Joe Perello | The Credibility Challenge – Thoughts on Authenticity in an Artificial Marketplace

Summary

CMO Confidential Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Title:
Joe Perello | The Credibility Challenge – Thoughts on Authenticity in an Artificial Marketplace

Host: Mike Linton (Former CMO of Best Buy, eBay, Farmers Insurance, Ancestry.com; Podcast on I Hear Everything Network)
Guest: Joe Perello (Founder of Props, former CMO of New York City, NY Yankees; Board member, NYC Cruise Lines)
Date: May 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores "The Credibility Challenge"—how brands and marketers can build and maintain authenticity and trust in a marketing landscape flooded with artificiality, prolific content creation, and evolving consumer skepticism. Mike and Joe delve into the different types of voices brands can leverage (creators, influencers, celebrities), discuss declining trust in institutions, and give actionable guidance for marketers looking to navigate today's credibility minefield.

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Marketplace Context & Challenges

• Content Proliferation, Attention Scarcity
  • Content production and distribution have never been easier, but capturing authentic consumer attention gets harder.
  • "Making content has never been easier. Getting attention has never been harder. And the barriers to entry that used to protect brands from challengers have never been more easily breached." (Mike Linton, 02:41)
• Consumer Discipline and Filters
  • Modern consumers are not just distracted—they have developed sophisticated, almost automatic filters to sort what’s worth their attention.
  • "It's almost innate because the number of messages... is increasing and your filter is almost automatic." (Joe Perello, 04:01)

Notable Insight

• Scalability of Credibility vs. Production
  • "Production scales, distribution scales. What's not scaling is credibility. So it's not really attention that's scarce. It's belief." (Joe Perello, 04:26)

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Declining Trust in Brands & Marketing

• Long-Term Decline in Institutional Trust
  • Trust has been on the downswing since at least 1968, pre-dating even the PC or Internet explosion (06:54)
  • "Trust in brands and institutions has been declining since like 1968. Pew researching it since 1968. People don't trust brands as much and they don't trust institutions as much." (Joe Perello, 06:54)

Implications for Marketers

• The old creative playbook doesn’t work as well; approaches must evolve.
• "Consumers will not trust brands or institutions out of the gate. Like maybe our parents did or even we did when we were growing up." (Joe Perello, 08:48)

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The Rise of Creator Marketing

Why Is Creator Marketing So Effective?

• "One theory I have is that one of the reasons why creator marketing across the globe is growing so fast is because sort of people understand innately that the creator has some skin in the game." (Joe Perello, 05:07)

AI, Objectivity, and Trust

• Perception of AI as Objective
  • "AI is optimizing for me. And therefore the theory is people trust AI more so because it's seen as an optimizer and not a persuader." (Joe Perello, 10:38)
  • People may see AI agents as less manipulative than traditional marketers: AI as "optimizer," brands as "persuaders". (14:42)

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Types of Voices in Marketing

Definitions & Distinctions

| Role | What They Monetize | Analogy (Restaurant) | Risk Profile | |----------------|-----------------------------|--------------------------|-------------------------------| | Celebrity | Fame (from elsewhere) | Franchise/brand owner | Insulated from daily risk | | Influencer | Reach (content + distribution) | Food critic | Less responsible, move on | | Creator | Credibility, expertise | Chef/restaurant owner | High risk, must be “right” |

• "Influencers are like critics. Creators are like chefs. They actually know stuff. And celebrities are just sticking their name on some." (Joe Perello, 18:48)

Example

• Creator Example:
  • JR Switchgrass—drives cross-country, documents van life. Not huge followers, but "really good at driving across the country." Perfect to create authentic stories for AAA, a Props client. (20:13)

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Authenticity: When Does a Creator Become an Influencer?

• Danger of 'Selling Out':

  • Creators who build big audiences can be tempted (or tempted by brands) to promote anything—risking their authenticity.
  • "Some of them don't [stay true to the creator ethos]...they go over to the other side and they're like, I don't care, I want to do a deal with Pepsi." (Joe Perello, 22:12)

• How to Judge Authenticity:

  • "It depends on what story you're asking them to tell. That's the easiest way to answer this question." (Joe Perello, 23:32)
  • If a creator’s endorsement aligns with their subject matter expertise, it’s credible; if not, audiences see through it.

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Strategic Use: Creators, Influencers, Celebrities

• Selecting the Right Approach:

  • "If you can identify or associate yourself with a credible celebrity who adds value to your story...then you should do it."
  • "The influencer business is the hit business...you've got to do a lot of deals with a lot of influencers and hopefully one or ten hit." (Joe Perello, 27:33)
  • "If you want to be in the business of driving belief every day...then you should be in the creator business because you have more control." (Joe Perello, 28:19)

• Measurability:

  • Easiest to measure ROI with creators; hardest with celebrities.

Product Type Matters

• Commodity:
  • Needs mix of tools, as product alone isn't the story.
  • "If your product is like every other product...then you need to be in two or three of those: creators, influencers, and celebrities." (Joe Perello, 30:20)
• Specialty/Differentiated:
  • E.g., Tesla—product is the story, less need for outside validation.

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Brands Doing Creator Marketing Well

• Patagonia:
  • Blog features stories by credible experts ("adventure, camping, the environment")—not about Patagonia, but about the lifestyle and values of its audience. (32:25)
  • "They don't ask their creators to talk about Patagonia. They just tell amazing stories about what they know Patagonia customers want to read about." (Joe Perello, 32:52)

Why This Builds Trust

• "When you meet someone, you find common ground before you go a step further...you just establish common ground and…the minimum amount of trust is all we're saying." (Joe Perello, 33:55)

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Measuring Trust & Performance

• Proxies for Trust:
  • Click-through rates (CTR) and engagement
  • Time on page and drop-off rates
  • Conversion vs. engagement: high engagement with low conversion suggests a trust issue or product/content mismatch
  • "Engagement is a proxy for trust. And if you get stinky numbers, that's very bad." (Mike Linton, 36:36-36:46)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Restaurant Analogy for Marketing Voices: (17:40–19:12)
  • "Influencers are like critics. Creators are like chefs. Celebrities are franchise owners."
• Patagonia Inspiration: (32:25)
  • "The blog on Patagonia is one of the reasons why I got into this business."
• Exploding Popsicle in Union Square: (37:08–41:24)
  • Joe recounts when a promotional 50-ft Snapple popsicle melted all over Union Square, but the city's affection for Snapple turned a marketing fail into a loveable mishap.
  • "Freaking thing melts. It doesn't hold up. And Mike, there were like tens of thousands of gallons of this. Like, it was like jello with sand in it that just…took over all of Union Square. And I was obviously hugely embarrassed. We cleaned it up…" (Joe Perello, 39:51)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:41 – Marketplace overview, challenge of attention
• 04:26 – Credibility does not scale
• 06:54 – Declining trust in brands and institutions
• 10:38 – Why people trust AI
• 15:28 – Differentiating creator, influencer, celebrity
• 17:40 – Restaurant analogy
• 20:13 – Real-world creator example (AAA & JR Switchgrass)
• 27:33 – How marketers should approach all voice types
• 32:25 – Patagonia as a model for creator marketing
• 36:36 – Measuring trust
• 37:08 – Snapple popsicle story

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Actionable Advice for Marketers

• Start by earning trust; do not assume it
• Align stories and partnerships with the creator’s expertise
• Adopt multiple strategies for different products and budgets
• Seek authentic, credible voices rather than broad reach when possible
• Use performance metrics as proxies for trust (CTR, drop-off, conversions)

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Tone

The conversation is candid, practical, and peppered with humor—industry-insider but accessible, with Mike pressing Joe for clear distinctions, actionable advice, and real-life stories (including spectacular marketing mishaps!).

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Notable Quotes

"It's not really that attention is scarce. It's belief that is suffering." — Joe Perello (04:26)

"Trust in brands and institutions has been declining since like 1968." — Joe Perello (06:54)

"Influencers are like critics. Creators are like chefs. Celebrities are franchise owners." — Joe Perello (18:48)

"When the creator starts making a ton of money…some of them don't [stay true]. Some of them, all right, they go over to the other side." — Joe Perello (22:12)

"They don't ask their creators to talk about Patagonia. They just tell amazing stories about what they know Patagonia customers want to read." — Joe Perello (32:52)

"Engagement is a proxy for trust. And if you get stinky numbers, that's very bad." — Mike Linton (36:36)

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Conclusion

This episode offers a nuanced masterclass on authenticity, strategic voice selection, and measurable marketing in the AI and creator economy era. Joe’s analogies, real-world stories, and grounded advice give marketers a roadmap for building enduring, credible brands—even when the world seems ever more artificial.

Transcript

[Mike Linton]

The CMO Confidential Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com welcome to CMO Confidential,

[Podcast Announcer]

the podcast that takes you inside the drama, decisions and choices that go with being the head of marketing. Hosted by five time CMO Mike Linton.

[Mike Linton]

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[Joe Perrello]

Good to see you, Mike. Good to be here. Thank you.

[Mike Linton]

All right. Hey Joe, let's start with the descriptor of the marketplace. Just tell us what's going on. I mean, a description of the marketplace. Tell us what's going on in the marketplace. Making content has never been easier. Getting attention has never been harder. And the barriers to entry that used to protect brands from challengers have never been more easily breached. Give us your take I think

[Joe Perrello]

people are calling it distraction, like the consumer is distracted. Another way to look at it is that they're actually disciplined. And if production costs have, have calmed down, like, like you've said, right. Distribute, it's easier to get messages out there. But that didn't also correlate to a rise in credibility. Right. Consumers know the difference and they're in, in some cases they're sort of scrolling past what we call polish. Right. And they're.

[Mike Linton]

Are you saying, Joe, that the consumer has developed a better filter than they used to have?

[Joe Perrello]

Yes, yes.

[Mike Linton]

And are they applying that filter at more speed? Is that what you're saying too?

[Joe Perrello]

It's almost innate. It's almost innate because the number of messages. Right. Is increasing and what you're seeing is increasing and your filter is almost automatic. Right. So I mentioned what's not scaling is credibility. Right. So production scales, distribution scales. What's not scaling is credibility. So it's not really that attention is scarce. It's belief. Right. It's belief that is suffering because so many people are seeing so many institutionally produced. Okay, not in all cases. Right. None of this is absolute. None of what I'm saying is absolute, obviously, but they are. One theory I have is that one of the reasons why creator marketing across the globe.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah.

[Joe Perrello]

Is growing so fast is because sort of people understand innately that the creator has some skin in the game.

[Mike Linton]

Hey, before we go to creator marketing, can we say so. So what you're saying is the consumer is much more discriminatory.

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah.

[Mike Linton]

They have way more choice of what to look at. And I think, I think the same is true for actually just watching content on TV or streaming. I should, I guess I should say that they have way more, way more filters for what they're going to spend their time on now. And that has just translated over into all the marketing they see as well.

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah, yeah. It's almost like a automatic reaction.

[Mike Linton]

Is it the same in B2B and B2C or.

[Joe Perrello]

I think it's structurally the same in B2B. But you know, you could, you could broadly say that B2C is like about identity and about lifestyle and B2B is more about expert domain level expertise and subject matter expertise and more about sort of your peers. Validate this more so than it is in consumer marketing. But in both cases, you know, it's all about the trust. Like in, in B2B marketing, a founder cares about what another founder says more than, you know, what your white paper says.

[Mike Linton]

So, so, well, and we'll go to Creator marketing. Right after we say this, in essence, you're saying consumers trust is decreasing at speed, right?

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah, it's. The credibility is not rising with distribution and the ability to produce messages really quickly. And people are sensitive to this, they're sensitive to institutional messages. And look, Mike, this is, this part is not a theory. Trust in brands and institutions has been declining since like 1968. And Pew did research on this and they track it. Pew researching it since 1968. Just generally speaking, people don't trust brands as much and they don't trust institutions as much. You know, and there's all.

[Mike Linton]

Joe, so is marketing falling apart here because of this trust thing? Well, I know you're going to put a big pitch on, on creators, but you look at the decline of all the old marketing tools and the rise of some of the new tools, some of which are hard to measure, whether it's TikTok or whatever, influencers, creators, if this trust is collapsing, is there still a trust reservoir out there or do consumers have to be re earned?

[Joe Perrello]

Well, I mean, look, again, I'm not saying this in absolute terms, right, because there are great brands that make great commercials and we all love them, you know, so I'm not saying, oh, throw out the 30 second spot and all that, you know, that's all baloney in my mind. Like it matters how you do things. What is true today is that consumers are more skeptical. They will not trust brands or institutions out of the gate. Like maybe our parents did.

[Mike Linton]

Okay.

[Joe Perrello]

Or even we did when we were growing up. And there are new ways to reach folks that the old playbook, the old creative playbook, doesn't work. You've got to find new ways to unlock people. Now I know I keep reverting to the creator marketing industry because I've been immersed in it in the last almost a decade now. So I'm only giving you this, like from that.

[Mike Linton]

You're right on your talking points, Joe. You're right on them.

[Joe Perrello]

I know, I know I can't give you like I haven't been the best, the cmo Best Buy, right? I haven't been that. So. So my comments are skewed more towards the industry that I've been in the last decade and that has been the creator marketing.

[Mike Linton]

But you're also saying, I think in your theory and also in the research we were talking about earlier is people are becoming more. They start from a position of you have to earn my trust all over again. Unless you've already established that you're a big brand or I Already have experience with you. But you're also saying consumers are more trusting of AI agents, is that right?

[Joe Perrello]

It's interesting. This is interesting theory. The theory is that the perception of AI, if you use it, it's that it's optimizing for you personally, right?

[Mike Linton]

When.

[Joe Perrello]

When you engage with, at least with chat GPT, right? When you engage with chat GPT like it wants to please you. Now, you can certainly tell it not to. Like you can tell it, you know, be tough on me, blah, blah, blah,

[Mike Linton]

but stop telling me every question I ask is so good.

[Joe Perrello]

I know, I know. But the default mode, like broadly speaking, the perception is that AI is, is optimizing for me. And therefore the theory is people trust AI more so because it's seen as an optimizer and not a persuader. So that's a very big, very important distinction. Are you optimizing for me or are you trying to persuade me? Is so different.

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[Mike Linton]

I think this is a really interesting point and let me push on a little bit. So. So what you're saying is if you didn't have AI and you didn't have all this explosion of social media, consumers would be still where they were. Or is this just a whole nother level of trust that has emerged and it's pushed everything else down?

[Joe Perrello]

I mean, who knows? Who knows if we didn't have AI? I. Look, I think the trust issue you're asking me about, trust broadly, is it was declining before the PC. Right. It was declining before the Internet, before the cell phone, before the smartphone and before AI. These are not the triggers. They certainly could be the amplifiers. Yeah, right. But they are not the triggers of why trust in our culture has been. Has been declining. Part of it could be that the old world media became skeptical. And I'm not saying today. Today's media. Very different. Yeah, yeah, very different than the world the world of journalism that I grew up in and you grow up in. And that I think played a role in the perception of do I trust my leaders, the people leaving these companies? I think that played a role that has now been totally thrown apart because we're all seeing the news that the algorithm thinks we want to see. So it's different.

[Mike Linton]

So what you're saying, if I'm getting it right, is the objectivity meter. AI has become much more. More. More consumers are viewing AI. And then we'll talk about creator marketers and influencers as more objective than a lot of the historical marketing stuff they used to see. And so they are starting to trust other sources of information a lot more than they used to, I think.

[Joe Perrello]

So I think I'm speaking about the perception. I don't know what the actual truth is, but the perception is that if you believe this AI agent is optimizing for your benefit, then you're likely to trust them more than you are. So, yes, as messed up as that sounds.

[Mike Linton]

All right, so let's tell us the difference between. Tell our listeners the difference between creator marketing, influencer marketing, and celebrity marketing. I feel like I should open with a joke. An influencer, celebrity creator, marketer. Walk into a bar. Tell us the difference of those three things in your mind and we can talk about how to manage them as marketers.

[Joe Perrello]

I. I think one, the dimension to look at it is through risk, right? So if, if influencers monetize reach, Right. Because you're paying them to do two things. Make content and distribute it. Right? Right. Creators are monetizing fame. Right. Fame acquired through other channels like acting or music or something like that.

[Mike Linton]

Or, or. Yeah.

[Joe Perrello]

Or being on CMO Confidential or being on this podcast.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah.

[Joe Perrello]

Creators are monetizing their credibility.

[Mike Linton]

Right.

[Joe Perrello]

Their subject matter expertise. They don't really bring followers to the table, they bring expertise to the table. So influencers can go from brand to brand to brand to brand to brand, right? Yeah. Celebrities are diversified across acting, singing, you know, different sports teams, a new movie's coming out. Like their platform is separate from what we're talking about here. And creators are. They're concentrated, right? Their. Their domain level expertise. What they're saying is very, very important because they have more risk is. I guess what I'm saying is they have more risk if they come out and talk about a brand or a service or a product. And I think people understand this.

[Mike Linton]

Joe, just to make sure we all get it, the difference between a creator marketer and an influencer, and give us an example or two of. Where's the line between creator marketing and an influencer? Because our creator marketers, once they really are dug in on something, like, you know, I'm an expert on. On making sales for sailboats or something, Ed. Do I then not become an influencer? Like, where's the difference?

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah, it's a. Look, there's overlap.

[Mike Linton]

Okay?

[Joe Perrello]

Obviously there's overlap. So. And I'm not advocating for one or the other. They all serve different purposes. But I'll give you an analogy.

[Mike Linton]

That might do it.

[Joe Perrello]

That might clear it up. So if you. If. If you look at the restaurant business. Okay, stay with me.

[Mike Linton]

You're only one sentence in. And I'm totally with you on that one.

[Joe Perrello]

Okay, stay with me. So if you think of influencers, like,

[Mike Linton]

they're the food critics, right?

[Joe Perrello]

They go from restaurant to restaurant to restaurant. And the value, like a value of a food critic is in their visibility, right. In their exposure. If you think creator as the chefs. Right, the chefs, they own the restaurant. Every dish carries their name, right. If the meal disappoints, then they're going to lose a customer the next day. And the celebrity is like a franchise brand, right? And they're licensing their name out, and their name's on the building, but they're totally insulated, right? From day to day, failure. So influencers are like critics. Creators are like chefs. They actually know stuff. And celebrities are just sticking their name on some.

[Mike Linton]

Hey, Joe, I love the restaurant analogy. Let me ask one clarifying question on that. If I am the New York Times food critic and I say, go eat at Pirello's fine dining establishment, and I go there, and I think it's no good. Am I still an influencer, or am I essentially crossing over in a crater on that? Like, how do I. How do I drive?

[Joe Perrello]

You're still an influencer because your business model is based on trash. And Linton's restaurant the next week.

[Mike Linton]

Yes. Okay.

[Joe Perrello]

Right. So you've got them all lined up.

[Mike Linton]

So I don't have to be as right as an influencer as I do on a creator. But that says, inherent in that is.

[Joe Perrello]

You got it.

[Mike Linton]

Right.

[Joe Perrello]

The more narrow the.

[Mike Linton]

The more narrow the creator.

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah. The more aware the creator on the line. They're on the line every day. If. If they, you know, maybe they get a pass if they. If they recommend a crappy product, they do it twice. Right. And they're done.

[Mike Linton]

Give me an example of a. Of a creator that isn't an analogy, but it's a. It's a Real one that people.

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah, real one on two.

[Mike Linton]

Okay.

[Joe Perrello]

I'll give a great example. Right. If it's okay, I'll use one of our clients, as I figured you probably would.

[Mike Linton]

I was.

[Joe Perrello]

No, I only know how to do one thing.

[Mike Linton]

I think one of your clients. If you didn't use one of your clients, they'd be kind of beep. So go ahead.

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah. So I know how to do. AAA is one of our big clients. Right. And everybody knows who triple A is. Yeah. And one of the things that we discovered, which shouldn't be a shock, is that when you publish stories about road trips and adventure travel, that is the best way to get someone to consider becoming a AAA member.

[Mike Linton]

Right.

[Joe Perrello]

It's not that complicated. Road trips, van life, that whole thing. So we found this great creator. His name is J.R. switchgrass. And his life, his job is to drive across the country in a van with his girlfriend and he documents his whole life. He's fantastic creator. He lives road trips, so he's a subject matter expert, but he doesn't have, he doesn't have like a million followers or even half a million followers. He's just really good at driving across the country. Someone perfect for a road trip story that is perfect for aaa. And when you take the distribution away from the creator, you now can just focus on high quality storytelling. When you have to merge them together like you do with influencers. Right. You have to consider the creator. I mean, the, the, the, the content they make and the people who are going to see it. In the same equation with creators, you're not doing that. You're taking the distribution out because you're going to handle the distribution, you're going to buy the paid media, you're going to do all that.

[Mike Linton]

I see. So when the creator starts making a ton of money being a creator.

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah.

[Mike Linton]

How do they stay true to the creator ethos and not become thrown over to the influencer? Because I know you're believing.

[Joe Perrello]

Yes, I'm doing. I'm sorry, Some of them don't. Some of them, all right, they go over to the other side and they're like, I would rather, you know, I don't care. Joe Schmo, I don't care what he says. I want to go do a deal with Pepsi, you know, that's fine. But when you. But many of them do.

[Mike Linton]

So as a marketer, when I'm looking at this and I say, all right, here's the creators that, you know, I, I have. How do I. I know there's probably a lot of ways to figure out what creator is right for you. But how do I know when the creator has lost the audience and become a for sale influencer?

[Joe Perrello]

I mean, we. How do you. How do we know that?

[Mike Linton]

Well, just give our. Give our users some kind of yardstick for saying, all right, I had Joe. He was a great creator about New York City, and then he got to be so famous in New York City that he has sold out.

[Joe Perrello]

So he is in authentic. Right? You're. So you're. You're asking me, how do you know if they're.

[Mike Linton]

How do you know? Yeah, how do you know, like, when your, your RV person has become so big that they're not a creator anymore, they're actually a brand under themselves?

[Joe Perrello]

Mike, it depends on what story you're asking them to tell. That's the easiest way to answer this question. So someone who has crossed over may still be able to tell an authentic story, provided it is in parallel with their personality, their expertise, sort of what they do. If, if you. Let's, let's imagine that Bob Vila was an influencer because we all know who Bob Villa is, right?

[Mike Linton]

I'm not sure everybody does, but he does a lot with homes.

[Joe Perrello]

He created this old house, you know, like he's. He redoes houses, and he's famous for redoing old houses. Any. A TV show. If you ask him and paid him, you know, $10 million to talk about makeup, it would be very inauthentic because the guy doesn't own anything except a flannel shirt, right? So you follow me? Like, if you paid him $10 million to talk about how the pro counter at Home Depot is amazing, that works. So it depends on what story you're asking the creator or the influencer to tell. And if you stick to their expertise, they will appreciate you more because they don't want to bullshit either, Right. They want to be true to who they are. And so you. You've got to stick to their. Their expertise.

[Mike Linton]

Hey, thank you for that. I want to. I want to talk about all three of these together and how brands should think about it. But I want to start is, do consumers really get this distinction? I want to start large and say, if you look at the super bowl reel, there's so many celebrities and borrowed interest in that. A lot of times you have multiple Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg, every Matthew County, Bradley Cooper in a single ad. Those are all celebrities. Do consumers get the difference between creators, influencers, and celebrities, or is that just marketers?

[Joe Perrello]

I think once the mass of people Know who a influencers. They have. They have merged into celebrity. So I don't, I don't think they are understanding the nuance the way, the way I am describing it, because I am describing it from a business model pov. Yeah. From a marketer's pov, less so a consumer's POV in terms of the Super Bowl.

[Mike Linton]

Right.

[Joe Perrello]

The super bowl is an exception. Right. In every sense of the word. It is the only place you can

[Mike Linton]

reach

[Joe Perrello]

an exceptionally large number of people at the same time. Except for maybe other live sporting events and maybe the award shows. Otherwise, what else? Still not even close to the Super Bowl. It's not even close. Right. So that's an exception. What other show? Are the commercials part of the show?

[Mike Linton]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Joe Perrello]

There's none. So this is part of the show. There's like the NFL is putting on one show and all the brands are

[Mike Linton]

putting on another show. All right, let me, let me rephrase my question, because that wasn't as good as I. It should have been. If I'm sitting there in my, you know, running a marketing shop.

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah.

[Mike Linton]

Should I be looking at all three of these things? You know, influencers, celebrities, and, you know, content creators. Like, how do I decide my brand or my business needs any combination of these three things?

[Joe Perrello]

Absolutely. If you can identify or associate yourself with a credible celebrity who adds value to your story and adds credibility and of course, adds exposure, and you think that because of that celebrity people are going to be become aware of you or even trust you faster than they would without it, because that's what a celebrity is there for, then you should do it. If you have the patience to find a hit with an influencer, because that's the business. The influencer business is the hit business.

[Mike Linton]

Right.

[Joe Perrello]

You're in the hit business and you've got to do a lot of deals with a lot of influencers and hopefully one or ten hit. If you have the patience and the systems to do that, you should do an influencer strategy. If you pick the right ones, it's great. But it's sort of like pr. You can't predict it. When's it going to happen? If you want to be in the business of driving belief every day and you want to take on the obligation of distributing that message, which selfishly, I think is the better way to do it, then you should be in the creator business because you have more control. And of those three, the easiest one to measure is you recruit creators and you promote the content and you measure the. You measure how it performs. And you can easily convince your CFO that the marketing investment was worth it. Harder to do with celebrities and harder to do with influencers.

[Mike Linton]

Because if I hire the right chef and I'm selling a certain crater thing like RV trips, I have a narrow audience. It's not like people are accidentally showing up to watch this. I have an audience that is hardwired into the topic versus hardwired into the person. How do I know if that's right for my brand? Is it better if I have a specific type of product or a high emotional involved product versus, you know, Joe Pirello is a great creator for paperclip usage or something.

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah. I think that if you're in the commodity business, you probably need to do, you know, two or three of those.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah.

[Joe Perrello]

If your product is like every other product, save for your brand, then you need to be in two or three of those creators, influencers and celebrities. And then your budget is going to determine which ones you can be in. And you know, and look, celebrity is the most expensive because you need to pay the celebrity and pay to promote it.

[Mike Linton]

Right.

[Joe Perrello]

Influencers is. You don't know which one's going to work. Creators is a function of your media budget because you don't really have to pay creators a lot of money, but you've got to take on the burden

[Mike Linton]

of getting the creator benefit of promoting them.

[Joe Perrello]

Yeah. And promoting them. Right. But. But that comes with measurability. So. So if you're a commodity business, you need to be in two of those three. If you're in a specialty business where the product is the story.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah. And an example of a specialty.

[Joe Perrello]

Tesla. Right. Like, okay, three years ago.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah.

[Joe Perrello]

Tesla was the story. Can you believe that a car can do all these things? Is the story like there? They were undifferent. I mean, they were highly differentiated. Right. For a long time. And still today you could make the case that Tesla is. Is highly differentiated. So if the product is the story, then you don't need to rely on. On these things.

[Mike Linton]

Okay. Okay. So Joe, who is doing creative marketing. Well, that is not one of your clients. Give us a from the market example of somebody that you have worked your magic with.

[Joe Perrello]

I will, I will. The best, the best companies are the ones that delegate authority, some authority. Right. They allow the creators to speak their own voice. They publish stories, not sales pitches. Right. They may or may not use.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah. Like, cool. Give our listeners some examples they can go look at.

[Joe Perrello]

I mean, the blog on Patagonia. The blog on Patagonia is one of the reasons why I got into this business.

[Mike Linton]

Tell me.

[Joe Perrello]

The blog on Patagonia is not about Patagonia. It's about camping, the environment, adventure. Right? It is not about Patagonia in any way.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah.

[Joe Perrello]

And it is all written by credible people who know how to ice fish. Right. Expert campers. Patagonia is why I got into this, because they did it so well. Like, I, I wanted to do journalism, but also direct market. And they're the ones that, that did it. Now, they didn't put it all together right, the way. The way we eventually did, but those are the ones. Those are the guys that do it. Great. Because they don't, they don't ask their creators to talk about Patagonia. They just tell amazing stories about what they know Patagonia customers want to read about. And it's the best.

[Mike Linton]

And circling back to how we started this whole chat, this allows consumers to trust them more because the brand is secondary to the content and the creator is the content. Is that a Mike?

[Joe Perrello]

Mike? It's, it's like. It's just. It's just natural to human interactions, right? When you meet someone, you find common ground before you go a step further and maybe, you know, ask them to hear a business pitch or ask them out on a date. Like you, you just establish common ground and, you know, the minimum amount of trust is all we're saying. We're not saying, you know, never talk about your brand. No, that's not what we're saying. We're saying just start a little bit.

[Mike Linton]

I think this. I gotta ask one extra question before we get to our traditional last question. Do you have a way of measuring trust that works, or is trust still generally a field thing? Because you can measure sales, I can measure traffic, I can measure a lot of stuff.

[Joe Perrello]

I mean, we have proxies.

[Mike Linton]

Give me a couple. Right?

[Joe Perrello]

The proxies are pretty basic. Pretty basic direct marketing or performance marketing proxies. Like, the first one is click through rate, right? It's someone. It. Click through rate and they didn't leave the page. So you click on something, right? A story for dawn at Yosemite. The pay. The story loads. And it was what we said it was going to be and you stayed on the page. That is a minimum level of trust, right. That we have. That we have established. The second is, did you drop off after, you know, reading it for a certain amount of time? That's not a pure, you know, measurement of trust because maybe the content stunk, right? So it's, it's, it's More of a trying to find performance marketing metrics that could indicate a high level of trust. And most of that is a form of what we call drop off. Okay, click but not stay. Did you stay but not buy? And when you measure those rates of who you got there but who eventually bought, there's two factors. One is response rate was good and the trust was there. If the response rates really good and the conversion rate is stinky, one of the reasons why is it could be the content stuck or the product stunk. But also trust could be really low. So it's not perfect. There are proxies and over the long, you know, over years and years and years, you can use these proxies as an indicator of trust.

[Mike Linton]

So proxy. So engagement is a proxy for trust. And if you get stinky numbers, that's very bad.

[Joe Perrello]

So stinky numbers bad.

[Mike Linton]

Okay, there you have it. You heard it here first on CMO Confidential. That brings us to our traditional last question, which Joe knows well, Practical advice and our funniest story you would like to share with our listeners. You know, obviously funny story you can tell on the air. You can take one or both, but you must take at least one. And the practical advice is what we haven't talked about before.

[Joe Perrello]

Okay, I'll try and tell you a funny story and then together we can find our way to practical advice with it. Okay, So I was CMO of the city of New York, right? We did $166 million deal with SNAP, right? We made them the official.

[Mike Linton]

That's a lot of Snapple, man.

[Joe Perrello]

It's a lot of Snap. This is all money, Mike. This is all money. I didn't get paid in Snapple, but we did something really. We did something really good. We replaced all the soda, carbonated soft drinks that were in public schools with water and apple juice. And we also put vending machines everywhere we could in the city. City's big. All that money. All that money funded middle school sports and it gave us a tourism bucket, a budget for the first time. We actually were now funneling the city's money into a marketing campaign that eventually drove 50 million visitors a year. So it's a very good deal, very Bloomberg esque deal, right? All business. We bundled the city assets together and we delivered real value. First Apple, which is why they were willing to pay us that much money. So they wanted to do a big activation in Union Square, right? They're launching some new, I don't know, frozen popsicle flavor. And they said we're gonna is. This is like May and they're like, we're going to create a massive popsicle in Union Square. And I was like, well, that involves ice. They're like, no, no. We have this material that is going to not melt. It looks like a popsicle. We pump it into this mold and. And it stays in there and it's

[Mike Linton]

going to be good for a day.

[Joe Perrello]

And I was like, great. Sounds awesome. So they were wrong. We close off. We close off Union Square, right? I have the cops. I got dot, I got fire guys. Like, we really wanted to show Snapple that. Look, you got the city of New York as a partner. We're going to deliver baby.

[Mike Linton]

And we have surrounded this popsicle with all of our services.

[Joe Perrello]

Police escorts, man. We are. We have this place covered. They put the popsicle up in Union Square. You know, the park is like closed and people.

[Mike Linton]

How big is this popsicle? Like 100ft, 50ft.

[Joe Perrello]

Oh, it was like many stories high. Like, figure two stories, three stories high.

[Mike Linton]

Okay, so we're talking like 50ft.

[Joe Perrello]

Like 25, 50ft up in the air.

[Mike Linton]

Okay.

[Joe Perrello]

And long story short, freaking thing melts. It doesn't hold up. It doesn't work. And Mike, there were like tens of thousands of gallons of this. Like, it was like jello with sand in it that just. It totally took over all of Eugene Square. And I was obviously hugely embarrassed. We. We cleaned it up. I had to bring it and did

[Mike Linton]

you arrest the popsicle for self evidence?

[Joe Perrello]

Run the phone with sanitation. Clean this whole thing up. Huge failure. But next day, the New York Post, you know, puts this on like page two. Page. I was like, at least we didn't have the COVID Yeah, the New York Post, page two. We get this huge outpouring and nobody actually, like, gave us any crap. Like, they all thought it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stupid Snapple. But Snapple was so beloved as a New York brand that everybody sort of gave us. Gave us a pass. Like, nobody, nobody really gave us any crap. Nobody really said, you idiots. I can't believe this. The press was like one day hit. New York Post was like, those guys, what are they doing? They have a blah then. And that was all over. It was done.

[Mike Linton]

The Onion didn't pick that up as a headline story.

[Joe Perrello]

Oh, well, those guys have said other things about me at the time that

[Mike Linton]

I'm sure they have. Right? Well, you know, this is the first time we have ever discussed a 50 foot popsicle on the show. So, Joe, thank you for breaking through. I think that is a great way to end the show. Thanks for joining us, Joe and thanks to everyone for listening to CMO Confidential. New shows drop every Tuesday and you can find our entire catalog of more than 160 shows on Spotify, Apple and YouTube, which include Agency Economics in the Age of AI Marketing at Meta, the view from the eye of the storm. Your customers aren't as loyal as, say, think as you think they are. The fragile nature of loyalty and Joe's first show, what I learned as the first ever CMO for New York City working for Michael Bloomberg. Hey all you marketers stay safe out there. This is Mike Linton signing off for CMO Confidential. Typeface is changing the way to think about brand marketing at scale. Their marketing orchestration engine is the first of its kind and built specifically for for the enterprise. The orchestration engine uses shared brand intelligence designed to turn brand guidelines into personalized voice, visuals and messaging delivered in a way that fits the context of your audience. It's how brands like Asics and Post holdings scale what works without sacrificing quality. Start orchestrating your brand at Typeface AI CMO.