and I, and I think what brands have to be concerned about is that effect, uh, affecting

their storytelling, affecting their, cause you know, I think some are going to look at it and be like, Hey, we can tell better storytelling if if we we have this bot that does it instead of a human being and to me it just makes the whole thing richer because if you if you have a bot that's talking to me that's ai and it's feeding me some sort of ai drivel that sounds like you know that staccatic uh and i does this, blah. And then I have a human being where I can see that this human being not only is a trust factor better, but there's also that thing in your brain that makes you go, hey, I trust this a little bit more because it's not a bot. Yeah, I mean, I think you're talking a lot about, you know, you're talking about empathy from one standpoint. Ah, empathy. It's kind of also you know look

at in in movies right you know you know creating special effects that you know creating that unbridged uncanny valley and yet as good as it is in a lot of cases the audience still there's something not quite human or right about that you know that animal that or that that explosion or that whatever it might be um but you're absolutely right you know our brains animal that, or that, that explosion or that, whatever it might be. But you're absolutely right. You know, our brains are in this constant kind of really calorie saving mode where they're going to shut out anything that's not serving them. That's not serving us. We're, we're bombarded by information. If we process every bit of information that came our way, our heads would freaking explode, you know? So it's a filtering process. And I think what you're describing in the neurologist is going to know better than I,

but you know, it's wrestling. Do I let it in? Do I keep it out? What do I, what, what do I do with that? Because it sounds right, but there's something not quite humanist about it. Um, and I create, I think that creates a lot of tension and friction, um, that, you know, look, there's a WGA writer writer strike going on right now about this central issue a part of it anyway um i sincerely hope that robots don't ever take fully over story generation because like i said that is so hardwired in our beings and our dna since the dawn of time yeah on caves that I don't believe AI could or should ever beat us at.

Definitely. I mean, what stories do they have? They didn't walk four miles to school and snow back and forth either way. We created them. It's just about, it's only what we feed them, right? That they were gurgitated out in different ways.

So not only is it not going to be as like pure and authentic, but you're not going to get anything truly revelatory or new. And I think, I think what I'm trying to say too, is people are going to be suspicious that they're going to pick it up. I finally looked this up. It's called the uncanny Valley effect.

Yep. Yep. And, and, you know, I, I had friends that were, that were doing these videos and for

marketing of this ai talking to him and i called him up and i'm being like i'm getting fight or flight off that i'm really freaking the hell out and i don't know why and then we had this neurologist author on and uh he's like yeah that's the uncanny value effect that's it is not natural for you to to see that and and when you see that a human doesn't operate in the proper way, you start going, uh, I might want to run. Yeah. So it's kind of like when you, you know, meet the Terminator for the first time and half his face is tore off or he's moving through the bars, you know, and you're like, this seems a little not normal and I'm going to go this way. Yeah. So there you go.

So we got a little bit of stuff in there for the podcast. Anything more you want to tease out before we go? Yeah. I mean, look, the last thing is I think this is everything we've been talking about, you know, purpose and profit and all that good stuff. You know, I'm on this kind of mission to try and hopefully pay it forward. But I've kind of learned along the way and I'm constantly learning more about what that means. But the misconception out there is, you know, when people think purpose, they think nonprofit, charity, foundation. The truth is purpose and profit are not mutually exclusive. Right.

It's no longer just this, you know, nice to do, feel good, nicety. It's become, you know, a mandate on all walks. And what a great mandate to have. And if this is a trend, and I think it's obviously more than that, what a great freaking trend to have where we have the ability to, you know, do good in the world and do well for our businesses and ourselves, right? So why wouldn't you want to hop on that train? And if you want to learn more, let's chat about it. This is a little bit of a fallback question, but I just had a little bit of epiphany as to this also probably plays into experience and feelings that people get with your products. You know, there's the famous Disney experience that, you know, all the employees at Disney are

supposed to have, you know, a carte blanche to enhance their visitors' Disney experience so that they have good feelings. You know, things like that nature where people want, you know, you get the Amazon box one day after you order it and it's perfect and there's a guarantee. There's kind of an experience there to that whole prime delivery sort of thing, at least it used to be. Well, yeah, I mean, look, I think you use your experience. Customer experience is, you know, can never be underrated.

There's a reason why Apple gets to charge. People aren't, people aren't buying Apple phones because tech, because they're selling you the tech specs or because it's the best performing phone on the market. They're selling you an aspirational identity back to identity right you know think different it's for the outliers the rebels the creators the you know you are buying into that brand and that's the beauty

of brand when done well that allows you to increase your margin and market share right you can produce something for the same exact cost but you you've got a better, well-executed brand. Boom. There goes your margins and market share. Same thing with Nike, you know, or any of these premium products and goods. And that's what's really cool. You know, Louis Vuitton, and I'm blanking on the stakeholder, you know, richest man in the world, you know, who owns a luxury brand of goods. We're talking about luxury premium product here.

We're not talking about commodities. How did they get there? Through awesome branding and aspiration identity that allowed them to charge astronomical profit margins. They're not producing anything fundamentally different. So again, getting back to the experience that someone has as a proxy for the brand, they'll pay more, they'll be more loyal, they'll keep coming back. That's what you want. There you go. There you go. Think about your experience and what your, uh, what your experience

is with your, uh, customers. You know, one of the things I used to do, and I think I wrote about this, was I would call in anonymously to my office, you know, because there's a whole web of, you know, hundreds of employees that we'd have. You know, you go to the receptionist, you go to sales, and then you go to customer service, you go to processing department and all the little departments that are running around. And it was always a test for me to see you know everybody knows when i call in and i'm like oh that's that's the boss chris foss on the phone let's make sure we take care of his dumb ass uh but you know if when i call in with like my voice changed or i'd have a friend call in i just sit there on speakerphone and listen in to how they're treated and how they would go through the how their experience was through my through my thing in fact i think there needs to be a law passed that people on cable companies and GoDaddy and other service, I like GoDaddy, need to,

their boards need to sit and before they can do any meeting, they have to sit down and go through, they have to try and reach themselves through the front system first. I love that. Bezos is notorious for that, right? Like he would kind of keep an empty seat at what board meetings and say, you know, that's the customer, right? So yeah, like we're not the biggest, we're not the, you know, the biggest machine agency out there, biggest team,

biggest staff, biggest overhead. We're lean and mean and small, but mighty. But where I think we arguably went over most is is experience and service right like being willing to kind of roll up our sleeves get our hands dirty get in the trenches with our clients um to do some good and i think that goes a long way there you go there you go well this has been really insightful and fun to have you on chase i'm gonna have to work on my uh curling of the mustache sort of thing do i need to have a monocle when i do that i mean it certainly helps but you got to get that kind of little spin at the end of that i need to i need to spin the knees in the mustache yeah yeah and then that could be on brand for you work it

let's see i need to have like a monopoly sort of top hat and the and the cane and monocle. I'm going to work on this. I developed it. What do you need to laugh? I need to have that whole... It's in you, man. I feel it. I'll give you a mini-me too. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Chase. Give us your.com so we can find you on the interwebs, please.

Vanquishmediagroup.com and find me, Chase Friedman, us your.com so we can find you on the interwebs please vanquish media group.com and find me chase friedman on linkedin there you go and uh take and check them out folks you can also download a lot of their freebies they have on their website so check that out as well uh be sure to refer the show to your family friends and relatives we're putting out two to three shows a day a weekday i should say now 1400 episodes 14 years uh i was talking about blueberry the other day the guys who host us and i said who has a podcast longer than me and they like uh us the management we've been doing it for 18 and i'm like damn so we're pumping out a lot of technology if you guys aren't listening to all these episodes, we are keeping score and we're telling Santa. And at the end of the year,

he's made a list and you might not get the new PS six or whatever. I don't know what the hell's going on at Christmas. Bravo, man. Bravo. That's an epic run. Yeah. You might end up on the radar.

Oh, we love our audience. Go to good reach.com. For the Christmas, youtube.com. For chest Christmas, LinkedIn. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss, youtube.com, Fortress Chris Voss, linkedin.com, Fortress Chris Voss. Sign up for the big linkedin.com newsletter,

and there's the AI podcast. Check that out as well. And try and follow us on TikTok. We're trying to be cool over there, and it's not working because we're old, and we're not cool. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other.

Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.