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- [00:00]
A
How to build culturally relevant and cultural elements into your ads in a way that makes sense.
- [00:06]
B
A lot of brands had started co opting culture and it wasn't getting them anywhere in terms of actual performance. And it was also coming off as super cringe, which is a double negative.
- [00:16]
C
Culture isn't disappearing as part of like the ecosystem, but like it's just changing rules. Instead of driving distribution these days, it's now providing that like context for relevance. The crossover becomes like that cultural context and like the functional resolution of kind of like whatever kind of like brand or product that you're trying to sell when they meet like that you have like the ideal permission to speak to that audience.
- [00:48]
A
This episode is brought to you by Contentful marketers. You know that feeling when your creative clicks, when that social post sends engagement through the roof, when your outside of the box campaign hits ROI positive, when a personalized homepage turns prospects into customers? It's utter marketing bliss. Contentful helps you create tailored omnichannel experiences without working overtime. No stress, no limits, only possibilities. Get the feels@contentful.com it's all killer, no filler. And I am here for another episode with adventurous podcast host Aaves, as well as Daniel Sendecky from the pilot house team for his second appearance. Welcome guys.
- [01:29]
B
Thanks for having us to be here. I always feel like I'm coming home when I do. All killer, no filler.
- [01:35]
A
Yeah, that's right.
- [01:36]
B
Very nostalgic.
- [01:37]
A
Your roots are strong with us for sure. I'm excited to dive into some more creative strategy insights today. A couple weeks ago we had Daniel on. We talked about creative as an intent resolution system, which I thought was pretty, pretty interesting the way that we're talking about having to reach different avatars and, and really unlock problems or really, really have our ads have a high degree of strategy and intelligence in each one. Aves, you're always talking about creative. For today's episode, we're kind of harkening back to a talk that we did a little while ago about the idea of how to build culturally relevant and cultural elements into your ads in a way that makes sense. And the term back then was the idea of cooperating with culture rather than co opting culture. So maybe let's start with that. Where did that come from?
- [02:23]
B
Aves, that came from an episode of this podcast where I feel like we were just riffing with someone. And it came up because I think it's important to be explicit when we're talking about marketing materials and advertising as a venture versus, you know, making organic content or like an actual artistic pursuit. And so I think we were really starting to see this, in my opinion, like gap widen between the death of millennial brand and where we were going next. And there was this weird trend of brands really co opting culture and acting as if they were an individual. And I just kept seeing it like time and time again fall flat. So I think that sentence and that idea came from this observation that a lot of brands had started co opting culture and it wasn't getting them anywhere in terms of actual performance. And it was also coming off as super cringe, which is a double negative. If you're going to come off as cringe, at least make a little bit of money. I'm never offended by that, but if you're not doing either, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
- [03:31]
A
And Daniel, back to our previous episode about creative as an intent resolution system. This was in the, in the pre chat here we were talking about how even when you want your ads to find a way to meet people where they're at, but at the same time you still need to have the intent behind it. As we were saying, it can't just be like, oh, Iran's crazy, buy a blanket. So talk to me a little bit about how you see building culturally relevant moments within this intent resolution system.
- [03:55]
C
Yeah, it's interesting. In the algorithmic environment these days, the model is relevance response and that gives you reach. And it's interesting to what Avery was saying because if you look back into the golden days of Old Spice and stuff and the brand voice is that primary strategy and today's algorithmic environment has killed that brand voice as that primary strategy. You know, those brands spent an enormous amount of energy crafting like these witty social posts and like this personality driven copy and like all of this cultural commentary. And that made sense when the distribution model was focused on attention and then people sharing that through conversation and that giving you reach. But like the algorithmic environment has really just kind of like changed the model a little bit. Right. So like the question for us now becomes. Or the creative question becomes like, does this message help the system understand who should see this? Not like, is this clever enough to be shared. Right, so like in many ways like the clever brand accounts are like increasingly feeling a little bit irrelevant. Maybe that's what ABES is speaking to. Not to put words in your mouth abes, but like they're optimized for a distribution system that just no longer dominates. Like it's changed so fundamentally in the past 10 years.
- [05:19]
B
I think Yeah. I think what's really, like, interesting and challenging and exciting for me is that you have to have both now. Like, when we talk about how content is distributed, you need to infuse a piece, a single piece of creative needs to be infused with both intent and a problem and solution, as well as that, like, witty cultural relevancy to truly win and dominate.
- [05:47]
A
So it's so interesting, that sense of belonging that you're like, I belong with this sentiment in a way. Right?
- [05:51]
B
Yeah. There's like a larger group. And so I always think about it as being. Yeah, it's so interesting because back in the day, Old Spice would have had separate teams running that. I don't know what it was 15 years ago, like a Twitter account or whatever they were using. And then they'd also have a separate team based on performance. And those were two completely separate entities, where now they have to both exist in a single ad placement. And then there needs to be several hundred of those ad placements that all do the same thing of infusion, using both intent and culture, which is, yeah, like I said, exciting. And it's rare to see brands striking both at the same time in a way that feels.
- [06:32]
A
Do you guys have any examples? I know, like, it's funny, I remember just in the run up to Black Friday Watch, like, coming, seeing the ads that you were sharing for some clients, aves, and I feel like you're uniquely gifted at, like, pinging the millennial brain in a way with. With how you're doing it, like, providing that sense of belonging, whether it's through a tongue in cheek, little bit of humor. You're not usually doing newsjacking like that, but how do you think about cooperating with cultures, you know, when you're making ads?
- [07:01]
B
Yeah, that's a really good question because I, I, no offense to you guys, I hate millennials, and I think all my older cousins know that I've given them a hard time my whole life. But something really switched in my brain when I stepped outside of that hatred and venom I had from millennial culture.
- [07:22]
A
I'm Gen X, so I don't mind. I'm Gen X. I didn't catch a stray there. I'm good.
- [07:26]
B
Instead, started really thinking deeply about, like, generations. I think I did a run on Adventurous where I talked about, like, boomers, Gen X, Gen Z. What is at the core of each of those generations in terms of, like, an unmet need because of the environment that they grew up in. And I came around to millennials when I was doing that because I realized the unmet need is really stability and comfort for a lot of millennials. And so bringing a, like, large amount of humor into advertising materials for a brand that focuses on millennials just started to click because I realized that these people mostly had a lot of loans. They wouldn't ever buy a home. Like growing up in really difficult times.
- [08:11]
A
9 11, the financial crisis, Covid we got. We got everything.
- [08:16]
B
So I started thinking about things which is very, I guess, like therapeutic in nature, which is like what is the core wound of a generation? And then address that. When I'm talking to a Gen Z audience, it's really different because that core wound is more wrapped around identity. So it's about like almost forcing a perspective on their own identity. And that's where you find success. And then yeah, with Millennials, it was just trying to find the funniest way to infuse intent and like cultural relevancy
- [08:47]
A
into a single placement with a bit of commiseration. I feel like commiseration is a bit of the word where it's like, it's the wink nod. Like we've been through a lot. You. So that. That seems to be one of the ways you infused it.
- [08:58]
C
I think relevance is. Is like Abes used that word. And that's like the important kind of like underlying here. Like the culture isn't like disappearing and as. As part of like the ecosystem, but like it's just changing rules. So like instead of driving distribution these days, it's now providing that like context for. For relevance that. That Avery's speaking to. So like the crossover becomes like that cultural context and like the functional resolution of kind of like what or a product that you're trying to sell. And like when you can, when they meet like that you have like the ideal permission to speak to that audience. Right?
- [09:37]
B
Yeah, We've talked a lot on, I think both oculato filler and adventurous about speaking the same language as your Personas that you're speaking to. Cause you can nail exactly what they need to see from an intent point of view. But if the ad looks in their eyes janky, it's not going to hit the same because you've got. So I think about this all the time. Like context in which people are in taking an ad is so different than it was like Daniel talking about Old Spice. I think I did an episode recently about Old Spice specifically, and those spots were so attention grabbing and people watched the full thing. But you could never make those ads in a 3 to 5 second vertical video and do the same thing. Like, you couldn't rebrand in that way now because it required you to watch the entirety of the 32nd spot, which I think the first one was maybe I just. I'm trying to remember because I just did this. I think they uploaded it online during the super bowl, which was really interesting. It wasn't like run during the super bowl, but they put it on YouTube because back that day, YouTube was all the rage. So it's really interesting just thinking about how people like the context that your content is seen in and like needing to drive that same language visual cues. Because back then people would go on YouTube and look up an ad because it was entertaining. And now all you want to do when you see an ad on is like, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, or scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. So having that, like, exact replica of what they see organically is so important as well.
- [11:13]
A
I did a podcast this week with a sponsor, actually. They're called Street Talk. Have you heard of them? They basically just do in person, street interviews as an ad format. And they're basically. I think it's an interesting format because it like bypasses the critical response a little bit to an ad, to that skip, skip, skip thing. Because we're so used to seeing human conversations as native content that we're actually interested in. So when you're able to create interesting conversations, I think. I don't know if it's, if it's.
- [11:39]
C
We.
- [11:39]
A
I don't know if we test much of that in, in. In the ads, but it's interesting to hear. It's like authenticity. People are looking for authentic moments, and we're increasingly pumping more AI and more influencers and things like that. So I could see this ad format being one that, that, that's useful in the future.
- [11:55]
B
Yeah, I like. Right at the end of the year, I started thinking and reading a lot about, like, the Dada error and thinking about ads is like, why would that be an ad? And getting really surreal and abstract with how I was approaching ads because of that exact reason, Eric. I was like, people understand what an ad is going to look like. So I was really starting to. And you guys would have seen that internally with some of the ads that I was personally making. I started to invoke questions of, why would you make this into an ad? How could this, like, why would this exist as an ad? Like, why would a company pay money to put this in front of me? And I use that as a strategy and it's similar to the, like, street Interview. It's like, what is that? It Works against what people expect, which is good.
- [12:40]
C
It's an interesting analogy there, Eric, because that kind of streeter format is something that earned media and PR have drawn on for decades. And the kind of everyday people interviewed in the street, you see them in broadcast news segments or those vox pop style interviews. The implicit message there wasn't like the, you know, our brand is clever. It's that, like, real people are experiencing this problem and, like, here's what they think, right? Like, it's tension, resolution, and like, they really work because they kind of like surface that. That human validation to what you. To what you were speaking about.
- [13:19]
A
And good ones can take you through the full funnel. Good ones can, you know, and because your. Maybe your defenses are down to the format, you can learn about something and learn its benefits. Kind of by the time you know it, it just. I can see it. Bypassing some of the urge to swipe. Abes, could you. I know we don't love to talk about client ads that we've actually created, but can you talk. I'd like to just hear a couple of the examples of the ads that you're, like, proudest of that have worked that are like, that kind of embody this idea of. Of speaking to this group.
- [13:51]
B
Yeah. So to use that like millennial, because I feel like that's the brand you're referring to. Some of the ads that I'm proudest of are the ads that I was the most afraid to send to the brand director. But they're really willing to play ball because it works. I would say one is one that I call Weird Guy Emoji, which was me going through the archives of MSN emojis and figuring, again, that quick visual cue, and it's like, what person who was using MSN would expect to see those emojis resurface, let alone expect to see them in that type of format. Something else I was incredibly proud of. This was a big Q4 push for me.
- [14:32]
A
Sorry, that was. That was ICQ. That was ICQ, not MSN. But I would work for me if I heard that. If I heard that. Oh, in an ad, I'm going to.
- [14:41]
C
I just had. I just had a flash. I had a flashback. It was like I was crazy.
- [14:47]
B
Also in the almost like, opposite direction. I was very proud. I started taking, because I realized that when something becomes public domain, you can just use it and abuse it. So I started taking historical pieces of art and, like, all this sort of intent and resolution that Daniel talked about. But it was like, in these really ridiculous situations which I know was like, a big pull for millennial. Humor was just the absurdity of the brand we're talking about. It's in the soft goods category. It's one of those products. I actually recently saw the CEO of Coach talking about this. Like, if your category is not a necessity, like you were saying, you know, people can carry their stuff around in a brown paper bag. If your category is not a necessity, you need to be, like, that much more clever with how you talk to the actual person. And so I really think about that a lot. But, yeah, I would say Renaissance art MSN emojis as well as I started thinking about single static placements as, like, comic book strips. And I also do love a bit of. That's such a nerdy thing to say. But I do love comedy and, like, the architecture of a joke. So I started thinking about, like, how can I break this up into, yeah, sort of squares in a comic book and, like, almost within the margins, like, cram jokes in there and just make it so that if you didn't get one reference, you were going to get another. And it was just. Yeah, I had the most fun. That's what I'm the most proud of.
- [16:21]
A
Just a wink, right? It's a. It's a. It's a wink at the audience. And it's that feeling of if you get the wink, then you're. You're on the in group in a way. Right?
- [16:28]
B
Yeah. What I saw too, like, the more I could drum up that relevancy through visual cues and these winks, the more incredibly positive engagement I got on my paid media, which I always wear as a badge of honor. Like, when I start getting comments that are like, this is a funny ad. Whoever made this ad deserves a raise. Because as you guys know, people in the comment sections of ads are not nice. And most of the time they're like, who made this? Put this out. So as soon as I start to see, like. And I will creep people on whatever platforms they're commenting on. As soon as I start to see, like, true representations of our target segmentation and Personas. Commenting that they like an ad, I tend to know that that is a good direction. But it's interesting, like, what Daniel was saying. With deliverability, we really started to see when we could find these places to enter their world and their culture. That era of deliverability sort of skyrocketed because of the algorithm, which was really cool.
- [17:28]
A
I know. Daniel, you think in terms of systems a little bit and creative. How do you with, you know, building the system For Pilothouse Creative, how do you think about what sort of Aves has just said there about creativity?
- [17:44]
C
Yeah, like, I mean, the nice thing about a creative system is like, it's like poetry, right? It's like iambic pentameter. It's like, it's, it's the constraint, right? And then, like, the creativity to, like, operate within that constraint is really where the rubber meets the road. So, like, we can talk about creative systems all we want. And sure, they're functional, like, they, they, they, they work in terms of the algorithm, but at the end of the day, you know, permission to speak. That culture really shapes why, like, these brands that we work with actually, actually exist.
- [18:17]
A
Right.
- [18:17]
C
And it's important to, to be able to answer that conversation in an authentic way. As, as was saying the idea of
- [18:25]
A
being in on the joke. I just, I just this weekend caught, like, a native McDonald's campaign where they, they basically had Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews, the Canadian and American archetypes for, for hockey competence. Each post on their, Their organic profile is like, oh, look, I've got a tiny little puck, and, oh, I've got a tiny little stick. And, and. But they're both subtly in a McDonald's when they're doing it. You can see the bottom, the golden arch, you can see a cash Register on the 1. And. And then the day after, it revealed that they're part of this new, like, hey, we shrunk down and now we're mini guys, like, playing, playing McDonald's hockey or something. But again, it was just that, that, that idea that, you know, bring people in with something native that doesn't feel like an ad and then make them realize that they're in an ad halfway through it.
- [19:11]
B
First of all, we didn't, we don't need to talk about this. But the McDonald's CEO referring to the burger as a product and taking the tiniest bite of all time, that was the funniest.
- [19:20]
A
Oh, my God. We do need to talk about that, because I absolutely need to talk about that.
- [19:24]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [19:25]
B
It was just, it's like one of those things that you couldn't, you couldn't even imagine being in the room and being like, yeah, let's post it. I think you did a good job. Let's post it.
- [19:35]
C
The interesting thing in that cultural moment was the response from Burger King and the CEO of Burger King kind of like responding in kind A and W as well. And the interesting thing is, of those two videos, Burger King is likely the less authentic of the two in the sense that, like, you can see that great care has gone into making that seem like, authentic moment. It's lit and shot in a shaky cam style, whereas McDonald's CEO was like, yeah, not a lot of prep, not a lot of thought went into framing that shot, which fundamentally makes it more authentic. But we all responded to and felt a greater trust moment with Burger King than we did McDonald's in that situation.
- [20:31]
A
I. I always think of Inglorious Basterds, that scene where the. Where the German guy, you know, is not being German, and he says three versus three. And it's like, as soon as you do that, you're like, well, hello, fellow high school students. Like the Steve Buscemi mean kind of thing that tiny. Like, he took. He opened his mouth really wide, but then it just came down and, like, minced off the tiny tiniest little bit.
- [20:52]
B
It's also awkward. Like, really interesting to think about larger trends in culture and, hey, put your CEOs in a basement right now. People don't want to hear from them. People don't want to see them. It's not a good time to have your CEO referring to food as a product on the Internet. And there's, like, really simple cues that can tell you that. And I always try to stay a little bit ahead. I think that's the political strategies to me. So it's like where. If you look at patterns of how societies behave, it's like heading into a period of time where wealth is not aspirational. So put those guys in the basement. We don't want to see them. We don't need to see them. They're acting weird. Let him crush the numbers in peace. Like, it's almost cruel to kind of think of doing that in this environment where people are really talking about that kind of thing more. And then again, food as a product is a. Like Daniel said, it's so authentic and unscripted that it. With a certain group of people, you kind of don't want to let them do that.
- [21:52]
A
Final point. We mentioned this. We can cut this if we like, but Daniel shows up to our interview wearing the Nike tech. That was so. But that was not a native ad. I'm sure that was just random. But when Nicholas Maduro was kidnapped, he's wearing the Nike tech. And I always wondering, was that a product placement? There was a lot of jokes at the time about whether or not that was something that would, like, Nike, you know, arranged or whatever. Crazy. It's just. It's what a moment in culture. We're at Right now. What.
- [22:16]
C
It was so immediately noticeable that like I was, I was watching CNN likely, and at the moment thought to myself, oh no, I may have to retire like that two piece.
- [22:30]
A
So you had it before. You were not, you were not influenced to buy it from that?
- [22:33]
C
I was not influenced to buy it. I recognized that its value had changed dramatically on that day and how it might be interpreted. So it's funny because you're not the first person to even mention it this week.
- [22:51]
A
Oh, interesting.
- [22:52]
C
Yeah. So I might have to retire it now.
- [22:55]
A
The one thing I noticed this year about the super bowl too, I feel like there was a lot of backlash this year for the ads in the super bowl and how much they felt tone deaf or missed the mark for, for reasons that we've discussed today. Whether I think there was just so there was such a heavy AI bent to them. There was just a lot of like there was one that was about an island that was literally about all these celebrities going to an island or not getting invited to an island. And it was like, that doesn't seem like the best thing to be talking about right now.
- [23:22]
B
Yeah, I think a lot of the times, like for myself, I have a, like greater sensitivity because my background is in political strategy. It's a lot. You make bigger bets there and you anticipate reactions more, I think. But it is really interesting to see, like I say this all the time. We all especially like if you're listening to all killer, no filler exist inside a very specific echo chamber. And that is something that I learned that I think really accelerated my success in the political space was to always get out of the echo chamber because that is when you start to, you just miss what's going on in the real world. And I think that happens, happens a lot with AI. Like most of my friends who have real jobs, they work in healthcare, they're teachers, they don't use it, or they're not thinking about generative AI in the same way that we are. And so it's really interesting when it's like all we're talking about and then you realize 90% of the country is not talking about it in the same way. It's really good to get out of the echo chamber.
- [24:25]
C
You would have hoped that of all years this year that advertising agencies would have recognized that distrust in media is like at an all time high. Again, I might be living in the past, but like for me the last like truly disruptive like super bowl ad were like the, the tide ads, right? That like where they like kind of like, weaponize that, like advertising distrust. And like, you didn't know that you were watching a Tide ad until halfway, you know, through. Through the. Every ad you saw was actually a Tide ad. And it was so meta, but it was so referential and so in the moment that it was really capitalizing on, on that advertising causing distrust. And you'd think that of all the years that would have been something that was surfaced this year. But like, I don't know, maybe we're too earnest these days, right? And we have to actively recognize, like, how it's time to not put your CEO in front of the camera, put them in basement for another decade.
- [25:24]
B
Or it's like if you're gonna put them in front of the camera, walk them off a plank, you know, like, lean into the weird. You got two options and they didn't pick either that worked. But yeah, it's really like a good call. It's interesting. I feel like there hasn't been a Super bowl ad. My favorite super bowl ad is, I believe it was Verizon had a ad that featured Beyonce. And the whole thing was talking about like, is the Internet going to be strong enough for Beyonce to drop new music? And then during the game, it showed her on her phone immediately after the ad played, and she kind of alluded to dropping something on Spotify at the end of the ad and then showed her on. On her phone. That is, I think maybe like 3 years old or something. But I thought that was like also one of the only in the past decade, like different uses of that space because it's. People, like approach it in such a 2D way now. But it's like now, you know, you have socials, you have the actual game footage. Like, there's so much more you can do than just.
- [26:22]
A
It's all 5D chess knives. It's all 5D chess now. It honestly is. I. I think of. I think of it and I won't. We won't go all the way down the rabbit hole. But I, I think again and again of the Shakespeare quote about all the world's a stage. And I honestly feel like there's so many aspects in the way, whether it's Auston, Matthews and McDavid doing a little thing ahead of time, like, or whatever. It just feels like that is the kind of world we live in. And so therefore that the healthy skepticism or response to that is also warranted in a way.
- [26:50]
C
Right.
- [26:50]
A
As people being skeptical. I think of Kanye West's ad, we, you know, obviously another whole ball of worms there but his ad where he's just literally like, I spent all my money on this placement and then I just had to use my iPhone or whatever. Like that was again, that kind of undercut the whole enterprise in a, in an interesting way. Any, any closing thoughts there, Daniel?
- [27:07]
C
Just, just in terms of the super bowl, like I'm. It's, it's, it's pretty much a lock that like the, the best advertising in the next decade is not going to happen in February during the super bowl. Right. It's, it's just increasingly like, like it's happening on the street level. Right. Like it's creators, it's TikTok, it's, it's YouTube and it's like the dare of the algorithm. So like that kind of like big brand thinking and that brand investment at Super Bowl. Yeah, it's just, it's just the world has changed fundamentally.
- [27:35]
B
Totally agree. It's like part of the reason why I like this type of marketing, not that type of marketing, because this is where the cool, interesting stuff is happening. And I was thinking about, there's an app that promotes like no screen time and they ran essentially an organic creator and this person just built up a profile over like a year, got a ton of followers. They have a very specific style to their videos. They're like in front of a whiteboard talking about the benefits of not being on your phone. And they slowly started to lace these videos with call outs to this app. App to download, to not be on your phone. And that is the kind of stuff that's like super bowl level that like long term thinking. Because I think like another thing that people come to this world of marketing with is this assumption that like I'm just gonna go viral in a single moment of virality is that kind of new super bowl esque vibe. But it's like, no, it's a long term play that is laced with a ton of strategy and then eventually sort of comes to fruition, like everyone realizing, oh, this is a paid creator, an operative for this app.
- [28:45]
A
All right, well, let's stay in touch about all the exciting creative trends out there. Otherwise, thanks for coming on today, guys. This was fun.
- [28:51]
C
That's your time, Eric. Always a pleasure.
- [28:59]
A
Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're not getting the, 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 DTC podcast we'll see you next time.