Ep 558: Creative Strategy in the Andromeda Era: What Actually Works on Meta Now

Summary

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DTC Podcast Ep 558: Creative Strategy in the Andromeda Era – What Actually Works on Meta Now

Date: November 7, 2025
Host: Eric (DTC Newsletter and Podcast)
Guest: Avery (“Aves”), Creative Lead and Partnerships at Pilothouse, Host of the Adventurous Podcast

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Eric and Avery dive deep into the dramatic shifts in creative strategy for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands marketing on Meta (Facebook/Instagram) in the "Andromeda Era." They discuss the evolution from brute-force creative velocity to true creative diversity, the importance of understanding customer motivations over demographics, niche targeting tactics, hook-testing frameworks, common mistakes, and actionable advice for Q4 campaign success.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding Creative Diversity Versus Creative Velocity

• Defining the Difference: There’s a critical distinction between producing lots of creative (velocity) and producing meaningfully different creative (diversity).
  • Avery: “If you're just making a bunch of ads that look different but don't connect with anyone, that's not actually really going to help you… You need to niche down in order to scale up.” [00:00]
• Strategy of Creative Diversity:
  • Ads must not only look different but say different things to different customer motivations.
  • True creative diversity is the “icing on the cake”; it expresses all your upstream strategy and research (backed by real user needs, not just design tweaks). [03:15]

2. Customer Motivations Trump Demographics

• Motivation-Focused Audience Segmentation:
  • Instead of grouping users by demographics, segment them by underlying pains, desires, and motivations.
  • Eric: “The theme... is being able to look at your customer avatars not in terms of their demographics, but in terms of their underlying motivations, their pain points, these sort of like softer things.” [01:48]
• Practical Example:
  • Using Spongebob jokes for a specific age group that grew up with the show (even citing millions in spend behind such highly targeted creative) [06:19].
  • Avery: “If people don't get the really weird referential joke you're making, it's probably... a good ad anyway... So you kind of cover all your bases.” [06:19]

3. Creative Formats and Visual Range

• Scrappy to Polished Content:
  • Utilize a full range from UGC-style iPhone content to high-gloss branded studio photography.
  • Creative diversity also includes the format and the style—ensure coverage across all customer segments and angles. [05:24]
• Avery: “You want to make sure you have an ad... that fits that and also speaks to those motivations and pain points.” [05:24]

4. Andromeda's Impact on Distribution & Performance

• Equal Representation in Ad Spend:
  • Shift away from “winner takes all” (one ad dominating spend) to a system where multiple creatives for different personas receive budget.
  • Avery: “There’s a really healthy mixture of ads coming in and out of those top winner slots... I rarely see now in ad accounts, I would say we’re healthy, one winner getting all the spend.” [08:13]

5. Deep Customer Research: Going Where They Are

• Mining Actual Language and Pain Points:
  • Spending real time in forums (like Reddit) and reading comment sections to extract how customers think/talk, not just what they say about your brand.
  • Avery: “I make a real effort to go where they are on the Internet and where they’re going to be the most truthful…” [10:24]
  • Look for motivations that surface in product use context, not just product reviews (“this made my chaotic mornings really easy” reveals ease-of-use as a driver). [10:24]

6. Hook Testing Framework: Visual > Audio

• Visual-First Hook Testing:
  • The most impactful creative variable is what a user sees in the first 3-5 seconds.
  • Meta reps suggested shifting test focus from changing voiceovers to changing visuals early in the asset for improved results.
  • Avery: “As soon as we started switching it to... starting with someone making a coffee and pouring it in versus someone sipping it was like, okay, now this is actually... showing a big difference in performance.” [13:13]
• Sound-Off Reality:
  • The majority of Meta users scroll with sound off, so visual storytelling trumps audio. [16:35]

7. Common Creative Mistakes

• Superficial Iterations:
  • Minor copy edits or last-second tweaks do not represent true creative diversity.
  • Avery: “Number one mistake is just like doing it with no thought or reason behind creating those iterations.” [17:31]
• Too Much Account Noise:
  • Low-quality, undifferentiated creative can clutter the ad account and may negatively impact performance in Andromeda.
  • Avery: “Is the negative impact coming from... just shitty creative? That might be the case.” [19:02]

8. Actionable Q4 Audit Advice

• Creative Range Audit:
  • Build a checklist from “scrappiest” content to branded studio work—make sure you have representation for every persona and winning angle.
  • Don’t forget December—there’s often as much or more opportunity than November.
  • Avery: “Make a list, check it twice, go in the ad account and just make sure that you’ve got all those things accounted for.” [19:40]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You need to niche down in order to scale up. Sounds silly and kind of backwards, but the truth of the matter is like people want to see something that resonates with them and resonates with them quickly and the easiest way to do that is to be really specific.”
  – Avery [00:00]
• “If people don't get the really weird referential joke you're making, it's probably... a good ad anyway... So you kind of cover all your bases.”
  – Avery [06:19]
• “The more interesting ads that you put out there that work so there's less of that full bucket of spend going into one shitty iPhone video you just can't beat. And there's way more an actual even playing field.”
  – Avery [08:13]
• “If I've got an asset and it's working pretty well... what I found in testing... was we immediately saw more tangible results... as soon as we started switching the visual in the first three to five seconds.”
  – Avery [13:13]
• “Number one mistake is just like doing it with no thought or reason behind creating those iterations.”
  – Avery [17:31]
• “Make a list, check it twice... the year doesn't end when Black Friday is over. There's still December, which is sometimes, in my experience, even bigger than November.”
  – Avery [19:40]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00 - 02:39] Importance of customer motivations & creative diversity
• [03:07 - 05:13] What true creative diversity looks like
• [05:24 - 06:07] Balancing creative formats and range
• [06:19 - 07:54] Niching down for scale and effectiveness
• [08:13 - 09:42] Andromeda’s impact on ad distribution & creative equalization
• [10:24 - 13:06] Deep customer research: mining forums, comment sections for insights
• [13:13 - 16:35] Hook testing framework: visuals vs audio & Meta’s feedback
• [17:31 - 18:42] Common mistakes in creative iteration
• [19:40 - 20:56] Q4 actionable audit steps
• [21:06 - 22:04] How to get an Aves-style creative audit

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Final Takeaways

• Focus on true creative diversity, not superficial tweaks.
• Go deep into customer motivations—use language and memes they recognize.
• Test visuals—especially the first 3-5 seconds—over audio hooks.
• Avoid cluttering accounts with minor, meaningless creative variants.
• Audit your creative range for every persona—cover the “scrappy-to-branded” spectrum.
• December is a huge opportunity—don’t slow down post-Black Friday.

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For direct inquiries or creative audits, listeners are encouraged to reach out through Pilothouse and mention the podcast for an Aves-style deep dive!

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Transcript

[A]

You have to understand what their motivations are in order to press the gas on the creative diversity. Because if you're just making a bunch of ads that look different but don't connect with anyone, that's not actually really going to help you. You need to niche down in order to scale up. Sounds silly and kind of backwards, but the truth of the matter is like people want to see something that resonates with them and resonates with them quickly and the easiest way to do that is to be really specific. The real distinction with actual diversity is that the ads need to be different in a visual way and also what they're saying needs to be a little bit different. Figure out what you have to say to these people to resonate with their desires based around your USPs and then you just figure out how many ways you can say that.

[B]

It's all killer, no filler. I'm Eric and I am back with Avery, host of the adventurous podcast and creative lead over at Pilothouse. Actually you're creatively, but you're also, you're doing partnerships at this point now too, right?

[A]

Aves, yeah, I'm doing a lot of stuff. I'm trying to be adventurous in my career. Little plug. But yeah, I still work directly with our high skill clients and our like internal creative team at Pilot House, but I've also stepped out to talk to like more people sort of on the partnership side of things, which has been really fun. I've spent a lot of time like building and tinkering with systems, so it's really fun to like talk to people about those systems that we have at Pilot House. Just trying to be more adventurous, branch out, not spend. We were just talking about this before we started recording like 10 hours a day briefing content, maybe just five hours a day briefing content and then five hours helping people do it.

[B]

Describe the shift and one day we'll just have AI doing it all. No, we will not. We are the human contingent. But what we're talking about today was something, it's kind of following curiosity, diving into Andromeda, diving into the world of meta, the meta algorithm, Andromeda at this point and how it kind of functions and is really requiring creative diversity. So today we wanted to talk a little bit about creative diversity. The theme that's come up in a bunch of my podcasts lately is being able to look at your customer avatars not in terms of their demographics, but in terms of their underlying motivations, their pain points, these sort of like softer things and actually building your audience Segments not about the demographics profiles, but more about their motivations in a way. And I was hoping we could tie that into this conversation around creative diversity as well.

[A]

Totally. I think it's a real, like chicken or the egg situation. Like, you have to understand what their motivations are in order to press the gas on the creative diversity. Because if you're just making a bunch of ads that look different but don't connect with anyone, that's not actually really going to help you in this sort of new age of meta. So, yeah, it's like the two are, in my mind, almost the same thing. It's like the same, same process.

[B]

So you're doing creative strategy at a high level for some of the biggest brands. Working with Pilot House. So how do you think about creative diversity as a strategist?

[A]

Yeah, I tend to think about it as like the fun part of the job. I mean, I really like the part of the job that's like strategizing around motivations and figuring out like, what these people actually want to hear. But the actual effort of putting the rubber to the road and figuring out how do you now explain that? I think it is in my mind, creative diversity is like when everything is kind of perfect. It's like the icing on the cake. That's when you start to think about how can we actually make more ads? And we've talked about this pretty openly about like five, six years ago. What we did at Pilothouse was we thought a lot about creating creative velocity. And I feel like whenever we talk about this, it's good to like, do some definition. Setting velocity to us and to most people who are winning on meta, back five, six years ago just meant like, let's change the headline on this static five times. And that's going to kind of rig the algorithm in a way that we're putting more content in. It's getting to more people because we're setting up the kind of what you were talking about at the top. We're setting up those segments so it's getting to more people. There's just more ads. We're just going to keep like pumping out iterations, get like 100 creators to take the same selfie style picture with the product and that was fine. That could call it a day. But the real distinction, and I've talked to our meta reps with some of our bigger accounts about this a lot, the real distinction with actual diversity is that the ads need to be different in a visual way. And also what they're saying needs to be a little Bit different. So what's really interesting about now is that it's like you figure out what you have to say to these people to resonate with their desires based around your USPs and then you just figure out how many ways you can say that, which is actually really fun and to me, really exciting. But yeah, that's a very long winded way of saying we think about it as like the sort of pinnacle of all the strategic work that goes behind it. And that's just like how you express all of that thinking and research and data.

[B]

And that's on one level. And I guess there's creative diversity also in the formats or the like the ways you're telling those stories, whether it's through UGC or through Static or there's that dimension of creative diversity as well.

[A]

Totally. It's like we have a visual that we use a lot, but we talk a lot about a creative range internally too. So thinking about accounting for like a really scrappy, like I was mentioning iPhone shot of a creator holding the product right up to like branded photography that we've shot and added like really specific language as an overlay and really like sets up the brand rather than the product. Creative diversity lends itself to being able to capture everything from that iPhone shot to that branded studio shot, everything in between. You want to make sure that you have an ad active that fits that and then also speaks to those motivations and those sort of pain points.

[B]

How niche does it get? I know you're famous for saying not being afraid to get weird essentially with your ads, but how niche down are. Have you found effectiveness with these emotional avatar things?

[A]

I love talking about this. I love talking about this too. When we're like auditing brands. I do a lot of that these days because I think a lot of the time there's like a hesitancy in niching down. But to me, most brands like you need to niche down in order to scale up, which sounds silly and kind of backwards, but the truth of the matter is, like people want to see something that resonates with them and resonates with them quickly. And the easiest way to do that is to be really specific and example. I use a lot. We've now, I think I've talked about it before on this podcast specifically. We've pumped like maybe millions of dollars of ad spend behind this ad. But it's super simple. I knew the exact demographic. This was maybe two years ago. I came up with it and I used a like really silly joke from spongebob Because I knew the audience I was talking to would have watched spongebob and it was like a blink and you'll miss it kind of thing. But the like referential quality of it and knowing that the product really resonates with that person and that all I had to do was put the two puzzle pieces together. To me it feels almost easy to get niche in that way. You have to do a lot of research. But yeah, I wouldn't be scared because another thing I talk to brands about, especially on the audit phase, is if people don't get the really weird referential joke you're making, it's probably strive to make an ad that's just good anyway and it's going to work for people who don't even get it. So you kind of COVID all of your bases. It's like the product looks unique and interesting, but then so there's this extra layer to help you niche down and like really generate interest in the product and the brand.

[B]

What does distribution look like in Andromeda these days where like we used to think for such a long time about winners, all the time winners, you know, winner creative. You got to find that winner creative. And mostly it's like it's 9010 or less than 99, 100 in terms of where the budget goes. Is that any different with meta these days?

[A]

It is if you're doing a good job. Which sounds so pretentious, but if you're doing a good job. I've been I think saying this over in adventurous for a while. I don't produce a lot of waste now in terms of content. So I've seen the directly displacement of budget. Exactly what you're talking about. Where there used to be one winning ad that for years it would be kind of, I feel like a joke with buyers. It's like can't we beat this ad? Probably not because the algo would just favor it so much. But now it's really interesting in that the demand for varying creative and diversity lends itself to from an actual backend event point of view, they're going to reward you. The more interesting ads that you put out there that work so there's less of that full bucket of spend going into one shitty iPhone video you just can't beat. And there's way more an actual even playing field. One of the brands that I work with directly, we've got essentially three main target Personas and they are all represented in every single facet in the ad account. So it's not like one broad top of Funnel ad is working like what used to happen. There's a really equal representation which makes me really happy and also really proud. Equal representation from each of our three main buckets who are very different people and very different ads. But there's kind of a really healthy mixture of ads coming in and out of those top winner slots. And I rarely see now in ad accounts, I would say we're healthy. One winner getting all the spend.

[B]

The podcast that's coming out on Monday, he broke down this idea of the main motivations for people buying his product. One of them was it was. It was women buying it as gift for men and the other was men buying it. But then, and that's what they operated on for a very long time, then they went a layer deeper, ended up going like, why was she buying it? Why was he buying it? Was he buying it because he needed a pick me up? Was he buying it because it's. It, you know, looked cool? Because he loved this xyz. Do you have any other anecdotes about how you kind of broken down without maybe naming the brand, how you've been able to like break down these different either hooks or angles that you're kind of approaching things with and give give some examples?

[A]

I spend a lot of time with them virtually, so I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, but I make a real effort to go where they are on the Internet and where they're going to be the most truthful. So for a while I was working with a specialty coffee brand and I spent an inhumane amount of time on Reddit threads learning about coffee. And I would avoid specifically looking at Reddit threads about the product I was selling. And instead I was just trying to figure out when they were reviewing coffee shops that they really liked to go to, what did they like or not like about the in person experience of going to that coffee shop? When they were talking about competitor products or actual coffee beans themselves, what was the language they were using to describe their pain point? That's something that I really try to tap into when I go infiltrate those spaces. It's like, how do they actually talk about it? Because I think that it might just be the literature nerd in me that really allows you to understand how they think about their motivations when you can see and kind of dissect, I guess, the language around how they're either complaining about something or praising something that's adjacent to your product. Um, and then the other thing I do a lot of is reading comments. So instead of Going to them, seeing how they talk, coming to us and what they talk about. It is like both my favorite part of my job and my least favorite because people in Meta comments are like, crazy. Even if they're being really kind about the brand, they're nuts. But I do that a lot where it's like they often I'm fortunate enough to work with brands who take customer experience really seriously. I think I also do, so that makes sense. But really finding out from those comments or those reviews what brought them joy about the unwrapping experience, I'm not just looking for. If it's like love my make believe mug company, this mug helped my coffee really well, I'm looking for the oh, this made my chaotic mornings really easy. And then it's like, okay, this may be the subset that's like millennial women. That's who the comment came from. Their actual motivation is like ease of use and peace because they're a very busy subset of people. So it's about going really deep with them both when they come to you and also wherever they are existing out there and then just searching for patterns in a way and documenting all that, whether you've got a custom GPT or just a bulletin board in your room, in your office, documenting it all. And then like I said, noticing the patterns and making connections between them.

[B]

And so we use that to get some ads that work. Talk a little bit about your hook testing framework.

[A]

So this is something that I do feel like we shifted a little bit before we even knew about Andromeda, which just turned out to be really lucky for me and my coworkers. But we started thinking really deeply about and this actually came directly from Meta, which is really interesting about a year ago because I love bragging about this. Oftentimes Meta reps will be like shocked by how much volume and diversity the brands that I work with and I create. But I remember they specifically said to us at some point you should really consider because we're doing a lot of testing different voiceovers. So I feel like a good example to walk through this framework is if I've got an asset and it's working pretty well, it's a creator asset. Usually what I would do a year ago would be to try cutting up the voiceover because I thought I've got a visual that's working really well. The easiest sort of lowest hanging fruit might be trying the audio hook because I do think audio is quite important and introducing the product in that first three to five seconds in a different way. And it was meta themselves. Who said instead of that shift the visual they see in the first three to five seconds. And what I found in testing that was we immediately saw more tangible results. So I feel like when I was running it based on voiceover or I don't know, changing the style of the captions or something, or changing the ad copy, we'd see differences in performance. But it was such a small difference that it was like, I don't really think this is making a huge deal. It's maybe just luck of the draw with who this ad got in front of. But as soon as we started switching it to if it is the make believe mug company, starting with someone making a coffee and pouring it in versus someone sipping it was like, okay, now this is actually not only showing a big difference in performance, but I can see when I look into the demo data on platform that it's serving the different people. And that is what you want to see when you're breaking something apart and testing it. So it's like, okay, maybe what I'm getting now is if the version where it was pouring the coffee into the cup and showing them actually making it was serving to a slightly older male demographic taking a sip was serving to slightly younger women. I could say, well, maybe the dudes want to see the like craft of coffee and maybe the women want to see the aesthetics which is like a very quick generalization. I wouldn't like build out a strategy, but it gave me more like tangible results and also drove success quicker. So I don't know if that was like our very kind, cool meta rep kind of giving us a warning. I mean he probably didn't know but he was just like, I don't think you, you don't see a lot of difference in performance when you do this and it takes a lot of your time. So why don't you try shifting it? And that's what we've been doing ever since. And it's like so critical. I we talk about this a lot like those first three to five seconds anyway and like who. I think with stories and reels it's different. You tend to have your like sound on. But like who's got their sound on? First of all, who's using desktop meta? That's already weird. But like who's like in the feed scrolling with sound on as well? Not really anyone. So it makes a lot of sense.

[B]

Great insight. And you've been talking about the past three to five seconds for years or the first three to five seconds of ads for years. I think We've got multiple podcasts where you're talking about it.

[A]

Yeah, there's this really specific Charli XCX quote where she's like, oh, it's hard being ahead. And that's exactly how I felt in the wake of the rollout of Andromeda. It's like everyone is booing me. My obsession with short form content, specifically that three to five seconds, but it works. And it's also, I have found once you get used to working in this way, it's easier. It's like listening to the full voiceover and trying to figure out how to chop it up in a way that I could make three other iterations. That took like a really long time. That rep was right, where if I just swap out the visual, it's pretty easy. It doesn't take that long and the results are better.

[B]

You're still repurposing and reanimating similar footage. You're using a lot of the same stuff. And there still is that sort of like pastiche aspect where you're building slightly different variants on main themes, although maybe a little bit less these days. What are some common mistakes you see brands make when they're trying to repurpose their content?

[A]

I would say ignoring the first three to five seconds and just ripping different endings or different copy overlays. Especially this one drives me nuts when I go into audit an ad account and it's basically the same video. They've mixed up some stuff in the middle, but the angles are all the same too. It's like even pre Andromeda, you're not really testing for anything there. You're just creating noise in the ad account for the sake of doing it. So I would say like a top mistake is probably just not considering the actual difference in angle of the iteration, if there is one. And seeing people run Black Friday started early versus Black Friday early access, it's like, I don't know, that's really counting towards actual creative diversity. And I also like we're mentioning with the kind of voiceover, that kind of testing, I don't know if you're going to get any usable data from that because it's just whoever it landed in front of how much money they had and if they wanted to spend it at that point, like you're not actually testing anything. So then yeah, number one mistake is just like doing it with no thought or reason behind creating those like iterations.

[B]

Talk about noise in the ad account, because that's something that I've also been hearing about. Andromeda Is that not only are you kind of wasting your time with creative, but like, like that isn't strategic and isn't. Isn't speaking to an angle. It can actually sort of be negative impacting on. On your ad account if you have too much overlap. Is that something that you're getting a sense of?

[A]

Yeah, I think so. Because, I mean, it's kind of also like a chicken or the egg. It's like, is the negative impact coming from like, it's just sh. Tty creative that might be the case.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It might just be bad. So I. I can't say if it's actually meta. Kind of penalizing you for all that noise in the ad account versus, like, it might just be a cop out if you've got really bad creative that doesn't really speak to a person.

[B]

What's the One thing every DTC brand should be doing this week to prep for Q4 success? I know it already should have happened, but what's the one thing that you'd like that you do in an audit? Maybe that brand should look into right now if they're listening to this?

[A]

Yeah. I would look at your creative range because that is the easiest place to start if you want to start this journey of, of diversifying your content. So go through it like almost a checklist, like I was mentioning. Start with like the scrappiest, most sort of humanized content that was shot on an iPhone and looks low effort, and work your way up to branded studio content. Try to see if you're sort of filling all the gaps for each of your major Personas. And if you've only got one kind of main Persona and segment you focus on, make sure you're filling up that creative range for each angle that's winning in your ad account. So just kind of like very timely, very Santa style, like, make a list, check it twice, go in the ad account and just make sure that you've got all those things accounted for. This is something I feel like I've been talking about pretty openly on audits. It's like the year doesn't end when Black Friday is over. There's still December, which is sometimes, in my experience, even bigger than November. So it's not a waste of your time to do this right now because very quickly we're going to be back in just sort of like gifting lightsail Evergreen territory. And it is really important to like, knock December out of the park.

[B]

You mentioned audits a few times. What, what would people listening to this if they, if they've already Done their own creative audits, but they really want to talk with Aves. Get an Aves style creative audit. What do you recommend they do?

[A]

Yeah, they can head over to the Pilot House website and fill out a lead form. If you say that you came through on the Adventures podcast, I will kind of be pinged and I can chat with you directly. But also, as Eric mentioned, I'm working pretty closely with our partnerships team, so anytime someone comes in and mentions me, I hop on there. I will warn you if you do want to. Every single time I've talked to someone doing this, I have gone like 45 minutes over time. There's a real chance that I will yacht too long. Every single one I haven't because it's like so exciting. And looking at an ad account live, you always just find so much. So, yeah, do it. But also with a caveat that we might be on the phone for like an hour and a half talking about.

[B]

This stuff and we might turn it into a podcast. Just kidding. That'd be sweet though.

[A]

Yeah. We might be friends. You just ripping genuinely a friend doing this, which has been great because we like each other's TikTok.

[B]

You can tell a lot about a person by their ad account.

[A]

I think so, yeah.

[B]

All right, well, thanks for coming on the podcast and if you're not listening to the adventurous podcast, you've got to go search it and subscribe it. It's AD D Venturous. We'll put a link to it in the show notes here. But you would have heard these thoughts. We already kind of picked this episode from an awesome episode that you just went direct to camera and. And kind of and did a scripted episode, which I'm really, really impressed with your. Your episode so far. So keep it going.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

How have you enjoyed being a podcast host?

[A]

It's good. It's definitely different and challenging to talk about something that you do a lot. And something that I've realized too is not everyone. I may have just said this. Not everyone has spent time like I have in ad accounts and making ads. So I feel like something that I had to realize was like, not everyone is as in the weeds as I am. So some things that are really interesting to me are actually not that interesting to other people. And some things that aren't interesting to me that feel like almost instinct are actually interesting to other people. So that's been really fun to navigate. It's like what's actually valuable for someone who doesn't spend 10 hours a day in an account.

[B]

Yes. Well, here's to a successful Q4 and getting away from our desks as appropriate. Thanks for coming on again, ace. This was sweet.

[A]

Thanks.

[B]

Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're not getting the DTC newsletter, you can subscribe for free at directtoconsumer Co. And if you want to learn more about Pilothouse's all killer no filler services, take off to Pilothouse Co. I'm Eric Dick and this has been the D to C podcast. We'll see you next time.