← Brain Driven Brands
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- [00:00]
A
This will be a good chance for people to, like, see it because you are so terrible at pitching this service. It's unbelievable. Guys. By the way, welcome back to Brain Driven Brands. Let me tell you about my experience working with Mrs. Levenger over here. For whatever reason, I can understand what comes out of your mouth.
- [00:22]
B
Yeah. I don't know. Maybe after four years of training.
- [00:25]
A
Yeah.
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B
You're just like, oh, I get it.
- [00:27]
A
The first thing I did as CMO at my new job was hire Sarah to do some customer research work for us. And let me say, it has paid off like, tenfold by now.
- [00:38]
B
Yep.
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A
But before. Before I had her hop on the sales call with my CEO, I prepped him. I was like, hey, by the way.
- [00:49]
B
You'Re not gonna understand.
- [00:51]
A
You're not gonna like it. It's gonna sound like nonsense. I just. I just need you to get on board with it, like, just once, and then you'll see it and you'll get it. And he's like, all right, cool.
- [01:03]
B
I love that he trusts you enough. That's a good.
- [01:06]
A
Yeah. So appreciate that. Thank you.
- [01:08]
B
Thank you for the early shout out.
- [01:09]
A
To Chris Trust there. And thank you, Sarah, for coming through on it because it would have been tough if it didn't work out.
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B
Oh, my God.
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A
This is the first thing you wanted to do.
- [01:19]
B
Let me just tell you though, you guys have, like, just taken the. Taken the reins on it and just went hard, which I appreciate because again, a lot of this stuff sounds touchy feely. And I re. I 100 realize this from day one when I started talking about psychology. There's a reason, though, that I get so, like, deep in the weeds of the psychology because I want you to realize there's a shit ton of stuff underneath all of your marketing processes that you're not tracking that you don't know about, that you're just like, you're. You're messing with all these different levers underneath the floor that you don't even know exists.
- [01:54]
A
Well, and, like, I think that's the, like, differentiation thing. You should probably put this copy on your homepage somewhere of, like, you need to intimately know who your customers are at times. You need to know them better than they know themselves. 100 in order to be able to sell to them. And, like, that's what the work has allowed us to do.
- [02:13]
B
Bars, bars, bars. Especially since I hate to break it to you, all customers don't know what they want. Hate to break it to you.
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A
I don't want to hype you up too much, but I would like to share with the audience. Please do my least favorite thing about working with you.
- [02:28]
B
Oh, okay, I'm ready.
- [02:29]
A
It has exposed stuff in my customer buying behavior that has made me realize at times how insecure I can be and materialistic I can be. And I'm like, it's something I didn't know before that I'm like, oh, I. I bought that because I'm insecure.
- [02:46]
B
Yeah. If you don't want to know deeply about yourself and how awful sometimes you could be as a human. Yeah. 100. I constantly go through all day, by.
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A
The way, if you're a man and you're wearing a watch.
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B
No, you're insecure.
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A
Okay? Trust me. I would know better than anyone. And I get it. I'm about to buy a watch because I'm insecure. Okay, what are we gonna talk about today?
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B
I went through 25.
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A
Start crying, by the way, about our insecurities.
- [03:14]
B
We're just, you know, we're trauma dumping on this episode. It's fine. I went through 25 CIMS. And before we go into these, I'm going to give you guys context for what CIM is, what it does, how we build it. We went through 25 of these, and these have been run since January of 2025 to November of 2025. So these are CIMs that we've collected over the course of the last, like, year, basically. And I've found five, like, global truths of consumers now. Things that are, like, the weirdest, most, like, psycho, sideways things that I've ever seen in consumers that are happening right this second that most marketers don't know about. And I know that's like, a big promise, but I'm like this, guys. I have been studying every industry, every consumer. I mean, we have ran cims for basically every product that you could think of. There are some definitive things that have changed in the customer base this year, and I want to share with you. So the CIM is a core identity map. This is built on basically, a survey that uses pictures or metaphors to help people connect to what they really feel about something. So you can think of this as like a buzzfeed personality survey where we'll ask questions like, if our product were a superhero, which one would it be and why? And the internals of Tether. We have, like, these stacks and stacks, by the way, these questions, what's create.
- [04:29]
A
A CIM for Brain Driven brands listeners? We'll have people fill it out and they'll see how it works.
- [04:37]
B
Oh, I should. Oh, that's a good idea.
- [04:39]
A
Should we hold this episode until we do that?
- [04:42]
B
I need one for this week though.
- [04:43]
A
Okay. Okay.
- [04:44]
B
But yes. Okay, so we'll come back, I'll have you guys run through a CIM and then I'll show you all of the weird things that come out of CIM. That's actually a really good idea. Okay. CIMs, picture based surveys, metaphorical surveys. We ask people to basically make an associative connection to your product, your brand, your industry. What we're trying to figure out is how do people feel not just about the person, product or about the purchasing decision. I want to know how they feel about your brand, about your industry and what they believe about it so that I can get down to the core. What's causing them to want what you have? What's causing them to not go buy it? That's basically the core of what the CI does. So 25 of these, we ran the analysis on them. Here's some of the things that are coming out of the CIMS this year that I'm like, okay, first one, globally, across the board, every industry, people want the feeling of improvement but not the reality of change. They want to.
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A
Isn't that the truth?
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B
Huh? You see what I'm freaking saying? Like these are the type of things that I'm like, oh shit. Especially if you're a supplement brand or if you do any sort of subscription based marketing, people want to feel like I'm improving. I don't really want to change them. Yeah, I want to leave it all the same. A large share of the population.
- [06:02]
A
And honestly I'm with them. I'm right there with them.
- [06:05]
B
I love this insight. This is so interesting. Large share of the population, 50 to 70% depending on the category, buys for emotional self permission, not actual practical change. So what does this mean for marketing? If you are currently trying to sell people a solution, stop it. Don't sell them the solution, sell them instead. Permission to go forward and try and become a different person, not the different person themselves. And this goes into aspirational marketing. I don't want to hear this, like become a better. You do more with your life. Like get to xyz, whatever it is. Stop that. Just go and do what Huell did, which is like, you don't have to change everything, you just have to change lunch. Back it up, back up your claims here. Because they don't want to change, they just want to feel like they can.
- [06:57]
A
I think this like articulates so well what I've thought for a while, but like Couldn't argue. It is like, I think so much aspirational, Mark. Like, marketing goes too far. It goes way too aspirational. Like, yes, I'm never gonna have a six pack. Okay.
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B
Ever. Do you want one?
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A
No. That's like so much work to maintain that I just need to see like, a. A workout apparel ad for a guy who's like, in slightly better shape than me.
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B
There you go.
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A
Just like a little bit, like, don't, like, oh, my God, I love if he's jacked. I'm like, I'm. Well, I'm not gonna do that.
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B
So, yes. That universal insight of just like, they only want to feel like they improve, not really change it. I mean, I can't tell you. And this is the reason why something that Will said on the last two episodes, whatever it was a couple while ago, he was talking about goal setting, right? And he was talking about everybody just wants to go towards that goal. I almost wanted to, like, put like an asterisk on it. Let's pause for just a minute. I'm gonna tell you something that I have 100 never told anybody before. For years, I 100% thought that ads were just really a creativity thing. They only won if I chose the right hook, the right creator, the right script. I was 100% sure that ads came down to production. And it turns out that's not at all how ads work. We are testing and tweaking and chasing trends, but nobody can tell us why that ad worked. This is the reason why I built the Tether West. I am so tired as a creative strategist of not having any insight as to what's going to work. The Tether OS is a system, very simple creative strategy system that reads what your customers are saying in real time, finds the emotional patterns that are underneath those trends, and then turns them into direction that your creative team can actually act on right this second. Brands that are using this are currently cutting their creative time in half. They are saving thousands of dollars a month on personnel costs, and they really are just less stressed because they know exactly what to say, how to say it, and who to say it to. Anybody can use it, from your CMO all the way down to your brand new creative strategy hire. You guys want to test out a creative strategy system this year? That's very, very simple. Check us out at tetherinsights IO. And now back to the show because I believe this is true. Everybody's just trying to achieve a goal. The goal they are trying to achieve isn't always future aspiration like, peak level me. Sometimes the goal that they're trying to achieve is, I just don't want to feel like today.
- [09:19]
A
Yeah.
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B
And that's it. Which is me and my actual self. Right. So we talk about actual self and not self and all this type of thing. Sometimes the goal is not to become elite. Sometimes it's literally just to not fall apart.
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A
And I think all of those goals contain a level of, like, for as little work as possible, as easy as possible. If I could sit on the couch and do it, that'd be great.
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B
Which is the reason why I'm buying some of your products. Because I'm just like, if I can get the hack to not falling apart today, hell yeah, I'll spend 30 bucks on that. 40 bucks, 100 bucks, whatever it is. Yeah. Oh, okay. So global truth of the two here, which is really interesting. This was around 30 to 70 of customers, depending on which category you're in. Almost everybody. Big chunk of them are seeking identity alignment over product performance.
- [10:07]
A
Yep.
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B
Meaning I'll take a mid product as long as it fits with who I think I am.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Up to 70% of customers.
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A
This is wild.
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B
This is bonkers. People don't really buy what, like, makes sense. In this particular case. They're buying what just reinforces what they're currently, like, involved in.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And this we see everywhere, like, we talk.
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A
And I think, like, identity has taken over, like, politics for sure. Like, it's taken over, like, culture in a way where it's like, all of a sudden, like, if an artist says something I don't like, I can't listen to his music anymore. Even though I always liked his.
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B
Yes.
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A
It makes no sense at all. But people are showing us this is true with their body.
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B
Yes. Isn't it interesting that you use the word can't? I can't listen to his music anymore. We use prohibitive language around things that don't align with us. Not necessarily. I won't. That's a personal choice.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But I can't do it. Tells me that something is, like, blocking me from this.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And that. Oh, that's freaking intense, guys. As a marketer, you gotta understand this is why I'm saying levers under the floor. Like, all of this is happening while you're trying to, like, boost your 20 off offer this week. I'm like, guys, okay. And this came from one specific call out. Warm audiences typically use about three times more emotional language than cold. 69% versus 22%. Cold audiences don't usually use a whole lot of like deep identity language until they get into brands and then they go hard at it.
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A
Yeah, we talk about this all the time with like, how to struck, like, what does like, you know, top, mid and bottom of funnel marketing look like in 2020?
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B
Yes.
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A
5. And like, I think where most people get it wrong, it's like I, I think top and bottom of funnel is the wrong way to think about it. I think it's almost like, how much do they currently care?
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B
Yeah.
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A
The thing. And a cold audience is not thinking about it that much.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So if you come in with like super strong language, I think it's a turn off.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I think it's like, you're taking that thing way too seriously over here. But if you just like kind of hint at them, if you're just like, hey, like this is kind of a thing, you know, like, I think that might peak interest and then in a month they'll be more interested. You can have stronger language hit them. Like, to me, that's kind of how I'm thinking about structuring campaigns for adapt in 2026 is like, there's a bunch of people that are like actively searching for a solution that we currently sell. Yeah, great. Yeah, we can hit them. That pool of people is not unlimited. So we need to start talking to people that maybe once a week are having gut health issues.
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B
Yes.
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A
Maybe it's once a month. Maybe it's when they only eat certain, you know, couple foods. But we're gonna. Those are people that we're gonna have to start talking to at some point to let our business keep growing. And if I talk to them, like someone who's been struggling with this chronic illness for a decade and looking for solutions for it, they are going to be turned off and not brought into the branch.
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B
Oh, this is a perfect segue actually into the third thing that we found. Because this idea of messaging sequencing, when you deliver a very specific emotional message, will drastically change whether that person wants to even continue interacting with you or not. And I pulled this up for you guys earlier today. Sales pros already know this, like, when you're in sales. And I learned this, like this year because I had to get better at sales. When you're in sales, you have to be very careful about when you start to get the conversation a little bit more intense. You can't just start with like, you suck. Like, why want to change this? Right?
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A
Yeah.
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B
You can't start that way. And this is the truth. Never true that we found this global truth. Emotional safety is driving more conversions than Logic or price. Emotional safety. Right. So this is about 40 to 60% of customers. But they need that emotional reassurance more than just like rational messaging to be able to buy. Because on this side at least we saw 40, 43% of customers fear they're being scammed on the daily.
- [14:12]
A
Yep.
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B
I'm like, holy God in heaven. Like, this is. I mean, I can't even tell you how much this breaks my freaking heart as a marketer. People don't believe us. They don't believe a word we freaking say. They don't trust us, they don't want us. They think we're trying to hurt them actively.
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A
Yeah.
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B
They're coming into our ecosystems with idea that we suck as evil. And I'm like, ow. So, yeah, this, this emotional safety thing is going to become worse as we go along. Especially in the political and like, socioeconomic environment that we're in, people don't feel safe. Okay, I have two more of these. Truth number four, most shoppers are doing emotional math, not practical math. And this is something I've posted about before. It's the reason why I love these. This came out. This is 40 to 70% of buyers are optimizing for like, emotional love load reduction. Now this is interesting because somebody's going to come in here and be like, sarah, didn't you just say we're supposed to be more emotional? Your customers want you to come in and be more sensitive to what they're focused on. They don't want to feel emotion. They don't want it. And they're very terrified of having to go through it. Most of these people, about 47 of them are framing the cost of products as a gambler, a sacrifice these days.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Not as a number they're not concerned about. It's too expensive. They say things like, it's a gamble for me.
- [15:32]
A
Yeah. Well, and this is where, like, I'm super hot on, like, customers are not price sensitive, they're value sensitive. And like, if the, if the equation, if the equals X amount of dollars is quote too high, you just have to add more to the other side of the equation. Like, you, you just have to convince them. Like, it's like if I told you that you could buy a brand new Ferrari today for ten grand, you would do it in a heartbeat. But if I told you, if it was 400 grand, you'd be like, and no, I don't want it. Yep, it has, like, nothing changed about, like, well, same car.
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B
But.
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A
And this is a bad example because I'm not telling you to discount anything. But what I'm trying to say is like when one side of the equation that's not the price is a clear and present value. The price doesn't matter that much. You'd have no intention of spending ten grand on anything today. In fact, it might be a financial stretch. You might have to move some money around, but you would do it no matter what.
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B
Yeah. And it's like it seems like a good value.
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A
Yeah. And that's what you have to do when you're selling is make the value a no brainer.
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B
I would also add to this like it takes somebody a while to build their own value ladder. We have value ladders in marketing. Customers have their own inside their heads. Case in point, I'm currently looking for a product that's going to help me scale organic. Which means it needs to be automated. Right. So I'm looking into all, all these AI different things. The minute the guy dropped the price on me today, cause I was on a sales call for a really cool tool, dropped the price on me. It was higher than I wanted to pay. But I was like, I see the return on this. Yeah, I can afford that cost because it's gonna bring back 10x what it's gonna cost me to get it. You want those customers. You don't want somebody in here who's just gonna be constantly focused on this is too expensive. And this is the reason why. Because it's a gamble for people. They feel like they're having to give something up a piece of themselves. It's going to be actually physically painful for me to get what you're selling me. Oh, oh. I could go so deep into that. Okay. You want, you want the weirdest one now? I saved the best for last.
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A
Let's do it.
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B
Customers right now in 2026 according to the CIM, they're humanizing objects that reduce stress. They're, they're personifying them. They're literally calling them things like a helper or this is my sidekick, it's my co worker, it's my house elf. We have brands in all kinds of different categories, but this is. 20 to 40% of customers are attaching human, human qualities to things like this.
- [18:03]
A
I'm super curious to hear like why you think this is happening. Because I think this is happening because people are just so starved for connection. Like I think people are just so lonely that like I will call my countertop come posting tool. Like I bet people have. Oh like just feed it to Derek or whatever. Yes. Guarantee that people call it by name.
- [18:26]
B
Yes. Yes. This is like number seven on here on this big long list. This from what CIM is showing. Belonging is a dominant motivation across all categories, all industries and all products. Every single one of them that we've stepped studied. Talk about the fact that people are starved for connection. I'm like.
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A
By the way, do you have friends in real life? I don't think I have any friends.
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B
I have like high school friends that we see once a month.
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A
Okay.
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B
Maybe once a quarter.
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A
You're being me, but it's.
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B
I. It's like one family.
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A
Yeah. I have like guys I golf with, but it's not.
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B
Yeah. And I have like one good girlfriend and she lives in Denver though. So it's like you live hours for me. I only see you once a quarter. We cut outside of that. I mean it happens in marketing too though, right? We have people that we are in slack just talking all day long. We people once a week where we get on a zoom call and we jam. People don't have friends these days.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Sad, crazy man. Okay. I mean there's more in here, but overall those are kind of the top five ones that we're seeing in here. Yeah. So remembering on this, like, people want the feeling of improvement, not the reality of change. If you're marketing towards change, stop that. Identity consistency is really going to be where all of our marketing should shift towards. Stop trying to prove that your product works and just tell them this is going to get you more of who you are. Emotional safety is critical here. Shoppers are doing all of this emotional math mostly because they don't trust us. And really people just want to belong, which is the reason why they're doing weird things like humanizing products this year. All of this is coming out from every single study we're running. These is dominant across every single industry, every single product. So yeah, pay attention guys. Things are changing this year. Consumers are getting more and more intense.
- [20:17]
A
Go. Right. Messaging that speaks to these people more clearly and you will make more money, guaranteed.
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B
And if you want to run a cim, come.
- [20:25]
A
All right. All right. Now if you want to tell Sarah to do it for you, it's very helpful. I just like to give her a shit. Thanks so much for listening to brain driven brands. We will see you guys next time.
- [20:40]
B
Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Appreciate you guys listening. If you want to follow me, I'm aralevinger. Anywhere you consume content, he is aytelegos. 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.