Are You Focusing Your Marketing Efforts on Efficiency or Effectiveness with Gee Ranasinha

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Business Chop podcast where I guest speak on meeting the challenges of

[00:00:05] entrepreneurship as well as offer tips and advice on business, marketing, technology and

[00:00:12] more.

[00:00:13] Whether you are a newbie or seasoned professional, this episode is for you.

[00:00:18] I am your host, Audrey Wiggins.

[00:00:23] Let's chop it up.

[00:00:30] Hello chop squad.

[00:00:31] I'm excited to be with you again.

[00:00:33] Thanks for stopping by so we can chop it up.

[00:00:35] Our guest today is G. Ronacina.

[00:00:37] I am so excited to have him with us today.

[00:00:41] He's hailing all the way from France, but his business is global.

[00:00:45] They're located in nine countries around the world.

[00:00:48] In a little pre-green room conversation, I found out that just south of me in Columbus,

[00:00:53] Ohio, he's got a team there.

[00:00:56] That's exciting to know.

[00:00:58] G has been in marketing since the days of dial up internet and AOL CDs.

[00:01:04] Boy, do I remember those good old days.

[00:01:09] If only we had a little more knowledge.

[00:01:11] You know, G, we probably would be even further ahead.

[00:01:14] Absolutely.

[00:01:15] Oh my goodness.

[00:01:16] Yes, I do remember that.

[00:01:18] But today he's the CEO of Caxeno, which is an award winning marketing agency.

[00:01:24] Over the past 16 years, Caxeno has helped over 400 startups and small businesses in over

[00:01:29] 20 countries grow awareness, reputation, trust, and most importantly sales.

[00:01:36] All right.

[00:01:37] He's a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

[00:01:40] G is also a visiting professor at two business schools teaching marketing and behavioral

[00:01:45] economics to final year MBA students.

[00:01:49] That's awesome G.

[00:01:51] Nothing like passing on that knowledge to the next generations.

[00:01:55] Although it's probably some...

[00:01:56] I love doing it, Audrey.

[00:01:57] I love doing it.

[00:01:58] It's a lot of work.

[00:01:59] The pay sucks.

[00:02:01] Oh yeah, right, right.

[00:02:02] Oh my goodness.

[00:02:04] But I tell you, you know, paying forward and all the rest of it, all altruistic reasons,

[00:02:08] yes, okay.

[00:02:09] But it's great to get in front of these people who are helping shaping the minds

[00:02:16] of the next generation of business executives, right?

[00:02:19] And if I can sort of impart some kind of knowledge as to what marketing is actually

[00:02:25] about rather than the BS that we're exposed to from various social media channels and

[00:02:32] certain celebrities who I will not mention, the better for everyone, I think.

[00:02:38] You know, the knowledge is power, isn't it?

[00:02:40] So having that information can only be a good thing.

[00:02:47] And like I said, I've been doing it for 10 years now.

[00:02:50] It seems a crazy old fast time flies.

[00:02:54] And each time there's the classes around sort of 50 students.

[00:02:58] So that's not a bad rate.

[00:03:01] We've got 500 people.

[00:03:03] If I've sort of influenced the mindsets of 500 people, that's not bad.

[00:03:06] Yeah.

[00:03:07] That's not bad going at all.

[00:03:08] That's right.

[00:03:09] Yeah, just duplicate it yourself.

[00:03:10] But we're going to hear more from you, G, on the other side of this message.

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[00:03:44] Before we get into the depths of our conversation, I want to share a couple of fun facts and

[00:03:49] things that maybe some folks don't know about you.

[00:03:53] I was excited to read that you met Steve Jobs not on one occasion but two occasions.

[00:03:59] That's awesome.

[00:04:00] That's stalking, isn't it?

[00:04:01] No, not at all.

[00:04:04] I met him once in...

[00:04:05] The first time I met him was in 2001.

[00:04:08] The company I was working with at the time had a pretty close relationship with Apple

[00:04:13] at the time.

[00:04:17] This was purely when they were in Cupertino Infinite Loop and I met him then.

[00:04:22] And then he came to Paris in 2003, I believe, and gave a keynote and met him there as

[00:04:33] well.

[00:04:34] He was very courteous and shook my hand and, hey, how are you doing?

[00:04:40] How have you been this and the other?

[00:04:41] But clearly there was somebody whispering in his ear just five seconds before he was

[00:04:47] introduced to me because you can imagine how many people that guy meets day in, day

[00:04:52] out.

[00:04:53] Absolutely.

[00:04:54] I wish I would have been in that number.

[00:04:56] Another fun thing about this is that you can memorize a shuffled pack of playing

[00:05:01] cards in order.

[00:05:02] What's that about?

[00:05:06] What goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas.

[00:05:07] That's what they say.

[00:05:08] Okay, there's a little AI involved.

[00:05:11] This is well before AI.

[00:05:13] I just have one of those memories.

[00:05:18] I remember visually rather than any other way and so it was something...

[00:05:25] When I was a kid or certainly when I was much younger, I wanted to sort of go for

[00:05:29] the world record of remembering a number of cards in shuffled cards in order.

[00:05:34] Then I found out that the actual record at the time was about like six packs of cards.

[00:05:40] Oh, wow.

[00:05:41] So, yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

[00:05:43] We'll take the one.

[00:05:45] We'll take the one.

[00:05:46] Yeah, well, yeah, even the one takes a while and I'm certainly rusty, haven't

[00:05:50] sort of had a...

[00:05:51] Because you need to practice.

[00:05:53] You need to keep the assistive of the brain to do that sort of thing.

[00:05:59] But it's actually not too hard.

[00:06:01] Okay, okay.

[00:06:02] Well, that's fun.

[00:06:03] And outside of that you love to cook.

[00:06:05] I love that.

[00:06:06] I love music.

[00:06:08] And what's this ridiculously expensive high-five?

[00:06:11] What is that?

[00:06:12] Yeah, I'm a...

[00:06:13] What kind of stereo system?

[00:06:14] Yeah, I'm a bit of a bit of an audiophile geek.

[00:06:19] So I'm like one of those crazy people who spends stupid amounts of money on interconnecting

[00:06:26] wires to glue boxes together because I think they sound different and you can have better

[00:06:33] ones and worse ones.

[00:06:36] So yeah, it's mainly because I have a lifelong love of music and it led me to try to find

[00:06:46] the best possible way to reproduce that music as I could for my budget obviously.

[00:06:54] And that sort of got me diving into this rabbit hole of audiophilia and going into the very

[00:07:03] small depths and nuances of how to optimize a particular audio system and the influences

[00:07:10] that contribute to an effective audio reproduction that moves you, that emotionally moves you

[00:07:17] from a state.

[00:07:20] It's amazing how evocative music can be, right?

[00:07:22] Yeah.

[00:07:23] And I think that the song on the radio instantly transports you back to the time in your life

[00:07:28] when that piece of music was important to you.

[00:07:32] And that emotional connection is something that I'm addicted to, I suppose.

[00:07:37] And I think, well for me, the clearer the depiction of that reproduced music is, the

[00:07:45] stronger and the more evocative the emotion is.

[00:07:48] Yeah, definitely.

[00:07:49] What's your favorite genre?

[00:07:52] Probably piano jazz from the 40s and 50s up to about mid 60s after that.

[00:07:58] It sort of goes a bit weird for me.

[00:08:01] I can't handle that sort of stuff because that's the stuff I'm trying to play as well.

[00:08:05] I'm a frustrated pianist.

[00:08:07] Don't have enough time, hours in a day to actually play as much as I want.

[00:08:12] Well really?

[00:08:13] No, that's true, because my piano is sitting behind me.

[00:08:15] I can't tell you when I touched it last.

[00:08:20] I think we go through peaks and troughs, right?

[00:08:23] You have sudden, you know, the mood takes you and then for some weeks or months you sort

[00:08:28] of really get into it.

[00:08:29] And then life takes over and you go off on different tangents.

[00:08:33] Yeah.

[00:08:34] And all of a sudden you realize you haven't touched a piano for a couple of months or

[00:08:37] even longer.

[00:08:38] Exactly, exactly.

[00:08:39] I know one of my, I know we're getting way off topic here.

[00:08:43] But one of my dreams has always been to be like during the holiday season they

[00:08:48] used to have the grand pianos and the large department stores down in the main

[00:08:53] lobby you walk in and there was always someone dressed up playing the piano.

[00:08:57] Always wanted to do that.

[00:08:59] That's still stuff coming back in public places.

[00:09:02] I mean, well maybe it's just because I'm looking at the wrong social media

[00:09:05] channels but I see lots of generally upright beat up pianos in public

[00:09:10] places, stations and restaurants and that sort of thing.

[00:09:13] Yeah.

[00:09:14] People coming up and playing them.

[00:09:15] Yeah, and actually that's, everything's pre-code was I don't quite remember the

[00:09:19] year 1718, not 1718 but it's 2017, 18.

[00:09:27] But that concept of the beat up pianos and they painted, it was a campaign that

[00:09:31] they did around the city and they were actually outside in strategic places

[00:09:36] and coming home from work one day I saw one.

[00:09:39] I'm like, I'm going to do it.

[00:09:40] I'm going to do it.

[00:09:41] It wasn't even a real song.

[00:09:42] There was some kind of like, just a practice thing, scales, whatever,

[00:09:46] something my brother had taught me and I put my phone down.

[00:09:50] I was so crazy.

[00:09:51] I'm like, why didn't I put the phone where I can, they could see my hands?

[00:09:54] But anyway, nonetheless I played it and I put it out there on YouTube.

[00:09:57] So I'm playing one of these pianos but that was...

[00:10:00] Oh great.

[00:10:01] Yeah, that was a thrill.

[00:10:03] Yeah.

[00:10:04] All right, so what's our topic for today?

[00:10:08] It's not new.

[00:10:09] So topic is upright pianos in public places.

[00:10:13] Let's go for it and how that helps our businesses move forward.

[00:10:16] I love it.

[00:10:18] Mark, it's all about marketing, right?

[00:10:20] So we were marketing ourselves out there.

[00:10:22] All right, nothing wrong with that.

[00:10:24] Exactly.

[00:10:25] Yeah.

[00:10:26] So you're, um, Texino, let's talk about Texino and right off the rift,

[00:10:31] you know, going through some of the information you don't like to be

[00:10:35] necessarily called a marketing or a digital marketing agency.

[00:10:39] What's behind that thought?

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[00:10:51] Learn more at bit.ly slash elevate the letter you July 2024.

[00:10:57] I pushed back on the idea that we're a digital marketing agency primarily

[00:11:01] because I think using the word digital today is redundant.

[00:11:08] It's superfluous.

[00:11:10] You know, I mean, you talk about a digital marketing agency.

[00:11:13] Nobody ever talks about an analogue marketing agency, do they?

[00:11:16] Absolutely.

[00:11:17] That's right.

[00:11:18] Right.

[00:11:18] So today everything is digital.

[00:11:22] TV is digital, billboards are digital, printers digital.

[00:11:26] So why the distinction?

[00:11:29] But even more than that, I think the issue is by categorizing

[00:11:34] an agency as being an inverted comm is digital.

[00:11:39] Does a disservice to its work and its outlook,

[00:11:43] because it's like you're putting a barrier up

[00:11:47] when in effect what we should be doing is bringing barriers down.

[00:11:50] Right?

[00:11:51] Right.

[00:11:51] Right.

[00:11:52] I mean, calling it a digital, calling it a digital agency is

[00:11:58] like calling it an electrical agency.

[00:12:00] You know, yes, of course, we use electricity.

[00:12:03] Correct.

[00:12:03] But that shouldn't be what defines us.

[00:12:05] Right?

[00:12:06] Right.

[00:12:07] I don't think it's helpful or healthy to think about digital marketing.

[00:12:15] It's marketing in a digital world.

[00:12:17] And thinking those two positions are very different.

[00:12:20] And I don't think they're interchangeable because I

[00:12:24] think the phrase digital marketing agency is not only outdated,

[00:12:27] but it puts a focus on the wrong thing.

[00:12:32] Because the idea of any marketing effort,

[00:12:38] whether from an agency or directly from a business,

[00:12:42] is to use the most appropriate channel of communication

[00:12:46] to address the target audience group

[00:12:49] that we're looking to influence.

[00:12:53] And that's it.

[00:12:55] Yeah.

[00:12:55] And if we consider an agency as a digital marketing agency,

[00:12:59] I mean, you might as well go back down the road of saying

[00:13:01] www in the URLs.

[00:13:03] Right?

[00:13:04] I mean, come on.

[00:13:04] Who says www anymore?

[00:13:06] Really?

[00:13:06] I mean, it's a sign of somebody's digital expertise

[00:13:10] if they say www.

[00:13:11] I think it's a giveaway, isn't it?

[00:13:14] Truly.

[00:13:15] Truly.

[00:13:16] And so that's the reason, I think,

[00:13:18] because the whole point is marketing,

[00:13:20] whether it's a digital execution

[00:13:27] or whether it's a different kind of execution is irrelevant.

[00:13:31] The channel is irrelevant.

[00:13:33] So by defining yourself and saying digitally,

[00:13:35] automatically defines you as being not traditional.

[00:13:40] But a traditional marketing approach

[00:13:42] may be exactly what's required to influence the target

[00:13:46] audience group that you're trying to influence.

[00:13:50] So I think it's far better to look further upstream

[00:13:53] and actually come up with communication and messaging

[00:13:56] that resonates in the target minds of the people

[00:13:59] that you're trying to attract first.

[00:14:02] And then look at the best way to execute on that idea

[00:14:07] in terms of which channel that may be.

[00:14:10] Because at the end of the day, digital isn't a noun.

[00:14:13] It's a channel.

[00:14:15] Yes.

[00:14:15] Yes.

[00:14:17] OK.

[00:14:17] So everyone, including myself, who are marketers,

[00:14:20] let's go back and look at our statements and descriptions.

[00:14:25] This is the descriptions.

[00:14:27] And make sure you're linked in profile.

[00:14:29] Let's go back.

[00:14:30] I'm going to shut mine down right now so no one goes to it.

[00:14:33] But that does make sense because sort of in the beginning,

[00:14:37] it's like, OK, we offer traditional marketing

[00:14:39] and we offer digital marketing.

[00:14:41] And it's like, OK, so how do I say this

[00:14:43] and have all these marketing words in this one statement?

[00:14:47] So can we imagine in a couple of years time, maybe already,

[00:14:51] that there are going to be AI marketing agencies out there?

[00:14:54] So that does that.

[00:14:55] Oh, I've already seen it.

[00:14:56] Yes.

[00:14:56] So does that mean that they're no longer using human intellect,

[00:15:02] planning, forethought and experience anymore

[00:15:06] and they're just letting the whole thing run AI

[00:15:09] because that's what they're inferring.

[00:15:11] Right.

[00:15:11] You're right.

[00:15:12] Words matter.

[00:15:14] Words do matter.

[00:15:15] Absolutely.

[00:15:16] I mean, this is another soapbox object of mine already.

[00:15:18] So I'm sorry to go off tangent yet again.

[00:15:20] We're going off tangent quite a lot here, aren't we?

[00:15:22] I do apologize.

[00:15:23] I don't know about this.

[00:15:24] Words matter.

[00:15:25] One thing that re a soapbox object of mine,

[00:15:27] and I have a lot of these,

[00:15:29] one thing that really winds me up are people who think

[00:15:32] that they're designers or know about graphics

[00:15:37] and they use the word font when they're supposed

[00:15:41] to use the word typeface.

[00:15:42] Hmm.

[00:15:44] OK.

[00:15:45] You cannot, the word typeface and font are not interchangeable.

[00:15:50] Words matter.

[00:15:51] Yes.

[00:15:52] Yes.

[00:15:53] And by thinking that it doesn't matter

[00:15:55] because you're trying to communicate with a customer,

[00:15:58] doesn't help the industry as a whole

[00:16:01] and does a disservice to the professional relationship

[00:16:05] that you're having with your client.

[00:16:07] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:08] Yeah.

[00:16:09] It's like saying, oh, well, you know, CMYK RGB

[00:16:12] is all the same.

[00:16:12] Doesn't matter.

[00:16:13] Doesn't matter.

[00:16:14] Well, what the heck?

[00:16:15] Doesn't matter.

[00:16:16] Yes it does.

[00:16:17] Words matter.

[00:16:18] Yes.

[00:16:19] That's definitely.

[00:16:21] Yeah.

[00:16:22] Anyway, another useless piece of information.

[00:16:25] Font was actually used to be spelled with a U in the middle.

[00:16:28] It was F-O-U-N-T.

[00:16:31] OK.

[00:16:31] It was the spelling of font.

[00:16:32] OK.

[00:16:32] Look it up in Wikipedia if you don't believe me.

[00:16:34] Yes.

[00:16:34] Oh, definitely.

[00:16:36] Chat squat.

[00:16:37] But sorry, that was going off with attention.

[00:16:39] But yeah, it was actually it was your fault

[00:16:41] because you said words matter.

[00:16:42] So you were the one who triggered me.

[00:16:44] Oh my goodness.

[00:16:45] The host with the least.

[00:16:46] I think.

[00:16:48] Or the most.

[00:16:48] Too many words.

[00:16:49] All right, yeah.

[00:16:51] But that was OK because it's still related.

[00:16:53] It's still related with that.

[00:16:55] Yeah, so while we're talking about that though,

[00:16:58] what are some new trends that you see coming up

[00:17:01] in the next five or 10 years?

[00:17:04] Well, we can talk about AI to look how it's going home,

[00:17:07] can't we?

[00:17:09] If that's where we want to go.

[00:17:11] But I think what's more interesting to me

[00:17:14] and it's more as a as I suppose as a as a reaction

[00:17:19] to the to the growth and popularity

[00:17:22] and unfortunate dependency on machine learning

[00:17:26] on large language models is concentrating

[00:17:29] your marketing efforts and output results

[00:17:32] based upon effectiveness rather than efficiency.

[00:17:36] What's happening now within the marketing industry

[00:17:40] that's been happening for a while.

[00:17:41] It's nothing particularly new is that we're focusing

[00:17:46] the core competencies around marketing to be around efficiency.

[00:17:52] I think we have to sort of take a step back here

[00:17:55] to sort of define what I mean by efficiency

[00:17:57] and what I mean by effectiveness.

[00:17:59] OK, so if we talk about efficiency,

[00:18:03] OK, efficiency is how you're spending your money, right?

[00:18:09] Primarily, efficiency is dealing with ratio.

[00:18:17] Efficiency is about how much input you make

[00:18:21] to deliver a particular output, right?

[00:18:25] So what happens is.

[00:18:28] Is that we're looking to create

[00:18:33] the same result output.

[00:18:37] For a reduction in time, effort, resources, whatever.

[00:18:42] But the effectiveness of that end product

[00:18:45] is not being questioned.

[00:18:47] Effectiveness in contrast.

[00:18:51] Is about how well we do something,

[00:18:54] how well we achieve our goal, right?

[00:18:56] How successful we are in delivering what we set out to do.

[00:19:01] So if our target is to close 100 new sales

[00:19:07] and we end up closing 125 new sales,

[00:19:12] then we all congratulate ourselves, pat ourselves on the back

[00:19:16] and go forward on the next campaign.

[00:19:19] That's effectiveness while in an efficiency mental model,

[00:19:26] an economist would look at that and say, well, clearly.

[00:19:30] We overreached our target so we could have got.

[00:19:36] The same result by spending less.

[00:19:39] We have the same result for reducing the number of chance

[00:19:42] for the same result of doing less creative or whatever.

[00:19:46] But the effectiveness of that campaign then becomes eroded

[00:19:52] because as we all know.

[00:19:55] Creativity isn't a switch.

[00:19:57] So the marketing process to get to the point

[00:20:04] of an effective message and communication

[00:20:07] is not a rational, logical, sequential process

[00:20:12] like it is in the end of the other part of business.

[00:20:16] I mean pretty much every other part of business.

[00:20:19] If you turn the dial to the right,

[00:20:24] the machine goes faster and more widgets pop out the other end.

[00:20:28] And your job as a senior manager is to produce

[00:20:34] more for less or at least more for the same, which works

[00:20:38] when the when every stage of the process is known,

[00:20:43] measurable and the outcome is always the same.

[00:20:46] Right? When you run your machine in in the middle of January,

[00:20:51] it's pretty much the same as when you run your machine

[00:20:54] the beginning of July.

[00:20:55] It produces, you know, 10,000 widgets an hour or whatever.

[00:21:00] OK. But the thing about marketing is that the

[00:21:05] the subjects of our marketing efforts

[00:21:10] are not fixed in in time and space.

[00:21:15] Then then they're not rational, logical beings.

[00:21:19] We as human beings, we are very, very far from being rational

[00:21:25] and logical in context.

[00:21:27] We don't do the same things each time, every time.

[00:21:31] OK. To sort of explain in more detail,

[00:21:37] I suppose you could say that, you know, we're not.

[00:21:41] Well, there's a there's behavioral scientist by Jill Bolt,

[00:21:45] Taylor, very famous.

[00:21:47] I think she's did a TED talk.

[00:21:49] She once said that actually human beings, we like to think ourselves

[00:21:54] as thinking beings that feel

[00:21:57] while actually we are feeling beings that think quite profound, to be honest.

[00:22:01] Very nice. Right?

[00:22:03] So the point is that the effective communication is very much based upon emotion,

[00:22:09] on feelings, upon context, upon mood, upon behavior,

[00:22:14] upon lots of things which don't have rational, logical, quantifiable metrics

[00:22:21] like they do within a Newtonian physics based world

[00:22:27] like engineering or manufacturing or even R&D.

[00:22:32] So by applying logical logic and process

[00:22:38] and rigor to a discipline of business which cannot be defined as such,

[00:22:45] we're losing the effectiveness of marketing.

[00:22:48] Why time and time again over the last number of years

[00:22:54] has the efficacy of digital advertising been going down?

[00:23:01] You would have thought with all of these algorithms

[00:23:05] and machine learning and optimizing this that and the other

[00:23:09] that the effectiveness of a digital ad should be off the scale

[00:23:14] compared to putting an ad in your local paper or bus shelter or billboard or whatever.

[00:23:21] But it's not why?

[00:23:24] Because we're optimizing for the audience instead of for the creative.

[00:23:30] We're optimizing at the wrong end.

[00:23:33] Oh, wow. Got the data, but we're not using the data cleverly.

[00:23:37] I was measuring the wrong stuff.

[00:23:40] So this is what I mean.

[00:23:44] When you go to look at how to measure,

[00:23:51] how do I best spend my marketing budget?

[00:23:55] All right. What happens is many people who ought to know better,

[00:24:00] to be honest, if they've got marketing in their job title

[00:24:03] or people who just don't know because they don't have marketing in their job title

[00:24:07] and they think marketing is another division of the business just like any other.

[00:24:11] They're conflating effectiveness measurements.

[00:24:15] You know, how well a piece of creative has performed

[00:24:18] with efficiency measurements, which is how we spend our budget,

[00:24:22] which are two very different things.

[00:24:24] OK, right.

[00:24:26] So if you're confused about which is which, it's easy to clarify.

[00:24:29] It's easy to know which is which,

[00:24:31] because basically anything that has the word per in the name

[00:24:35] is an efficiency metric, right?

[00:24:37] Cost per click, cost per lead, cost per view, right?

[00:24:42] That's an efficiency metric.

[00:24:44] In the same way, anything that has a word return in this name

[00:24:48] is probably a efficiency metric return on investment,

[00:24:52] return on ad spend and so on.

[00:24:55] But effectiveness measurement metrics

[00:24:59] are not things like number of leads or number of conversions

[00:25:03] or page views or that sort of thing because we don't have a comparison.

[00:25:08] Nobody does any comparisons to say what was compared to what.

[00:25:13] So we've got 100 leads as a basis of after running these campaigns,

[00:25:20] we've got X amount of leads that come off that

[00:25:23] or X amount of conversions, X amount of clicks, X amount of whatever we're measuring, right?

[00:25:28] That's all great.

[00:25:29] But what are we comparing it to?

[00:25:32] Nobody does that comparison, right?

[00:25:34] They're all one sided efficiency based measurements.

[00:25:38] Which are incapable of speaking about effectiveness.

[00:25:43] Because none of them can answer the simple question of compared to what, right?

[00:25:48] You know, if you want to improve efficiency on an ineffective campaign.

[00:25:54] Right, it doesn't scale, right?

[00:25:55] 100 percent of zero is still zero.

[00:25:57] Right?

[00:25:59] The only way you can measure effectiveness

[00:26:02] is by measuring what in marketing, we call it marginal incremental revenue.

[00:26:08] In other words, how much revenue did that particular marketing tactic generate for us

[00:26:15] over a whatever particular timescale makes sense for the tactic

[00:26:20] compared to us doing nothing?

[00:26:22] Because unless you compare it to something, that base level,

[00:26:28] you're going to attribute everything to it.

[00:26:30] Supposing you've got a seasonal business where everybody buys in June and July

[00:26:34] and you happen to run that campaign during that time,

[00:26:38] you're going to get an uptick in sales anyway.

[00:26:41] So what are you measuring this against?

[00:26:44] You don't have that level of clarity.

[00:26:47] And then there's a question of latency in marketing.

[00:26:50] Right.

[00:26:51] As I don't need to tell you because you have your own marketing agency.

[00:26:54] So I know I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here.

[00:26:57] I get it, right?

[00:26:59] But it's OK.

[00:27:01] But marketing is has a latency effect.

[00:27:05] Right. So whatever we do now today in marketing

[00:27:11] doesn't see a tangible uptick in terms of the audience

[00:27:15] for a number of days, weeks, months, even years into the future.

[00:27:19] And the reason why people are buying today.

[00:27:23] Is not because of the campaign that we ran yesterday or last week or even last month.

[00:27:28] It's based on something that's happened a lot earlier in time.

[00:27:32] If I look and I go on a buy a can of Coca Cola,

[00:27:36] I don't buy cans of Coca Cola, but supposing I was buying cans of Coca Cola, right?

[00:27:41] I didn't buy that can of Coca Cola because of that ad I saw on the bus

[00:27:45] shelter yesterday, right?

[00:27:47] I bought that can of Coca Cola because of the ads I've seen every day

[00:27:53] for the last 25 years of my life.

[00:27:57] Right. It's ingrained so that when I do,

[00:28:00] when I'm in the mood for buying a overly sugared carbonated drink

[00:28:07] I include Coca Cola as one of the

[00:28:11] possible category players in that consideration space,

[00:28:17] which is all marketing can do is put you in that

[00:28:21] in that decision making space so that when people are looking to make a decision,

[00:28:25] you are one of those three, five, seven

[00:28:29] players that they're considering to purchase.

[00:28:32] So that was that was a very long answer.

[00:28:34] I do apologize.

[00:28:36] I feel like I was in class.

[00:28:38] It's what I'm going to learn.

[00:28:40] Right. Yeah, we're definitely here to learn so that was that was OK.

[00:28:44] And.

[00:28:48] Oh my goodness.

[00:28:50] So I'm sorry I've thrown you now Audrey, haven't you?

[00:28:52] You know where you were looking at?

[00:28:55] Where do we go?

[00:28:55] Where do we go?

[00:28:56] I think we go back to upright pianos on station.

[00:28:59] I think that's where we go.

[00:29:00] Absolutely. Well, I just turn around and I'll plug up.

[00:29:03] Not plug up.

[00:29:04] I'll turn on my you know, my keyboard back there.

[00:29:07] Sorry.

[00:29:08] That's OK.

[00:29:09] OK, what I mean?

[00:29:10] Your original question was about how marketing is changing.

[00:29:13] OK, no, but that but that made but that made sense.

[00:29:16] So you could you brought it home to us and and also thought

[00:29:20] you know, in the last point you made about planning that that seed is,

[00:29:23] you know, it's like when I went as, you know, the lifecycle of a customer

[00:29:27] or the buying process.

[00:29:29] So that's just as important in the same way that you know,

[00:29:32] that's just as important and it still plays into our efficiency

[00:29:37] or our effect and the effectiveness of what we did,

[00:29:40] like you said, six months ago.

[00:29:42] And and you know, what's what's.

[00:29:46] What's missing more and more from the.

[00:29:50] The vast majority of marketing that we see coming out from everywhere.

[00:29:56] Is emotion.

[00:29:59] Everything seems to be just very blatant matter of fact, listing features.

[00:30:04] There's there's there's no actual time spent because we've exorcised

[00:30:09] creativity out of the equation, right?

[00:30:12] There's no actual time being spent doing creative campaigns anymore.

[00:30:16] You you look at a Super Bowl, right?

[00:30:20] How many ads are run at a Super Bowl?

[00:30:22] Fifty maybe.

[00:30:23] Maybe maybe seventy five. OK.

[00:30:26] But the ones that are remembered.

[00:30:29] Are what two, three, maybe four and those are the ones that resonate.

[00:30:34] Yeah, they tell a story. They tell a story.

[00:30:37] They resonate at the heart because everybody, no matter what you who you

[00:30:41] are, what you're selling, what you're buying, what type of customer you are.

[00:30:46] We buy with our heart.

[00:30:48] We buy emotionally. OK.

[00:30:52] And this is a commodity purchase, right?

[00:30:54] I mean, you know, if you're buying if you're buying paperclips,

[00:30:57] I don't think anybody particularly cares, you know, sorry, paperclips.

[00:31:01] Manufacturers have the ones with little not notches.

[00:31:04] So I mean, right? OK.

[00:31:06] Maybe you want one. Yeah.

[00:31:07] Maybe you want to splash out and get the multicoloured ones, right?

[00:31:11] But otherwise, if you if you're not selling commodity, right?

[00:31:15] You're buying emotionally.

[00:31:18] Anything that you buy and that includes B2B, right?

[00:31:21] Yeah, you're buying emotionally.

[00:31:24] So doesn't it make sense to have market to have marketing messaging

[00:31:30] that plays upon the emotional consideration sets that buyers are going

[00:31:34] through when they're looking to select the type of product or service

[00:31:39] they're going after, yet we don't bother. Yeah.

[00:31:42] Right? And I don't understand why that is.

[00:31:45] OK. Virtually everything we buy, consciously or unconsciously,

[00:31:49] everything we buy, we buy emotionally and then we post rationalise

[00:31:54] logically, we buy from the heart and be justified from the head.

[00:31:58] Right? Right. Let me give you an example.

[00:32:01] The example I always use is his shoes. OK.

[00:32:04] So I'm walking down the street and I pass a store.

[00:32:08] A real store, bricks and mortar store. OK.

[00:32:11] And I see a pair of shoes in the window and I look at those shoes

[00:32:14] and I think, wow, they look really nice.

[00:32:16] Let's go in and see.

[00:32:18] Let's see these shoes.

[00:32:19] So we go into the store and they see if I have my size

[00:32:22] and I put these shoes on and they're Audrey, they look awesome.

[00:32:26] They're absolutely great. OK.

[00:32:30] So I have a look at these shoes and then I turn them upside down

[00:32:34] and then I look at the price.

[00:32:36] Oh, my goodness.

[00:32:39] That's not what you're really saying.

[00:32:40] It's called sticker shock for a reason, isn't it?

[00:32:42] Right? Yeah.

[00:32:44] So what happens at that point?

[00:32:46] What happens at that point is like you said earlier on,

[00:32:49] we tell ourselves a story.

[00:32:51] Right? We start justifying the reason why we should be able to buy these shoes.

[00:32:57] Oh, look at how soft this leather is, Audrey.

[00:33:00] It's super soft.

[00:33:01] It's like a soft as a baby's tushy.

[00:33:04] It's it's going to it's never going to hurt me.

[00:33:06] I can wear these things all day.

[00:33:07] They're going to be so comfortable.

[00:33:08] Right? And then look, look at the workmanship.

[00:33:10] Look how well these things have been made.

[00:33:13] They're going to last me like three times longer than I know.

[00:33:16] This is an investment that I'm doing.

[00:33:18] I'm not buying shoes.

[00:33:20] Actually, I'll be buying less shoes over time.

[00:33:23] So I'm saving money for goodness sake.

[00:33:25] Yes. Yes.

[00:33:27] This is the story we tell ourselves. Right?

[00:33:29] And then what happens is.

[00:33:33] There's there's a battle. OK.

[00:33:35] Whether the heart beats the head or the head beats the heart.

[00:33:39] If the story is strong enough.

[00:33:43] We say, yeah, I'm worth it.

[00:33:44] I've had a bad day.

[00:33:46] I've had a bad week.

[00:33:47] You know, the boss was really all over all over me last week.

[00:33:53] I need a treat.

[00:33:54] Right? Whatever whatever the story is that we tell ourselves and we win.

[00:33:58] OK? Yeah.

[00:34:00] And and that's the point.

[00:34:03] Great marketing plays on the heart aiming to solicit an emotion.

[00:34:09] You know, like they say, the heart wants what the heart wants. Right?

[00:34:13] And it comes down to a part of the brain called the amygdala.

[00:34:16] Are you familiar with the amygdala?

[00:34:18] No. No, the amygdala, it's it's part of the limbic.

[00:34:22] I'm not that you would be Audrey, you know, unless you're a brain surgeon.

[00:34:25] You probably know how many people know about the amygdala. OK.

[00:34:28] The amygdala is is the is one of the oldest parts of the human brain.

[00:34:32] It's part of the limbic system of the brain involved with emotions.

[00:34:36] OK. And other reactions to stimulus.

[00:34:39] So for instance, the the amygdala is concerned with a fight or flight response.

[00:34:46] OK.

[00:34:49] So fear is one of those responses that the amygdala is associated with.

[00:34:54] But these but the amygdala is because it's so old,

[00:34:58] it doesn't understand speech.

[00:35:01] It deals purely in the secretion of chemicals which we interpret as emotion.

[00:35:07] OK. And I'll give you another anecdote here.

[00:35:12] They've they've got there's plenty of empirical evidence to show to to to back this up.

[00:35:17] They ran some tests where a group of subjects were exposed to

[00:35:27] hard cell salespeople in a in a in a in a contrived situation.

[00:35:32] OK. They were they were selling them

[00:35:34] a product which they thought was novel, interesting, innovative.

[00:35:40] And a half of the salesman were,

[00:35:44] let's say, consultative, informative, educational.

[00:35:49] While the other half were salesmen from from the old days, if you like,

[00:35:53] you know, the hard cell, you know, put in the door

[00:35:57] encyclopedia type salesman that we remember from our past.

[00:36:00] OK. And naturally enough, many of the people

[00:36:05] who are subjected to the so-called hard selling.

[00:36:08] Didn't end up buying.

[00:36:12] And when they were interviewed afterwards to say, well, you know,

[00:36:15] why didn't you go ahead and and go with the sale because it was a good price

[00:36:19] and you like the product?

[00:36:22] The response, the overwhelming response from the from the control

[00:36:26] from the group was, well, I didn't want to go ahead with it

[00:36:30] because it it didn't feel right.

[00:36:34] The word they used was feel.

[00:36:36] Isn't it interesting?

[00:36:39] It is. Right.

[00:36:40] And, you know, quite often, you know, if you're thinking

[00:36:43] of buying a secondhand car or some other sort of a purchase

[00:36:47] and you and you don't go ahead with it and you walk away.

[00:36:50] Quite often, you know, it's your gut.

[00:36:52] You feel like it's your gut telling you not to. Right.

[00:36:56] It's actually not your gut.

[00:36:57] It's your amygdala.

[00:36:59] It's your amygdala telling you something

[00:37:01] because there's something that doesn't quite ring true

[00:37:05] in the presentation of the information of the product

[00:37:08] that has been presented to you.

[00:37:11] So this is what marketing is about.

[00:37:13] It's playing on emotions.

[00:37:16] So my contention is that we should be less data driven.

[00:37:21] And we should be more amygdala driven

[00:37:23] because it's what is amygdala is what sells.

[00:37:27] OK, you look at successful advertising going back 50.

[00:37:31] Years, intros and heartstrings are emotions, positive or negative.

[00:37:37] Right, right, right.

[00:37:39] Now, the G how can we get in touch with you

[00:37:42] so we can go even deeper in these in this context?

[00:37:46] You can either reach out to me through the website,

[00:37:49] which is kexino.com, K-E-X-I-N-O, or the best way,

[00:37:53] far best way to to reach me is through LinkedIn,

[00:37:56] which I'm sure you'll leave a link in the show notes

[00:37:59] as to how to get hold of me or LinkedIn.

[00:38:02] And then we can have a conversation.

[00:38:03] It's been a great conversation, and I wish we can just go on,

[00:38:07] you know, for hours or maybe we have to do a part two.

[00:38:10] We'll do a part two.

[00:38:11] I'll bring my piano.

[00:38:12] Oh, yes, yes, yes.

[00:38:14] We'll have a sing-along afterwards.

[00:38:16] Right, right, right.

[00:38:17] I'll take the computer over to the.

[00:38:19] I was going to say drag the piano,

[00:38:20] but I'm going to take the computer over to the camera.

[00:38:23] It'd be a bad way round of doing it. Yes.

[00:38:25] Right, yes, exactly.

[00:38:27] But Chop Squad, I know we've

[00:38:29] G has dropped a lot on us today.

[00:38:31] So definitely, you know, maybe listen to this podcast

[00:38:35] a couple of times and get in touch with him on LinkedIn

[00:38:38] and visit his website and see how we can go deeper

[00:38:40] into some real marketing and, you know,

[00:38:42] change those concepts around and thinking about the stories

[00:38:45] in the heart instead of, OK, my product can do this,

[00:38:48] this, this, this and this and you have to buy it.

[00:38:50] That's not that's not the way

[00:38:51] and G has really showed us a better way.

[00:38:54] So thank you, G.

[00:38:55] Really appreciate you.

[00:38:56] My pleasure, Audrey.

[00:38:57] Thanks very much for having me on.

[00:38:59] Yeah, you're welcome.

[00:39:00] Thank you for listening to another episode of the Business Chop.

[00:39:04] It is my hope that you were able to gain usable information

[00:39:07] from today's episode and that you will download

[00:39:10] and share this podcast.

[00:39:11] Be sure to plug into our guests,

[00:39:13] go through their website and social media channels

[00:39:16] to see how they can help you further through their products

[00:39:18] and services as well as plug into our website

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