No More Mild Marketing

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Marketing Architects

Episode: No More Mild Marketing
Date: April 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

This spicy and unconventional episode of “The Marketing Architects” is inspired by the internet show "Hot Ones," where the hosts tackle their boldest and most controversial marketing opinions while eating progressively hotter chicken wings. The main theme is about ditching mild, safe marketing in favor of bold strategies that truly drive growth. Throughout, the conversation draws on research and industry data, and the hosts challenge the status quo on topics like media buying, retargeting, B2B vs. B2C approaches, attribution, first-party data, loyalty, the role of rebranding, and more.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Danger of Playing It Safe in Marketing — [00:44-03:25]

• Summary: Elena Jasper (B) grounds the episode in research showing that, especially in uncertain economic climates, brands default to caution—producing bland creative and optimizing only for short-term gains. Both AdAge and Kantar research are cited, emphasizing that:
  • Marketers should focus on meaningful differentiation and pricing power, not just volume.
  • 94% of pricing power comes from being perceived as different (Brand Z study).
  • During downturns, it's vital to communicate what truly makes your brand stand out—otherwise, there’s little reason for consumers to return.
• Quote:

  “When pressure builds, the instinct is to get cautious. But caution may be the very thing that weakens brands long term.” — Elena Jasper [03:16]

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Round 1: Mild Wings, "Mild" Hot Takes

1. Stop Obsessing About Low CPMs Being Bad for Your Brand — Angela Voss [03:25-04:51]

• Insight: The belief that low CPM in media buying means poor brand outcomes is misguided, especially when transferred from digital to TV.
  • In Digital: “Cheap inventory is cheap for a reason.”
  • In TV: “Inventory is scarce. Environments are curated, and viewers choose to be there … a lower CPM in that context doesn’t necessarily need to be a warning sign.”
• Quote:

  “Just don’t translate that digital learning into the TV space.” — Angela Voss [04:48]

2. Retargeting Is Completely Overrated — Rob DeMars [05:25-06:45]

• Insight: Retargeting contradicts growth principles; it hyper-focuses on current buyers rather than reaching new or light buyers, resulting in “claustrophobic echo chambers.”
• Quote:

  “Retargeting just creates these claustrophobic echo chambers … it just helps boost those vanity metrics on your dashboards, but it doesn’t really make your business grow.” — Rob DeMars [06:04]

3. Marketers Are Over-Targeting — Elena Jasper [06:52-08:06]

• Insight: Over-targeting is costly and often inaccurate. Marketers usually overpay for precise targeting, but broader targeting can be more efficient and effective.
• Quote:

  “You might just be better off going broader, paying less, and reaching more potential buyers.” — Elena Jasper [07:44]

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Round 2: Medium Wings, Taking It Up a Notch

1. Marketers Who Haven’t Tested Radio Should Be Fired — Angela Voss [08:16-10:09]

• Insight: Radio’s reach is undervalued (“over 90% of Americans every week”), especially now that competition and noise have declined. There’s significant opportunity for share of voice—and for emotional engagement through audio.
• Quote:

  “The marketers who dismiss [radio] ... it’s just laziness.” — Angela Voss [08:59]
  “Sound is processed emotionally before it’s processed rationally … the brain doesn’t fast-forward through audio.” — Angela Voss [09:39]

2. B2B Campaigns Should Operate Like B2C Campaigns — Rob DeMars [10:54-11:56]

• Insight: B2B marketers often default to “boring work,” forgetting that their audience are humans who respond to emotion and story the same way B2C audiences do.
• Quote:

  “B2B target audience is just your human who’s coming into work every day and has a pulse and reacts. They like humor. They like things that have an edge to it.” — Rob DeMars [11:32]

3. Most Brands Should Cut Paid Search and Double TV Spend — Elena Jasper [12:07-13:39]

• Insight: Paid search often just captures demand that already exists (e.g., the eBay study), while heavier TV investment can build new demand and brand equity.
• Quote:

  “Most brands would grow faster if they cut their paid search spend in half and doubled their TV budget … [Paid search] isn’t creating new demand.” — Elena Jasper [12:39]

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Round 3: Hot Wings, Spicy Takes

1. Digital Attribution Set Marketing Back a Decade — Angela Voss [14:13-15:47]

• Insight: Attribution promised accountability, but in practice, led to marketers over-optimizing for easy-to-measure, bottom-of-the-funnel activity—at the expense of true brand-building.
• Quote:

  “Attribution was supposed to give us accountability, but what it actually gave us was a very convincing story about the wrong things.” — Angela Voss [14:21]

2. Loyalty Program Spending Is Largely Wasted — Rob DeMars [16:02-16:47]

• Insight: Loyalty investments “are basically margin masquerading as a strategy”; loyal customers would likely buy regardless, so efforts should focus on new and light buyers.
• Quote:

  “You’re losing margin on all of that stuff trying to keep your loyal customers, and you should be investing that in those new markets.” — Rob DeMars [16:40]

3. Most Rebrands Do More Harm Than Good — Elena Jasper [17:19-18:21]

• Insight: Rebranding is incredibly risky because distinctive brand assets take years to ingrain; abrupt changes squander recognition and risk alienating customers.
• Quote:

  “If you walk in as a new CMO and you throw it all away for a fresh look, that is so risky. You just burned up years of built up recognition overnight.” — Elena Jasper [17:39]

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Round 4: Blazin' Wings, Unfiltered Truths

1. Obsession with First-Party Data Hurts Growth — Angela Voss [19:04-20:17]

• Insight: Over-investing in first-party data and CRM is backwards; real growth comes from reaching new, light, or unknown customers—not over-serving existing loyalists.
• Quote:

  “Everyone’s in this mad scramble to own your customer data … and that’s exactly backwards … the growth is in the people who have barely heard of you.” — Angela Voss [19:13]

2. Agencies Still Make TV Like It’s 2006 — Rob DeMars [20:39-21:55]

• Insight: Most agencies prioritize visual spectacle for TV ads despite viewing patterns shifting. The opportunity is in audio, as people multitask and pay less visual attention to screens.
• Quote:

  “Everyone’s still treating it like this gorgeous cinematography experience. … We have to be treating it … like a feast for the ears is the real opportunity.” — Rob DeMars [21:27]

3. The Idea That Consumers Want Brands to Take a Stand Is Overstated — Elena Jasper [22:32-23:42]

• Insight: Consumers rarely choose brands based on their political or social stances; these efforts often backfire unless they’re truly core to brand identity.
• Quote:

  “Open your fridge and ask yourself how many of those brands you bought because of their stance on a political issue? The answer … is zero.” — Elena Jasper [22:35]
  “Unless some sort of issue is genuinely part of your brand DNA, like it’s baked into who you are … just don’t go there.” — Elena Jasper [23:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It just said mild, so I just went with that. ... It’s delicious.” — Rob DeMars [05:08]
• “Your lips look blushed. They look like they’re hot already.” — Angela Voss [02:54]
• “Forecast calls for Kelly and Day.” — Rob DeMars (on the radio hot take) [10:02]
• “My eyes are watering. My lips are bleeding. It’s terrible.” — Angela Voss (Blazin’ Wings) [19:14]
• “I have no idea what you just said. I blacked out about five minutes ago.” — Rob DeMars (Blazin’ Wings aftermath) [23:42]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:44] – Research context: the dangers of risk aversion in modern marketing
• [03:25] – Round 1: Mild hot takes
• [08:16] – Round 2: Medium spice hot takes
• [14:01] – Round 3: Hot wing hot takes
• [18:42] – Round 4: Blazin’ (hottest) hot takes
• [23:42] – Episode wrap-up and reaction

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Conclusion

No More Mild Marketing delivers a fiery blend of behavioral science and lived experience, challenging listeners to abandon safe bets and “mild” marketing in favor of bold, research-backed strategies that drive actual business growth. Each host brings hot, actionable takes, and the spicy wing format keeps the energy (and the temperature) sky-high.

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Memorable advice from the episode:

“Go forth and build great marketing.”

Transcript

[A]

Stop being obsessed with low CPMs being bad for your brand. That's the hot take. Digital taught you that low CPM is a red flag. And that lesson doesn't travel to tv. So when you think about digital, cheap inventory is cheap for a reason. So the skepticism, I would say is valid. But I think marketers took that lesson and just applied it everywhere.

[B]

Marketing Architects. Hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Elena Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my co hosts, Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects, and Rob DeMars, the chief product architect of misfits and machines.

[C]

Hello.

[B]

Hello. Today we are testing two things a little bit special episode. We're going to test our spice tolerance and our tolerance for controversial marketing takes. So this is inspired by hot ones. And what we're going to do is share our boldest marketing opinions while eating progressively spicier hot wings. So it's just like that hot One show inspired people. We're not replicating the show. It's inspired. Every round. The wings are going to get hotter, and so do the takes. The rule is simple. No safe answers. No, it depends. Unless we can defend it. But before we start sweating, I want to ground us in a little research, as we always do. First, an adage piece arguing that playing it safe is actually the riskiest bet in marketing right now. In uncertain economic times, brands retreat into caution. They produce bland creative, and they optimize for the short term. When they do that, they're eroding the brand equity that protects them. Second, from work and Kantar, Adele Jolief made a similar argument. She said marketers need to tell a bigger story internally about why being bold matters. So three major themes stood out. First, marketers need to think differently about value. It's not just about volume and share. It's about pricing power and whether your brand equity actually justifies your price. So second, according to brand Z, over 94% of pricing power is driven by how meaningfully different a brand is perceived to be. And three, especially during downturns when private labels grow, marketers should be actively setting expectations about how you're different. If consumers perceive no meaningful difference, they don't come back. So the big message is this. When pressure builds, the instinct is to get cautious. But caution may be the very thing that weakens brands long term. Which feels like a good setup for this episode, because today we are throwing caution to the wind. We have four rounds and four types of Wings that we've all gotten. And each flavor is going to be hotter than the last. So each of us has come prepared with sending controversial marketing takes. We'll take turns, first eating a wing, sharing a take, defending it, and then pushing each other to go deeper.

[C]

I was already pregaming. Is that okay? I was just a little hungry. I got the 20 pack, so I got 13 down, but I only used the mildest sauce on one of them, so I'm ready.

[A]

Your lips look blushed. They look like they're hot already.

[C]

No, no, no. It's just a little bit. It's just a little one. The mild. The mild. Well, we'll get into that.

[B]

That already tastes spicy to you. That's not a good sign.

[A]

What are we doing here? What's next, Hunger Games?

[B]

On this podcast, we're all Minnesotans, and we did not think of this. Our employees thought of this. So I think that might say something. All right, let's move into round one. This is our mild round. So, Ange, do you want to kick us off with your mild wing and then your first hot take?

[A]

Well, I do. All right, here we go. First mild wing. It's the honey barbecue.

[C]

Honey barbecue. Delicious.

[A]

Easy, right?

[C]

Oh, you went for drumstick right off the bat.

[A]

I did all drums. Okay, this one's easy. Stop being obsessed with low CPMs. Being bad for your brand. That's the hot take. Digital taught you that low CPM is a red flag, and that lesson doesn't travel to tv. So when you think about digital, cheap inventory is cheap for a reason. So the skepticism, I would say, is valid. But I think marketers took that lesson and just applied it everywhere. And that's where the thinking breaks down. If you think about digital inventory, it's infinite. You buy impressions that are technically served and maybe did absolutely nothing. TV is the opposite. Inventory is scarce. Environments are curated, and viewers choose to be there. And so a lower CPM in that context doesn't necessarily need to be a warning sign. It could be a really smart media advantage if you're buying well. So just be thinking about it a little differently depending upon the channel that you're in. In television, our goal is reach. It's efficient reach. It's finding new customers, people maybe that don't know about your brand. And in some cases, that can be found in low attention areas, and in some cases, they're in high attention areas. Just don't translate that digital learning into the TV space.

[B]

I think that might be more of a medium spicy take. But do you think so?

[A]

Oh, you don't know what I got next.

[B]

Oh, no, I'm kidding.

[A]

I probably don't have them ranked maybe. I don't know.

[C]

Fantastic. Am I up? Okay, so I have the Buffalo Wild Wings. Mild. I don't know. It just said mild, so I just went with that. And it's a little bit more like yellow versus the other ones. A little more orangey than the red. So here you go. I went with the full on wing versus the drummy, but the drummy was a good call.

[B]

And gonna keep eating it. You only have to take, like a bite, Rob.

[C]

It's delicious. Okay. All right. So pretty mild. Not too worried. So my hot take is about recharging.

[B]

Have you finished chewing before you like going to your Dante?

[C]

Geez, I didn't pick this format. Okay. So retargeting is completely overrated. That's my hot take. I think we talk a lot about the empirical laws of how brands grow on this podcast, and it pretty much directly violates it. Right. In order to scale a business, you got to reach those light buyers and those non buyers. And retargeting basically does the exact opposite. Just creates these claustrophobic echo chambers and just hunts people down that are already buying your product because they were looking at you anyways. And it just helps boost those vanity metrics on your dashboards, but it doesn't really make your business grow.

[B]

That's a pretty spicy one.

[C]

Should I save that one? I should maybe save that one for a little later. A little more caliente.

[B]

But, yeah, I think a lot of people would disagree because they're retargeting. Probably looks really good. You know, that performance is going to be high.

[C]

It definitely feeds the metrics that we love to bring back to our CFOs. But at the end of the day, are you really growing or are you just stocking your loyal buyers?

[B]

Yeah. Would you be better off putting that elsewhere? It's a good, good question.

[C]

I'm starting to get the meat sweats already.

[B]

I'll eat my mild one. I also picked the same flavor as Angela, which is honey barbecue.

[A]

It's great. You're going to love it. It's an easy way in.

[B]

Yeah, not bad. Okay. My first hot take is my favorite take, as people probably know, which is targeting and the fact that most marketers, I believe almost every marketer, is over targeting their audience. Everybody's obsessed with targeting. When you log into any digital ad platform, it is so easy to target. They give you all these fancy options, like, you can really narrow down to exactly who you want, which seems like it makes a lot of sense, but practically third party data is super expensive. It can be inaccurate. The more narrowly you target, the more you're going to pay per impression. Your CPMs are going to go through the roof. And we're also all pretending when we target this way that these audiences are perfectly defined. But half the time, the targeting is totally wrong. You're reaching the wrong people anyway. You're just paying a premium. And you might just be better off going broader, paying less and reaching more potential buyers. I think it's just a natural instinct for marketers, even me, when you're presented with these options to go narrower and narrower, but you're really just overpaying for the illusion of reaching your exact customer.

[C]

Absolutely. How's that mouth feeling?

[B]

It actually was a little spicier than I thought it would be for the first one.

[C]

I thought the mild had a little kick going.

[A]

All right, am I up?

[B]

Yep, you're up.

[A]

Okay. I've never had this style before. It's the sweet chili.

[C]

Ooh.

[A]

But it's level medium.

[B]

Here we go.

[C]

Sweet chili. Sounds deceptive. Sounds like I'm gonna be really nice, but then I'm gonna karate chop your tonsils. You know, I'm gonna come in nice and then you just wait. There's gonna be a kick coming.

[A]

It's very sweet. I would say it's more sweet than it's chili. I'm okay with it. Wow.

[B]

Lucky.

[A]

I think that was a really good choice for me. Okay. My second hot take I think is more hot than the wing that I just ate. If you haven't tested radio for your brand and you're a marketer, you should be fired.

[B]

Oh, a lot of marketers are about to get fired.

[A]

I know. And that's a problem. Radio is. And we don't sell radio. This is not self serving. We used to be in radio. But radio is one of the most underleveraged mass reach mediums in America. And the marketers who dismiss it. I think it's not a question of sophistication. I think it's just laziness. Looking at the medium, thinking that's where my parents got their traffic updates and they're spending tons of money in digital. And so it reaches over 90% of Americans every week. And because so many have abandoned it, there's very little competitive noise. So share voice becomes a really strong opportunity. Also, Rob has talked about this before. Sound is processed emotionally, before it's processed rationally. And so the brain doesn't Fast forward through audio. It doesn't scroll past it. It just, like, listens. So it's a very different environment than something like social media. So run the test. Okay. It's hotter after I told you.

[C]

Forecast calls for Kelly and Day.

[A]

I know. All right, if it doesn't work for your brand, fine.

[C]

You flat out called most marketers lazy.

[A]

It's lazy.

[C]

It's a hot one.

[A]

It's hard to argue. You don't have audience there. Because. Lots of audience there, for sure.

[C]

So I'm up with the mild. I don't have a fancy name. No, not mild, sorry.

[B]

Medium.

[C]

This is Medium. Medium Media.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Hey, no cheating, Rob. He's confused about the Buffalo levels.

[C]

I am.

[B]

He literally bought just the labels, though, so he should be fine again. He's taking multiple bites. I know.

[C]

I gotta get the full flavor. I had to self baste these. I have my little baster here.

[A]

All right.

[C]

I'm just not tasting it. I don't think I did a good job. Hold on.

[B]

Are you gonna just eat the sauce straight? That's so disgusting.

[C]

I just sauce my tongue.

[A]

Are you drinking from the cup?

[B]

Ew, it's so gross.

[C]

I'm basting from it. Okay. B2B campaigns should operate like B2C campaigns. That's my hot take. B2B marketers, they use the excuse, right? Like, oh, this is such a complex sales cycle. We need to just produce really boring work.

[B]

Yeah, that's what they say. We need to produce boring work.

[C]

Well, that's the result, right? And they forget, like, that same edge and that nice spicy flavor that people so generously dip their B2C campaigns in. See the analogy? I'm working here on the fly. See, they just dip it in the spicy sauce. But all these B2B campaigns, they're just going for the mild, you know, they don't think that the B2B target audience is, like, just your human who's coming into work every day and has a pulse and reacts. They like humor. They like things that have an edge to it. So treat your B2B campaign like you would a B2C campaign.

[A]

Way less storytellers in B2B, for sure. Huge opportunity.

[B]

Yeah. But I feel like the biggest B2B brands do a really good job with it. So, you know, they're on tv and.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Okay. I got for my medium wing, a spicy garlic wing. I've actually never ventured beyond mild, ever.

[A]

I didn't want to choose anything that had the word spicy in it. I just felt like that was. But we had to go to the blazin for the really hot one. How is it?

[B]

It's a little spicy. Not super comfortable. No, but it's not horrible.

[C]

I got a feeling it's gonna come on. Forecast calls for some heat for Elena there in a little bit, so get through your answer before it starts to hurt.

[B]

All right, my second hot take. Most brands would grow faster if they cut their paid search spend in half and doubled their TV budget. And I think I might say the same for any bottom of the funnel digital spend. I think most people listen to this podcast, have probably heard of this ebay study where they turned off paid search completely and they found that their organic traffic pretty much picked up the slack. Most people that were clicking those paid ads, they would have found their way to ebay anyways. When you're spending all this money on paid search, you're often paying to capture demand that you already had. And I know paid search has its place. I'm not saying you shouldn't spend any money on it. Don't kill me, Google. But it is not nearly as effective as people think it is. It captures existing demand, it doesn't create new demand. And if you're measuring by last click, you're going to think it's a hero channel for you. You should take half that money, put it into TV for a couple of months and watch your brand change, watch your business change. I think most brands could benefit by cutting their paid search spend.

[A]

Yep, it's a brilliant business model. Necessary evil for sure for brands. But just get yourself to a place where you're way less dependent on non paid brand search. Sorry, non branded paid search. I'm still feeling the chili effect.

[B]

Yeah, deteriorating. Okay, now this should start to get interesting. Round three. This is the hot category.

[A]

I have hot Buffalo. So it's just. It's called hot. I have the same one as Rob, I think.

[C]

All right, hot. Yes, hot.

[A]

Now, I'm a Buffalo fan. I do love Buffalo, but I don't like heat.

[B]

I think I have the same one.

[C]

I can tell she's processing right now. You always go into it a little cocky. You think, no big deal. Oh, she's already going for the milk. You. Oh, come on.

[A]

It's a very flavorful wing, but it has some heat to it. I can definitely feel it on my lips. I am like, as Norwegian as they come. And this is out of the palate, like for me, out of the palate. All right, hot. Take three is digital attribution, I think set us back a decade. I don't even know if that's a hot take. Is that just known? At this point, I feel like everyone should know that, like, attribution was supposed to give us accountability, but what it actually gave us was a very convincing story about the wrong things. I think we just spoke to some of these. The moment we could draw a line from ad click to conversion, we stopped asking whether or not we were actually growing. We optimized for what the model could see, and the model could only see the bottom of the funnel. So that's where the money went. Brand tv, radio, out of home. The channels that do that slow, invisible work of making people want something got starved because they couldn't prove causation in a dashboard by Thursday. And this was beyond ignorance because Bennett and Field published the evidence in 2013. So we didn't come across it, I wouldn't say, until. What was that, like 2016 or 17, maybe, that we read it.

[C]

This is spicy, Angela, though. I mean, you're talking lazy before. Now you're talking beyond ignorant. Jeepers, you're throwing around some fake shade there.

[A]

Well, that's what we're trying to fix on the podcast here, right?

[B]

It's a great one. Okay, Rob, let's see if this one impresses you.

[C]

I'm ready to do the hot. Yeah, I would say that Medium wasn't doing it for me.

[A]

Yeah, Bob's really close to the mic.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Okay, back up a little, Rob.

[C]

Oh, that's pretty hot. That's getting there, but I didn't bring the milk. All right, my take. Your loyal customers, they would have bought you anyways. So all this stuff we're doing to keep our lovely, loyal people going, and I'm a huge loyalty fan of Delta, but it's all wasted on us because I'd have been buying Delta anyways. It's just basically margin masquerading as a strategy. You're losing margin on all of that stuff trying to keep your loyal customers, and you should be investing that in those new markets. So those new customers. A little bit akin to my last one. But your loyal customers would have bought you anyways. That's my take. And I'm gonna drink some water now.

[B]

That's gonna make it worse, but that's a nice Ehrenberg Basque classic take the loyalty trap.

[C]

All right, let's see the hot.

[B]

Okay. It didn't seem like it was that bad for everybody, but I don't feel

[A]

like the hot has the staying power.

[C]

I would agree.

[A]

Like, it was kind of spicy at

[B]

the beginning, but Oh, I think that's so spicy.

[C]

It gets better.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

We should also sound as Minnesotan as we can when we're doing this.

[C]

Oh, it's so spicy.

[A]

Don't you know?

[C]

Oh, my goodness.

[B]

Here's my hot take, number three. Most rebrands destroy more value than they create. So a rebrand, it's a move a lot of new CMOs make, and I think it's one of the riskiest things you could actually do. Distinctive brand assets take years to build. Jenny Romanick has research that shows it can take something like three to five years of consistent use of an asset before it becomes strongly linked to your brand and your customer's mind. So, man, if you walk in as a new CMO and you throw it all away for a fresh look, that is so risky. You just burned up years of built up recognition overnight. Also, consumers aren't that excited about your rebrand. They just maybe can't find you anymore. Unless your brand is genuinely damaged. Leave it alone. The best rebrands. We've talked about this before on the podcast. I'm convinced. The most successful rebrands, no one really says anything about it. That's when you know it was a successful rebrand. So if you're only doing it to gain attention, that's just the wrong reason. There should be a clear, strategic gap you're trying to fill, and it should be considered a business risk.

[A]

Rebrand.

[C]

My lips are burning a little bit, guys.

[A]

I'm actually really nervous because when I was trying to figure out which wing was which, I went for the blazin, thinking that it was the honey barbecue. And what blazin sauce did you guys get?

[B]

I just got the wild.

[A]

Okay. Mine is. I think it must be, like, a barbecue sauce.

[B]

And, yeah, my mouth still hurts from that last one.

[C]

Would you like a photo of the 15 bones that are in a little

[B]

bowl right here for the COVID Sure. Send it over.

[A]

Okay, here we go. Blazing.

[B]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Now you have to share your take as soon as possible.

[C]

Oh, no.

[B]

I'm scared.

[C]

You get a barf.

[A]

You guys.

[B]

Is it like, that much worse?

[A]

It's so much worse.

[C]

Oh, no.

[A]

Okay, all right, what's your take? There's no barbecue. It's just hot. It's just hot. Everything's burning. My eyes are watering. My lips are bleeding. It's terrible. Okay, my super hot take is. This doesn't sound like a hot take, but your first party data obsession is actively preventing you from growing. And the reason. That's my final one. Is because everyone is thinking about their first party data. Everyone's in this mad scramble to own your customer data. Focus on CRM, loyalty programs, data, clean rooms, cdp. The whole infrastructure is built around knowing more and more about the people who already buy from you. And that's exactly backwards. Ehrenberg Bass has shown this repeatedly. Your heaviest buyers are already buying. The growth is in the people who have barely heard of you. So who is going to be willing to target the anti target? That's the people that you should be focused on. The people outside of the file, outside the look, like outside the comfort zone. That's how you'll really get like incremental, really strong growth. I can't talk anymore.

[C]

I'm done. Going in. I'm going in.

[B]

And Rob double basted this one. I think I did.

[C]

I double basted it. It's extra juicy. Here we go. It's got a lot of tang.

[A]

Oh, my lips hurt so bad.

[B]

Rob, do you feel anything?

[C]

It's more of a gradual build here, but my eyeballs are starting to sweat.

[B]

Okay, all right. Share your hot take.

[C]

Most agencies are still building TV commercials like it's 2006. That's my hot take. All right. In case you didn't know, it's 2026, so what's the difference? Everyone's still treating it like this gorgeous cinematography experience. It's a feast for the eyes. But the reality is everybody's looking at other places in the room now with their secondary screens and they're not looking at the TV screen like they should be. So we have to be treating back to Angela's point about the renaissance and radio. Oh, dear God. Starting to kick into the back of my throat.

[B]

Angela has like her head in her hands right now.

[C]

It's starting to really hurt. Okay, I lost my brain of thought.

[A]

No, I was going to say a lot more about first party data, but I just couldn't.

[C]

Not treating it like it's a feast for the eyes and think of it as a feast for the ears is the real opportunity. Right? It is still on. People can move their eyeballs, but they can't move their ears. So bring their eyeballs back with audio, but we just don't do that. People are treating them still like it's 2006 and trying to win awards with gorgeous little mantra spots that are all visual and maybe in some music and just stop that. Stop the spicy. The spicy's Ah.

[B]

Oh, my gosh, I'm so scared. I thought you were gonna go more down like the AI route like Agencies should be using AI more, so that was a surprise.

[A]

He doesn't even know what he's saying.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh, for sure. No, I mean, I. I think that's a given, but I just think that us trying to continue to build spots the way that we used to is just wrong. We gotta. It's. I'm sorry, I can't even think. Go ahead, Elena.

[B]

Okay, I'm not feeling good about this.

[A]

I'm looking up what is the actual hottest sauce that.

[C]

Ow. Ow.

[A]

Oh, I picked the worst one, you guys. Yep.

[B]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

It's hitting.

[B]

Okay. The final hot take of this episode. The idea that consumers want brands to take a stand is massively overstated. So Mark Ritson has said this before, and I love it. Open your fridge and ask yourself how many of those brands you bought because of their stance on a political issue? The answer, I'm going to almost guarantee, is zero. People say they want brands to take a stand when you ask them that in a survey, but that's not how we actually shop. And when brands do wade into something divisive. Oh, my gosh. They usually end up alienating as many people as they attract. Unless some sort of issue is genuinely part of your brand DNA, like it's baked into who you are and always have been. Just don't go there. Make great products. Be a good company. That's enough. And this one really gets me going because I see brands doing this and I don't know why. Especially with, like, smaller brands where there's a certain target audience. Like, there is just no reason to be doing this right now. You just gotta stay out of it. And that was my final hot take.

[C]

I have no idea what you just said. I have no idea. I blacked out about five minutes ago.

[B]

Yeah, that was a pretty big jump.

[C]

Like, that was a big jump.

[A]

Massive jump. My eyes are watering. It's just. Gosh, these were all hot takes, though. I think this is the news you need to hear.

[C]

Shout out to Buffalo Wild Wings for not sponsoring this episode. Yeah, you know what? We gave you a plug.

[B]

All right? We survived. I think next time we make other market architects employees do this instead of us, because I don't know if I'm doing that again.

[A]

Oh, heartburn tonight.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay, I got a few more I gotta finish.

[A]

Oh, gosh.

[B]

All right, that's it for this episode of the Marketing Architects. We'd like to thank Taylor De Los Reyes for producing the show. You can connect with us on LinkedIn. And if you like the podcast, please leave us a review. Now go forth and build great marketing. Marketing architects.