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- [00:00]
Philip Miller
You are nobody until somebody hates you.
- [00:02]
Jen Miller
The theme of this week's episode is why you need to become obsessed with epic storytelling.
- [00:07]
Philip Miller
Founder energy is what drives the body. People want to be led, they want to be pushed, they want to believe in something. It's up to you to do it.
- [00:14]
Jen Miller
Discovery has never been the hard part. Continuity has been having a clear through line and storyline, which is what makes episodic content strong, is what's maintaining continuity. It's earning. That second visit, that third visit, that
- [00:27]
Philip Miller
fourth visit, I want to give away a multimillion dollar idea, take content, make it episod, and then gamify it.
- [00:34]
Jen Miller
Three of the most popular movies were created by YouTube creators. People who are in the business of creating content have such a higher bar and standard to maintain attention. So you become masters at maintaining attention.
- [00:48]
Philip Miller
If that signature isn't on a lab grown diamond, there is no expert in the world that can tell the difference between a lab grown and a ground diamond.
- [00:56]
Jen Miller
Every founder has a blind spot on focusing on storytelling, of why they make themselves unique.
- [01:01]
Philip Miller
Your success is going to be based on your ability to ignore the haters.
- [01:04]
Jen Miller
What a brand, what a brand, what a brand, what a mighty good brand. Say it again now. What a brand, what a brand, what a brand, what a mighty good brand. Welcome back to another episode of the Art of the Brand.
- [01:17]
Philip Miller
I was gonna say that every time. Welcome back to another episode.
- [01:20]
Jen Miller
What else should I start with saying?
- [01:21]
Philip Miller
I don't know. Shake it up. The audience wants more.
- [01:23]
Jen Miller
They want more. You're right.
- [01:24]
Philip Miller
Come on.
- [01:25]
Jen Miller
They should demand more. You know what I'm saying?
- [01:27]
Philip Miller
Ladies and gentlemen, sit tight for an amazing podcast.
- [01:30]
Jen Miller
I should be like Bruce Buffer, and
- [01:33]
Philip Miller
we should be talking about that actually today. It's not in our not, but on the White House today is a UFC fight today that is. Yeah, it's a brand issue. They got motocrosses going across the White House lawn right now, and they have an outdoor UFC fighting event on the nation's capital building. That is a brand issue we should talk about.
- [01:51]
Jen Miller
You know what's crazy is, like, he's doubling down on, like, whatever that is.
- [01:55]
Philip Miller
He understands brand.
- [01:57]
Jen Miller
But here's my point. You know, Howard Stern used to talk about this, that the reason why he had such a successful show when it was at the height of when it was successful, is that no matter what side you were on, love him or hate him, you still wanted to tune in.
- [02:11]
Philip Miller
Yeah.
- [02:11]
Jen Miller
And when you're talking about motocross jumping and a fight at the White House, I want to watch it because I want to, like, give a judgment. And that is ultimately what he's best at.
- [02:23]
Philip Miller
He is one of the masters of brand in media. And I think it's worth talking about. I think it's worth everybody understanding, regardless if you hate him or love him, because you have to study success. And he really understands how to build a brand. You might hate it, but a lot of people love it.
- [02:39]
Jen Miller
Well, that's actually my. I would say when I talk the most to people, because it's such a easy conversation, is to talk about how much people hate him. When you're, you know, out at events and in the world. And I'm like, if we had spent this much time, instead of complaining, opposed to, like, studying and learning and taking from that, from who he is as a media, like, mogul. Like, he's been in the media for 50 years. Like, he understands how to see. Say one thing to distract. And tell me about what you actually were listening the other day. Yeah, go into that.
- [03:08]
Philip Miller
So shout out to Scott Adams. The book Win Bigly is a great kind of analysis of how Trump used persuasion to win. There's a story that says, if you borrow a million dollars from the bank, the bank owns you. If you borrow $100 million from the bank, you own the bank because they can't afford to call the debt. And what Trump did, he did the exact same thing in media when he launched his campaign, he launched it in such a controversial way. And what people didn't understand, they're like, how dare he say that? How dare he say that? How dare he said that? But it was actually incredibly strategic. He made it so controversial that all the media covered him on day one, every day. Look at how ridiculous he is. I can't believe he's saying that. I can't believe he's saying that. I can't believe he's saying that. Once you committed to that much media coverage, they were forced to cover him the entire. The entire election.
- [03:54]
Jen Miller
Yeah. So we got so much media, owned
- [03:57]
Philip Miller
media because he knew to be very controversial, say things that were crazy, get everybody angry, and individually, people were all judging him, but collectively, he owned the media channels and got billions of dollars of free media. That is beautiful, strategic persuasion.
- [04:13]
Jen Miller
Yeah. No, you're 100% correct.
- [04:15]
Philip Miller
And then when you look at. Sorry, what's happening today, you may hate it. I might think it's not really appropriate for the government to be putting on sports events. It may look like some science fiction movie, but to have the UFC sitting on the White House is just to double down and say, we are the USA and we are projecting strength. We are not listening to people who they think are weak. And it is a brand. And as you've said hundreds of times, brands build over a year and it is building a USA brand back to something different than what it was in the last 12 years.
- [04:47]
Jen Miller
Yeah, I think we brought some people back to the Philip Miller camp with your comment of like, you being like, I don't completely agree with this.
- [04:53]
Philip Miller
No, I don't completely agree with anybody. But I'd be an idiot if I didn't study people who are exceptional at doing things. Well. I don't let politics get in the way of critical, intelligent thinking when I'm advising a company. And if your advisors and your company are so politically intent that they can't think rationally, fire them, because they're not going to help you win.
- [05:13]
Jen Miller
Boom. Mic drop. All right, well, we're starting the episode up on a high note. Well, talking about controversial figures, Elon Musk was the first trillionaire this week. SpaceX IPO'd. And it was the largest IPO in IPO history.
- [05:28]
Philip Miller
It was the largest IPO in IPO history. The biggest. The largest.
- [05:31]
Jen Miller
The greatest Trump hand signals being used. The largest. The greatest. The biggest.
- [05:36]
Philip Miller
No, this one actually. As opposed to Trump, who's usually BSing as a form of benchmarking for negotiation. This actually was the largest in the
- [05:44]
Jen Miller
world and it actually caused a lot of controversy. But I think there's some branding implications that we can dig out of this because Tesla's a fascinating brand story of that when you own absolute novelty, you can win based off of novelty alone and not needing to do influence influencer activations and giftings and which I think a lot of founders might want to hear about because people are kind of sick of having to gift and it not working where it worked before. So let's talk about Tesla.
- [06:12]
Philip Miller
And before we start though, I'd like to throw it a gauntlet because I know a lot of our listeners may not agree with my political take on Elon, but I challenge anybody. The person who can make the strongest argument. I'll do a live debate with you on whether Elon is a force for good in the world or a force for bad, because these, these kind of hate comments that come after the podcast give me some good arguments. Let's do do a good debate. I'll just go live on my channel and invite you in and we can have a cool debate or discussion on. Is he a force for good or bad? Because I understand why people Brands and words can be very powerful in persuasion. So there is a large segment of the population that thinks trillionaires should be illegal. And I don't necessarily disagree with that. But Elon Musk is Dr. Evil now because he's rich. And I don't think people are really understanding that. To get to where he's gone, he's put in the reps, and he is not investing in marketing, he's investing in product and vision.
- [07:08]
Jen Miller
Yeah, I mean, Elon's also a bit of a different cat than, you know, if you put into the box of, like, the open AIs, anthropics and meta, where they're just becoming so rich and they're like, owning things that we can't live without. From a tech standpoint, going to space and creating autonomous cars, like, really moves society forward. Especially when you think about that was what was so interesting in the Uber show. Super down of that, super pump, super pumped.
- [07:37]
Philip Miller
I can't remember names, you can't remember movie titles.
- [07:39]
Jen Miller
Oh, man.
- [07:40]
Philip Miller
On that theme, this is what I want to say to founders. You are nobody until somebody hates you. And if you're going to do something incredible, extraordinary or new, you are going to have so many people try and tear you down. So many people who are going to hate on you, and they're going to find a reason to hate on you. And your success is going to be based on your ability to ignore the haters and drive forward with your passion and your mission. Because the world is only changed by unreasonable people. Reasonable people just stay in their lanes. You have to be reasonable and passionate and not worry about haters. And Elon is the case in point here. He. He created PayPal. Like, and the thing I was telling you earlier, I got stopped again by somebody who was yelling at me because of this cybertruck.
- [08:18]
Jen Miller
Yeah.
- [08:19]
Philip Miller
And I rolled down the window. I'm like, can you tell me why you're angry at me? You don't know me. She's like, oh, Elon's evil. I'm like, he created electronic commerce. He made electronic driving possible. He allows paraplegics to walk and blind people to see. He's giving satellite service to countries that can't get it all through Africa and helped uk. He is now generating energy in space to make us less dependent on oil, plus all of these other things. Like, what is there to hate about him other than the fact that he's doing something well?
- [08:48]
Jen Miller
It's actually why consumption is rising at such a great rate is that the emerging economies have been able to leapfrog miles ahead because they didn't have to wait for infrastructure to progress at the same rate. So putting Starlink into remote villages in emerging economies has allowed children access to way better education to access to AI. So instead of having to go from zero electricity to landlines to cellular to 5G, people can jump right ahead. And it's, and it's why the world is actually becoming so much more competitive because people are able to iterate and learn at a much faster rate. Which is why like we're going to speak at the largest mall chain in the Philippines and like they're only like they're able to access our content. They're lear at the branding rate of what we're putting out every week. And they've connected with us because of, you know, how much more interconnected we are as a society. Plus also these, these payment channels, people that are living in emerged economies are able to send money back to their family whether they left at a much faster rate without more friction. All of these things is like when we focused on making women more literate and giving birth control. Like it's just allowing these economies to speed up. And it's why, it's why when we criticize luxury branding, it's at such a fascinating junct is that brands like lvmh, they're focusing on the emerging economies because there's so much more money to make there than like in the west, where they're so fickle with taste. Right. Is go where money is coming, not where money has been.
- [10:23]
Philip Miller
It's almost like planting a seed or a tree.
- [10:25]
Jen Miller
Yeah, right.
- [10:26]
Philip Miller
You want, you want to plant. Like if you're just looking at this quarter, emerging markets aren't perfect. But if you plant some trees in emerging markets, right. You're going to reap that harvest down the road. Just talking about, I call it kind of like the vilification of Elon Musk, where people also forget about space. SpaceX. Now he's the first trillionaire in the world, but he created about, I think it's 250 millionaires, multi millionaires, because the people who had been working at SpaceX for 12 years, the Carpenters, the electricians, the welders, he gives all of his staff shares.
- [10:56]
Jen Miller
Cool, right?
- [10:57]
Philip Miller
And so all of those people who were grinding when they thought it was going to go bankrupt, when they were just making 25, 28 bucks an hour, they're all millionaires today because they believed in his passion, worked the long hours and it paid off for them. So that is capitalism can work I think it's inspiring compared to kind of the Mandami model, where you know, that guy is going to destroy the best city in the world and just needs to be kept out of American politics because socialism will destroy the empire. Why you need to have incentivization to create things. Otherwise, if everybody's just working for like a government organization, let's say everybody just worked for the government and got salaries. Think of how government organizations work, right? They don't work well. The only one that works in fairness is the military, which is quasi socialist. But that is where you're signing up to sacrifice for your. Your country, right? A general doesn't make that much more than a private relative to the corporate world.
- [11:51]
Jen Miller
But they, but they get the difference in power, right?
- [11:53]
Philip Miller
So there's status. But. But that happens. If you look at communist countries, like, they always go to totalitarianism. Because every human wants to get an advantage. Every human wants status. So if everybody's paid the same, how do you get status? Well, by cheating the system. By making friends with somebody who gives you more toilet paper rolls than your neighbors. Like, it's not. It doesn't create, it's a concept.
- [12:16]
Jen Miller
Well, construct that works on paper doesn't work in practice.
- [12:19]
Philip Miller
To those who risk a lot, reap the rewards, right? Like, he was sleeping every night there. It almost went bankrupt four times. He had three rockets crash. If the last one had crashed, it would have gone bankrupt. He would have lost everything he made from PayPal. And Tesla would have gone bankrupt too. Like, he was living on the edge, driving the body. And so you, you reap a reward if you invest. And sometimes you lose. But we need people in our society that will push the boundaries.
- [12:45]
Jen Miller
I think, though, the theme of this week's episode is why you need to become obsessed with epic storytelling. Because all of the different segments that we've selected today all have this red line of you need epic storytelling. And when you think about the Elon Musk outward brand, he hasn't obsessed over his own epic storytelling, which he doesn't have to, right? Like, he's focused on doing the work. And you're someone that's been obsessed with learning the facts. And you can speak to his awesomeness because you, you've gone and taken his storytelling. A lot of people who just take headlines and you're not invested in that epic storytelling, you have a different perception and perspective. And it's also why, in a different way, a lot of your brands aren't doing as well as they could be because you're not obsessed on your epic storytelling, on your usp, on putting forward what makes you great. And it's not that the narrative of you outside is that you're a villainous, evil person. It's that people don't know why you're different.
- [13:42]
Philip Miller
The one thing I want to. I'm trying to convey more and more to founders who want to kill it is listen to people who have done things right.
- [13:51]
Jen Miller
Ain't that the truth?
- [13:52]
Philip Miller
Like, actual people who have done things. Because I see it in the marketing world all over. And the consult, they haven't really done anything. Like, they've gone to school, it's good, they've got a job, but it's been very safe. And then they tell you what you have to do. Right. And so if you're a founder, you have more skin in the game. Or the people who come on your channels and criticize you about, like, they think they've done stuff, they haven't done anything compared to what. What it takes to be an entrepreneur and actually launch it, you know, Or. Or they have money from their family, and so they think that they know what they're talking. What I want founders, listen. And the example why this is passionate to me is we had a little competition in our organization, and we were doing a keto challenge with some people in one of my companies, and everybody was so pumped about it. And one of my. One of the guys there, who's a wonderful human being, really leaned into it, and he was quite overweight, and he was losing weight and feeling like a million dollars.
- [14:42]
Jen Miller
But he had, like, serious, like, gout issues. Like, he's young and is dealing with health because of his lifestyle.
- [14:48]
Philip Miller
Yeah. And no. No gout issues since he went keto. So sugar is the enemy of production. But what I wanted to share with you is he was so thrilled with his performance, he was killing it. But he came to me, and he's like, man, he goes. Every time I go home, go over to my mom's. My mom and my family are trying to get me to break the keto. They're like, oh, they won't know what the office eat, eat. And they're not fit people. And it's weird that surrounding us as founders or people who want to do something will always be people who are in our circles that kind of secretly try to sabotage our success by saying, well, you can't say that. Oh, you can't do that, or you shouldn't do that. Right. And you have to ask, are they in a position to give you good advice? On it. Like if the person is an athletic trainer and is telling you don't do that. Okay. Or a doctor, that's a good person
- [15:32]
Jen Miller
to probably listen to.
- [15:33]
Philip Miller
Right. But if somebody is grossly overweight and you're actually getting fit and they're telling you that you shouldn't be doing keto,
- [15:40]
Jen Miller
because here, have another pop. You know, this is good for you.
- [15:42]
Philip Miller
Or somebody who hasn't started a business or successfully sold a business is telling you how to run your business. Like, just be careful about it.
- [15:48]
Jen Miller
Well, it's so funny you say that because this woman whose content I quite like, one of the videos that came up was she was saying that American Eagle is in a difficult position because they're using the outdated concept that sex sells. And I just, I was like, like this is why it is so detrimental to allow people to have an opinion that dictates the potential success or failure of your business. Because at the same time, one that's just not the case. I mean, sex is something that is perpetually gonna sell. Why? Because at the root of it is desire. But it has biological. It's biological. And there's just so much data to that. In fact, Jacob Elordi is the face. New face of Chanel. Absolutely crushing. When Timothy Chamolet was the face and like, you know, and even the new
- [16:38]
Philip Miller
guy is even better looking.
- [16:39]
Jen Miller
No, that's Jake Velouri. No, Jake Elordi is hot.
- [16:42]
Philip Miller
Yeah. No, he captures what Chanel feels like. But elegant young beauty.
- [16:48]
Jen Miller
Yes. And it's for everyone, right? Jacob Elordi was a face of Bottega and every gay man had the. Had a Bottega bag. Like he's crushed it. Because he speaks to women and he speaks to men and it.
- [16:59]
Philip Miller
They're not putting Ron Perlman on there. Most people probably don't know him. Not a good looking guy.
- [17:04]
Jen Miller
No. But my point is, like Timothy Chamolay is cute, but like he's not hot, you know?
- [17:09]
Philip Miller
And it's not Cartier.
- [17:10]
Jen Miller
No, exactly. He's not. I respect him for what he does, but, you know, he doesn't.
- [17:15]
Philip Miller
He would be good. Aviator Nation maybe or I don't know, something a little bit.
- [17:18]
Jen Miller
There's definitely a place for Chamolay. Chalamet Shamwow. I don't know why I can't get it. And we grew up speaking half French, so this is completely unacceptable. But anyways, my point is, is that among a ton of other things, it's just to your point, there's people that you have to understand who to listen to and who to give comments to.
- [17:37]
Philip Miller
So wrapping up kind of why we're talking about Elon Founder personal branding. If you don't have a personal brand as a founder you have a governor on your performance like you're not going to succeed. The founder energy is what drives the body. People want to be led, they want to be pushed, they want to believe in something. It's up to you to do it. Don't listen to the people around you who are managers who want to make it like their last corporate job. They're just anchors. Find your passion, find people who want to follow it and make your brand your product's brand and just drive into it.
- [18:09]
Jen Miller
I love that. And okay, so that was a fantastic wrap up to it. I wanted to.
- [18:13]
Philip Miller
And you can help them do that too.
- [18:14]
Jen Miller
We totally can. The reason why though I wanted, I was excited to talk about the segment I brought up in the beginning. So I want to make sure we don't move past it is what's so fascinating with the brands that we work with or get to know through our. Often people begin to work with us through what we call a discovery or a diagnostic and it's where we kind of get under the hood of your brand. We figure out what's working for you, what's not working for you and then from there we kind of give you a roadmap and a, and a tangible plan for where you need to go. And I would say 10 out of 10 times when you can be like some of these are like the most established brands in the world to like startup brands. Every founder has a blind spot on focusing on storytelling of why they make themselves unique. And it to me is such a. For everyone that is listening to this you need to create. So we talk about this in the social media and brand pillar of like yours. The way that you approach social should be done through different pillars, right? And the pillar has like its own description, its own so what its own performance indicator and its own example of different types of content. So the page I want to talk about today is Craig Hill and they do a very good job of like over engineering mundane objects. So they have like the best scissors, the best like credit card case. And the way that they're approaching socials is that they show through simplified ways how they got to their product being like the best version that it is like how they over engineered it, how they designed it, how they, what they were inspired by. So there's this wallet case that they did that they were trying to make like basically for a man you know how you don't want to carry a purse and you want it to slip into your jeans? And they based it off of a baby bell, like the baby bell cheese container of like how it hinges right and like how they can get that radius of like making sure it perfectly closes on top of the round cheese. And they did so much content around this that's just purely entertaining. It's educational. And then they're tying it to selling a lot of product. And most founders, they're chasing like this idea that they're gonna hand this product to a creator and the creator is gonna be the reason that it goes insanely viral and it's just gonna sell so much product and it's just not working like that anymore. Like, you have to be your own advocate. You have to think in terms of epic storytelling. How do I convey through an interesting way that my product is better worth stopping the scroll and driving a purchase? Like, when you're a person that creates content online and you do it successfully, you learn through the thousands and thousands of hours that you create content that your job is to get people to not leave from your piece of content. So when you're creating a piece of content at every second you are working against someone going off your video and continuing to swipe like that is your fight. The better that you get at keeping people on your content without swiping away, the better your content gets. And that's what you need to be obsessed with, is how do you create entertaining and educating educational ways that maintain people staying till the end so they're learning about your product.
- [21:21]
Philip Miller
You know, reminds me of a famous Winston Churchill quote that says, if somebody tells me I have to give an hour long speech tonight, I need five minutes to prepare. But if somebody says I need to do a five minute speech tonight, I need an hour to prepare.
- [21:35]
Jen Miller
Yeah.
- [21:35]
Philip Miller
And I think that happens a lot of the time in content. You don't understand that I struggle with it all the time. I want to say too much, but the shorter you can make your content and the more impactful, the better on a social media thing. But it takes a lot of work to really get the perfect words that persuade and Entertain and educate 100%.
- [21:51]
Jen Miller
It's why, why is why you need. You need to be consuming information and sitting down and writing. It's actually why I think this, the social media and brand planner is like mission critical for any business owner. Because when you think about the way that I construct, it is just like or similar to or better than the Don Miller. How to build a story brand.
- [22:14]
Philip Miller
It's much more fun.
- [22:15]
Jen Miller
But the reason why I explain that is the essence of what we're trying to take away. Like we have an example of a client who does like lab grown diamond jewelry. It's fantastic. Her name is set. I would honestly Lab grown diamonds is like the like as soon as we
- [22:30]
Philip Miller
get some samples, it's gonna sponsor and
- [22:31]
Jen Miller
I'm wearing on the show.
- [22:33]
Philip Miller
It's amazing.
- [22:34]
Jen Miller
It's amazing. And the reason why it's amazing is because for the average person that wants to maybe wear some diamonds, you really don't need to pay for like diamonds made in the ground. Like a lab grown to the visual, to the eye is no more than that.
- [22:45]
Philip Miller
And this is where we're gonna help with with her messaging. I just watched a geologist in Switzerland talk about about it. So the diamond lobby forced lab grown diamonds to put a microscopic signature on them. But if that microscopic signature isn't on a lab grown diamond, there is no expert in the world that can tell the difference between a lab grown and a ground diamond.
- [23:07]
Jen Miller
No, because they're the same.
- [23:08]
Philip Miller
No expert in the world can tell the difference. But you're paying four or five times more because it's in the ground. Because the lobby was able to force them to put a little signature on it so that they could preserve. They're giant warehouses of diamonds that they, that they secretly hold to create scarcity.
- [23:23]
Jen Miller
Yeah, nailed it. So one of the ads that we gave her as an example was like comparing the like lab grown to real diamonds, right? Like focusing on being a floating head style and comparing the two and explaining what makes them different. And like who this is for and like why speaking to the consumer type of who you're trying to speak to, of reinforcing that. My kind of customer isn't like isn't just spending money aimlessly when they could be spending, spending it more intelligently. That's the one. She did one example of that on ads. It performed 500 times compared to the other ads that she was doing before because she felt uncomfortable to naturally lean into that point of difference, into the usp, into creating an epic storytelling and storyline that connects with the customer as the hero. Because your customer is the hero. You are the guide. You are guiding them. So if her customer is someone that is intelligent, has money, wants diamonds, but doesn't want to pay a stupid markup, unnecessary necessarily, that's the only thing that you need to speak to and that's what brands are missing, is that they're hoping that someone with A hundred thousand followers is just going to sell them $10 million of product instead of focusing on how do I show up in a thousand different ways to tell a very small story over and over and over again.
- [24:43]
Philip Miller
And all the advisors of these founders and I just go back to the marketing. They're like risk adverse. And honestly, showing up means embracing risk. Leaders take risk, leaders are lead from the front, like, and that's some. Like, they take the bullets. Right. So for you to be impactful, you have to show up, but you can't show up in the safe way.
- [25:05]
Jen Miller
No.
- [25:05]
Philip Miller
Because then you're not really showing up. You're just attending. Yeah, Showing up to say something is what matters.
- [25:11]
Jen Miller
Love that. So, guys, I spent the last two years building this and this just for you. Essentially, I'm putting myself out of business because these, my friends, teach you the exact strategy I would use if you were to hire me to grow your socials, grow your brand, and grow your business all at the same time. But here's the thing. They're not just designed to teach you what to do, but to get you to actually execute. Everything is step by step, super clear and easy to follow. And figure out part one, does all the brand and strategy work, while part two keeps you taking action month over month for 12 months. Nothing like these exist on the market. That's why I had to create them. We only printed 500, and there's less than 100 left. So if you want your access to all of these things, click the link below and I will change your socials, your brand, and your business. All right, let's move on to the next segment. So we're going to talk about YouTube and how YouTube is officially taking over media. So this year, three of the most popular movies, absolute box office hits, were created by YouTube creators.
- [26:21]
Philip Miller
The question is, how are the most popular movies in the world done by YouTubers at a budget that's literally 5% of the Hollywood studios?
- [26:28]
Jen Miller
Because it's the exact point that I just made. People who are in the business of creating content have such a higher bar and standard to maintain attention. So you become master at maintaining attention. Right? You have to think in terms of hooks, you have to think in terms of understanding that the customer wants to leave from your content every fraction of a second, and that the longer that you can keep them on, the better that you become at storytelling and messaging. And also, not for nothing, their monetization, the way they make money is based on retention. Whereas the people who work as writers and work at these production houses, they're just creating literally choice writers.
- [27:08]
Philip Miller
5. Oh my God, there's a Toy Story 5.
- [27:10]
Jen Miller
They're. They're trapping attention opposed to generating attention. Right. And, and that's where I think there's this massive split that's happening between YouTubers really entering into owning TV and media. Because even for example.
- [27:25]
Philip Miller
And I just.
- [27:26]
Jen Miller
Go ahead.
- [27:27]
Philip Miller
Toy Story 2, though, however, rivals Empire Strike Back. Empire Strikes Back as best sequel of all time. 99.9% of sequels suck. Toy Story 2, Empire Strikes Back.
- [27:37]
Jen Miller
Back.
- [27:37]
Philip Miller
Amazing sequels.
- [27:38]
Jen Miller
But they were made when the. There was still a desire for good storytelling. Like Godfather 2 is a wicked movie.
- [27:45]
Philip Miller
I'm sorry. Probably that's the top three. You're right.
- [27:47]
Jen Miller
Big Harry Potter, like had a great series. Did not go there. Big Lord of the Rings. Well, that was.
- [27:54]
Philip Miller
Yeah, Two Tower was amazing.
- [27:55]
Jen Miller
No, there's a ton back when, back when you actually had to create good stories.
- [28:00]
Philip Miller
No, but where that, where a sequel can work is where there's actually a story written. Written. You know what I mean? Like where there's a book written because there's an investment to write a book. But when you have a hit and then you get script writers come and do the sequel, they don't understand investing in characters they just know, like recipes for stories that aren't interesting.
- [28:21]
Jen Miller
You're totally right. I just want to give a little bit of facts here.
- [28:23]
Philip Miller
Okay? Give some facts.
- [28:24]
Jen Miller
So Kane Parsons and Backrooms. So the three movies this year were Backrooms, Obsession and Iron Lung. So. And they were all kind of these thriller, horror esque movies. Number one was Kane Parsons and Back Rooms. So he created this found footage horror short movie at 16 on blender. So found footage is like Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity where like it comes across as.
- [28:49]
Philip Miller
Looks like it's a documentary.
- [28:49]
Jen Miller
It looks like it's real. He edited it on free software at 16 years old. And a 27 year old assistant finds it on YouTube, shows their body boss and Kane gets signed to turn it into a feature. A24 comes aboard. He shoots it at 19, releases it at age 20. And they had a $10 million budget and they've made over $118 million worldwide on opening weekends.
- [29:13]
Philip Miller
This is Iron Lung.
- [29:13]
Jen Miller
No, this is backrooms.
- [29:15]
Philip Miller
No, Back Rooms.
- [29:15]
Jen Miller
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is Back Rooms.
- [29:17]
Philip Miller
Like, but it's intelligent movie. Like it's got. I, I think that movie has the right parts. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's not. The actor is spectacular. You know, the actor isn't there because they're supposed to be. I need Your perspective, the actors and me, it's a great actor. The story is interesting. You're invested in the character. Like it's just, it's, it's wonderful.
- [29:39]
Jen Miller
Here's what shows you how much people are dying for epic storytelling. The majority audience, they did exit polls at the theater, so they asked people questions when they're leaving the theater. Majority were gen ZS under 24 years old. Which is which Everyone is saying the movies are dead because young people want to be at home on scroll on their phones and laptop. Laptops. Wrong. The movies are dead because you're not giving people good storytelling and because young people are growing up with content on their phone. The demand for the content being worth their time to go and spend their parents money has to be really good. And that's what bathroom did.
- [30:18]
Philip Miller
Humans biologically want interesting, intelligent stories. Right. Like that movie is captivating.
- [30:25]
Jen Miller
Yeah.
- [30:26]
Philip Miller
Right? It's like Marvel is not captivating.
- [30:28]
Jen Miller
Yeah. Note the next one was Obsession by Carrie Barker. Okay. So Carrie Barker and partner Cooper Tomlinson had are cinematic sketch comedy creators on YouTube. So they create these like beautiful videos that are hilarious and they make this horror short film in August 2024 for $800 and they post it. It generates so much demand that they get approached and they raise $750,000 to shoot Obsession in 20 days. The Focus Features picks it up for $15 million dollars and they've done over $148 million in under a month in the box office. It beat the new Mandalorian and it had like a rounding error fraction on the budget that Mandalorian had.
- [31:09]
Philip Miller
We were in Hollywood, I was talking to producers. I'm like, you don't understand. You're making these movies from these guidelines that are being imposed upon you by some elite groups telling you your movies have to have this. They have to have this many people if we want an Oscar. Like they're not telling stories. Whereas these people told a story that is so relevant to a younger generation about somebody who's obsessed with somebody who is untouchable. And then it's like the Monkey's Paw. I don't know if you read the Monkey's Paw in high school where you get one wish and the story is the wish. Wishes, if you get something for free, often have a very negative consequence. And so it's a bit of a remake of the Monkey's Paw in a current social situation. And it's just, it's so engaging, real, and, you know, unapologetically disturbing that I love that it's Crushing it.
- [32:00]
Jen Miller
Well, it's also like the emperor's New clothes, the Midas touch. Like, it's a theme that's existed in storytelling for a very long time, Right? Or even Aladdin, you know, the genie gives you three wishes. Like, the whole idea is that often what you wish for is often what is like, to your demise. And it's like, careful what you wish for. Right?
- [32:18]
Philip Miller
And it's funny because I'm getting in my inbox, I'm getting lots of people now saying, hey, these movies are doing well. Like, do you know somebody who. Can you fund some independent movies? I just had a bunch this week saying I've got some ideas for independent movies. Like, can you fund them or do you know, somebody will fund them? It's. It's a new trend of storytelling that I think is really interesting.
- [32:35]
Jen Miller
Well, but it just. It speaks to this idea that you. So there's. There's two pieces to this. The first is people are hungry for epic storytelling. Right? That's why I said this is the theme of this week. When I get into it, like, when you look at the accounts that are really killing it, like Brooklyn Coffee, the ick, right? They're creating cinematic, episodic storylines. Like, they're investing in people. People are showing up. They're creating community. And what people are missing about this idea of building in public or episodic content is that it only works when it's good. And it only works when you're like, it's epic. Like, you're bringing people in, you're being thoughtful. Like the Brooklyn Coffee House, they're creating these vignettes of what these different characters are like that come into the store and they're. They're. They're making them larger than life. They're. They're creating these hyperbolic characters that people can connect. It makes people feel right. It evokes emotion. And, like, what brands are missing is that they're trying to, in quotations, build in public without understanding that you actually have to create, buy in from people. Like, it's community.
- [33:39]
Philip Miller
What brands are missing is the right people in charge of their brand.
- [33:43]
Jen Miller
Yeah, true.
- [33:44]
Philip Miller
And what you have to. I think what's relevant is when somebody's been in an industry from a while, they. They look and sound really intelligent because they've been in the industry. They know all the lingo, they speak a language that the founder doesn't understand, and they've got a machine behind them. But when they surveyed, like, the highest EQ professions in the world, writers are at the top Right. And that's what's missing in most marketing and branding is people who understand how to storytell, how to create a story. Because to write a story means you have to understand how different types of humans see and experience the world. It's not just through your eyes. So when you're. The brands are suffering because they have executives that know the speak. They go to all the right parties and conferences, but they don't know how to connect and tell a story.
- [34:27]
Jen Miller
Well, no. And that's why you need the planner, because it's about what is the story that makes sense for your brand and what's going to amplify your brand in a way that. That connects instantly to the customer and in a way that, like. And you have to keep reinforcing that storyline. That's why when I talked about last week, like, the social bump, like every social bump has to be building towards that larger world that you want to get to. And that's what miss with that idea of world building. So multiplier, who is the third person in this YouTube segment who created Iron Lung? That's the one that dropped at the beginning of this year. When he created this video, or the movie, rather, Iron Lung, they initially said, hey, look, like we're only going to be able to get this into 50 theaters. And he's like, well, that's not going to work for me because I have this massive community that's going to be very upset that they're not going to be able to watch it in theaters near them. So he created this almost outreach contest that had his community, like, flood their local theaters because basically theaters will buy access as long as there's demand, because they have to be very careful that they're not purchasing access to rights that are.
- [35:41]
Philip Miller
And the big production studios kind of had, you know, a monopoly on what got into the theaters. Kind of like how grocery stores, as
- [35:48]
Jen Miller
long as you have demand, they'll put you in, apparently. And it was an amazing success. He ended up being in most, like, most theaters nationwide. And it got crazy. Like, the box was insane. And that. That's real world building because that's reinforcing to his audience that believes in Markiplier's ability to storytell, to have them engaged in being able to watch the movie. And that's like, great hype that's building in public.
- [36:12]
Philip Miller
Yeah, I find, like, that movie is almost a metal lane of, you know, world building where people supported you and then came out when it was time to launch. And that was amazing. But, you know, we should Talk about in movies, if anybody doesn't isn't aware of the Rocky Horror Picture show, you should familiarize yourself with that movie.
- [36:28]
Jen Miller
It's a great example from the 80s.
- [36:30]
Philip Miller
It still has live shows today at
- [36:33]
Jen Miller
Halloween they dress up all year long.
- [36:34]
Philip Miller
People still go and they dress up. Why? Because it got people engaged in something more than just a two dimensional screen.
- [36:41]
Jen Miller
What's the famous song from the let's do the time?
- [36:45]
Philip Miller
No, that's.
- [36:46]
Jen Miller
No, you're right.
- [36:47]
Philip Miller
You take a step to life is meatloaf right? Yeah. Okay.
- [36:51]
Jen Miller
Yeah, that's it. That was a little singing break for you, you guys. But the reason why I was so drawn to this segment this week is that I was at some dinners for the Deal Maker conference for the, for the beauty independent in New York earlier this week. I was there Monday and Tuesday and outside of us also having a ton of beauty clients, I was taking a bunch of movies, meeting with a bunch of movies clients, meeting with a bunch of brands and people in the industry. And this theme that kept coming up is this annoyance that influencers aren't working anymore. As if like the industry is broken because influencers aren't influencing. And how interesting it was for me to like listen to these VCs and these people that just want this easy money and it. The reason why the beauty industry is so fucked up right now is that they're not realizing that it's their job job to communicate why someone should buy their product, what makes their product the best, creating a clear brand world and a clear understanding of what makes that brand different to be able to buy into. When we went to Sephora, it was a great experience, absolutely fantastically done for people at Sephora. But none of the brands that spent six figures to have boost there were focusing on what made their brand different or unique. It was just based on votes Vibe. And Vibe doesn't scale when you're just competing with everybody else. That's vibe chasing. And that's what's the problem with the industry is you need to lean into epic storytelling. YouTube is a massively untapped platform where people are going every single day, especially people with money, to be educated in longer formats. It's why brands like Lisa Eldridge are like sneakily killing it because she went on YouTube 20 years ago and has this die hard brand because people love her content. And it's what beauty brands aren't thinking enough is like how do I create an epic storyline? And the thing that sucks is that YouTube takes way more time, way more energy, way more effort. Without the immediate, like, dopamine hit of a chick with a hundred thousand followers that posts it and it randomly goes viral and it becomes a massive hero product to your line of product.
- [39:02]
Philip Miller
But like, like, when you're talking, when you're talking about this line level, why they get frustrated is because when you get big and you have money, you get accustomed to money solving your problems. And so they're like, well, I have money. I just want to pay the most on influencers and I should just keep winning.
- [39:17]
Jen Miller
Yeah, right.
- [39:17]
Philip Miller
As opposed to money is money in market position. Definitely helps you secure greater revenues, but you need to constantly be populated with the best thinkers to create. To create content that's engaging. If you just want to pay influencers and then upset that your money's not doing what you want, like, that's, that's not creative thinking. Is there any. Is there any person out there that kind of goes around and rates vibes at these shows?
- [39:41]
Jen Miller
No.
- [39:42]
Philip Miller
What would you call that person?
- [39:43]
Jen Miller
Vibrator.
- [39:44]
Philip Miller
Yeah. Good spot right there.
- [39:47]
Jen Miller
LOL. You think so fast, Mr. Millar.
- [39:51]
Philip Miller
So fast.
- [39:53]
Jen Miller
You got me there.
- [39:55]
Philip Miller
That just came out of nowhere.
- [39:57]
Jen Miller
I'm completely thrown off now. That's hilarious. Curious. I'll take two, like, my Revolve video job applications. But it's so funny because so many people are complaining that, like, the math isn't mathing in retail, right? And, like, they're. Everyone is trying to figure out, like, how to get ahead and, like, how. How complicated it is. But that's the rub, is that it's complicated and that you have to be creative and that you have to lean into this epic storytelling. Like, even TikTok, when I look at branded TikTok, it's not performing. Like, it's not performing for brands because they're all doing the same. Even the Instagram, like, the feeds, they look good, but they're all doing the same thing.
- [40:32]
Philip Miller
Like, I want to go back to these VCs that are frustrated. It's because you're listening to accountants, right? You're like, oh, we have money. We should be able to X, X plus Y equals Z squared. You know, like, they want these kind of charts. Like, these VCs need to be finding the best creatives to help their brand scale once they have market position.
- [40:49]
Jen Miller
Yeah, but there's a lot of founders, though, like VCs aside, that are also feeling this way too. Right? Like, I spoke with a bunch of founders that. I mean, we have a client right now that' a huge brand in Sephora, and they're like, oh yeah, that YouTube, you know, that's really interesting. Camille, can you, you know, can you double click on that one and give us a, you know, a strategy there? Because we pulled our research stats and it's our, it's the number three way that people are finding our, our product. And I'm like, well, yes, because it is a platform that has like the highest level of trust and credibility because people are showing up and watching an hour from like these Jaclyn Hills and, and Tati Westbrooks and people that they've spent time with over years that when this person says, I'm loving this product, they believe it and they're going to go and buy it. Now, if you want to replicate that without doing what the signal is versus what the noise is like, looking at TikTok as a platform is noise. Understanding the strategy of how to leverage that platform is signal. Right. And like, that's what brands are missing is you have to create a storyline and you have to commit to it for six months and it's going to cost money and it's not going to have an insane ROI in the first three months because brands branding is a lagging indicator and you need to separate yourself from the rest in order to show yourself as different in market. Otherwise you're gonna just blend together with everyone else, which is what's happening right now.
- [42:12]
Philip Miller
So much interesting stuff there.
- [42:13]
Jen Miller
Yeah, there's so much there. Okay, so let's move on to the next segment. So I do wanna talk about what wins and it's content that makes you feel so. Have you seen the video from the Rock that he put out this past week? I actually shared it to my stories. I was just so enth.
- [42:30]
Philip Miller
But before we go there and all the listeners, think of the content that makes you feel the most that you watch when it comes on your algorithm. Do you have like a type of content that makes you the most emotional or feel the strongest?
- [42:42]
Jen Miller
Me?
- [42:42]
Philip Miller
Yeah.
- [42:43]
Jen Miller
Honestly, I'm so obsessed with my work that I'm not really watching dog videos or like soldiers coming home videos. So.
- [42:48]
Philip Miller
No, well, see this? Stole mine. But you are on Instagram all the time scrolling.
- [42:52]
Jen Miller
But I'm not really getting served emotional videos. I'm getting served like really good hooks and I'm like, damn, that girl crushed it.
- [42:57]
Philip Miller
I'm.
- [42:58]
Jen Miller
I'm inspired perspectives.
- [42:59]
Philip Miller
But when you think of it's true.
- [43:01]
Jen Miller
I've got a lot of Birkins on my feed.
- [43:03]
Philip Miller
Think of what videos make you feel rather than ones that you just scroll by and like that you don't care which ones actually stop and make you feel. Like the. The ice T1 where the guy is on the skateboard. That made people feel.
- [43:14]
Jen Miller
Literally, that was cranberry.
- [43:16]
Philip Miller
I mean, well, yeah, but it made people feel amazing. Like, I love the stories when they put glasses or hearing in a baby's ear.
- [43:23]
Jen Miller
Oh, yeah.
- [43:23]
Philip Miller
For the first time. And they smile. Tears every time. Or reconnecting with kid when you've been deployed. Tears every time. Like, how do you create. Like, those things make me stop and change my state. I was thinking when we were talking
- [43:35]
Jen Miller
about it's because you actually have a heart. And people don't know that, but it's actually a heart in there.
- [43:41]
Philip Miller
Like writing a story, thinking about your brand. What? I think it just popped in my mind and we should consider adding it maybe later. But anybody who's a founder, who's in charge of a brand should try to write a short story about their customer. Like, see if you could actually write a short story about the customer's journey to your product and how it uses it, how it changes the world. Like that kind of short storytelling about five.
- [44:03]
Jen Miller
And all of those themes are content. Yeah, right. Like all of those. Like those points. Like those that are in your story. Well, you can, but I'm also saying if you just even use it as an exercise of, like, if these are core moments, how do you create content around those core moments? Right. That's what. That's what drive people to act. Act. But I actually want you to take for me a counter approach to this. Let's like, you know, let's get a little spicy here. Because this video that I. I want initially, when the Rock launched a shampoo line, I'm like, oh, man, this really shows you that you can sell anything. If the Rock launches shampoo line. And this woman, rightfully so, does this video being, like, never give up on your dreams. Her name was Katie Nash Papier. And the whole premise is that she does this video being like, if the Rock can sell shampoo as a bald man, this just proves to you, like, never give up on your dreams. And the video goes super viral.
- [44:56]
Philip Miller
Well, was his dream always to sell shampoo? Well, doesn't really make sense.
- [45:00]
Jen Miller
It was a polite, controversial dig video. She was being constructive. And then the video kind of ends with like, a funny, like, well, never give up on your dreams.
- [45:09]
Philip Miller
Like, yeah, it's kind of a. A humor. Humor. Anyhow. A little bit of humor. Maybe she was trying to.
- [45:15]
Jen Miller
Yeah, it was actually a funny video
- [45:17]
Philip Miller
and kind of simple.
- [45:18]
Jen Miller
It's Honestly, super simple. But truthfully, it is the Rock selling shampoo of, like Target. So, you know, it's. It's a simple. The whole thing is simple, but they do. Basically what he does is by taking that video, his team, probably not him, basically sends him a handwritten note as the character in his Moana, and they drive this truck up to her house and they say, Katie, you know, never give up on your dreams. And they make this whole moment out of it. And it showed up on my feed. This video went super viral because it evokes emotion, it makes people feel, and it's a clear understanding of world building, is that the Rock is tapping into this world that he's built of being this like, positive and like family friendly character and bringing people in that would be buying his product at Target. And to me, that's just such a smart way of. Of lean into the content that can be made about your brand in a way that brings people in and makes your product more interesting. Because now when I see his product at Target, I now have a story that's evoked emotion, that's made me stop, that's made me feel, that's made me think that has tied something that exists inside me to the physical product.
- [46:30]
Philip Miller
If we look at it like he had a character. I can't remember the name. The Polynesian character that had giant long hair. Right? Right.
- [46:37]
Jen Miller
Yes.
- [46:38]
Philip Miller
I think it would be more ironic if Mike. Mike Tyson was an ambassador for the comm app. You know what I mean?
- [46:45]
Jen Miller
Like, like that's actually hilarious.
- [46:47]
Philip Miller
Right? Like something fun that's actually good. Right. Like, if I was calm, I would hire Mike Tyson as my ambassador and him talk about how it, you know, it calms him from all the anger he had.
- [46:56]
Jen Miller
He's Maui from Moana.
- [46:58]
Philip Miller
Yeah, Maui from Moana. I didn't want to butcher the name, but he had beautiful hair there. So selling shampoo, it makes sense.
- [47:03]
Jen Miller
He's got shampoo is called Papa.
- [47:05]
Philip Miller
Yeah. And I love that he's in Target because he's not so full.
- [47:08]
Jen Miller
He said $10. That's his customer.
- [47:10]
Philip Miller
No, it's just. It's just good business. I think a lot of the celebrities that are doing well are speaking to, To. To the people more. Right. And using their celebrity right rather than trying to be like a super expensive. We're amazing, but our products really aren't that. Aren't that good. So I, I love that campaign. Her highlighting it is cool. And his response, he's got good people around him because they responded in a way that created A story in a world, like, delivering it to them. But I also think it's a bit cheesy because, like, who cares? Like, I just would have delivered. I would have delivered cases of his shampoo to, like, a bald man's retreat or something. Like, I would have done something a little bit funnier rather than giving it to her. I don't know what she's gonna do with it.
- [47:46]
Jen Miller
Well, I mean, this is probably not really his product, right? Like, he's a.
- [47:51]
Philip Miller
He's a license.
- [47:52]
Jen Miller
It's a license, like a celebrity endorsement, because he's in so many movies. And it's. Well, it goes back to the YouTube point, right. That for so long, you could just sell access to a movie because George Clooney was in it.
- [48:07]
Philip Miller
Yeah.
- [48:07]
Jen Miller
You know, or because you had, like, a. Like, you had. What's.
- [48:13]
Philip Miller
Who's that? Brad Pitt. I don't care.
- [48:14]
Jen Miller
Right. Or. Or.
- [48:15]
Philip Miller
Or Julia Rose.
- [48:16]
Jen Miller
Kevin Hart and the Rock.
- [48:18]
Philip Miller
Right. And Kevin Hart's movies suck. But.
- [48:21]
Jen Miller
But it's. That's the brand. That's the brand, is it?
- [48:24]
Philip Miller
It's, like, for my mom, Jumanji 5. Are we on? What are we on? Jumanji.
- [48:27]
Jen Miller
Jumanji 9. Like, my mom loves it. This is shampoo for the people. This is shampoo for my mom. Like, she's here for it, and. But, like, the Rock. The average person loves the Rock, and, like, that's okay. They're selling a lot of movie tickets to it. So I think this is also where there's an art.
- [48:43]
Philip Miller
Selling shampoo for that character is smart for building a world around the movie because it creates a conversation about the shampoo because he's actually bald. But you're selling shampoo. That's. But it's.
- [48:53]
Jen Miller
But that's. My point is that the reason why branding is an art form is that to your credit, the Rock would not be able to launch a luxury shampoo line priced at $160. As a bald man, he can sell a product that's under $10 tied to Moana because people love what he represents in movies. He plays this safe harbor character that's, like, larger than life. He's aspirational, but he's really likable.
- [49:18]
Philip Miller
People are asking what I'm doing. I'm just. I'm just capturing money pennies here. Slowly sliding off the. Off the chair. Every two minutes, her head goes closer to the floor. It's hilarious.
- [49:29]
Jen Miller
It is hilarious.
- [49:31]
Philip Miller
All right, enough on that topic.
- [49:32]
Jen Miller
Okay? So I want to talk about.
- [49:34]
Philip Miller
You wanted me to get spicy on that. Topic.
- [49:36]
Jen Miller
Well, I was hoping.
- [49:37]
Philip Miller
What was I going to say?
- [49:38]
Jen Miller
I don't know. I'm just. People want us to fight. So can we fight about something here?
- [49:42]
Philip Miller
We absolutely can.
- [49:44]
Jen Miller
All right, well, let's fight about something here. Okay, so the next one is that Meta is betting on episodic content. So we've been talking about this for a long time, but this newest update for Meta proves. Proves that people want episodic content. So on June 2, Meta began testing Series a feature letting creators bundle new and existing reels into episodic collections with a dedicated hub on their profile. So viewers can watch in order of how the episodic content was posted. And basically you can pick off where you left off. So it feels more like Netflix, where, like, when you go on Netflix and you're in a series, it tells you what the, like what episode you were on last and like how far along you were into the piece of content. They're rolling this out to a limited group of creators and they're already publishing serialized content on Instagram and Facebook. And where this came from was this was actually a TikTok feature that came out with the same name in 2023. And basically creators could put up to 80 videos, 30 to 20 minutes in length behind a paywall for paying fans. And TikTok has pushed us further into long, long form content via Tubi partnership that's uploaded into 16,000 plus episodes.
- [50:49]
Philip Miller
Can you upload your course to that?
- [50:51]
Jen Miller
I could, but I'm not. I'm not approved as part of the program. So what these platforms are doing, instead of like rolling it out to everyone, they're testing it with people that are already proving to do it because they're trying to change viewing behaviors. Right. Well, that was a big thing too. The Justice Department approved the Paramount Warner Brothers partnership as not being antitrust. So you're just seeing this movement towards everyone is trying to conglomerate content consumption and you're seeing episodic content become so big on Instagram and TikTok. You talked about it last week with that guy that's like, that's sailing across the ocean.
- [51:25]
Philip Miller
Oh, yeah.
- [51:25]
Jen Miller
But they're doing.
- [51:26]
Philip Miller
It's almost. He's almost done.
- [51:28]
Jen Miller
But the point that they're trying to do is they're trying to train us as users to pick up where we left off. So we're not just randomly scrolling onto 235day.235. Instead, we're able to keep tuning in every day and if we miss a few episodes, see where we missed it so that we can keep watching. Why? Because the platforms want to keep people on the platform longer. This is the unlock that you have to listen, think of as a brand. Don't just take the buzzword of episodic content and try to get your team to do a series that isn't interesting, that's selling, that nobody wants to watch. It has to be episodic in nature with a clear storyline and plot. It's why Meadowlane worked. There was a plot to it. There was. There was highs, there was lows, there was characters, there was risk. Like there was the potential that it wasn't going to open. Like people were bought in.
- [52:18]
Philip Miller
Yeah. I think they like to eavesdrop on what's on, what's going on. But I want to give away a million dollar, multi million dollar idea, I think. And if anybody knows somebody at meta, because I've been talking about the meta glasses, right. And episodic is fine, but I. I'm always amazed at how un. Like the lack of boldness. So why not take content, make it episodic and then gamify it? Because let's say I turn my metaglasses on and I'm watching an episode. It'd be amazing if I'm watching it live. Like, a question could come up and then you could answer it. Right. Real time. As it's going, do you think it's going to. He's going to turn right or is he going to turn left? Do you think she's going to say yes, she's going to say no? And then meta. AI. I could be saying it as I'm watching it with my glasses. And you could have a score as you're watching episodic content. Right. Or you could say, hey, I'm making content here. The first five people that noted that find the Easter eggs that I've hidden in this episode. Right, But. And you're recording it through meta. Like, I just find, like, there's ways to make this content so much more engaging. But we're moving. We're not jumping ahead. We're just moving in small steps. But this does change how people should consider content.
- [53:26]
Jen Miller
Well, and what you're saying is so interesting because the. What makes this, this shift so important is that discovery has never been the hard part. Continuity has been right and people get one viral clip and they don't know what to do with it. Leaning into having a clear through line and storyline, that which is what makes episodic content strong is what's maintaining continuity. It's earning that second visit, that third that Fourth visit. That's ultimately what you want to work towards because it's what keeps your, your page on people's algorithms. So what people are missing is that I was saying this the other day to one of our clients who owns a cool clothing line called Courting, and I was saying to her that she's doing all of these cool capsule drops so she'll only release like 300 pieces of something or 400 pieces of something. And she's texting me these photos of like, what, like basically what she's making and like hyping me up because, like, I love all her clothes and I'm buying them with my real money. I said to her, I'm like, you should be posting this on your stories because I, the reason that I see all of your content is because I'm watching your stories, I'm watching your in feed. That's what keeps your page on my algorithm, on my grid. It's why this type of content is so powerful. Because as long as I'm staying engaged as a user with your page, I'm going to be continue to be fed your content, which is what keeps your brand top of mind. So it's why you need to break that fourth wall and start giving more away. Like show the good, show the bad show, like show everything that's happening, but only if it's interesting. Because the moment you're just sharing without the so what or the value piece is when people will start ignoring your content and you'll get suppressed. So the takeaway is how do you make your content as interesting as possible so that you watch every post? Like for example, our friends at For All Shout out to Megan, they just did that collab with Barbie in LA and they crushed it. And they did so many engaging and entertaining pieces of content. I watched it all. I watched it on Megan's page, I watched it On Jen, the CEO's page, I watched it on the for all page. And because I was so engaged and entertained. Now when they are sharing new collections and new stuff, it comes up on my feed because I've told the Internet, they've told the algorithm, I like their content and they're selling stuff. And that's the.
- [55:43]
Philip Miller
But it also, from a psychological perspective, in human behavior, people think that they rationalize and make it decision. Generally they make a decision and then rationalize it. And this is very true in politics and business because you've watched so much of their content. Now psychologically, when you see a new collab, a new piece come out, you're going to like it because psychologically you've, you know, you like it because you've watched the content. Like it's a reverse way of getting a buy. Like you're going to think that you're going to like their stuff more because you've invested so much time in watching.
- [56:13]
Jen Miller
Great point. That's. You're exactly correct. I also want to bring up the NBA Res Dev, because that's another great account that shows how even sports are moving into this, like, lo fi episodic. So the NBA came up with this whole other channel called Research and Development, and they're bringing up, it looks like the Office. It's like a mockumentary style. It's talking about the things that people talk about when they're at the bar or when they're, you know, getting a water break or getting a coffee break at the office. It's talking about who's the hottest player. Is having a podcast hurting the. The talent? Is it like. There's so many different formats, but it's not really tying into, like, headlines. It's more zeitgeist cultural commentary. And they're recording it in a way that's super entertaining and engaging and it's growing very quickly. And this is like, in theory, it's a risk to the NBA, right? This is a huge company. Someone comes up with this idea, there's a big production value, you need five to six employees because they're characters within the plot line. And it. There's not a clear like, so what to what it's connecting to, but it's tapping into culture. And by understanding that you win by tapping into culture changes how you reframe, budget and spend, because that's what makes you relevant. That's what keeps you top of mind.
- [57:28]
Philip Miller
Well, it's. It's just tapping into kind of what barstool profits versus the office space. And you can actually create the things you like, the things that people are asking questions about. Right. You. You create a video about how people are determining it. That that's a very intelligent way of getting the people who are already engaged in the MBA to, to stay.
- [57:47]
Jen Miller
Love it. Before we get into the agentic era, talk about the FIFA and what Korea did.
- [57:53]
Philip Miller
So, first of all, World Cup. I love all sports, but I've always loved soccer as a player. And my nephew is playing for Team Canada. Shout out to Liam Miller had a great game. Shout out to his parents, Alan and Joanne, who did so much to get a Canadian over to England to make it to the pro and do a country Proud. The World cup is wonderful in that it makes nations so proud of what's on going. And I like it in contrast to basketball in that it's not point, point, point, point in soccer, there's a large buildup to goals and the crowd is the entertainment, not the big screens or the speakers, just from a strategic point. And take what you like of this. South Korea I know has been focusing on soccer for a long time and they have amazing discipline in such a complex game with 11 players on each side moving without coaches telling them what to do. They played Czechia. So a European team that's known for amazing coaching and anal. What Korea did they. I, I love asymmetric strategy. They changed all of their players numbers before the game. So teams scout each other, they know numbers and they get assignments. They're like, this person's super fast. We're going to put this person here, this person's going to press here. But Korea in this and nobody thinks that they'd be like clever, you know what I mean? Because you kind of see them as like very clever people. No, no, I mean clever in terms of like sneaky spirit strategy. Right. Because they're just seen as like, you know, rule playing, rule following. Like they leave the dressing room so clean. Like it's amazing. But the coach gave them all new numbers on the game. Right. And so they all. Czechia had all the wrong assignments as the game started because they couldn't differentiate because culturally they weren't able to recognize the difference in looks that much. And so Czechia was totally off balance for the first half. Korea went up and won the game. I thought it was a very interesting strategy. Wow, they have the same last name.
- [59:41]
Jen Miller
Oh, there's six Kims and six.
- [59:43]
Philip Miller
Right. So they were doing, you're covering Kim 11, you're covering Kim 23. But they just changed the actual Kim's numbers.
- [59:49]
Jen Miller
That is so intelligent.
- [59:51]
Philip Miller
Right. And it just totally screwed.
- [59:53]
Jen Miller
I mean that's like a great case study. Study in and of itself, right? Is that they could play on that because of the similarities in last names and like you don't have someone with like blonde curly hair, right? Like it's, it's like it's, it confuses people in a high stakes moment. That's interesting.
- [60:08]
Philip Miller
So funny.
- [60:09]
Jen Miller
Okay, cool. Well, let's talk about the agent era. So Google has made some crazy changes to its platform in the past week. We actually took some heat by way on the Internet about when we were saying that Google is outdated, which is because they're like, oh, Gemini is so great. I'm like sure that has nothing to do with ad revenues. Like so let's not conflate the two here. Google's ad revenues is grossly outdated and for a lot of businesses a massive killer when you could be putting it into a more effective opportunity like meta ad spend. However, let's talk about the agent era.
- [60:41]
Philip Miller
Alphabet, Google's parent company, is doing really well because Gemini Gemini is succeeding in the AI world in a couple of great spaces. But the Google revenue is under threat. But Google made an announcement this week that I think really changes the landscape in the next 12 months in terms of how you utilize a funnel, build a landing page and use a website. And I think that founders that don't get on top of this very quickly are going to get left behind. And the problem a lot of them are going to have is agencies are already pot committed to going in one direction and it takes big organizations a long time, it takes a giant shift a long time to turn. So you need to improve your decision action cycle and take advantage of it. And what they were saying is the death of the landing page and the rise of what's called the parameter moat. Customers are not going to be finding you the way they used to be finding you, which is go on Google search, browse, click through things, watch, right? There's going to be an AI agent that goes out into the Internet and then can look at 225 similar providers to what they're looking for. And it's going to search the website or landing page for parameters that different differentiate them and then it's going to in 1,000,000th of a second compare 250 providers of the same service and then deliver a result to the consumer of which one is the best. So it no longer are people going to this fluffy marketing copy that's all over the thing. Marketing is infected with phrases that mean nothing, that are not persuasive but executives think sound good? All that stuff is dead. Like you need to be able to to clearly establish the parameters of your product. What is it that you sell specifically? Who is it that wants your product? What are your product specifications like? You really got to get that into your website. And I think most impromptu, most importantly that I want you to speak about is brand specificity is going to matter more than it ever has in the past. And we see a lot of brand kind of uniformity of language or that. How would you, how would you respond to this?
- [62:37]
Jen Miller
Well, people are asking different level of questions, right? They're speaking to their phone like they're speaking to an assistant. Right. They're giving more descriptive questions and they're looking for a more descriptive answer. So you're not asking anymore, hey, you know, find me the best shampoo. You're saying, hey, find me the best shampoo that's clean, that is good on color, treated hair, that's nourishing, that is under this price point and you know, has a rating of over. Like it's just, it's a way more complicated question. And you wouldn't ask that question in Google. So when it comes to brand specificity, you have to really understand the shared values of your customer and what are the core things that they look for across the board and how are you developing an agentic landing page that speaks to that specificity in a way that that problem matches the question that someone's going to be asking in an AI engine. And to get ahead of it now is to give you power because two Google gets 500 million shop searches a day to ChatGPT's 90 million. Right. So Google is still ahead, but the consumer that's using ChatGPT is also has higher spending power and is more focused on buying more things through, through AI. So it's worth it to get ahead because it's also changing very quickly. Like AI is a new, is a
- [64:09]
Philip Miller
new program and what Google, I think is brilliant and it's rolling it out. It's not going to happen tomorrow. But already some big brands are losing engagement so they've created a universal shopping cart, an AI shopping cart and the AIM, the agent payments protocol, AP2 Google is rolling out. So we're going to be able to use Gemini, give them limited access to a credit card and say, go out and buy me, you know, this grocery list. Go out and buy me the best pair of running shoes. These are the five running shoes I've had in the past. And I'm training for a half marathon, marathon in a wet climate. And the next thing, and it will just go buy it, do the cart and it'll get shipped to you. So it's not going to be a human doing it. So now your product offerings online have to be able to speak to those AI agents so you can get that, that, that deal. Well, the other point was there's a disappearance of touch points. Right. Consumers aren't going to be touching your product pages the same way. And it's all about data structuring, getting it set up in the right way. But to your point, on brand specific specificity, you need to have A moat around your company. Because what's going to happen is it's just going to come down to pure price. You have to have something that distinguishes yourself so an AI agent can say, hey, this looks like it's perfect for the person I'm representing as a search engine or a buyer's agent. And so you need to have questions answered. As you were saying, way more specific and contextualized questions need to be able to be answered by an AI agent that gets there.
- [65:30]
Jen Miller
Well, unless price is a shared value. Right. To your customer. And that's. So. It's interesting that we're talking about this because I did a discovery call with a woman who owns a clothing brand on Friday, and she was saying how much she's been struggling with her branding and marketing, because when she went to an agency, they were focused on a Persona based on what is their biggest problem right now? Like, it was just purely faced on and she used more extreme language. I just can't remember what she used. It was something to the effect of, like, what is their burning concern or issue? And basically how do you solve it? And, you know, problem matching we talked a lot about in this episode is very important. But to her point and to her credit, her product isn't based on her customer really having an issue. She offers premium resort wear, Made in America, for people who just want to kind of create like they want to support Made in American goods. And that is why you need more shared values than like an isolated target market Persona. Because shared values, when you look at that person, they're not as price sensitive. They're more focused on like identity. Identity purchases. Right. Identity branding. They're focused on. They have strong values. They're probably very vocal. They're probably also a good customer to have because they're so vocal. They'll bring you a lot of referrals. Right? Like another client of ours, like Sahajan, where they're a. An Ayurvedic skincare brand and she, their consumer, is someone that's very focused on, like, sharing their point of view. They're. They're proud of their culturalism. So the core point is you need to understand more of a shared value than a target market Persona, because it's about understanding what are these orbs. There's usually four shared values. And how do you create a page that speaks to those shared values.
- [67:20]
Philip Miller
So the takeaway for founders is if you're, if your brand is vague, you're going to lose.
- [67:24]
Jen Miller
You're going to lose.
- [67:25]
Philip Miller
You cannot afford to have.
- [67:26]
Jen Miller
And you can't speak to everyone.
- [67:27]
Philip Miller
Yeah. So you cannot have a vague brand that you just like the name and you think you're looking logo is cute. Your brand has to stand for something, speak to somebody. And if you can dive into the brand specificity, you want the AI agents not to have to compare you to a hundred other similar offerings. They want to identify you as the offering that speaks to the person they're representing and that comes through brand specificity. And if founders just over the next 12 months, if you look at your conversion rates today, they might be the same. But if you only start to act when the conversion rates drop, you're gonna lose. Because you have a 9 to 12 month Runway to reorganize what you're doing so that your brand can properly be represented. Because the way time works with humans in business is you won't see anything for six months. You think everything's the same. And then all of a sudden when you realize there's a problem, you're gonna be so far behind you might go bankrupt. So reach out if you want. No.
- [68:19]
Jen Miller
You will. No, I mean, I actually, if you're struggling with this, reach out to us. Like for us to be able to work with you on this.
- [68:26]
Philip Miller
This planner will help you get brand specific.
- [68:29]
Jen Miller
Totally. But honestly, when we talk about like the Rock shampoo, right, like the reason why that product is working is because they're creating a clear product for a clear customer. Like they have brand specificity. They're not focusing on Agentix or it's not the best example because they're in retail. But that product, it's like sacred Beyonce's hair care line, it's like crushing it. And she doesn't really do a ton of marketing. She's not doing a ton of influencer events because the product and the product price point speaks to the shared value, the brand specificity of that fan. Right. And how and what they're looking for in market. And that's why when you look historically at a lot of these brands that use these celebrity endorsements, they were successful because they understood the consumer so well. You now need to translate what made those so good into you. Being a small or medium sized business with content creation with like epic storytelling, like when we said repeat the, the same message, do it through a lens of brand specificity. If you, if your customer wants to buy, would like to buy La Mer, but they can't justify spending $700 or $350 for their, the, the face cream, then compare your product to La Mer and explain the differentiation like that's clear brand specificity to your customer type.
- [69:45]
Philip Miller
So much to do there in the next three to 12 months for people to get their brand ready for what is coming. There is a tsunami coming in terms of how people are going to find you on the intern to make sure your brand is on point.
- [69:57]
Jen Miller
Well, this was so much info. We will see you guys next week. We're actually going to be at Cannes Lions.
- [70:02]
Philip Miller
We'll be in south of France coming to you live outside from the female quotient.
- [70:07]
Jen Miller
So if you're going to be at Cannes, let us know.
- [70:11]
Philip Miller
Go to the female quotient, say hello. We may be able to even interview your brand.
- [70:14]
Jen Miller
Well, I hope everyone has a great week. Speak soon.