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Marketing Trends
Why Brand Associations Outlast Trends
01:20:06
Brands don’t live in campaigns… they live in memory.
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- [00:00]
Uli Applebaum
Brands are memories, associations you have with a specific offering. Think about geico. It takes 15 minutes to save you 15%.
- [00:08]
Stephanie Postols
A gecko.
- [00:09]
Uli Applebaum
He can be trusted. You are not you when you're hungry.
- [00:12]
Stephanie Postols
Snickers.
- [00:13]
Uli Applebaum
Mike, what is your deal, man?
- [00:14]
Stephanie Postols
Come on, eat his Snickers. You're not you when you're hungry.
- [00:19]
Uli Applebaum
Take a break. Take a. Those are core associations. They're easy to share. That's the power of brand associations and memory structures. A lot of the global market research companies use the concept because it's so important in brand building now.
- [00:34]
Stephanie Postols
There's so much data, actually, that's out there that does show what works when it comes to brand association and good marketing, most people just haven't looked. They don't know about it, so they just create their own. They should actually just look at evidence and stop going off the next Instagram trend.
- [00:47]
Uli Applebaum
If someone comes to me and tells me no one knows how advertising works, I literally want to grab him and say, do your freaking homework.
- [00:58]
Stephanie Postols
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Marketing Trends. I'm your host, Stephanie Postols, and today we've got Uli Applebaum joining the show. I'm so excited about having Uli on this show. He's a marketing and a brand strategist with over 25 years experience working with some of the biggest companies out there, like Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Nestle, General Mills, Hallmark, and a ton more that he'll probably talk about later. He also is the author of the new book the Science of Brand Association. Uli, welcome to the podcast.
- [01:25]
Uli Applebaum
Thanks for having me, Stephanie. Very excited to be on your show.
- [01:27]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, I'm very excited because I think when we had our call together, I was like, ooh, he's got some hot takes that are definitely gonna be going against what I've talked about on the show before, and it might slightly offend some of the guests I've had. And that's okay.
- [01:42]
Uli Applebaum
So don't share my email address then, please. Let's do it.
- [01:45]
Stephanie Postols
I know we will have to censor out your eyes so people don't really know who you are.
- [01:49]
Uli Applebaum
I changed my voice.
- [01:51]
Stephanie Postols
There you go. There you go. So. So just so people can understand a bit about how you think and who you are. I really want to start with a story, and I want to start with a story of an actual company you've either seen or you've worked with that was using a marketing playbook. Maybe it's a trendy one. Maybe it's something that a marketing influencer has been Telling everyone this is the way to do it. You saw them using this playbook and it was not working. And you stepped in and either had to course correct or you wanted to from the side.
- [02:19]
Uli Applebaum
Yes, absolutely. Well, it's not me stepping in, it's actually the new CEO, that company stepping in. So not too long ago I was hired to train the whole marketing department of a large brewing company here in the US and they had a CEO that had joined a year earlier, an old school sort of like marketing guy, and two or three years before the previous executive team had hired a bunch of consultants to develop them for them. A sort of like brand playbook really. Like what do you need to pay attention to when you build a brand? Now this ended up in three documents, each 80 pages long of different framework, different formats. But it had all the, the really trendy new philosophies in there. Was all about cultural branding, it was all about archetypes, etc. Etc. And the truth is when I, you know, admitted in the training session that this was even for me a little complicated and complex to try to, I could feel like a sense of relief amongst everyone in the group because they would spend six months filling out forms and forms and forms of documents, strategy documents, without actually running their business or impacting their business. And my approach is very simple or very different. And we'll speak a bit about that. It's about brand associations, right? Brands are memories, associations you have with a specific offering. And when you break down a strategy like that and say you have a brand today, well, what do consumer associate with it? Give me like the five, six bubbles or the little diagram to illustrate that. And are those association driving your business, once you have figured that out, is what are the associations you want to nurture and refresh, what are the associations you want to add? So those are the three simplest question. And as I said, you can go on a white wall, draw circles, do little bubbles, and it is simpler, more focused, focused on what really matters and easier to manage than 240 pages of templates and frameworks and documents that you need to fill out. I mean it's like being at the post office or the DMV where you just fill out forms without achieving really anything.
- [04:34]
Stephanie Postols
So I mean it seems like this concept of brand association is probably more important now than ever. I mean, I know you will tell me. It's probably always been important. I think we discussed that. This is something that's like time tested through history. Most other marketing doesn't have evidence around it or things that people are running right now. Many other branding exercises don't have evidence. But tell me maybe some examples of associations that are very, very strong with certain brands that you've seen.
- [05:00]
Uli Applebaum
Think about Geico. What do you think immediately when you think about Geico? You think about the gecko that is a brand asset. And if I actually, I should have said, you know, it takes 15 minutes to save you 15% would immediately have thought about Geico. If I say you are not you when you're hungry, who do you think about? Anyone comes to mind.
- [05:25]
Stephanie Postols
Wait, say it again.
- [05:26]
Uli Applebaum
You are not yourself when you are hungry.
- [05:28]
Stephanie Postols
Oh, the chocolate bar thing.
- [05:30]
Uli Applebaum
Snickers.
- [05:31]
Stephanie Postols
Snickers, yes.
- [05:32]
Uli Applebaum
Or you know, take a break, take a Kit Kat. Those are core associations and those are like immediate ones and they're easy to share. But when you think about a brand like Harley Davidson, for example, you know, you think about heavy motorcycle, you think about the sound of the motorcycle, you think about freedom and open spaces. Those are the association that we connect with this brand of motorcycle through 70, 80, 90, 100 years of marketing and personal experiences of the writing community. So those would all be associations that are unique, different and motivating for the respective brand they are associated with.
- [06:14]
Stephanie Postols
Okay, and then what about the B2B space? Is there any examples of companies, maybe software companies that are actually doing this?
- [06:20]
Uli Applebaum
Well, well, the interesting thing with B2B. Yes, there are quite a few like Salesforce. Salesforce also uses like brand assets and characters and stuff like that. Everyone has a clear opinion for what Salesforce does. And it's more challenging for to talk about B2B companies, to be honest, because they don't have, they're not in the public space just like, you know, Geico would be. So it's not a mainstream for discussion for everyone. But a lot of the clients I work with or the, the competitors, to be honest, of the clients I work with have clear defined spaces that they are. If, if they're good, they have good, clearly defined spaces. They have. And the biggest problem I see in B2B is simply that sometimes they don't quite know what space occupy or they try to occupy a new space every six months. You know, it's interesting when you think about Google for example, or G. Yeah. Google or Gmail for example, could be also B2B. But it's mainly emails, right? Or search engine. Those are the two elements. But when you look at the 56 million other tools Google offers that no one really thinks about, this is an example for me where we put you in a Bucket or associate something very clear with you. And then we don't go beyond that trying to say, oh, they also, you know, don't they do visual editing software? Don't they do, you know, all these other kind of offerings that, that they actually do? But we don't think in those terms.
- [07:52]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah. So how hard is it? I mean, I see so many companies right now and I'll stick with the B2B since we're or just software companies in general, even ones like Google. How hard is it to change brand association? I mean, I'm thinking about Salesforce, which you mentioned earlier. They probably don't want to be known for CRM company anymore. Now they're like, hi, we're AI Everything we've got AI Agent Force. That's who we are now. So how hard is it to shift brand perception?
- [08:17]
Uli Applebaum
Well, it's extremely difficult because the perceptions are built in the memories of your customers. Right. So you don't control it. What you can control is the input, the stimuli you provide. You know, I can say, hey, Stephanie, I'm not only CRM anymore, I do AI AI as well. Whether your brain decides to register that, it's up to you, not up to me. Now, I could say to you 600 times until you, you know, you, you buff and, and say, okay, I get it, you're also AI. So it sounds simple, but consistency and continuity is a way to create this new association. But the big mistake a lot of companies do is especially when they're not doing well, they want to discard all the old baggage and try to buy new baggage, basically. So that means drop the old equities they probably spent dozen and dozens of year building and then try to replace them with completely new ones. And that is a big mistake. So step one is often understand what are the associations a company is currently associated with? Are they relevant? Are they still helping us? You know, if, let's say Salesforce is associated with outstanding customer service in CRM, that is an association you want to keep, so you want to transfer that into the future. Often associations just need to be refreshed or revalidated or brought to life in a more contemporary way. So that's another way to preserve this equity that has been built. And some you want to drop them, but you cannot just drop them. You just stop speaking about them and start to speak about new ones that you want to replace the old one with. So it's a basket of eggs, if you will, that you need to, you know, rearrange and reorganize but you can't just throw everything. Well, you can, but that's not going to work for you because you. Then I'm going to go. And they. Stephanie, we don't do customer service anymore and all we do is AI. And that contradicts what you think about. When you think about, let's say Salesforce. You cannot just break that memory so easily.
- [10:20]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, that's interesting. I'm actually, I just saw a Nike commercial, I don't know if you've seen this too, where you know, they've always been known for just do it and now their new ad campaign use just do it in it. But then it also shifted it to I think like, why do it maybe or something like that. But they kept the old one even though they're trying to move to this new one. So it's like an exact example of what you're talking about.
- [10:42]
Uli Applebaum
That's exactly right. And the interesting thing is people resist that, Right. In the case of Nike, a lot of people started to complain. People are familiar with something and they like to keep it this way. So if you, I've done a lot of packaging work over my, my, my career and every time you introduce a new packaging, people are going to say, I hate it. You know, so why? Well, because it's new packaging, not because it's worth or different from the, or less effective than the previous. People resist the unfamiliar. So you'll have that too. But what you will see is things then slow or settle in and then people just get used to it and you know, people start accept accepting it and then everyone will say, why do it? Was it why do it? I think it's why do it.
- [11:23]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, I think it's why do it. I think, yeah. And if not, someone can call me out, let me know. So I mean when thinking about these like this network of memories, I mean, I'm thinking right now there's so much out there and there's so much content. But it also feels like, well, you need to be out there. You need to as a brand, you need to be showing up in all the spots now because you need to make sure they like your future customer. Here's your name in many different formats, whether it's through audio, video, written. Like you have to be everywhere. But how do you advise, you know, your clients when thinking about there's a lot of noise, you still probably need to be everywhere. They're like, where's that happy medium?
- [12:04]
Uli Applebaum
Well, the interesting thing is you go back to the basics, right? And that comes back to science. And to understanding what works first is what you get out there. And I'm sure you, you guys do the same when you create content for your customers is it needs to be relevant. That means it needs to some kind of value to your audience. That's number one. Number two, it needs to make you look and feel sort of like different. Right? If I say the same thing as a next consultant with a German accent and you know, a cap and say exactly the same thing is there's no differentiation going on. So I need to understand why you are different from what everyone else offers me. And the third element which most people often forget also in B2B, I need to elicit an emotional reaction. So my message needs to be relevant, different and trigger an emotional reaction. And an emotional reaction can be a funny commercial. That is already enough because what, what does it do? Science shows us emotion imprint memories harder and more strongly in the brain than a lack of emotion. So if I tell you an emotional story about, you know, a little girl that, you know, give chocolate to her dying grandpa and you know, reconnected with him emotionally, or I tell you this chocolate is yummy, you're going to recall the story of the little girl and that's going to be ingrained in your brain much harder. So these three things, so ensuring that your message does these three things is number one and number two is constantly repeat it at every touch point that your brand has with your customers. And that's a big trick here because you know, I'm sure you look at your own visual identity and your logo and your brand and think, gee, I've seen that 6,000 times. I'm getting bored by my own, you know, execution visual identity content. Maybe it's time to change it. No, because a customer will have seen that once or twice over a longer period so way less often than you. So there's recent studies that showed actually that there is no such thing as a wear out effect in communication. On the contrary, the more emotional piece of communication is, the more often people want to see it. And you can run it over years and years and years and years. So there's this sort of like misconception in the industry that we learn slowly through data that they're not correct, but so relevant, different and creating an emotional impact and then consistently showing up at every touch point over a long period of time. Sounds very simple, but I don't know many companies that have the rigor to do this and to be systematic about doing this.
- [14:39]
Stephanie Postols
I mean, it's probably because there's so many different leaders coming in all the time. They're like, oh, rebrand, this is lame. I don't like this logo anymore. I know it's been here 150 years, but I'm deleting it now. So.
- [14:50]
Uli Applebaum
And those are the, absolutely, those are the most immediate changes a marketing director can do. Change the advertising agency, change the advertising, change the logo, change all these kind of things. Those are absolutely some of the problems I encounter also with, you know, the company I work with is they change things too quickly. They want to change things for the sake of changing and sometimes it's good. But as I said, if you don't understand what your legacy is, what your current associations are, you are shooting in the dark or you're repeating the cycle basically, which, which is dangerous.
- [15:23]
Stephanie Postols
So I know we've mentioned, you know, evidence based studies that you've dove super deep into and you even talked about, you know, studies from around the world and how there's so much data actually that's out there that does show what works when it comes to brand association and good marketing. And most people just haven't looked. They don't know about it, so they just create their own. Here's the new demand gen program for 2026 and this is what we should do. What got you into this space? Why did you say, okay, today's the day I need to write a book that shows people there's evidence and they should actually just look at evidence and stop going off the next Instagram trend.
- [15:57]
Uli Applebaum
Well, if that was so easy, I think it's. I was always interested by brand association memory. I was always interested in scientific concepts and how they apply to marketing. And when I decided to write the Science of Brand Associations, I first searched on Amazon or who else has written about the subject. And Stephanie, there is not one single book in the gazillion books on Amazon that either has brand associations in a title or that focuses exclusively on this subject. So I was like, okay, I'm going to waste my time if there really no interest for this type of things. But then I started to dig deeper and I started to realize that a lot of the global market research companies use the concept or the framework in their research methodologies. A lot of the thought leaders in marketing use the concept without maybe calling it like that, but use the concept. And they use it because it's so important in brand building, right? So but they maybe give it a different name or make it slightly different. So when I noticed that, then I decided, you know what, I have a Little gap between a couple of client projects. So I'm going to curate all the content I can find about brand association or memory networks, you can call them like that, to show what science is behind it and show what evidence supports the concept of brand associations and what, what, what, what evidence shows us about what makes successful brands associations and how they contribute to the business. So I basically curated all this content and so maybe it was an ego free venture. Right. Because it wasn't the brilliant thinking of the great Uli that I want to share with the world. No, it was, that's my first book. This book was really more about, this book book was more about what do we know, what is the science behind it, what's the evidence about it? And then how can I summarize that and turn that into scorecards, actionable tools for marketers and sprinkling a bit of my own experience in there because the ego still plays a little role. So a very different approach from most of the books out there. It's, it's, it's really interesting and it's what, what surprises me always Stephanie is like, it's almost like to your point, the knowledge is out there. Right. So if someone comes to me and tells me no one knows how advertising works, I literally want to grab him and slap him. I mean in a non physical or non violent way. But say, you know, do your freaking homework and if you do bad advertising today, it's really your fault. It's not the lack of knowledge, it's not the lack of understanding, it's not the lack of science and data to show us what works. But weirdly enough, the industry doesn't work like that. You know, the industry is fine. I have great storytelling and let me show you a case study that has nothing to do with, with the philosophy that I'm talking about that but allows me to retrofit it and show it to how it works together. And that seems to be sufficient for people which, which I just find you want to spend millions in your marketing and don't know if it's actually going to work and you believe it's going to work. You know, I'd love for you to give me like 20% of your budget. Do your thing, give me 20% of your budget and you're still not going to be less successful or more successful because it's so luck driven also I don't know what. Driven but not evidence based.
- [19:15]
Stephanie Postols
Yep. So when you come in, I mean, I think you've mentioned before a 30 day sprint, you can do or like how quickly can you understand, okay, what are you associated with, what are your customers or the people around you associate you with? And then how do we shift it or fix it? Like what's that process look like?
- [19:32]
Uli Applebaum
So I can do anything from a workshop, two day workshop actually I'm having one the next couple of days where all I need upfront and that's for B2B. That's often convenient. Where all I need up front is a series of stakeholder interviews with the executives of the company and maybe have a look at some consumer research they may have done. Or we do a couple of customer interviews up front, do a two day workshop and come out with a solution. So that is sort of like the, for, for especially smaller companies with limited budget, that's an effective way to go. And you don't $300,000 in research, you don't need a brain surgeon to look into the brain of your customers to understand what are the core associations. A simple interview, couple of interviews with potential customer gives you a pretty good sense of, of what the, what the needs are or what the situation is. But that can also expand into a nine month project for several hundred thousand dollars that includes qualitative quantitative research, that includes strategy development and, and validation. And so it's really depending on the scope of the client, the, the severity of the need of that client and, and you know, on their objectives frankly. So we can really accommodate for either the small quick, which then takes three weeks, four weeks at the most to start, execute and implement, or nine months with each gen 4 bigger. Those are then more like multi billion dollar Companies in the B2B world, global companies and these kind of things. So that's the beauty of my system is the flexibility of, of how I can operate.
- [21:10]
Stephanie Postols
Okay, and what about when it comes to associations? Are there any that surprise people most? I mean I remember hearing you talk about sound and smell and just things where I'm like, oh, I can't think of that many brands that have thought about that being something, you know, they want to associate themselves with. Maybe sound. But smell was an interesting one that I really had to think on. So are there any that you look for that that just are surprising to people?
- [21:34]
Uli Applebaum
Well, the thing is often people, the brain registers our environment through the senses, right? So so usually it's not that a word floats in the air and then comes into our brain. We see something, we hear something, we smell something, we feel something and our brain translates that into meaning, into content and to these kind of things. Sound is an interesting One, because it's undervalued, but it's increasing in importance nowadays. And obviously to, to have a sound establish itself as a strong association, you need repetition, right? And that costs a lot of money. One that is more surprising for me is something like smell. Now Obviously for a B2B business, smell might not be the most relevant. Well, actually it's not even true. Let me, let me give you a quick example. A couple of years ago I worked for an industrial lubricant and cleaning company. What they do is like when you have big factories which big, like presses and big machinery, they need to be cleaned and they need to be lubrified. And so they have specific product for that. And a client reached out to me and wanted to take their products, which were highly chemical but, but easy to put together and sell them as a B2C brand. And so we did a workshop with what we call at the time tinkerers, which were basically people, men who love to play their garage with their cars or their motorcycle and you know, tinker at the project they're currently working on. And as we were doing this sort of like co creation workshop with this, I think it was like 12 of these tinkerers. All of a sudden one of them opened the bottles we had and smelled it and immediately paused and said, you know what this scent reminds me of? When I was a kid hanging out with my dad in the garage and spending evenings in the garage working on his car or his pet project or whatever that was. And then we reached the bottle around and everyone was like, yes, that's true. I had the same memories. I also did that with my dad, you know, he was fixing the lawnmower or this car, whatever that was. So here was for me an example. And that immediately created fond memories of their childhood, positive memories of their childhood that were immediately associated with this lubricant because of the smell. So actually I'm contradicting myself. Even in the B2B world, you can find these type of examples. And so what I would do is if I would promote this brand at, you know, auto parts or another retailer, I would push the scent out, you know, make it, make the bottle smell so that you trigger this visceral reaction immediately. And then you don't even have to read the back of the, of the bottle anymore and say, you know, that remembers me of my youth and my father and what we used to do. I'm going to grab this one. So even in B2B it's possible.
- [24:23]
Stephanie Postols
Yep. Yeah, I love that. I mean it's very interesting. Now. It has my mind racing with thoughts about, you know, walking into a conference and having a certain smell, if it's a very founder heavy, entrepreneurial one, like, what are the smells that they might just be like, oh, that's just nice, or that's calming, or it gives me some inspiration. I can do this, I can build this company type of mentality. So, yeah, that's good.
- [24:45]
Uli Applebaum
It's interesting is recently I listened to an interview with. I forgot his name. The CEO of the. Sorry, yeah. The CEO of the podcast, the Diary of a CEO.
- [24:54]
Stephanie Postols
Oh, yeah.
- [24:55]
Uli Applebaum
And he was talking about how they pay attention to the customer experience from the first contact to the moment they leave. And they look at the CO2 level in the podcast room because they realized if you, you and I were to be sitting in the same room, you know, with, with three, four people, the CO2 level would go up and that would have a direct impact on our mood, our energy level and all these kind of things. So it's not direct scent per se, but it's also a sensorial experience that affects how you think, how you perform, how you do everything else. So they go as far as to really look at all these details. And I'm sure it also has to do with the scent if you have guests in your studio. I'm sure it's going to be a very different experience depending on the scent you have, you know, and it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy.
- [25:46]
Stephanie Postols
Yep. Yeah. When people walk in my studio, they smell like spiritual incense cauld and they're like, where am I? Am I in Tulum or am I doing an interview? And I'm like, good, let that one stick.
- [25:58]
Uli Applebaum
I like to get a distinctive asset of your studio. That's great.
- [26:02]
Stephanie Postols
It's very good. Yeah, it hits every time. So what about when I think about a world perspective? I know you had a very interesting point about US marketing versus global marketing and just things that you've seen as you've traveled around the world and supported a bunch of companies. Tell me more about this.
- [26:20]
Uli Applebaum
People are getting quiet when I speak about that. And when I post about that on LinkedIn, I get zero engagement from my US network, but a lot of engagement from this. Right. And it's a couple. So the way I look at it, and when I was a student, a long, long, long, long time ago, and I was looking at the thought leaders in marketing and stuff like that, it was all American academics. It was people like David Aker, like Kevin Keller, like Porter, all these people were Shaping the way we were thinking about marketing, what works and what doesn't work. A lot of it still was an evidence based, but at least it was scientific and academic. This has disappeared over the last 30 years. And what I'm seeing is the thought leaders now are based in Australia, the thought leaders now are based in Europe. And when I say thought leaders, it's not that they came up with new fancy theories, is they more and more started to look at evidence based marketing. So what do we know works for sure? What are the principles we can replicate and that are proven that if you replicate them will lead to the same outcome. And you've seen that a couple of companies in the US took on that evidence based thought leadership as well. I become a US citizen earlier this year so I can say we have lost this global leadership over the last 30 years. And it's interesting because my book covers a lot of the science, I would say half of it US based, half of it non US based. And when I show that to US academics, I get pushback. It's like, oh well, I'm not sure this study is really validated. Well, it's definitely more validated than the ones you proposed. So you feel like pushback. So the U.S. has lost the strategic leadership of what effective marketing is and it's probably going to struggle to regain it. But that's okay with me. I want to know what works. I don't really care if I read it with an Australian accent or with a German accent or with an American accent, as long as we learn what makes marketing effective and so powerful.
- [28:30]
Stephanie Postols
So who are some of these global marketing influencers leaders that you respect and are following?
- [28:36]
Uli Applebaum
Well, I think the most influential one is an institute called the Ehrenberg Bass Institute based in Australia and they have written a couple of books that are also 15 years old called How Brands Grow or How Brands Grow Too. And what those are, it's basically a compilation of evidence based principles that work and don't work in marketing. And they've been embraced much earlier, as I said earlier in the rest of the world and slowly find a footing here in the US because of large companies. They have like big sponsor big companies like you know, Procter and Gamble or Mars Corporation and stuff like that that sp of them and then bring over this knowledge. So those would sort of, for example be big thought leaders. Another one is Mark Ritson, marketing teacher who is now an online mba, mini MBA academy. But again he leverages this knowledge from these external sources, so to say. And here in the US you have a company called System One. Initially they, they focused more on testing advertising before it gets launched. But so many, and they're very data driven now and so many of their learnings correlate with the learnings I was able to summarize. So on what makes effective communication is similar to what makes effective brand building. You know, things like relevance, differentiation, emotional resonance and stuff like that. So there's all this learning that is coming together which the US I'd like to think I still have a little edge because not everyone embraces this in the US market, but I do. So it's probably going to give me a three weeks edge over, over everyone else out there.
- [30:18]
Stephanie Postols
Three week edge. Got to run faster.
- [30:21]
Uli Applebaum
I try.
- [30:24]
Stephanie Postols
So another thing that I'd love to touch on is around customer journey mapping because you had a strong thought on customer journey mapping, which I definitely have talked about quite a bit on the show with different CMOs of how they think about it. And I think you said something like you thought it was overrated or people shouldn't do it as much as they do do it or tell me it in your words before I just put my own words in your mouth.
- [30:48]
Uli Applebaum
So that's why you need to change my voice and put a little bottle over my eyes. I think most of the customer journey surveys are complete waste of time and money, very simply and not because it's not important to understand what are the touch points and what they do. But in most cases we look at them as, you know, a branch has 26 touch points and we're going to look at all of them as if they're all equally relevant and important from the branded soap dispenser in the bathroom to the stand at the convention, the yearly convention. And that is complete. So you waste your time learning all these things, gathering all this information, but it doesn't tell you what is going to help you build your business or convert a customer. And speaking of science based, there's a new, there's proof now that in any given market, 95% of your customers are future buyers. And so let's say in every given market only 5% of all your customers are actually in the market to purchase you. 95% of them are not. So when you develop a customer journey, who do you focus on? The 5%, the 95%. It becomes very complex. What I've learned is try to identify one or two touch points that are really, that have the potential to be really impactful and focus on those. And let me give you an example. In the book I write about. For example, there's this restaurant owner in New York who decided that he wants to separate himself from his competition through the experience he provides to his guests, to his patrons, and to surprise them. So what does he do is, let's say if you know that Stephanie is having dinner here, his friend has a great time. But they also know that you're parked outside in the street and your park meter is about to run out. What they do is they send a waiter out with a few coins and put it in your park meter so you can stay longer. It has nothing to do with the restaurant, has nothing to do with the food, but has all to do with the experience. There's also science and research that shows us if you are able to surprise your customer in an unexpected way, do something for him that exceeds their expectations and that has a human touch. This is worth 55 brochures, 65 case studies, and a cool little video that speaks about the future. This experience makes the difference between he's going to remember you and think about you at the next moment of purchase, or he's going to get a competitor as an alternative offering. And it's so simple. And the more important technology, or the more pervasive and. And invasive technology becomes, the more important these little things get. I have a friend of mine who has a company, he measures, he calls them excitement moments, which is basically, I ask you think about a company that you had an interaction with that really excited you recently, and they capture all that information. And one thing that surprised them is one of the things that a lot of people mention is chatbots that have a human personality. So, you know, when you log in somewhere, you immediately have a little window that pops up and say, hi, my name is Uli. How can I help you? And most of them are purely transactional, are generic, are cold. If you build in a language here that is quirky, that is more human, maybe has a little bit of human, basically, that has a human touch and that surprises the user in that moment because it's unexpected. These are things people remember, and these are things that influence the way people think about a specific brand. It's just crazy. It's, again, not rocket science. It's the one on one of, you know, human behavior and how humans react to their environment, their stimuli, and the way we make them feel.
- [34:45]
Stephanie Postols
Yep. Yeah, it's. It's like novelty will always be a thing. Surprise and delight will always be a thing. And I remember I was at a crab house and all you can eat crab house in Maryland, which is where I'm from. And, you know, you spend a long time, if you are having all. You can eat crabs, you will be there for many hours. Of course, I had my four kids with me. Actually, we had six kids. We had my sister's kids as well. So we had six kids who obviously do not want to stay somewhere for four hours. And the server could kind of tell they were getting antsy, so they went over to this little arcade area. Of course, didn't have money. We don't have coins. And the staff started giving them money so they could stay over there and play. And I remember just being like, I'm coming back. I'm a lifetime customer. Like, just that one extra step to, you know, have my kids occupied and having a good time and literally giving them probably over $20. I was like, I'm a lifetime fan.
- [35:35]
Uli Applebaum
Well, I'm sure they got it back, and you are telling the story, and I'm sure you were surprised by the this generous gesture. And, yes, that's. That's typically what it takes. I did a project for a client of mine who was in the B2B world. They were catering to kitchens in colleges and universities. So their core target audience was chefs in colleges and university culinary environments. They had done this big customer journey analysis and had a big document that wasn't used. So the business unit leader reached out to me and said, can you help us make sense of this and turn that into something we can use in our business plan next year? Because they didn't know what to do with it. But that's what I mentioned earlier. This were the 27 touch points. Very descriptive, very thoroughly analysis. But you're sitting there like, okay, so what do I do? So the way I approach this is I talked to, I think it was like 15 to 20 of these chefs in kitchens and asked them the typical question, what magazines do they read? Et cetera, et cetera. But very quickly through the conversation, what came through was they didn't want a sales rep to call them and say, so, Joe, this month you want what, like 5 gallons of milk, 12 gallons of butter? You know, I have another company here that I sell products for. Do you want maybe some, you know, sliced meat? So they didn't want this. What they wanted, they wanted salespeople that were ex chefs themselves. Because what does a chef do when they meet another chef is, hey, let me walk you through my kitchen. Let me show you how I've organized. Let me show you what my tools are. And every chef I've ever encountered in my life, is proud about their kitchen and is proud about the tricks they use other. The, the machinery they use and all these kind of things. And, and just walking, Imagine walking a sales rep for 15 minutes through your kitchen and talking, oh, and here we have our, you know, dairy products and oh, what kind of do you have? And why do you use this type of product, not this one. All of a sudden the conversation becomes expert to expert, chef to chef, not sales rep to customer. And so what came out of this research was simply do your due diligence with all the other touch points. Don't continue to do it. You need to be present, but replace your sales team and your sales agent by former chefs that are now salespeople and sent them out. And that was one touch point. The interaction they had with the chef itself, surprising him, validating him, making him feel good about. About himself. Hey, you know, Chef Ulli showed Chef Stephanie his kitchen and was able to brag at Shrove about all the cool things I do. Memorable, like nothing, no other touch point. And those are sort of like experiences that then lead to, yes, you are a bit more expensive, but that's okay. I'll find another way to, to, you know, get a shortcut. These are the memorable things. So the recommendation was very simple. Increase the number of chefs you have that reach out to these potential customers and your business will grow automatically. And that's exactly what they did. And. And it grew one. Yes, and it grew consistently. And it's. Well then Covid kicked in, so that damped the whole thing a little bit. But it has still been growing since then as well. So. And that is, is one touch point that really mattered. And the way you can change and make a memorable experience that makes the whole world of difference in the process.
- [38:58]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, I love the idea of simplifying and not getting caught up in way too many data points of just like, what is the one delightful memory surprise can you bring in and have that be mapped in their memory network? And yeah, I can also just see an easy way to be brainstorming the, this, these kind of experiences just by going in chatgpt and saying, okay, I want a very diverse idea that's outside my industry that no one would think about. And then the first 10, throw all those 10 out. Now give me. Because everyone's already. You've probably told those to 10 other people. So that's a good. Give me a brand new list of ideas and just try and like bring worlds together like a everyday human world into. You could do it with anything software or, you know, just very diverse spaces.
- [39:39]
Uli Applebaum
That's exactly right. And by combining these seemingly disconnected sources, you come up with really new ideas. Right. It's like the circuit isolated that this big entertainment thing. They looked at a circus not as a circus with elephants and clowns. They looked at this as an entertainment platform. So how do we make it the most entertaining, entertaining possible? So, yes, and once you ask the right question, the answers becomes very simple in a sense, you know, because you change the way you think about it. Not what would be the most effective sales call and how do I get the most orders in the shortest period of time and just check. No, how can I make the guy feel validated, important in his work and recognize the value he provides? Very different mental approach and anger.
- [40:31]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah. So how do you get into a creative space other than maybe using ChatGPT and AI? But how do you get into a creative space that does bring in very diverse ideas or, you know, just concepts that maybe other people wouldn't think about when it comes to these kind of moments?
- [40:45]
Uli Applebaum
Well, I'm a big believer in creative problem solving. So creative problem solving is different than creativity. Creativity is we brainstorm to, you know, come up with crazy ideas and, you know, the drink, maybe some wine and come up with even crazy ideas and all this stuff. That's how I came to first the trousers, then the shoes, to be honest with you. But creative problem solving is really trying to find a novel solution to an existing problem. And there are techniques and exercises you can do to change the way your brain thinks. And you mentioned already, one very simple one is most brainstorms are useless because the first ideas everyone will come up with is the baggage we have in our brain is what we've just seen with the neighbor do. It's what we've just read about. So it's expect predictable knowledge. But the name of a good ideation session is exactly what to describe is get to those first 20, 30 ideas and then push yourself to go further. And these ideas that you come up that go further, those are going to be the really interesting one, the really creative ones. And there are techniques to do that, Right. When you understand that the brain is lazy and you need to divert the way the brain great things, then you can unleash basically the potential very simple example. So you obviously you can hear. I'm German. We Germans like to be destructive or critical, you know, so we do a brainstorm. How can we increase or improve your podcast, Stephanie? We could sit there and say, you know, others do this or you just talked about the dude from the diary of a CEO. Maybe we should check out. So we could do that, or we could reverse the question and say, how do we make your podcast the most horrible, the worst podcast in the world? And I bet you if you do that exercise with your team, in no time you're going to come up with a hundred ideas on how to make it worse than the worst podcast that you can possibly imagine. Our destructive mind is way more powerful than our constructive minds. Kids like to build towers with little blocks, but then what is the first thing they do? They break it. Exactly. But then obviously, when you have the long list of negatives, you then turn those back. Well, if we turn that negative into a positive, what does it actually mean? And so that's a way to distract your brain and get to a result as opposed to, okay, let's come up with 100 ideas on how to make the podcast better, which is going to be difficult and it's going to be predictable. So, and then dozens of these techniques that you can apply to get your brain to not think about, gotta solve the problem better solve the problem, which, which is the worst way for your brain to be creative. So, and I believe that the strategy, that's what strategy is, right, Is we, We all have the same data. We all smart, we all educated, we all can analyze data. But that means we'll all come to the same conclusions. Unless I use specific techniques and tools or ask different questions that will allow me to look at the data but come up with a different answer. So that's why I'm a big fan of this. And it's not random. It's. It's. It's systematic, it's rigorous. It's. There's a method behind it. And again, I didn't invent it. I wish I did, but just read it up. You can find easily 20 exercises like this destructive brainstorm that will lead way more, more interesting ideas than what we all know and what we all think works out there.
- [44:21]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah. I have never heard of the destructive method to be creative. I mean, yeah, I'm like, this is great. I definitely want to do it with my team. Now, are there any other fast ones you can walk us through to show us how to get to more creative, interesting ideas?
- [44:35]
Uli Applebaum
Well, the Germans have this saying which doesn't really rhyme in English, but it's basically to detach yourself from a problem or to solve a problem, you have to detach yourself from a problem. And in German, the words are the same, so it sounds like the same. But, you know, a simple idea is like, how do we. I'm making something up here. How do we improve the overall guest experience in our retail environment? One thing you can start, you know, again, you come up with a list of generic expected things, but you can also look at, well, let's imagine we are an adventure park or someone organizing expeditions in the wild. What can we learn from this guy that we can apply to our retail experience? And at first you think, that's stupid, that's crazy. But very quickly, it's way easier to come up with lots of ideas about this, you know, this expedition organizer, and then translate them back to what this means for you than it is to focus on the problem you use. So it's really distract your brain to focus on another exercise and then bring it back to your assignment itself. The way I look at it is the brain is either your puppet master or you control it. Right. So if you don't do anything, the brain is going to say, oh, familiar. I want to stick with what I know. I want to stick with ideas I'm comfortable with. I'm not going to go anywhere to get it out of this mode. You need to really distract. You cannot force it, obviously, but you need to distract it. Hey, let's talk about adventures. Let's talk about motorcycle riding in the desert. Oh, yes, this. I'm happy. I excited to talk about that. And then you bring it back to the prompt. So it's a way to divert the way your brain functions and the way your brain thinks. It's. Please do the. Do the negative brainstorm and tell me what you come up with. I'd love to. I guarantee you you'll come up with a couple of surprising solutions.
- [46:26]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, I'm definitely going to do that. And it also makes sense about the focus on a different topic. I mean, I see that even when I focus on someone else's business, and I'm like, let me, let me help. Let me show you what I would do. And then I come back to my own. I'm like, oh, oh, these were some hot tips I gave to someone else. Let me bring them back to myself. These are good.
- [46:44]
Uli Applebaum
That is exactly right. Yep. And then just the brain, our brain is wired. It's, you know, focus on familiar and consistency and preservation, not on adventure. Getting out of your comfort zone, exploring new ideas. That's. There's the myth of that. You know that. Yeah, we all want to be this. You know, if we have the choice, we'll be sitting on the couch watching the TV programs we are familiar with and eating the chips we like most. That's going to be our default way of thinking. Or it can be, if you're into gardening is I'll go in the garden and garden in the backyard. That's my comfort zone, my safe space where my brain wants to stay. Simple. It's very simple.
- [47:26]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah. So earlier we were talking about the 95% of buyers who are not even in market. And I mean, you can tell me, I think this is a newer stat over the past couple years that has been floating around. I had never heard of it until maybe a year or two ago. So whoever did this study, great job. I'm sure it's been a fact for a long time, though.
- [47:45]
Uli Applebaum
No, not that. No, no, not that long, actually. And that's one of these principles that came out of this Australian university.
- [47:52]
Stephanie Postols
Oh, it came from there.
- [47:53]
Uli Applebaum
It came from there.
- [47:55]
Stephanie Postols
Now we know that one's the top.
- [47:57]
Uli Applebaum
I don't know how, I think it's like a few years old. But yes, it's really this principle of at any given time only 5%. And this is true in B2C. This is true in B2B. This is true in every category. The percentage might change, so, you know, might be 7 or 12% versus 5%, but the proportion are the same. So. And the idea is really that at any given time, only a small percentage of your potential customers will be in the market to actually purchase, 95 will not be. But a smart marketer needs both to capture these 5% and help with the conversion. But in the same time he needs to or she needs to market to this 95% that will be in the market in the future. Cantara, this research company calls this create brand predisposition. So that you know, I'm buying ketchup this week, so Heinz wants me to think about them this week. You'll probably still have two bottles in your cupboard and you're going to go in six weeks and think, when did ketchup up? But I need to talk to you as much as I need to talk to, to me as a customer to remind you, hey, don't forget there's kind sketchup in the future of your purchase list. So and you need to do both and the way you do each differs and there's science. Right. We have studies now that show that if you combine this both, both approaches, the brand is going to be more successful. So I don't know some other. These new principles. Love these fractions. So this is a 6040 principle and is Also validated with a lot of data which basically says 60% of your budget should focus on long term brand building activities. And long term brand building activities means impactful advertising, emotional advertising, things that stick, things that trigger your emotions. And 40% should focus on short term sales activation for your 5%. That port you know speaks about we have 90 kill 99% of the germs or we, we, you know spin faster than the competition. So those are then more rational sales argument that you know when you're standing in front of the shelf that either determine you. Oh yeah, I want the one that have two dogs, three kids. I need, I need a bacteria killer, you know so I'm gonna get the hardcore cleaning product. So you need the balance of both. And again 60, 40 depends on the category. Some will have 20 80, but the successful formula is really to allocate a budget to long term brand building your Future audience and 40% or whatever focus on activation and conversion of those. It's not short term, it's the people that actually want to buy at a certain given moment in time.
- [50:44]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, I mean it's so interesting talking to so many CMOs the past couple years and just hearing how brands really got cut intensely I'd say over the past five and now a lot of them are being expected to be showing up in these LLMs and have good GEO and SEO scores and they cut brand. And so it's pretty hard to have this, you know, this brand association if you haven't been out there and building it. And so yeah. Do you have any thoughts for like how to do this quickly?
- [51:15]
Uli Applebaum
Well, quick there is no shortcut or well, the most, the shortcut, shortcuts most people are not willing to take because they're risky. Because if you think about communication is the more disruptive and provocative my advertising is going to be, the more stronger the impact will be. Yeah, but go to your CEO and say oh yeah, we have you know, camels racing with I don't know, Penguin for I don't know whatever making up here is going to say, are you crazy? I want you to talk about my product and to know how great we are in this guy. So creative risk taking is one of the shortcuts. And one great example out there is liquid death. The water. When you look at the advertising, it's completely off the norm. It's completely outrageous. Probably hasn't much to do with water at all. But that's a way to really gain what's called this mental event. Get people to think about you quickly. Unfortunately it takes time to build. It takes years and a lot of investment to build. But one thing I've noticed with my clients is the mistake a lot of people do is they start to think about their strategy when their business is going down. So I've ever. Maybe 60% of my clients are smart enough to know, okay, we're growing, things are going well, but where are we going to be in 5 to 10 years? Let's reach out, let's develop a brand strategy to help us get there. So, so, you know, sales are up, money is flowing, all these kind of things. And that is the perfect time to develop a brand strategy because it costs a bit of money, it takes time, but then you have the clarity you need to grow for the next 10 years. I also had clients who come to me and say, competitors is eating our lunch. Our business is down the drain. Our profits are eroding. What can you do for me? You know, and often it's like, well, can't do much for you because I need at least a few months to, to. To help you with your strategy. You need to maybe invest a little bit to understand what is really going on. So often when, when someone comes and the business is going down is. It's almost. It's not too late. I mean, we can still help them. But you're. You're putting a band aid on, on scars. You know, you're not developing a fitness program that's going to keep them healthy for the next 10 years. So that's what I would say. If your business is healthy and you're growing, that's the time you need to invest or think about the future future and how you want to continue to grow after that. It's a little late. You'll always find consultants and people that say, oh, no, we can help you with that. But it's, you know, if you go to your doctor and say, I have cancer, all you can do is treat the symptoms and try to elevate it. If you go early enough and do cancer prevention, then the likelihood that you're going to live healthy and a long life is significantly increased. So it's a bit the same in business.
- [54:05]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, makes sense. So, I mean, when talking about budget cuts earlier, if, let's just say a CFO comes into some of the companies you're working with and they cut marketing by 20%. Marketing, brand, all of it. What brand association, building line items do you protect at all costs? Like, which ones are you? Like, do not take these things away.
- [54:25]
Uli Applebaum
Well, what I would do is, and I'm not sure we're still in the world of brand associations here because I've noticed a lot of my clients when you talk to them, and I'm sure you have the same is there are some techniques and tactics that work extremely well at converting clients and getting clients that no one speaks about. And for me it's first identifying those like what is it? And and sometimes when I do my stakeholder interviews, I ask them so, you know, you have a budget of $20 million. So I'm going to cuddle that and I'm going to give you you half a million dollars. Where would you put that money? What is the one initiative you put that money in? And often what surfaces is the single most effective thing the company is doing. And then I would say, well, can we amplify that? Can we make that bigger? Take all the resources and put your money there. At least you know, it's converting. At least you get an ROI on your investment until you stabilize a little bit. And when you look outside the world of bnb, is there examples like I don't know if you're familiar with the the their Vitamix like a. So what is the single most powerful conversion tool of Vitamix is a dude at Costco mixing vegetables doing this demonstration of how powerful this machine is is out of all the initiatives that Vitamix does, the single one that converts the most. So my that rationale would be, well send out people that do demonstration at your know, markets around town, other retail environments, etc. Etc. The same with Harley Davidson. Harley Davidson has the problem to convert what they call dreamers, which is 90% of everyone out there says, you know, one day I'm going to own a Harley, but Harley would like to you to say, no, I want to go buy a Harley tomorrow. So their, their market is like 99.9% dreamers and then 0.1% buyers. What is the single most compelling conversion tool Arla has is they have this metal stand that costs $5,000 where you put a motorcycle on and it basically allows you to ride the motorcycle, rev it, change gears, accelerate, hear the sound, feel the vibration without the bike moving. So it's basically a safe way to experience what it's like to ride a bike. $5,000, a metal frame in which you lock in this bike. The single most a successful way to convert someone to a Harley Davidson. My recommendation would be well buy 50, 50 more of those or 200 more of those and go out there at, you know, conventions, gathering of bikers and Stuff like that, to do that. So that's what I would do. Try to find what is the single most effective tool that works for you and then try to see if you can amplify it. And often it's not marketing, it's not advertising. It's not this. So no p. No, no marketeer really thinks about it because it's. In a sense, it's unsexy. You know, it's like, yeah, buy 200 metal frames. It's like, well, that. That's your strategy. Seriously. But that's what works. So that's what I would focus on.
- [57:34]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, that's good. And I do think. I mean, a theme that I've been hearing when it comes to marketers is that they really need to be good at the business. And so a lot of people who are even hiring CMOs right now, and they're coming to us, you know, asking like, who do you know and who do you work with? They are like, we want a business leader who has a specialty in marketing, but we really want them to understand the business. So in a way, I mean, I think at least the world that we're heading into, it is really like thinking holistically about the whole company, even if it's the one unsexy thing and not the big flashy Matthew McConaughey campaign. It's like, well, this thing's actually performing some. Maybe we should do more.
- [58:09]
Uli Applebaum
That is exactly right. And that's what we do. We're business builders. Right Is marketing. Or I look at strategy, it's a tool to get there. There is no such thing as the. Well, I guess there is the convention of marketers, but we don't serve any role but to help a business grow elsewhere. Completely useless. And, yeah, that's exactly what we do. And if that means let's not do the typical marketing thing because we don't have the resources or something else is more effective, let's not do it. To give you an example, that happened to me a few years ago. I worked for a pet food company, and I cannot tell you which one, but the competition was from Pockland Gavel, and they were kicking our butts. And a small salesperson in a state far, far west did a small radio promotion. And what he did, basically, he took a radio dj, he gave him the pet food, and a radio DJ that he knew had a dog. Dog, gave him the pet food, and then told him, why don't you observe these five signs of health on your pet over the next few weeks and then report to that, to your audience in, in, you know, on your, on your radio show. This company did research, did advertising, did sales, promotion, while, and, and it couldn't gain market share against this PNG or this, this strong Procter Gamble brands that were in the category. And yet in California, the brand was growing. The brand was increasing its market share. For two years, the corporate team, so headquarters ignored this tactic and the power of this tactic. And eventually they noticed because as I said, California was just growing or not even California. It was Southern California. That was the only place around the country this company was selling more and more and more and more pet food. Everywhere else they were struggling. And it took headquarters two years to realize that. Why? Because it wasn't a TV campaign. Had nothing to do with the segmentation study they developed and the strategic positioning of the brand. What do you mean give my pet food to a DJ and have him talk to his audience about that? That is your strategy? Like, yes. And that is a highly effective and highly powerful way to convince people. So much so that they applied it nationally, regained share. And then two or three years later, I think P and G started to apply the same tactic in Canada to try to do the same. So unsexy. But trust me, I think the sales guy in California, in Southern California, I think he got a nice bonuses, a bunch of bonuses over the last few years. So another typical example.
- [60:55]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, I love these examples. I mean, it's like I said, it's just a very good reminder to just look at the one thing or just zero in on like less variables, which I know is hard because the world we're in now with so much data and I mean all these companies I talk to, they're just ingesting and wanting more and more and more. And so I, I can see why it's hard to do that. But simplicity, like especially in the space of where we're in now feels very good.
- [61:21]
Uli Applebaum
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the most difficult, right. When you have gazillion data points is focus on identify what is the single most important thing and discard everything else. And that is true for strategy frameworks, strategic decision, everything out there. It doesn't sound exciting, right? It's like, well, make sure your message is relevant, stands out and emotionally resonant. It was like. But getting there, doing that is extremely difficult. Having the rigor to do that and then stick to it is extremely difficult.
- [61:53]
Stephanie Postols
So, you know, we're talking a lot about evidence based marketing and the rise of evidence based marketing. And I'm, I'M just wondering like, why is America falling behind? Like what's the noise happening that's preventing us from, you know, staying on top of this?
- [62:07]
Uli Applebaum
I think from my perspective it's a couple of things is one is as weird as itself, but the rise of the Internet and social media and all of a sudden we have access to all this data and all these data points and we can measure, you know, did you use your left index finger or your right index finger to click on this ad? I mean literally the amount of data we have at our disposal. But this distracted us and made us, made the marketing discipline become more and more transactional. I mentioned earlier this training session I did for this brewing company, the CEO reached out to me because he said, said my team, young team, smart people, bright people, really wanting to do the right thing. So nothing about the quality of the people haven't learned the basics of marketing, the basic principles of what works and what doesn't work. So things like they wouldn't know what a net promoter score is or is basically saying like, and you can argue is a net promoter score good or bad? At least if you're in marketing you should know what it is, you know, you should know what a brand positioning is, those fundamentals. So I think this trend towards technology and then social media has depleted the importance of strategic marketing. And I think we're now slowly coming back and understanding that, oh, you know what, no, you need a strategy. Even if you want a social media campaign, you need a strategy behind that. And all the strategy by the way follows the same principles as any market marketing strategy out there. So I think that is one thing and it's a pity because a lot of young marketeers have a lot of those basics and ever learned to evolve with that knowledge. And I think that the second thing, and that's again that's one of the unpopular opinions here in the US is what I call belief based or value based branding. It's one thing I've noticed and I'm not sure exactly why that is, is more and more people come to work projecting their own belief system, system and value system on the brands they're working on. And this can be anything if you move into identity politics is I want all my strategies to be about diversity or inclusion. It's like, well you're selling toilet paper. I'm not sure how that's going to work or how that's going to be irrelevant. But you see this desire, people want to have a bigger impact in the world that is aligned with their belief System. And same with ESG claims, right? Eco friendly claims and stuff like that. And project this value system onto the strategies then developed as opposed to ask the question is what is the real problem I'm trying to solve? It's not that they don't believe what I believe. They think it's not going to do the job as well as another brand might do. So there's this replacement of I project my own value system and belief system on the work I do because I want an impact in, I want a bigger impact out there. And that's when you have these catastrophes like Bud Light like a couple of years ago, you know, I want to be more about inclusion. What they forgot about is that this was the biggest brand in the US with a really loyal core of users that all of a sudden felt rejected. And every marketer knows that, you know, don't neglect your current user base. Make sure that the new strategy is aligned with what they think, even if it involves the way they need to think about your brand. But don't just ignore them and focus on what you want to do because it's the noble thing to do or it's the, you know, the, the higher purpose thing to do. So I think these two things is for me, what distracted almost from evidence. And the interesting thing is when I work, you know, a few years ago, brand purpose was the big thing, right? And the interesting thing is when I talk to my US Clients like, oh, everyone is about brand purpose. When I talk to my European clients, they're like, what the F are you talking about? We want increase the value of our company, we want to increase our business. Don't talk to me about purpose bs. We are running a business here, not doing anything else. So we see a big contrast again in this case between Europe and the United States. I think these two distracted us from doing what actually works. And I think now we are in a stage where we realize, well, technology is not the solution to or technology only works if it's based on sound marketing strategies and value based branding doesn't work anymore or doesn't work at all. And we need to, you know, we wasted so much money on trying to do that. Now we need to go back to what actually works. I think evidence based marketing is slowly coming back in the awareness of marketers here in the US at least I hope so, because that's where I'm betting my future on is evidence based principles.
- [67:06]
Stephanie Postols
Yep. Yeah. I mean the one thought I just had, and maybe it's. Yeah, maybe it goes against kind of this thinking. But if, let's just say Europe and Australia have better evidence based marketing thoughts and tactics. But then, and this is where I might get in trouble, then they don't have many companies coming out that are big revenue drivers. America has that. So how do you think about that?
- [67:33]
Uli Applebaum
And that's a great point. And to make it even worse, Stephanie, is what I see. A lot of strategists in Europe buy the BS from the US So all of a sudden it's like everyone in Europe strategies, not business people, strategists working in agencies. It's all about purpose building initiatives or it's all about cultural branding. So this philosophy is brought to European strategies and makes the situation even worse. I think what the saving grace is, the good thing is you still have pretty big markets in Europe when you look at Germany and success stories there. And American business people are not stupid. They want to succeed. They want to build their businesses. So if they got distracted for a while and realize, well, that didn't work. So, oh, looks like this thing coming from abroad seems to be working. And I said this Australian university has a lot of corporate sponsors from the United States that take over these principles and that experiment with this principle and oh, look at that, they actually succeed applying this principle. And then everyone is like, oh, what is Proctor doing? What is Mass doing? What is Unilever doing? Oh, they're applying this principle. So maybe you should start to apply them as well. So it's sort of like this weird exchange of, of beliefs and information on what to focus on and when to focus on it. So to say. So it's really bizarre.
- [68:57]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, okay, got it. Love it. All right, we are going to move on to a lightning round. This is where I send a question your way. You have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Uli?
- [69:07]
Uli Applebaum
I am.
- [69:08]
Stephanie Postols
Okay, first up, what's the most overrated marketing metric that marketing team should stop obsessing with?
- [69:17]
Uli Applebaum
Brand awareness.
- [69:18]
Stephanie Postols
Brand awareness. Wait, this goes against, I think what you've been telling us. Hold on, tell me more.
- [69:22]
Uli Applebaum
Let me, let me, let me, let me, let me qualify this brand awareness and instead replace it with brand salience or what's called mental availability. And what I mean with that is it's way more effective for me to learn. Let's say if I ask you, Stephanie, mention to me any airlines, airline company out there. That's right, Southwest. Now if I say, Stephanie, think about an airline, you would think about booking. If you, if you plan a trip to Mexico, which I put you mentally in A purchase environment. And, and then, then you're not going to say United Airline. Then you're probably going to say Southwest or Spirit or whatever the, the Southern. That is the difference between salience, which is the brand you think about at a moment of purchase, and brand awareness, which is the brand you've heard about because your neighbor is working there. So that's what I mean with that. So the metric is important, but the right one is important. Awareness per se doesn't tell you anything. Salience or mental availability tells you a lot.
- [70:27]
Stephanie Postols
Wow. Yeah. Okay, this is good. We should have hit on this one earlier. I mean, because now I'm thinking about how do you build brand salience? I mean, I see a lot of companies doing a great job building a lot of awareness. They're doing the super bowl ads and they're doing all of that. But when thinking about a specific purchase, now I'm wondering how do you actually build that up?
- [70:51]
Uli Applebaum
Can I close the loop for you?
- [70:53]
Stephanie Postols
Yes.
- [70:53]
Uli Applebaum
You do that by building strong brand association networks, by building strong memory associations with your offering that will automatically come back to mind when you think about that specific situation. That's the power of brand associations and memory structures. If I communicate to you, hey, Southwest goes from Austin to Mexico and that's the part you remember, that is a memory I've created that is going to make you think about Southwest. When you think about booking a trip to Mexico. That is what these association networks are and do. Basically, the faster you a brand comes to mind with the relevant associations, the bigger its market share in the market. They literally correlation between the two. It's just mind blowing. So glad you asked. Brand association networks.
- [71:49]
Stephanie Postols
Okay. I love this. Yeah. It also makes me think about looking into what is that person doing beforehand the purchase. Like before they make the purchase, purchase after the purchase, where are they going to be? And it seems like there could be a lot of personalized strategies depending on what you want to be associated with or where that person's located or where that flight's going or, you know, so.
- [72:09]
Uli Applebaum
Absolutely right. And that's why you want to focus on things like, you know, coming back to Southwest. The brilliant thing about them is they have two core associates. They had two core association value airline. So cheap airline, low cost. But there are a lot of low cost cost airlines there as well. But it's a relevant benefit because you want to save money when you buy your airplane ticket. The second one, which I thought was brilliant was quirky personality. Quirky personality in the safety announcement. And you remember there were like videos circulating around about the flight intended. Making this quirky. What does this, what does this do? It creates difference. Oh, that's the funny guys. That's the quirky, quirky brand. And it creates an emotional response from your audience that strengthen all the memories you have about that brand. So you can even do it for an airline that is a low budget airline to create this strong memory association. So when you think low cost carrier, the likelihood that Southwest will come to mind is very high. Unless you live in Minneapolis like me. And you think about trip down south, you have an airline here which is called sun country, which I think is based here, which is bombarding the Minnesotan market with offers and vacation deals. So when I think about flying to the south, I think about Sun Country. Difference again between salience and brand awareness.
- [73:34]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah. Interesting, Interesting. Okay. The first person ever to shift me out of the lightning round. Now I'm pulling myself back. No, this is good. I was like, I can't move on from that one. Okay, what is a favorite book or two, and it could be a marketing book, but also a, like not a marketing book, something that's outside of marketing.
- [73:54]
Uli Applebaum
So one book I really love, and it's one of the global bestsellers I think is a book called Persuasion by a gentleman called Robert Cialdini or Cialdini, however you present, you pronounce it. And what he. What I like about it, he explains how human beings are being influenced, but not necessarily in the context of marketing, just as we think as human beings. That's for me, one of the most useful books I've ever read in my life. And the other one is as well, is a really old book and people are going to laugh about this. But it's a book called how to win Friends and influence People.
- [74:33]
Stephanie Postols
Great one. Yes.
- [74:34]
Uli Applebaum
And for me it's like it was written, what, 80 years or so ago, but it has so many nubbers of wisdom in there. So I have this bad idea. You probably noticed that I mentioned your name a couple of times during the podcast to build rapport with you. Where does it come from? You know, how to win friends and influence people. People like to hear their own name.
- [74:54]
Stephanie Postols
So that's what every time I'm like, yeah, I'm awesome. That's good. Stuck with you. Yeah, I love it. What is a. A hobby or something that you do that most people don't know you do?
- [75:10]
Uli Applebaum
So one activity is I ride motorcycles. And not a big Harley, but an adventure bike. And I have three children. I run my own business. I have A wife that I love. I have two dogs. I have all these constraints. So jumping on the motorcycle and riding and it's not riding to the grocery store, it's like minimum six hours until your butt really hurts. I like this long distance ride. So I try once or twice a year to take a weekend for myself and ride, I don't know, thousand 1500 miles or something like that. So that's number one. The second thing is I'm obsessed with Global expedition vehicles. And what I mean with that is there are these trucks converted into off road camper vans. Basically they're just like a million dollar way out of my budget. But there's so many videos on YouTube about either people going on adventure with them or description videos. So that's when I sit in front of the computer, I try to procrastinate. That's the first go to place global expedition vehicles that I go to.
- [76:17]
Stephanie Postols
I love that. I actually just recently saw one of those and I'm like, I don't even know what I'd use it for, but I definitely want it.
- [76:23]
Uli Applebaum
I have exactly the same to think pragmatically. So I'm the person when I think about something, I go into the details of ownership and how often would I wash it and where in my garage would I park it. And I realized I have no functional need at all for a vehicle like that. Not in my current situation. But it's a must have. Yes, except for the fact that I don't have the budget.
- [76:44]
Stephanie Postols
But you're just in the 95% right now. It's fine.
- [76:47]
Uli Applebaum
That's right.
- [76:47]
Stephanie Postols
You move into the 5% eventually.
- [76:49]
Uli Applebaum
That is so true.
- [76:52]
Stephanie Postols
Okay, the last one who is a business leader or just someone that you follow that you really look up to and respect.
- [76:59]
Uli Applebaum
They're clients of mine that I've known for 20, 25 years that I highly respect and really look up to. And a couple of them were kind enough to also endorse my book. I don't know if I can mention them because if I mention them, those I don't mention will get upset. But let me put it this way. One is a CEO of said brewery I mentioned earlier. But I think he shift his switch job now. And the reason is he's like me, a cancer, is basically same age as I am literally to the day. And he's very tough, demanding, but also very fair and data driven. So he asks a lot of you. So you need your A game when you interact with him. But he's also receptive to ideas that don't come from him. Him. So if you have a counter argument or a better proposition, he listened to it and he has the confidence to accept it. But he puts you at a level where you're like, okay, I better don't mess up any single step in the whole presentation, because that's going to come by, hound me, and come back to me. So that's one but a brilliant mind, and the other one is similar to the first one. But what he has, he's Argentinian, has worked in the United States for a very, very long time, and he has this Latin warmth when interacting with people. So strategic brilliance with Latin warmth. That is something I would fall in love with every single time. Because you feel welcome, you feel, you know, embraced, but you also feel challenged and, you know, again, you need to be at the top of your game. So those are the, The. So in other words, I, I admire this sort of, like, strategic sharpness. They know what they want, it's demanding, it forces you to step up a lot. But then also this Latin warmth that makes you feel welcome and, you know, makes you want to have a. After he beats you up in a meeting, makes you want to have an espresso with him or a caipirinha or something like that, and, and go to a Latin bar and hang out there for a few hours. So not so much a celebrity, but, yeah, an archetype, to put it this way.
- [79:07]
Stephanie Postols
Yeah, I love it. All right, well, Uli, this was awesome. Thank you so much for coming on Marketing Trends, having fun with me, sharing all your wisdom. Where can our listeners and our viewers find out more about you and your book and what you're up to?
- [79:21]
Uli Applebaum
Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having me again. I had a blast. Really, really a great interviewer, let me say. Stephanie Boarding the Rapport.
- [79:30]
Stephanie Postols
Thank you.
- [79:31]
Uli Applebaum
And you can find me on. On LinkedIn. On LinkedIn or First, the trousers. So first-the-trousers.com but you can also just type Uli Applebaum in. In Google and I should pop up pretty much everywhere as well. So fairly easy.
- [79:48]
Stephanie Postols
Amazing.
- [79:48]
Uli Applebaum
But reach out when, when your brand is growing and successful, not when you are in front of the precipice about to close shop. That's always more challenging. Yes.
- [79:59]
Stephanie Postols
All right, well, thank you so much and we'll talk again soon.
- [80:02]
Uli Applebaum
Sounds great. Thank you.