Transcript
A (0:00)
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 (0:24)
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 (0:44)
Hello.
B (0:45)
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.