B (1:18)

But that was good.

A (1:19)

Is it always or just.

B (1:20)

It has, yeah. It's been in the show notes.

A (1:22)

I appreciate that.

B (1:23)

Beginning of time.

A (1:24)

Is that why it's growing?

B (1:26)

Yeah, probably. Let me tell you, people coming to mind being like, let's dip out. His is.

A (1:30)

Thanks, sir. Appreciate it.

B (1:32)

Today we are going to do something super fun. We are going to do smash or pass. Do you know that? I'm assuming you know what that is.

A (1:39)

I'm aware.

B (1:41)

It is a game that only TikTok plays, apparently, because that's the only place that ever comes up on my for you feed, where you basically, I'm going to give you rapid fire a bunch of different topics and concepts, and you tell me, smash or pass. Smash if you like it, pass if you're like, nah, that's not for me. Ready? All right, first one. AD fatigue isn't real, but emotional fatigue is. Smash or pass.

A (2:02)

Smash.

B (2:04)

I would agree with that advent.

A (2:05)

Not real.

B (2:06)

Not real. Not real thing. Emotional fatigue. 100 is. Okay. Number two, you can't optimize an emotion that was never there.

A (2:12)

Oh, smash. Smash. Smash. Smash. Double smash.

B (2:15)

Okay, I see this.

A (2:18)

I see this all the. The time.

B (2:20)

Okay.

A (2:21)

And I actually see it from that, like, follow me and like, write copy similar to mine for their brands.

B (2:30)

Interesting. Okay.

A (2:31)

Without understanding. Like, hey, no, no. The reason that worked for our customers is because our customers felt this way already. If you're trying to copy and paste inspiration from another brand.

B (2:40)

Yeah.

A (2:40)

That doesn't have that core emotion, then it's not gonna work out. So that's a big one.

B (2:46)

Yeah. You can't optimize an emotion that was never there. Oh, I agree with this. Okay, number three, the most expensive place to realize your idea is weak is in post production.

A (2:56)

Pass. I disagree.

B (2:58)

Okay, now I need to know why.

A (3:00)

Because I love the most expensive place to learn your idea was wrong was after you've been spending money on those ads for six months.

B (3:08)

Oh, okay. All right. I would agree with that.

A (3:11)

I've seen that where people, like, see some signals in the business that something is good and they invest in it for months and months and months and then it's not.

B (3:20)

Yeah, yeah. All right. I feel like that post is kind of saying exactly what you just said, but all right, I get it that you're saying, like, way after you've actually ran it for quite a while, you're still trying to make it work and it's not. It's not working. All right, all right, so number three was pass. Number four, you can't a B test your way out of irrelevance.

A (3:36)

Don't know about that.

B (3:37)

What? Oh, this is so interesting. Now I'm learning a lot about you right now because I'm just like, I agree with this 100.

A (3:44)

Like, I mean, it depends what you're testing. Depends how well you're testing it. Like, yeah, I.

B (3:51)

Look, how irrelevant are you?

A (3:53)

Well, like, I launched a brand this summer that never existed before, so, like, by definition was irrelevant.

B (4:02)

Okay.

A (4:02)

Ran a handful of tests and now things are working better than ever. So, like, I don't know.

B (4:06)

All right, okay. Context is important. Is really what this episode is going to teach you. Okay, number five, AI should replace your four hour Reddit scroll, not your copywriter.

A (4:16)

Yeah, Smash Agree.

B (4:18)

Please just have chat, do analysis for you. Don't replace your copywriter. Go get a good coverage. Okay, number six, the new angle that you just tested probably started as a slack message about six months ago. You Just didn't track it.

A (4:33)

Maybe. I think more more accurately, it started as a customer review two years ago, and it took you too long to pick up on that insight.

B (4:41)

Okay, yeah, I would agree with that. Customer, like data. Customer insights are hard to track. And I know that a lot of people are putting stuff in GPTs these days, but even inside the GBT, you've lost probably good 60% of the insights that you have because you're just not looking at them. Okay.

A (4:57)

Yeah.

B (4:57)

Number seven, every ad account has analytics. Almost none have idea tracking. Some people tracking ideas.

A (5:09)

Some people think they're getting better at it, but I don't think they're doing it right. People are tracking concepts.

B (5:18)

I do not count a concept as an idea.

A (5:20)

Yeah, me neither. So that's why I think it's like, well, kinda, but not correctly.

B (5:25)

Okay. Yeah. All right. Some of these. What's in the middle of, like, pass.

A (5:29)

What's in the middle of that smash after 11 whiskeys? I don't know.

B (5:34)

All right, number eight, great creative dies when ideas come from memory instead of reality.

A (5:41)

No, I disagree wholeheartedly.

B (5:43)

Oh, okay, Interesting. All right, tell me why.

A (5:45)

I think some of my most inspired copy comes from, like, nostalgic and fond memories in my life.

B (5:52)

Oh, okay. All right, so see, that I would agree with. I think here, when I was coming up with these ideas and trying to figure out, like, which ones I wanted to post which ones I did it. I was trying to figure out a good way to communicate the fact that, like, marketers rely too much on bias memory. Like, I think I know this about my customer. Yeah. Instead of just, like, this is the reality what your customer wants now. So biased memory. I would. Okay, all right.

A (6:14)

Yep.

B (6:15)

Content again. All of that. When results drop, don't blame the platform. Blame the sameness.

A (6:22)

Yep. Smash. It's never the platform's fault, and it's very rarely the platform.

B (6:27)

Very rarely. Number 10, iteration is maintenance, not growth.

A (6:33)

Yeah, disagree. Hard.

B (6:35)

Interesting. Okay, because, like, tell me why. Tell me why.

A (6:38)

Think about the example from OG this year.

B (6:41)

Let's pause for just a minute. Quick breather while your brain digests whatever tangent we were just on, we need to talk about something that BFCM made painfully obvious this year, and that's the fact that Andromeda isn't just a cute little algorithm. Tweak. If two ads feel exactly the same, and I'm talking, like, same Persona, same pacing, same emotional arc, meta's just gonna toss them into the same bucket and let them fight to the death, that means that creative diversity isn't just a nice to have anymore. It's kind of the entire game. And this is exactly why I've been leaning so hard on Motion to help me make good creative decisions this year. A few of the brands that I run creative strategy for ran their entire Black Friday account through Motion's AI tagging system this year. And what came out was kind of brutal. Ads we thought were distinct got grouped together. Angles that we swore were entirely different were basically identical. In Meta's eyes tagging system picked up on those blind spots that most teams would have never caught in the kind of chaos. Things like recycled Personas, fatigue loops, 2018 hooks that were just dressed up as new ideas. Motion caught all of it. The Analyze this report agent became our eyes and ears this year. And it took all the chaos of Black Friday. Tens of thousands of spend, 40 plus AD variations. 5 Competing hypothesis. It took all of that and distilled it down into a clean. Do more of this. Stop doing that report heading into 2026, this is going to be the new creative reality. I'm talking depth, variety, distinctiveness. All of those things need to be inside your ad account. And Motion helps keep up with all of that instead of like just steamrolling you with it. If you want to see how Meta is actually reading your creative, then go try the AI tagging feature or run the Analyze this report task in your own Motion account. It's a two minute test that will either confirm your instincts or expose them. So go start your 14 day free trial at Motion App dot com. That's Motion App dot com. And now back to the show when.

A (8:27)

We changed it from whatever it was to like earned.

B (8:34)

Oh, treat yourself, reward. Or like you deserve. Deserve.

A (8:38)

Yeah, we changed it from you deserve it to you've earned it.

B (8:40)

Interesting.

A (8:41)

That was, I think same word, iterate, iteration, growth, 100. But like let me tell you, exact ad though it's rare. Yes.

B (8:51)

Okay, interesting.

A (8:52)

It's. It's probably happened twice in my career where I can say like, see, this.

B (8:58)

Is the reason why I'm like, okay, happened twice in your career. So technically speaking it did happen, but it's not common. That's outlier day on the.

A (9:06)

Shouldn't bank on it. Like that shouldn't be the strategy.

B (9:08)

Yeah, all right, all right, I'll change. Number 10. Number 10. I'll change. Okay. Yep. Number 11. Most testing is for the founder Smash.

A (9:15)

Most people don't have a strategy behind their testing at all.

B (9:17)

Thank you. I was like, please agree with me on this because I've seen Too many people go after this and I'm like, my God, I'm sorry, founders, I love you all out there, but please, most testing that you bring into your teams is literally just a test that you randomly thought up in your head. It doesn't apply to their strategy or what they're working on growth wise. So be careful. Don't do that. Okay, number 12, the moment you start designing for approval, you stop designing for attention.

A (9:40)

Oh, that's a bar smash.

B (9:42)

Okay, all right, I'm gonna keep that one because I'm like, this is me here. I'm like, stop, people. But anyway, number 13, creative fatigue is often. Leadership fatigue does disguise. Dis.

A (9:53)

Smash. A thousand times.

B (9:54)

Okay. Yeah, leadership.

A (9:56)

The amount of times that, like, founders are, like, bored and like, just want to do something new when there's so much that's working already.

B (10:03)

Yeah, yeah, be careful with that, guys. Oh, God. Okay, number 14. Creative teams don't need more brainstorms. They need better listening systems.

A (10:11)

Smash. A thousand percent.

B (10:13)

Stop brainstorming, guys.

A (10:14)

Ideas aren't your problem. Especially with chat now when you can go make a thousand ideas immediately.

B (10:19)

Thank you.

A (10:20)

Ideas are not the problem.

B (10:21)

Yeah, research.

A (10:22)

Insights are the problem.

B (10:23)

Okay. Oh, gosh, what are we, 15? The problem isn't a lack of data. It's a lack of curiosity about why the data changed.

A (10:31)

Yep. Smash.

B (10:32)

Yep.

A (10:32)

Yeah, love that.

B (10:32)

I would agree, man.

A (10:33)

You gotta curiosity and underrated attribute for marketers.

B (10:38)

That's also an underrated soft skill you can definitely build. Okay, we're gonna have to talk about, like, skills for media buying and marketing soon. Okay. The average team knows where their edits are. They don't know where their ideas came from.

A (10:50)

Yep. Smash. 100%.

B (10:52)

Yeah. A lot of times I see this, their ideas are typically coming from somebody else, usually a competitor, and that's not a good way to generate ideas. Okay, number 17, you don't need to move faster. You just need to think sooner.

A (11:05)

Whoa.

B (11:05)

You don't need to move faster. You just need to think sooner.

A (11:09)

I definitely agree with the first part. Speed. Speed, while is great for, like, organizational effectiveness, I think prevents deep thinking.

B (11:22)

Yeah, I would agree with.

A (11:23)

Yeah, love that.

B (11:24)

Agree. Beautiful ads can hide a creative drought.

A (11:27)

Oh, yeah. Really good.

B (11:29)

Yeah.

A (11:29)

Yeah, really good.

B (11:30)

That one. Smash. For sure.

A (11:31)

I think at times I fell into this at OG because, like, our creative looked so good.

B (11:35)

You had good creative. You also had good photographer, like, good design team. Everything.

A (11:40)

JV and Chris, like, absolutely killed it. Still are. And I think, like, there would be weeks where like, I was slammed and just do More of the same.

B (11:51)

Yep.

A (11:51)

And it's like, yeah, probably could have been better than that, but because everything looked so good, it was like, well, it'll probably be okay.

B (11:59)

Yeah. Overall, I would say try really hard not to just use that as a crutch because it can cause all kinds of weird things in the ad account. Okay. Number 23, ad performance mirrors team mentality.

A (12:12)

Oh, yeah. I'll be changing this to overall business and life performance. But yeah, 100.

B (12:17)

Yes. Everything your team thinks is going to come out in that ad account. So be ready for it, because if you got somebody in there that's odd or has very strange ways of thinking about ads, it's gonna affect everything. So. Yeah.

A (12:29)

By the way, this is a reason, like, I think you need buy in from everyone on your team for what you're.

B (12:33)

Yeah. Like, because consistency.

A (12:36)

Yeah. Descent will pop up in performance. 100.

B (12:40)

That's tough too, especially if you have a lot of people who have, like, different, like, ladles in the pot. Okay. Number 24. Production is the easiest part of marketing and the most over engineered.

A (12:50)

Yep. Smash.

B (12:51)

I have seen some crazy creative strategy like Documents. I'm not even like, flowcharts on flowcharts on flowcharts on flowcharts from somebody who's like, we need to nail creative strategy production. And I'm like, you can do basically all of it in a spreadsheet, guys. A very simple one.

A (13:07)

Yeah. Google sheets are my best friend.

B (13:09)

Sheets. Yep. Thank you. Shout out to Google Docs. All right. The best ads are unsexy, uncomfortable, and unmistakably human.

A (13:18)

I'm gonna pass on unsexy and uncomfortable.

B (13:22)

Okay. Yeah.

A (13:22)

Because you smash on unmistakably human, you're being uncomfortable.

B (13:26)

Bullish on uncomfortable. Uncomfortable as in, like, they make you think it's kind of what I was trying.

A (13:32)

No, see, sometimes I want my ads to make you feel like you're at home.

B (13:35)

Oh, okay. All right, I can see that. I can align with this one. All right, so 25. What was it? 11 is what you gotta check your 10 or 11 we gotta change. Number 25, I would agree with you. Okay. Number 26. Empathy without data is directionless. Data without empathy is just noise.

A (13:52)

Yeah, it's a bar smash.

B (13:53)

Empathy is pretty important in marketing these days because the GPTs can't do it.

A (13:57)

Yep.

B (13:58)

Number 27, the customer already told you what they want. You just keep looking too hard at outlier data to notice it.

A (14:03)

Facts, facts, facts, facts. You already have all of the answers to double your business, by the way.

B (14:09)

Thank you.

A (14:10)

You Already have them.

B (14:11)

You have them already. Stop looking for them.

A (14:14)

More work than you want to put in.

B (14:16)

Oh, it does? Yeah. Because now it comes down to execution. It comes down to, are you good enough to communicate what you already know?

A (14:21)

Skill issue. Yeah.

B (14:22)

Oh, I. I need to write a lot of posts on 20.

A (14:25)

That is, like, the best part about our current state of marketing is, like, all the answers are. Are out there.

B (14:32)

Oh, my God.

A (14:33)

You have people like us and the operators.

B (14:36)

Yes.

A (14:36)

Guys that are like, we're giving you everything.

B (14:38)

Yeah.

A (14:39)

The answers are out there.

B (14:40)

Yeah.

A (14:41)

You just got to get really good at executing them consistently.

B (14:43)

I just exploded that diamond mine, man. The diamonds are sitting on the ground now. You don't have to go dig them up anymore. They're laying all over the place. Stop walking past them. All right, I'm out. I'm out again. You cannot scale creative intuition, but you can scale the inputs that feed it.

A (14:59)

Yes. This is. Oh, this is like. This is so good. Because I've really struggled to, like, I don't always want to be the one that writes copy for the brands.

B (15:08)

It's exhausting.

A (15:09)

I'm the cmo. I've got a team to manage. But I found it really hard of, like, well, I think I write really great copy and it works. So, like, what do I do? I love the idea of, like, starting with, what am I digesting? Like, what are my inputs to be able to write good copy? Make sure all the team has those. Their copy will naturally get better and better over time.

B (15:30)

Yeah. This is something I'm looking at for Tether, too, because I'm stuck in that same spot of just, like, it's all coming down to Sarah. Just because that's where my brain is, and that's like, all the products have been built on my brain. So. Systems. Gosh, people, systems. This year. God, get. Okay, number 30. Most ads fail because they're answers to questions that no customer asked.

A (15:49)

Yeah. Smash bar. Such a bar.

B (15:52)

Thank you.

A (15:53)

There's so many ads out there that, like, the founder or the marketer thought sounded cool. Oh, my God. And it's like, hey, you're not speaking to anyone. Nobody's listening to.

B (16:02)

You're not talking to anyone.

A (16:03)

No one cares.

B (16:03)

Yeah.

A (16:04)

No one's ever thought or felt this. You thought it sounded cool.

B (16:08)

Yeah. Nobody asked that question, so maybe don't make an ad on that. Ooh, number 30 is good. I might keep that one. Okay. Number 30.

A (16:14)

You know the brand I just sent you an ad of on Instagram. This sounds cool, but this sounds cool. But doesn't say a single thing.

B (16:22)

Good luck with that. Enjoy that. For your marketing team. Um, 33. You are overanalyzing performance and under analyzing inspiration.

A (16:30)

Whoa, whoa. This is a part where, like, I've seen people under analyze performance, too, and not see what's actually going on in the business. So I struggle with the first part of it, but I think under analyzing inspiration.

B (16:42)

Inspiration. Where did it come from? Is my question. Yeah, and some of these. These are biased because they're from Sarah, but, like.

A (16:49)

Well, no. And I think, like, what I want to call out here, this goes back to the idea thing. Like, everyone takes an ad that works and is like, go make more of these. Your first thought needs to be, why? Why did it work? Where did this idea come from?

B (17:06)

Where did it come from?

A (17:07)

Why did we.

B (17:07)

Why did we think it was a good idea?

A (17:08)

Yeah. Why is it now working? Once you answer that, go make more ads.

B (17:14)

Yes.

A (17:14)

But I see so many times people will make a good ad, not really understand the core reason it's working. So then they go make ads that kind of look and sound and feel like it, but completely flop.

B (17:26)

Oh, my gosh. Yes. We only have a few left. This was a great list. 34. Curiosity is your only renewable creative resource.

A (17:36)

Curiosity is your only renewable. Oh, yeah. Amazing. Amazing.

B (17:43)

This one was tough for me because I kept swapping out curiosity and, like, intuition.

A (17:49)

Yep.

B (17:49)

Because they're kind of similar.

A (17:51)

Curiosity, I think, is. Is right here.

B (17:54)

Like, okay, all right.

A (17:55)

I think if you are feeling creatively stuck. Writer's block, ideo block, whatever.

B (18:03)

Yeah.

A (18:03)

Just go, like, research something new about the niche you are working on, and it'll spark ideas 100%.

B (18:10)

Yeah. Get curious about why people are doing what they're doing or what they're doing in particular. Yeah. Okay. 35. You can. You're gonna like this one. You cannot automate taste. You can automate discovery, but you can say it louder.

A (18:22)

Say it again.

B (18:26)

I'm interested in this idea of, like, good taste this year as a marketer, because I think TikTok freaking destroyed taste for the marketing, like, professional industry.

A (18:36)

I think TikTok. Yeah. Destroyed it on the consumer side, and then I think AI destroyed it on the marketer side. And, like, yeah, I'm not gonna put it out yet because I'm not, like, I'm still learning things at my new job, but in a few months, we should put out the two examples of that email that I just rewrote.

B (18:56)

Yes.

A (18:57)

This week to show, like, hey, look, this is what AI came up with. It was Fine, it hit on the core things we wanted to hit on. But I mean, the drastic difference in how it feels and reads now that a human has been in there is.

B (19:11)

Like it's night and day at night and day. Taste is going to become one of the most sought after marketer skill set, I think as well, outside of soft skills, which we talked about a lot. But yeah, if you can't get good taste, maybe go cultivate it because that's going to be a sought after thing. All right, number 39, add volume is how teams simulate growth when they don't know what to do. Sorry to everybody who's on volume, but I had to stick this one in here.

A (19:39)

Listen, I think I posted a thread about this a while ago. I said I think marketers should be lazy because I would rather someone who wants to do the least amount of work to hit their goals than a marketer that doesn't understand the difference between activity and productivity.

B (19:58)

Yeah.

A (19:59)

And I see that all the time. When people don't know what to do, they don't know how to help performance. They want to do more. And usually the answer is stop, slow down, do less.

B (20:07)

Yeah.

A (20:08)

Figure out the one or two or three things that really matter and do those better. Don't do more.

B (20:14)

I've seen this in my own business. Anytime I start to like frenzy, create, where it's like, we've got 12 products, 15 products, 20 products, all of a sudden the whole business like disintegrates because I can't keep up.

A (20:23)

It's true for everything. Like it's true for life and relationships and workout plans. Like, keep it simple and just get good at it.

B (20:36)

Yep. Refine those skills until you can't miss. Yeah, right. Don't, don't just get it.

A (20:41)

Drinking more whiskey is always the right answer. No, of course not. Of course you got to drink better whiskey.

B (20:47)

Yeah.

A (20:47)

Sometimes you gotta drink less whiskey.

B (20:49)

I saw something on this from somebody a while ago on Tick Tock where they said, like, when you're skilled, like you get to a good level, you usually hit it like once or twice. Right. You practice until you can get it. Experts practice until they can't get it wrong.

A (21:02)

Yep.

B (21:03)

And that's a very, very big difference.

A (21:05)

We agreed on most of these. This is a good list of the ones that I disagreed on. They're like elements of, of truth to.

B (21:13)

But yeah, it's all context is the problem. The ones that we disagreed on were like, you're looking at it this way. I'm looking at it this way. But yeah. Out of all of these, when you get to a senior creative strategist level, a lot of this comes down to ideas, how you track them. It also comes down to like, your team, your personnel, what your structures are, what your system's about. It's interesting that creative strategy really does to discipline.

A (21:34)

Yeah.

B (21:35)

More than anything else. So, yeah. There you go.

A (21:37)

Thanks so much for listening to Brain Driven Brands. Follow me and Sarah or whatever and hire her to do customer research stuff. I don't know, whatever. Like a normal good outro for the podcast would be. See ya.

B (21:48)

Insert outro here. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Appreciate you guys listening. If you want to follow me, I'm Sarah Levinger and anywhere you consume content, he is at Nate Lagos. If you like this show and if you like this episode, go ahead and like subscribe, share with a friend. Drop us a review when you have a minute. We would appreciate it. Otherwise, have a great week. We'll see you next time.