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- [00:01]
Peter V. Bond
Hey, it's PVSB with the CPG guys. Sri and I are going to be in Las Vegas, Nevada January 6th through the 9th for the 2025 CES conference. Monday evening we'll be hosting an invite only party at the Aria. On Wednesday morning we'll be emceeing a breakfast briefing on 2025 Retail media investments that's sponsored by CVS Media Exchange. That's over at the Park MGM Tuesday appearing over at the OMG Commerce Experience at the Cosmopolitan and we'll be seen mostly around the area space. Expect to see us going into a lot of the area sky suites for individual meetings. We'll even be recording some content there. If you see us, stop by, say hello, take a selfie, whatever you want. We love speaking with people. We look forward to seeing you in January. Happy Holidays everyone. Welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. Your hosts Sri Rajagopalan and Peter Vs Bond explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in an increasingly digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys.
- [01:26]
Sri Rajagopalan
Hello, hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. I'm of course Sree, your co founder and co host and also co founder and partner of Think Blue, your key to unlocking profitability potential. As builders, connectors and amplifiers, we shape the future of commerce to drive your growth. Please do listen to my older daughter Rhea Raja's music at www.rhearaj.com. that's R H E A R A J. My younger daughter Laura Raj is a member of the Geffen Records Universal Music Group Catsey. They're of course midway through touring the Jingle Ball series as we speak and touch is a super hit. 200 million plus plays on Spotify and they're performing all across the country. Not joining me today is Peter V. Espont, my BFF and co host and when he's not co hosting this podcast, he serves as Partnership Acceleration Lead at Flywheel division of Omnicom that helps enterprise brands improve the SEO and SEM growing the e commerce businesses. Before we get to a guest, we'll ask you to consider following us in your preferred podcast listening app if you haven't already done so. This ensures that you automatically receive new episodes as they're released. And while they're at it, follow our sister podcast the FMCG Guys and CPG Scoop. This year we partnered with Drugstore News on December 4th of the iconic Lincoln center on the annual issue summit in 26th edition and we co presented six plus awards at the event in the HBC space to both brands and retailers. We also did partner with the Path to Purchase Institute, the annual Omni Shopper awards in Chicago November 14th and now a select group of those winners will actually get to feature on the CPG Guys all year. In 2025, we of course announced our first retail media exec ed program for our industry from May 5 to 8, 2025 at Cornell Tech. The CPG guys are strategic partners with Cornell for this immersive four day program that brings together industry thought leaders and renowned faculty to share best practices for building compelling retail media platforms. You'll of course discover how to collaborate in creating best in class tech stacks, measurements performance to ensure brands Access the necessary KPIs based on Campaign objectives and establish strong partnership between brands and retailers. In addition, the program will cover optimizing brand strategies using AI driven campaign design at scale to achieve marketing goals. Links to our podcast, our sister cast on the social media profiles of my daughters Rhea and Lara and how to register for the Cornell Retain Media program can easily be found in the digital liner notes of this episode. Now onto our main event. An episode I've been eagerly looking forward to because it's going to be an episode all about social media. One that you guys have been waiting for forever to really listen in hone in given the world has completely changed. We're 100% digital. Yes, I said it. We're 100% digital. I don't want to hear that it's 90% digital. What happened to brick and mortar? Yes, 80% of all sales is brick and mortar, but we are 100% digitally influenced. Denying that it's just silly at this point. And one of those profound changes the world has had in the last 10 years, I would say a decade, decade plus, especially over Covid, is creativity and just the birth and rise of significant digital creators. And that's what this episode is going to be about. We're going to talk about platforms and to do all of that, let me welcome a friend I met down at Possible in Miami. He was the best dressed man and every time I get to see him at conferences I always ask him how he's going to raise the bar and being the best dressed man. So welcome to the show. Hunter Pool, Vice President of Brand Partnerships at acorn, a social media influencer agency. And we're going to learn what that is. But Hunter, welcome to the CPG guys. Man, this has been a long time in the making.
- [04:48]
Hunter Pool
I know, thank you. And you gave me such a good introduction with my fashion and here I am just in a black T shirt. But trust That I have on very fun pants that you can't see. But I am so excited. Yeah, we've been talking about this since I guess that was April or May maybe, but really looking forward to finally getting to have this dialogue. Thanks for having me.
- [05:12]
Sri Rajagopalan
So, Hunter, we're going to do where. We're going to go where the CPG guys have never gone before and we're going to see who's got the most stylish band. Let's stand up. Let's stand up and see. Mine is graffiti right there.
- [05:25]
Hunter Pool
I've got. Okay, those are pretty good. I've got camo cargo happening here. But, you know, I'm impressed. I like it. You know, I say that fashion is one of the best networking tools, so I love it.
- [05:39]
Sri Rajagopalan
No doubt. Hey, listen, you and I literally shook hands because I saw your outfit and I said, wait a minute, who are you?
- [05:46]
Hunter Pool
I love it.
- [05:46]
Sri Rajagopalan
It's a pity it took seven months, but here we are. So.
- [05:50]
Hunter Pool
Yes.
- [05:50]
Sri Rajagopalan
What does Acorn do? Just high level. Take 60 seconds, tell us.
- [05:53]
Hunter Pool
Yeah, so we're experts in the social commerce space. So we originated really focusing specifically on influencer and paid social, but we've really expanded beyond that. So we are now really seeing the value of taking high performing creative, whether that be from influencers or some other different channels and using that across your entire media strategy. Right. So it doesn't have to live in the walls of paid social. You can put Influencer on your retailer PDPs, you can use it for your search ads, your display banners, ctv. So at the heart of everything we do is really driven by creators and the performance creative that they're producing. But then I think the special sauce is really what we do with that beyond just having it live in a TikTok feed or on reels.
- [06:46]
Sri Rajagopalan
Awesome. We're going to get into all of that. So let's get going. My first question for you is a simple one. Hunter. So you graduated from University of Arkansas. I never connect creativity, digital creativity in Arkansas. But obviously if I say the world is a different place, I have to accept that even Arkansas could be a different place. But take us through the years. Right? So you got out of Arkansas maybe a decade, just about a decade or so ago, you started being an operations lead creator. You worked your way up at Mashable. You also worked at Collective Bias. I mean, these are some of the cutting edge. And then you got a chicory as well. You know, we've had chicory on this show before. And then let's say four odd years At Acorn, you started in sales, but now you had. You got the. What I would call is the fun, coolest job of them all. Because you're. And we're going to discover how ordained the life of a VP of brand partnerships at a social influencer agency is. So. But take us through the years. Right, so you got out of Arkansas. What happened? How did you get here?
- [07:49]
Hunter Pool
Yeah, well, I'll go back really quickly that creativity in Arkansas, I was actually born on a farm. So creativity can also be born on a farm. But yeah, so I graduated from U of A. And I was super involved in student government when I was there and I was doing a lot of the campaigns. And my junior year, I was running a student government campaign for one of my friends. Fast forward. She graduated and started working at Collective Bias. And that was in the very early days. And so she was starting there. She kind of hired me on as an intern and the rest was history. I actually, my passion and what I thought I was going to do all through college was political advertising. That was kind of the path I was on. I'd spent a lot of time in Washington D.C. wait, wait, wait, man.
- [08:41]
Sri Rajagopalan
You can't just say political advertising and move on. What the heck does that mean?
- [08:45]
Hunter Pool
Like, campaign strategy. I was gonna be. One of the internships that I was kind of exploring was through an organization that is advertising at its core, but specifically focused on political candidates. So really just kind of taking what I had done in marketing. I also had a political science major, but, you know, really all political, like political advertising is all just marketing and like, you know, I was going to use the word manipulation, but getting people to view things how you want them to, influencing them, helping them understand your point of view and hoping that you do it better than everyone else. So that was kind of the path I was on. And honestly, I took the internship just to, you know, get some experience and honestly pay for my bar tab in college, have a little extra money. But I love the startup environment. I really, really kind of, you know, jumped right in and felt right at home. It was a place where unlike the political landscape, unfortunately, like, I felt like I could show up 100% myself, be who I wanted to be, you know, in a fast paced early org environment. Like everyone has a voice and I really like that. So that's where I cut my teeth. And then I obviously wanted to get out of Arkansas, so kind of did a pit stop in Chicago while still there. And then ultimately New York was always my dream, where I wanted to be and came here And I think one of the things I tried to do along the way was like, early on, diversify the different parts of the business that I saw. So started in client services, first line of defense for the client, really mastered, you know, client relationships and kind of forming those long term partnerships. And then when I went over to the Mashable side, I was actually sitting more in the strategy and marketing position, so working directly with the sales. Org to, you know, put together proposals, build out, you know, new products, things of that nature. And then I had someone that told me, like, yo, you should be selling. Like, you're basically already selling and you have all of this experience. And that was like, yeah, you're right, I'm doing a lot of this already. So ultimately left Mashable looking for a sales role. And that's where I found the people that I still consider family over at Chicory. Helped them kind of build their sales. Org specifically in the shopper space. They have a lot of. They had a lot of technology at the time, they were doing brand partnerships, but really were just scratching the surface on the potential they had in the shopper and retail space. So went there and then I think one of the, like, as I was thinking about this too, like my journey, one of the things that I have to mention is when I was very early in college, I got the advice that if you want to have a mentor, you should specifically ask that person to mentor you. And so that was the case with, you know, early on in my first job where I specifically sought out a few people and was like, hey, I would love for you to mentor me. And the dots that I'm connecting here are that ultimately I love Chicory, still do love the people there. But one of my mentors had a really exciting opportunity for me at Acorn and kind of, you know, the stars aligned and went to ACORN about four years ago and still here. And back to that point about mentors, I'm now working again with three of the mentors that I identified early on and have really championed me forever. So it's really fun to kind of have that full circle moment. Started in the influencer space 10 years ago, did a little bit here and there throughout, and now back in that space and kind of helping to push the evolution of it. Right, because it's changed a lot since I started.
- [13:00]
Sri Rajagopalan
No doubt about that. Hunter, that's a fascinating career, but also I'd say a career metamorphosis to fit into what you're arguably having a lot of fun in and also executing for Brands as well as, you know, connecting creators to brands and making a difference in their lives. So I'm going to start Real stop here and very naively with a very naive question for you. Tell us, who is a digital creator who qualifies? Do they have to have a million followers? Do they have to have 10 followers? Are they regional? Do they, what kind of brands do they work with? How do brands come and talk to you about this? Because I'm personally convinced and I have no problem saying it, Senior leaders have no clue how the digital world works, especially digital creators. It's a land they fear because a lot of it is UGC and they can't prescribe exactly brand guidelines. And you gotta be this way or I won't approve it.
- [13:49]
Hunter Pool
Well, it's funny because that like, I remember the days when it was kind of a surprise and delight. You contracted these people and they produce content and you saw it once, it was live and that was like the wild, wild west. But honestly, like, this is, you know, my opinion is that like anyone that's creating content online is a digital creator. Obviously not everyone creating is getting paid for it or has a desire to get paid for it. But I think we live in a culture where people, especially since the birth of Instagram, people want to share their lives, they want to engage with other people. And that really is at the center of this creator economy. But you know, where we start to think about like a micro influencer or kind of the initial creator would probably be someone who's got around 10,000 followers. Could be less in the micro space. Again, I don't want to undersell the power of niche creators who have very loyal audiences. If you are someone that has, you know, 5,000 followers, that are, you know, insanely loyal to you, but someone else has 500,000 followers but only 300 of them are actually loyal, then like that other person is going to be more valuable. But the scale of creators kind of goes from where we would call that micro creator up to what we define as a power middle. So that's going to be anyone around 50k to 150k. We do a lot of work at ACORN in that power middle space. We find that that's a really good spot for the social commerce and the retail driven programs. When you're thinking about, you know, what does this mean for people's everyday lives, right? We're working on a Walmart program or a Target program. How are those people living? How are they shopping? Who's going to them for inspiration? But it scales up from there, macro influencers are going to be, you know, under a million, but still above that 500k range. Then you get into the social celebrity that's going to be your creators that are over a million followers, even if they're not a traditional celebrity doesn't mean that in the social space they haven't earned that right and they don't have that equity. Right. And then from there it really is just like a true celebrity, right? Those are kind of the ranges. I think obviously there are different definitions of that, but that's really the core of what we go on. But really, I say this a lot. Anyone can have influence. I think that what a lot of brands get too hyper focused on and too caught up in is the followers, right? They want that big flashy number, they want that big 2 million or 5 million or whatever it may be. But you know, someone that has 5 million followers may not actually be relevant to the audience that you're trying to reach and may not shop the way that people are shopping for your product. So I would say that's one of the things that I do a lot when it comes to the day to day is kind of helping people understand what makes sense sense and why. Because there's a time and place for every type of creator on that spectrum.
- [17:12]
Sri Rajagopalan
Give you an example for us to work with here, Hunter, so we can preach and coach at the same time. James Charles on TikTok, 39.3 million followers, right? I didn't know who he was. I didn't know who he was till about three months ago. But he started working with my younger daughter, the band Katsai. And so he was home two weeks ago for her birthday and I was able to meet him, right? And I truly got a deep understanding of who he is as a person. And so here's the example I'm going to give you, right? James Charles makes a post half a million, he blinks and half a million people engage. Half a million. That's like within one hour a vice president of marketing who's running a billion dollar brand has eight people blinking when he or she commands something like how's this even equitable? And how is it that the eight person Vice President of Marketing can command a 39.3 million follower ecosystem where if he blinks he gets half a million responses like, how do we coach that 8 person brand marketer? Pay attention, something's going on.
- [18:18]
Hunter Pool
Yeah, I mean, I love where you're going with this because I had the opportunity to go to the Forbes Top Creators event this year. And one of the speakers who is a top creator on TikTok, was basically just sharing, you know, she is a little more brass than a lot of other people, right? People might deem her brand safe or not brand safe, but she basically said, you know, I got so big that people had to pay attention to me, right? And if they weren't, they were missing out. And I think that one of the most fascinating parts of my career is really, truly seeing the evolution and the power that people can harness within their own, you know, little environment and their own community. I think, obviously there are still gatekeepers that exist, right? There are people that, you know, of all industries that exist in this market. But when you think about someone who looks like James Charles or, you know, all of these. Benny Drama is one of my favorite comedians. James Charles was really good at doing makeup and doing makeup tutorials, and now he has a mega, you know, makeup line and he's a player in the industry, right? Same with Brian Jordan Alvarez, who was a really funny TikTok comedian, and now he has a show on Hulu called English Teacher, which you should watch. It's amazing. So all of these people that can build these communities and kind of reverse engineer the system, right? You start with this platform, you start with this community, and then you can expand into, you know, things that are a lot bigger when it comes to coaching, you know, the teams on how to understand it. I think, you know, I think the biggest gap is just a lot of them don't use it, they don't experience it. They're not actually in the platform. They're not actually seeing how, you know, this, you know, the power of it.
- [20:33]
Sri Rajagopalan
Hunter, Hunter. What a crime, though. Like, how dare you be a CMO, SVP of a brand, VP of marketing in 2024, 2025 now, and you don't have a social media account under the guise of. I'm worried about privacy, then if you are, how dare you ask for data and personal. Wouldn't you agree?
- [20:51]
Hunter Pool
I mean, literally. Preaching to when I think another big miss in this area is that I think that, you know, I think a lot of people, you know, or a lot of. A lot of brands maybe feel like people care about them. And, you know, I. I believe that there are brands that people care deeply for. Don't get me wrong. But in general, in the general consumer, you know, or consumable space, cpg, I don't know that people are that passionate about a lot of brands, but what people care about.
- [21:26]
Sri Rajagopalan
But Hunter, we've learned a Bitter lesson in the last year and a half with the volume slowdown that people have traded down to private label or store brands. If they cared that much, they'd fight other parts of their wallet, but they haven't. It's because they don't care that much. About 80, 90% of what's sold in the store, they're hunting for price 100%.
- [21:46]
Hunter Pool
And I think I'm going to steal some words from a dear friend of mine who works in the PR space, but he said something once that really resonated with me, like people don't care about brands. They really care about culture. And brands aren't really creating culture, but they can participate in it through social if they do it right. But I think one of the biggest things that I see day to day is brands coming to us or partners coming to us and saying, hey, we want to capitalize on trends, right? We want to capitalize on trends. And it's like, great. I also want to capitalize on trends. But I think there's a disconnect between what capitalizing on trends means and what it takes to actually do so. And in most cases, brands are going to be too rigid, the review processes are going to take too long, or they're just not willing to make the risk and take that risk to truly participate in a way that's going to feel authentic, that is going to show that they're participating in culture and isn't going to land in a way that is kind of like, oh, did you see that? Because the reality is that what was the trend last week is probably, maybe still there, but not necessarily going to be there this week either. Right? And what back to the big miss. Especially when TikTok, I mean, the reality is that right now, the world we're living in, the culture is being created on TikTok like it is where trends are born. It is shaping how people consume content, how people engage with content, how people live their lives, how they participate in communities, how they share their lives. Like it is the birthplace of culture at this time. And, you know, if you're not in there seeing that happen and seeing the power of it, then it maybe does feel scary. And I think sometimes even within this social commerce space, even outside of just like it, feeling, you know, scary from a brand, brand safety perspective, a lot of the feedback we get is like, well, how do we measure it? How do we measure it? Or, you know, is it tangible? It's not a coupon. We can't tell you that. You know, we're not going to give you a redemption. Right? But I go back to this one particular story a lot. When TikTok Pasta happened a few years ago, it included block feta and you could not find block FETA in the New York metropolitan area. And if a trend on TikTok can sell out block FETA in the largest city in the nation, I think it has a little bit of power that people should be paying attention to.
- [24:35]
Sri Rajagopalan
I remember General Mills about a year and a half ago, somebody on TikTok created a video of fruit roll ups with ice cream putting fruit roll ups around the ice cream. We couldn't stock fruit roll ups for the next two weeks. It was the busiest thing on the shelf. TikTok 1 video 1. And of course there were hundreds of knockoffs from that video. I shouldn't say hundreds. I should say thousands. If not, if not hundreds of thousands. Right? But Hunter, one of the things that worry me on why leadership still doesn't understand this space is I call it maturity bias. And let me just explain what that means and I'd love to get your view. You know, if someone's been in marketing for 30, 35 years, they started before they started their earlier career, before digital was even created, early birth of the Internet in the 90s. Right. And they went to marketing 5104 in an MBA school and learned the four P's and read Philip Cutler's book in MBA class. That said, four P's is the only way that's dictated most of their thinking. Right. And to me the proximity bias that's developed in the head is the NFL, sure bet Major League Baseball, smaller bet, but sure bet NBA, sure bet Oscar awards. It's got the impressions. It's been a very impressions led culture. Right? But if I even if I an impressions led culture where attribution is really how you justify the roi. Why can't in a digital creator world we do the same attributions and then people get all crazy. No, I can't measure my success. All your life as a brand marketer, attribution is what you've used and now all of a sudden you can attribute to social media. But to me it's really much more of a maturity bias. You want to stick to things you've known 35 years ago while the world has changed. And I'm going to repeat it again. How dare you be an SVP of marketing if you're that way?
- [26:27]
Hunter Pool
I 100% agree and my thoughts on that too. Like where where my head was going when you were Talking about that, I think the other, in my opinion, failed at a lot of, you know, companies fall into is the mindset that every single dollar you spend has to do, you know, drive to a conversion, right? Like that's just not realistic. And you know, yet a lot of vendors like us are bound to that mentality, right? We even see a lot of this language, especially in the boom of the retailer media networks where it's like working versus non working dollars, right? And they might treat a creator producing a piece of content as a non working dollar and it's like, well, you're calling it a non working dollar, but it's the crux of this entire strategy, right? So it is in theory, you know, a working dollar. And the other misconception is that it can be measured. And I think that's a really one of the things that I've been most excited about at ACORN is really our enhanced emphasis on measurement and the importance of it. We have worked really hard to make sure that whatever we're doing and whatever that media mix model is, especially because we are in that social commerce, that we can tie that back to some level of attribution. And again, like I heard this in a conversation last week, like TikTok is not measurable. It's like, no. Also all of the, you know, all of the data tools and the, you know, measurement partners, we have, you know, so many great measurement partners with direct access to data from retailers that have developed their ability to measure all of this, right? So that is something that we are very big on especially too with our retail media partnerships. WMC specifically, like everything we're doing in conjunction with them is going to give that, you know, ROAS metric and be tied to some measurement. If I had it my way, I would get to tell brands, well, not everything you do needs to drive a sale, but we are in the commerce space. We're playing in the social retailer shopper space. And so we know that we have to prove our value. But time and time again, and this just like makes me happy every time it happens, is we do see incredible success when we're measuring because social is the birthplace of culture. And if you're not participating in that space, then you're really missing out Again.
- [29:06]
Sri Rajagopalan
To me, that's maturity bias. Because the last four years when there's been a meteorical rise of retail media in the last year has seen CMO step up and say, I'm taking some of those budgets back and they've kind of said, I got to invest in upper funnel where I'm not necessarily chasing a sale. And then all of a sudden on social, you have to have a sale, like, bro, like, what the heck, you know? But let me remind our audience that I'm talking to Hunderpool, vice president of brand partnerships from Econ Agency. When we come back, we're going to have a lot of fun talking about platforms themselves. I'm going to ask Hunter to give us the names of the top five or ten digital creators that exist on planet Earth that he personally also follows and learns cultural shaping of the world from. And we're going to get into each platform, talk about what it matters, and I bet we're going to discover SRI doesn't know one or two platforms and doesn't have accounts too. So so much for my trying to shame others.
- [30:03]
Peter V. Bond
And we'll be right back.
- [30:06]
Sri Rajagopalan
All right, so Hunter, for the second half, let's jump right into what platforms matter.
- [30:13]
Hunter Pool
So I think so from a platform perspective, you know, when the social, when the social space started, it was blogs and then came Facebook and then came Instagram and then they merged. And that's when a lot of the digital tools, you know, for advertising and things were built. I like to really try and educate clients on. In the same way that you have, like an overall media mix for the tactics that you're running for your total digital plan. When it gets to social, you should also have a media mix within the social space, right? It's not one size fits all. It's not, you know, we just need to run on TikTok and that's it. Each of the platforms and I'll go into the platforms that we prioritize and then personally, that I think are the most important, they're not the same, right? In theory, you see a lot of the same style content, you see a lot of the same trends and whatever, but on the back end, from an advertising perspective, the functionality isn't the same, right? So I think that as we are planning for our clients, we're trying to deeply understand, like, what is that objective and what platform makes the most sense to accomplish that. That objective, right? Because just a quick example of that, right? Like TikTok, they don't want people to leave TikTok, right? You, they want you to keep stroll scrolling. They want you to, you know, stay within that environment. So, you know, when we have a client come to us, they're like, we want to run on TikTok, but like, we want everything to drive back to the Walmart site. And it's like, well, the TikTok shopper doesn't maybe want to go to the Walmart site, but on another platform where it's much more conducive to that, you can drive to that site. So let's understand what we should be doing in each of these spaces. So I'll start with just kind of like the baseline, like what I would call like the tried and true, that's going to be meta. Meta altogether. Facebook and Instagram. I think that what the value in Facebook right now is that in my opinion of all of the platforms from a media perspective, they have mastered the functionality of, you know, shop ability of allowing to link out to products or, you know, scroll through the carousels. I think that that is, you know, a really, really valuable part of the Facebook platform. Their ad tools have been around for the longest and in a lot of ways they're the most sophisticated and give us in the social commerce space a lot of versatility in how we set up programs and how we optimize those. Right. And there's still such a vast audience there. Right. There's still so much that's happening in that space. So we, you know, sometimes we may leave it out, sometimes we, you know, don't. But the value there, in my opinion, is that they do have very sophisticated media tools for partners to take advantage of. And even though that there's this like, perspective in the industry that it's like only the older generations that are there. Not true. I still lurk Facebook to see what's happening in my hometown, I won't lie. And so I think that's kind of the place that I would start and then moving on from there. Instagram similar. Right. Instagram has really good, you know, ad tools. There's a lot that can happen just within Instagram stories. I think that sometimes people undercut the value of Instagram stories because if you're following tons of people, the algorithm may not serve you everything that's in their feed. Right. And everything that's in their main feed. But if you're clicking through to see what they're doing in real time or day to day, you know, you're getting that kind of more organic, authentic interaction with your audience versus it relying strictly on the main feed. But discovery tools are great there as well. I mean, I think that Instagram, Let.
- [34:25]
Sri Rajagopalan
Me just ask you, tell the audience the difference between reels and stories and the relevance to brands.
- [34:30]
Hunter Pool
Yeah. So an Instagram story only lives for 24 hours. It's going to be at the top of your feed and it kind of you just click through in real time. They're much shorter. They're meant to be very day to day, day in the life. You get a lot of first person filming on an Instagram story. Whereas a reel is going to be more of a video format. Well, no, not more of only a video format. That's going to be where you're seeing, you know, a lot of cool transitions. You're layering in music, you're using captions, and it's a video first format. And then the other format that you have on Instagram is going to be just like your main feed. So you can put static images in the main feed, you can put a reel in your main feed. It can live in both places. But, you know, static images and carousels are really big right now. You know, photo dumps, a big macro trend in the industry. A shift in how people have kind of started.
- [35:33]
Sri Rajagopalan
By photo dump, you mean like, for the post, like the maximum allowed? What is it, like 13 or 11? Something like that? Are you saying just it's 10? But a photo dump would be what, like 110 posts back to back?
- [35:45]
Hunter Pool
It would be like 10 posts. If you scrolled through and you landed on a photo dump that I've posted, you might have 10 different images to swipe through before you went on to the next post. Which is a really interesting to talk about trends and how, you know, brands can capitalize on know. My generation, millennial generation, rise of Instagram. We had this idea of perceived perf that we were posting on Instagram. Beautiful images. Everything was perfectly curated. Everything was, you know, to give this idea of whatever the hell we wanted people to think about us. Right then Covid happened. People didn't have those fun vacations to share anymore. They weren't going on trips, whatever. And then Gen Z generation kind of came through and said, no, we're flipping the perceived perfection on its head and we're going to like, be a little more grunge, more real, more authentic. So a lot of what you see in photo dumps is like someone posting like, you know, blurry photos or like a series of pictures that aren't that great. Or maybe it's like a really polished one and then a meme or, you know, a funny video. It's just kind of breaking down. This, like, look at how beautiful life is. And it's like, this is, this is. We're. We're down to brass tacks. This is really what it's like. And that's something too, that I've, you know, recently been Pushing and encouraging our partners. You know, yes, we want that polished brand level image, especially in the food category. But like, let's. What's wrong with swiping over to see the messy kitchen or your kids who ran in when you were cooking in and wanted to stir the, you know, the mix or whatever it is? I think just, you know, getting more.
- [37:25]
Sri Rajagopalan
You're kind of hitting on something very important. Right. When I think of social, creative content, I think of perfection. But in my personal life, I deeply believe perfection is the pursuit of fools. You just mentioned this example of the messy kitchen kid walking in. Does content have to be perfect every single time? 50% of the time? Does it even matter? Is it more important to get your content out?
- [37:52]
Hunter Pool
If I had it my way, it would no longer ever be perfect. I think that that is a really hard thing to get people to be on board with. You know, obviously, even as a consumer. Right. I still love to see very beautiful images, especially of food. I think food is, you know, kind of its own little segment. I love to see, you know, beautiful food. But to me, an example that's very real, both from a client perspective and life perspective. I just spent a week with one of my best friends. She has a newborn baby. She's a mom. She's consuming a lot of content on TikTok and Instagram. She's searching a lot for tips, tricks, whatever it may be. And I think to see what she's going through as a new mom and how hard that is. If I was her and I only saw perfect moms online, I'd be pissed. I'd be like, what? This is a scam. This is not what it is, you know, So I think that, like, the rejection of perfection is definitely the vibe on TikTok and where things are going. And I don't think your content has to be perfect. I think perfect content is content that's going to make someone feel something, whether, whether it's seen, whether it makes them feel excited, whether it makes them feel hungry and they want to go do something. That to me is perfect content, not a perfect transition or, you know, perfect image. And I think that that is where the industry in terms of organic content is shifting. And on that note, one of the more exciting things in our world right now is that we acquired a company called Donut Digital. They're in California and they do a lot of content or not a lot of all of their content production is done in house. And they have mastered the art of understanding the styles, aesthetics and formats that are organically performing online. And everything they do is centered around understanding your category, understanding the formats that make sense, the type of message that makes sense. And they're producing in house studio content that looks and feels just like ugc looks and feels just like influencer content. And it's rooted in their vast knowledge and data and insights into what actually is going to perform online. And when it comes to social, that's another example of perfect content, right? You could have the most beautiful image ever and maybe no one sees it, but something that maybe on the outside looks a little lower quality but feels native to the trends or formats or styles of content that people are creating and consuming that's going to do way better than something that maybe is over polished.
- [40:52]
Sri Rajagopalan
You talked about many platforms where we lightly touched on TikTok. I want to get much deeper into TikTok, but you did talk about scrolling the algorithm. But here's the prize question of the day that's sending a chill and spine shivers down the spine of digital creators and even consumers. Equally, a lot of legislative talk. Supreme Court upheld TikTok ban on ByteDance unless they sell and they move out to another country. Is it even realistic at this point to ban TikTok in the United States? I mean, it's, it's, there's a GDP influence, I would imagine not so much the TikTok shop, but the creator world and the amount of dollars that are existing in that. Is it realistic? Can TikTok really be bad?
- [41:38]
Hunter Pool
There's a lot of things that have happened in this country that I didn't think were possible that have occurred. So I am not going to say no, but I'm going to say I am in the camp that it will not be ban. I'm with you. At the end of the day, we are living in a capitalist economy and there's a lot of money being made on TikTok through TikTok by TikTok, not only just for the platform itself, but for the creators and the advertisers and people that are leveraging it. So I am of the camp that it's not going to be. But again, you know, I've been very surprised recently on a lot of things, so I'm not going to say no. Hard and fast. But I definitely think that there's just, you know, there's, there's too much at stake. So I think that there will be some level of solution there. But also, again, I think all of us, especially in the social space and brands alike and as a consumer, are having those conversations thinking about what that world might look like and where that goes. So definitely could happen to me.
- [42:46]
Sri Rajagopalan
Another example of maturity bias. Decisions being made by people who don't use the platform and don't understand the brevity of a decision and how deep the impact might be and how they may altogether shut down businesses in the process without the necessary knowledge. Let's go a little bit more deeper into TikTok, right? So I'd love to learn from you. Who are the top five people that you follow, you think? Or maybe top 10? Or just give me some names here. Throw something at our audience who are amazing creators people should be following and what platform should they go to and start following them. What can they expect in terms of content?
- [43:26]
Hunter Pool
Where my mind goes with that is kind of like not individual person based. For some reason, when you ask me that question, I'm like blanking on my favorite people. And it will come to me probably as I'm talking through this. But I think that's the beautiful thing about TikTok. You will hear people, you know, sharing their experience on TikTok and a lot of times they will say, like, oh, I found myself in X corner of the TikTok universe, right? So, like right now, I am deep in the Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Wicked algorithm. It's all I see. It's being fed to me. It's behind the scenes. It's Ariana's old, old SNL performances. It's, you know, all of these things that are coming out of the woodworks, right? Like, I have found myself in the wicked corner of TikTok in the past couple of weeks, as probably many people have as well. But that's the thing that I love about it, right, Is you can find a lot of different corners of the TikTok universe. I think a big, big part of that world that is getting a lot of attention right now and has brought me specifically a lot of joy is Mom Talk, which is rooted in a group of Mormon moms who all have insane, insane clout on that platform and have wild stories again. Another example, Mormon or Mom Talk started and now there's a show on Hulu called the Secret Wives of Mormon Wives, right? We're reverse engineering the culture here, right? No longer is it one, you know, studio or whatever saying, this is what we're going to talk about on social media or this is what we're going to put in reality. It's saying no people online are paying attention to Mom Talk. So let's put that on the big screen. And I tend to think and follow really big in, like, communities. So, like, I'm a big Bravo person. All of the housewives, real Housewives, I'm following what they're doing. I'm very tuned in to every franchise and all my favorite OGs and legacy. Another example of, like, communities that have immense power. The Bachelor and Bachelorette people. Bachelor Nation is what they call it. Those people are everywhere. Love island is another example. One of the girls from Love island, if you're really quickly, if you're not familiar, Love island is kind of filmed like big, Big Brother. So it's a dating show, but it's a live stream. So these people go in and they're there for six months. By the time one girl came out of the Love island villa, she had over 4 million followers. And that is just wild, right? And, and that is the power of social. It's yes, people follow, you know, individuals, but I think more than anything on TikTok, people are following little micro communities. And you get into that algorithm for a while and you might get out of it or maybe you stay there forever. But that to me is really a big part of the, you know, engagement experience on TikTok specifically.
- [46:42]
Sri Rajagopalan
We'll get to the last couple of questions for this episode. We barely skimmed the surface today, but hopefully, you know, we'll continue, we'll continue this dialogue at a later time, right, and get into the, into the depths of each platform and who the influencers are. But I can't really let this episode close without asking you. Close without asking you. What is your advice to brand marketers when they listen to the show? If there was a parting word of wisdom, what would that be in the social world? Create an account, get going, post yourself, choose 20 to follow and if so, how would they learn which are the 20 best for them, for the work that they do? But what is your advice?
- [47:19]
Hunter Pool
Yeah, I would say one, if you have kids, ask them because they know what's they'll get you set up.
- [47:25]
Sri Rajagopalan
Golden words of wisdom.
- [47:27]
Hunter Pool
The thing about social platforms is that especially on TikTok, you can be a lurker. And if you don't know what a lurker is, it means you don't. Never. You don't have to create content, but you can be there to consume and see. And I think that's the first place to start, right? If you are working in advertising, digital, social, and you don't at least have a base level familiarity of TikTok or Reels, that's the place to start. I think the other advice would be really, really, really understand how to participate on those platforms on behalf of your brands. I think that what you need to know is that taking a commercial or a 30 or 15 second clip of something that your brand produced and just slapping it onto TikTok or slapping it onto reels does not make a social strategy and does not drive performance. I think that's why at Acorn, performance content is at the center of everything we do and the center of the strategy. As we begin to expand into other digital channels and partner with retailer media networks. That's what we want to start with because we know that if you participate in the platform in a way that looks and feels like everyone is creating content on that platform, then you are not going to feel like you're being served an ad and that's when you're participating in the culture that's being built. And then the last piece of advice would be don't let your TikTok strategy or your social strategy or whatever it may be. One, don't let it only live at the brand awareness level. I think that's a big misconception. Like there is like social should be part of your shopper marketing strategy, it should be part of your commerce strategy. And then don't let that performance creative only live in the walls of social. That's another big thing, you know, with ACORN and just in the industry overall, if you think about it, I saw a stat once like people are scrolling for a mile a day, right? And we're just constantly consuming and most people are scrolling on TikTok and Instagram. And so if you invest in that content and you invest in partners like us that are going to build you very high performing content that is native to the platform. Don't let it stop there. Let that live on your PDPs, let that live in your other environments. Let those video assets be what drives, you know, your Walmart search ads or your, you know, target roundel CTV execution. Because ultimately again, everything is being born on TikTok. I'm going to exclusively say TikTok, even though a lot is still happening on reels, it should definitely be paid attention to. But if you master that style of content and understand how to reach people on that platform and then you start spreading it beyond the walls of social and you have, that's where you layer in that targeting and layer in the personalization, that to me is like ultimate performance. So I guess to tie that up with a bow, it's get on the platform, understand at a base level how to Use it. Know that just copying and pasting a 15 second spot onto the platform does not performance creative make. And don't let it stop at social. Let it live beyond those walls because that's where the real power can come in.
- [51:06]
Sri Rajagopalan
Let's stay on TikTok for one quick second. I have to ask you this question. Consistency and frequency or quality?
- [51:13]
Hunter Pool
Consistency and frequency? Because I think without consistency and frequency you don't understand what quality is for you. Because quality is going to be what resonates with the people that are coming to you. Not necessarily quality of, you know, visual or whatever. That's speaking from a creator perspective, how you're creating. But I think the same to be true for brands, right? We assume that we know how people want to be spoken to and marketed to on social platforms and that assumption is some level of a translation of a brand brief. Right. And there's tons of data that goes into understanding how people connect to brands and how people. I'm not negating that in any way, but it can't all look the same because there's a reason that people aren't experiencing your brand the same way. So I think even though my, you know, the question I answered was from the perspective of a creator, I think it's true for brands too. You have to be out playing in that space. You have to be testing different creative, you have to be testing different formats. You have to be testing different styles, different creators to understand this formula is actually what's going to drive my business.
- [52:32]
Sri Rajagopalan
So, Hunter, let me ask you this question then. So if Sriraj along with the family started a show called the Real Lives of the Rajas in the Valley, Southern California, would you follow?
- [52:43]
Hunter Pool
I would because I just the other day I was talking about Cat's Eye, your daughter, and I've been looking at their clips and stuff on TikTok and reels and I am all in. So I want to follow that journey too. You know, I'm at my core, that's also my goal is to like have a reality show. So maybe we can, maybe I can guess there and then get a spinoff.
- [53:07]
Sri Rajagopalan
Maybe we'll synergize. Hunter. But the last question of today is trends. Right? So I have a few words for trends. Right. Let's start with the first one and take a 60 seconds kind of shotgun. AI.
- [53:18]
Hunter Pool
AI. I think that AI, in my opinion is a very resourceful tool for sorting data and for doing a lot of things. But I, I don't necessarily think that it has a place in taking over creative and AI cannot connect to an individual in the same way that an individual can. And I think that a lot of people in the creator space or in the influencer social space are trying to like, force AI because it is a buzzword and they want to say that they're using AI. And I actually think that I don't want that. I want a deep understanding of what humans want from a human. And that's how I want our programs to be centered, not based on AI. That's my personal take, which is actually.
- [54:09]
Sri Rajagopalan
My very next word of the day for trends. Authenticity.
- [54:13]
Hunter Pool
Authenticity is honestly key. And I think that people know how to be authentic, whether or not they share that, right, Whether or not they're willing to share that. It takes an immense amount of vulnerability to be authentic. And I think that if there was something that you drew a parallel to all of the top creators in the space right now, like unapologetic authenticity is going to be something that each of those check a box on, I think for brands, figure out what authentic looks like to you and align with people who speak that same language.
- [54:47]
Sri Rajagopalan
Cancel culture.
- [54:48]
Hunter Pool
Oh, loaded question. I mean, I think that, you know, I speak from again, I am very involved in Bravo Universe and there's a lot of cancel culture that happens. I think some cancel culture is absolutely warranted and we need to absolutely draw a hard line in the sand on certain things. On the other hand, I think that the world is changing and I personally wouldn't want to be held fully accountable for things that I did as a teenager in Bono, Arkansas, with a worldview of 500 people that were around me. So I think that's where the line goes is like, you know, we all as humans deserve the right to evolve. But there are some things that I'm fully on board with Cancel culture avatars. Oh, that's a space that I'm not familiar with. I, I, like I said, I'm a reality TV junkie. I don't know that I've ever seen. I will buy my response. I've never seen Avatar, so I can't speak to that when I plead the fifth, as they say on Watch what happens live.
- [55:55]
Sri Rajagopalan
Last one for the day. We never talked about the platform X, also known as Twitter.
- [56:01]
Hunter Pool
Well, I think that I, you know, even in the early days of advertising and in the social space like X was, or formerly, Twitter was more a distribution channel than it was, you know, a content or a distribution channel for content. That's how it was used. But also really, you know, X and Twitter is all conversation driven so when you want to think about no control, that is a big, big thing. But my guess is that if there's one platform that is going to have a similar platform replace it the quickest, it's going to be X. And my guess is that the Blue sky emerging platform is going to be the one to replace it.
- [56:46]
Sri Rajagopalan
TikTok and X coming together under one.
- [56:49]
Hunter Pool
Owner for a friend, I think it would ruin TikTok. And I think that there are two very different you go to those platforms for different reasons, you engage on those platforms for different reasons, and you want to create on those platforms for different reasons. So I think they're too different to integrate as seamlessly as something like Facebook and Instagram did.
- [57:14]
Sri Rajagopalan
All right, let me thank our audience for the amazing follower base we have on LinkedIn. Your clicks, your likes, your DMs, reaching out to Peter and me, following us at conferences, wanting to take pictures with us, being on our show, doing podcasts at conferences. We can't thank you enough, Hunter. It's been a pleasure. Let's not make it a one and done. We need to have another conversation. This journey of social doesn't end, so the sooner the better. Let's keep talking, but thank you so much for joining me today.
- [57:44]
Hunter Pool
Absolutely. Thank you as well. And it was a pleasure. Have a good one.
- [57:47]
Sri Rajagopalan
That's a wrap and we'll be back with another episode of the CPG Guys.
- [58:04]
Peter V. Bond
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