All right.
Happy Monday morning to you.
Welcome to Healthcare Marketing Doesn't
Work because you're doing it wrong.
I'm trying to figure out what doing it
right.
With me is Andrea Chaney.
Andrea, happy Monday morning to you.
Happy Monday morning.
All right.
Let's get into this.
I think honesty and AI,
it's honesty versus AI versus
authenticity.
It's like a cage match.
It's a three-way cage match.
That's what we're looking at today.
So the format of the show,
we've decided to do what was done well,
what was done poorly,
and then what's trending.
So it's like what well, what bad,
what should we be looking at?
So let's start with what's done well.
Did you hear about Pamela Anderson?
I have not heard about Pamela Anderson.
Pamela Anderson is back in the news,
and it's a good thing.
Am I saying this right?
Aerie?
A clothing brand?
Oh, I don't know how to pronounce that.
A-E-R-I-E?
Aerie?
Is it related to Aeropostale?
I think it's a junior little kid.
I don't know.
I think it's related.
And that's when you know we shouldn't be
talking about it.
Anyway, Aerie says right here,
clothing brand just launched a major
campaign featuring Pamela Anderson,
which everything you just explained to me
sort of doesn't make sense because the
people that the clothing brand is for
would have no idea who Pamela Anderson is.
But anyway, they did.
And the crux of the campaign is no
makeup.
no retouching and most importantly they're
getting all this publicity because they're
committing to no ai generated models at
all this is a smart move this is
why it goes first i want you to
feel the warm and fuzzies this is a
great idea in my opinion you can disagree
with me but i do not think you
will from what i know about you um
because when everybody zigs it costs you
little to nothing to zag
Knowing that eventually the world is going
to recorrect and hate this new thing.
So you might as well put up your
tent because it takes a minute to unpack
a tent and put up a tent.
It takes a minute to get there.
And you could be third...
What sports do you follow, Andrea?
Who's your team?
Football.
So the Red Sox.
Okay.
So you remember the last time the Red
Sox won the World Series?
I don't know what year it was,
but you remember that.
I do.
Yeah.
Who came in third?
No idea.
No one knows.
It does not matter.
Second,
maybe because you were the first loser.
That's not good to be.
Aerie essentially said,
we're going to be first.
And we're going to do it the loudest.
So they launch a campaign.
Their campaign is what they're not doing.
And that shows you.
I've never been to Aries website.
I've never read their brand statement or
their values or their mission statement,
which is all written for the CEO anyway.
Blah, blah, blah.
But they said we're going the other way.
The brand is doubling down on its one
hundred percent.
I guess their their positioning statement
is one hundred percent real.
And that is good.
Banning AI generated people in marketing,
which is resonating, of course,
with consumers who are questioning what
the hell is real anymore.
I don't think it's a campaign.
I think it's a stance.
I think it's values in public.
So my question to you is not using
AI now a competitive advantage,
at least in some places.
I think so.
I love this.
Oh, yeah.
This is so good.
This is so smart.
This is like the Burger King thing that
we talked about last week.
So I think it's a competitive advantage
depending on how you're not using it.
So if you are using it internally to
be efficient and make your customer or
patient's experience better, great.
But I love that they are taking this
stance to go,
everything you see out there is AI
generated.
It's super fake.
You can tell it's fake.
I gave the example last week.
I saw the Skechers commercial like right
before we got on and it would be
these like AI generated butterflies.
I think this is amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's smart.
So what does this do?
Because who makes the decision?
How old are Aerie customers?
Are they like teens or are they just
like twenties?
I don't know.
I think either way you're going to win
because I think twenty-year-olds or teens
are like faster at getting fed up because
they consume more.
So they're the ones that are going to
be full.
I think... Gen Z and younger.
You got to help me out.
How old is a Gen Z?
I don't really understand.
Fifteen to thirty.
And that's a wide gap.
Emphasis on body inclusivity,
values driven, comfort first.
Values driven.
There you go.
This is an organization,
whoever is in charge of sitting in a
room and making a bold statement and doing
this, because I bet you, Andrea,
it's cheaper to just do the AI thing.
Oh, a hundred percent.
Except flying models in or doing a photo
shoot.
We know what that costs.
It ain't cheap.
And when your whole business model is
built on selling clothes,
you have to show them to me.
Yes.
So this is probably the CFO is like,
this is going to hit our bottom line.
And they're like, yes, yes, yes.
Before the bottom line,
the bottom line of consumers is,
if you're going to stand for something,
stand for something.
Stand for something.
And Aerie did it first.
They did.
What's the healthcare version of this?
Because we always want to bring it back
to healthcare.
Talking about Aerie is cute,
but what's the healthcare version of this?
Well, I mean,
if we're just doing apples to apples,
the healthcare version at a bare minimum
is don't have stock photos on your website
and your media channels.
I mean, keep in mind, right?
Like stock photos were AI before AI.
Like it's artificial authenticity.
It was AA.
Right.
There you go.
That's it.
I don't want to go to your homepage
and see fake people.
I don't want to see fake providers on
your About Us page.
That feels crazy to me.
That's the version, right?
I just had an idea.
I can't remember what they call it,
but when you go to Google,
someone is in charge of changing the
Google logo every day.
And usually there's some Easter egg,
if it's a holiday or whatever.
Imagine you're a hospital system with ten
thousand employees.
You could feature one employee a day for
ten thousand days,
and wouldn't that be cool?
And all it might do is just make
your employees feel seen.
Feel like they're heard, maybe understood,
right?
That's deeper.
Seen is easy.
Yep.
But what if you did that?
What if every day was someone else's day
and it was just, but here's the thing,
make it front and center.
This is going to be the biggest thing,
like the Google logo,
but it's got to be above the fold
and it's got to be real and keep
it exactly there.
Like the top right is usually reserved for
next steps.
That's sort of forward.
I would do it somewhere of value above
the fold,
above the fold or don't do it.
I agree.
And all people.
So not just.
Oh, no.
Yes.
Maybe not just maybe exclude like the
executive team.
Right.
People don't actually want.
Don't do that.
Don't do that for the first four thousand
days.
Right.
Nobody above a director for the first four
thousand days.
Right.
But that requires work,
but that shows authenticity and realness.
Yeah, I think you say some... I mean,
it doesn't even matter now because Aerie
did it first.
Whoever does it now is first loser,
first follower, right?
Now you're following Aerie's lead.
But I think you have some...
This needs to be...
Now I will show you how real and
human we are,
not how slick and polished we are.
There are some brands,
and I won't say who,
in healthcare technology that their brand
is so well done.
It's on the Marvel level quality of
content.
but they're trying to communicate like
we're affordable.
Like you can have this in your clinic.
And I'm like, damn,
that's a cool problem to have is you
look so slick and so high end that
it looks badass that you're like, yeah,
our problem is people look and just keep
moving because they're like, yeah,
I can't afford that.
But meanwhile,
you're the accessible version of that
thing that was too expensive.
That is now completely accessible to every
clinic looking at it.
So you have to understand it from the,
this is know your audience, right?
Know your audience.
And I will say one more thing on
the health care highlighting people.
I worked with a brand a long time
ago and I said,
let's put real people on your about
section.
Let's put your real clinicians.
And the feedback was we can't put our
clinicians on the website because our
competitors will try to poach them.
And my first thought was,
why are we in a position that our
people want to leave?
I have heard that from technology
companies as well,
that we really want to do it sparingly
because then the SDR or the BDR will
just, oh, there's a target.
Let's flip them.
All this is is a game of Othello.
Remember Othello?
Yes.
Yeah.
Like if I'm black and you're white,
my job is to flip your pieces to
my thing and whoever has the most pieces
wins or all of them.
I can't remember how I played Othello,
but that was the general gist.
And then there's that line, which is like,
if you want to leave, go.
If you're willing to steal my people,
it means I'm a good job at picking
people or growing people or both.
Right.
If that's the thing we're arguing on,
I'm going to say be like Aerie and
go, no, everybody does this.
Guess what we're going to do?
The opposite.
That doesn't mean do the opposite in
everything.
This is not universally applicable.
It's universally applicable if it aligns
with your values.
And apparently,
I am today years old when I found
out Aerie's was one hundred percent real
positioning.
So good.
Love this.
But that means they did this to their
audience.
You said Gen Z, fifteen to thirty,
authenticity, comfort, no BS.
Everybody loves to rag on the generations
behind them.
If that's what they're into, no notes.
Keep doing that.
I do not rag on them.
I mean, fashion wise,
they've done away with skinny jeans.
They know what they're doing.
Yeah.
I would say a question to ask yourself
if you're in healthcare is,
what am I doing because everybody else is
doing it?
And if it's a good thing,
if you're like, yes,
this is a good thing to do because
everyone is doing it and it's a good
thing, great.
Am I doing it because everybody's doing
it?
But if they weren't,
would I be doing it differently?
Or as our mother said,
if your friends all jumped off a bridge.
Right.
I, in fact, have jumped off a bridge,
but that's a different time for a
different story.
Depends what's under it.
All right.
I think let's wrap this one up.
We'll wrap this one up.
Authenticity will be a flex now.
Real and raw is now a flex.
You know how like things will rant things
that don't food that don't have don't
normally have gluten.
They're like gluten free.
And you're like,
but that thing doesn't have gluten.
I don't think you could put gluten in
it.
But you're like, gluten-free,
doesn't matter.
When I was living in New York,
big Jewish population,
a lot of things had kosher,
but it's like,
that thing's never not kosher.
Doesn't matter, say kosher.
That's smart, right?
I think AI, you know,
a hundred percent real.
um will now be a flex and your
question which you will not all get all
the answers from us right now will be
how do you include that how do you
actually do it how do you actually stand
on it not just throw a label on
it but how do what do you stand
for if it's authentic and guys healthcare
i want transparency and i want authentic
it freaks me out when you're lying to
me oh i got pitched this morning in
my comment section about some ai app
Of course,
like it was on a post and the
app was sort of like applicable.
So I go to the,
of course I go to the guy's profile.
He owns the app.
So immediately I go, no.
And the little logo certification he has
on his website with top right-hand corner
was AI generated.
It looks like it was AI generated months
ago when AI couldn't spell words,
it would like double up.
And it was like something, something,
something guarantee.
And it had two U's in it.
My man, my man, my man.
Go back.
Pay someone on Fiverr twenty nine dollars
to do that.
Well, right.
That's not where to do it.
No.
All right.
Anything else before I move on from Aerie?
No, no.
I'm going to go buy an Aerie.
No, I'm not.
I'm not going to buy it.
You're not.
But I'm going to speak highly of them
on this show and other people.
All right.
That will start.
That's something that was done well.
Let's go to poorly.
This is the more fun.
We get to trash on things and poo-poo
it to learn from it.
All right.
Flip side.
Brands have been now pumping out
AI-generated ads.
And people are starting to notice.
And there's now a term.
What do you call it when you see
something that... There's a big term now.
AI blank.
Slop.
Correct.
That's it.
You're like...
I don't even know why I don't like
it.
I just don't.
So AI slop is now a thing.
It's content that...
Here's how I'll define it.
It technically checks the boxes,
but it's dripping of fake and just gross.
You can see where it's coming.
All you can see is the AI.
You can't even remember what the message
is.
It's done so poorly.
That's what AI slop is.
So I think AI made it easier to
create content.
It did not make it easier to create
connection.
In fact,
it might have made it harder to create
connection.
So you're gonna have to pick and choose
where and when you use this.
I think consumers are increasingly
criticizing AI and they'll call it out
like this is BS, right?
AI generated marketing is now seen as
generic, low effort, low value,
low quality, lacking authenticity.
Everything we just said about Aerie,
the opposite.
Right.
forcing brands to now have to zag but
it doesn't matter because now you're
second so have you have you seen ai
content that actually made you stop in
your tracks and just like oh my god
i just talked about that guy with the
app i'm like well your logo is the
first thing i saw and that's clearly crap
so i don't trust any i how you
do the logo you don't even do that
right i'm not trusting you with my health
care information are you insane
So on the consumer side,
the Skechers example I just gave you was
clearly the girl is AI generated.
The shoe may have been real,
but embellished with like twinkles and
some like fake butterflies.
And it just totally turned me off.
I don't know why it stuck with me.
I just really disliked it so much.
It's bad.
Yeah.
We're seeing this pretty much everywhere.
And the problem is, for me,
I work with a lot of smaller organizations
who are like, this is a powerful tool.
And I want to tell them,
use it sparingly because it can degrade
you faster than it can improve you.
And it's hard to see that.
I think maybe on the inside,
it's hard to see that.
Potentially,
because I've seen it with smaller brands
too.
And I don't know if it's just the
benefit of cranking things out faster.
So like the efficiency of it,
blinds or clouds the judgment.
Right.
Like this is actually really bad quality
stuff and makes us look like other people.
Right.
When someone says,
like I was listening to Gary Vee this
morning,
and I can take him in small doses,
I think he says the same things pretty
repeatedly.
He spots trends outside of NFTs,
which was a giant mess.
We've talked about this before.
I was like,
I don't know what you're talking about,
but I ain't going in on this with
you.
Sorry, dude.
He's usually pretty ahead of the trend,
but he just does it a lot.
It's like, why is he good at it?
He does it a lot.
And he'll say, quantity now.
You need to be doing ten a day,
which to a small organization,
it's paralyzing.
Here's the funny part.
It's paralyzing to a small organization...
because of resources and it's paralyzing
to a big organization because of resources
here's what i mean small organization solo
person in charge of marketing or
communications or any of those things
maybe a team of two or three it's
just volume there well if you're just
doing ten a day do that's seventy a
week that's insane the flip side with big
organizations they have the team to do it
They don't have the agility to do it
because everything's so watered down that
they're like,
it takes us two days to come up
with like, happy Thanksgiving.
Because what if you say it this way
and that way?
Now I got to do ten a day.
That's insane.
And everyone needs to weigh in on it,
which is good.
This is a time where a large organization
is good that they sort of get in
their own way.
Yeah.
Where does AI help and where does it
hurt in what you've seen?
Like, where is it like, Ooh,
I'll give an example or you can go,
I'll give you a second to think.
Cause I didn't prep.
I have where, where it helps.
I mean, where I use it,
I use it.
It's not glamorous or sexy.
I use it for data analysis and insight
mining.
I mean, I, I,
live in it for that and there was
a time where as a marketer i would
have to do that manually and i'd be
like excel and i'd be googling like what's
the formula if i want to find this
thing on the other tab to see how
many people and now i put it in
and i still spot check to make sure
i'm not you know and i tell my
ai like make sure you're not hallucinating
make sure your analysis is one hundred
percent you can't ask the crazy person if
they're crazy andrea
And so I spot check and it's right.
But it like it has been invaluable,
the insights that it's been able to pull
out for me for my health care clients.
Yeah.
For me,
it's the big pile of words so we
can find the through line.
So for me,
we're going to talk for forty minutes
today.
And when I'm done,
I'm going to forget ninety six percent of
what we talked about because that's just
how my brain,
a lot of people's brains work.
Right.
We'll find the nuggets.
But now I need to re-explain this later
if I'm going to if I'm going to
cut out a segment of video or if
I'm going to write the description on
YouTube to make sure YouTube understands
who to show this to.
I use it there,
which is I'm giving it a lot of
information going just like,
what should the title be?
Because before,
if you're watching this live, you see it.
It says healthcare marketing is broken.
Here's what's actually working.
I'm sure that's the through line.
But if you and I go on a
tangent,
or if the big picture is AI is
great where it's great and crappy where
it's crappy, use appropriately.
then that should be the title.
That should be the thumbnail because
that's the actual takeaway.
As humans,
I think we have blinders on data or
things like that sometimes.
I don't want it writing your,
I don't want it to, I mean,
remember Google LM or Notebook LM?
Yeah.
You could like drop in a PDF of
a big document and create a podcast.
And everyone's like, podcasters are dead.
And I'm like, I've listened to it.
I think I'm pretty okay for now,
for now.
I think I'm all right.
But who knows?
Maybe down the line,
it'll just be AI listening to AI.
I don't know.
So for me, it's the same thing.
It's when there's a lot of things to
get through, top of the funnel,
can you sort it down to give me
three choices and then I'll read it.
And then if my job goes from reading
through a transcript,
which is nauseating and insane as a human,
don't do that.
But I used to sort of sit down
and be like,
what did I talk about there yesterday and
never got a great handle on it.
to give you three choices.
Let me read to them to make sure
there's nothing batshit insane in there.
Make sure you do that.
Well, AI did it is not an excuse.
You can't get away with that.
You definitely can't get away with that.
Yeah.
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All right.
So ask yourself, does this feel creepy?
Use the words of the thirteen-year-olds.
I was,
I was editing a short form video and
a while there.
Remember, you know how,
like when you're watching a video every
once in a while,
like zooms in and zooms out, zooms in.
And I was a, a, a, a, a,
a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,
a, a,
Nope.
I don't.
I use different features.
And I use them less.
There are a lot of buttons that I
can push in some of these apps.
I find myself pushing them less now.
And this is the thing.
Who's your audience?
It's not a fourteen-year-old,
but if she's saying it...
Then you know it's... Yeah,
like it was too much.
She was right.
I was like, she's right.
It's too much.
Stop doing it.
It was cute.
Look at that button.
Ooh, I don't have to... Ooh,
it zooms in.
It zooms out.
It makes me look like someone's filming
me.
It made me look like I was on
The Office.
Right.
Like someone was doing it,
but it was just me talking to myself.
Now what's trending?
So I think this one is the shift.
Consumers are now pushing back on
polished, notice I didn't say just AI,
polished, too much, too high end,
overproduced.
Yes, not just AI,
but also AI tends to do that.
um and moving towards something way
simpler real so not better produced not
higher quality just more believable this
is why everybody talking into their phones
is believable this is why thirty two
percent of people on instagram are in
their car for some reason like well it's
good sound dampening but hey just happen
to just jumping on here if i have
to ever hear someone say that phrase just
jumping on here to
Stop being crazy.
Record it, but delete that.
If you have to say it, good.
Say it, get it out.
Right.
Just get it out.
Delete it.
Now, how do we,
so brands are now emphasizing human really
imperfections.
craftsmanship,
real world experiences as a response to
like sort of the zag to AI generated
slops zig in that direction.
Are patients choosing the best provider or
the one they feel like they already know?
Is it the polished or is it that
person seems real?
It's the authenticity, right?
I mean, and this,
so this younger generation,
younger than us,
they grew up with unpolished,
Thirty second, fifteen second raw.
Here's my phone.
I thought of a thing.
I'm going to say it into my phone
and hit publish and the world can see
it.
That's what they're used to.
And I think at the same time,
they are body positivity, right?
Like when we grew up,
everyone was airbrushed.
And it's like,
how does this person look like this?
Oh, it's not real.
They don't look like that.
And it would have been helpful to have,
you know,
a little bit of this when we were
younger to understand they weren't really
real.
But no,
I think kids are I don't even I
don't want to say kids.
People who are younger than me aren't
kids.
They're still adults.
That's how they grew up and that's what
they're seeing.
So I think people are more comfortable
with unpolished, real, authentic,
not overproduce.
That being said,
if you're like a large health system and
you know,
doing brain surgery or something like I
don't want the doctor being like, hey,
just checking in from my car here.
Although I did see a neurosurgeon on
Instagram getting out of an Uber on the
way to do surgery.
And I was like, oh,
this guy's kind of interesting.
And I started following him.
But that being said,
I do still think at a brand level,
there needs to be guidelines around how do
we how are we professional but authentic?
I think you go back to that second
rule of seven habits of highly successful
people,
which is start with the end in mind.
And...
You can't have this.
There's another phrase for it,
but I'll use this one,
which is you can't have the emperor's new
clothes thing.
I've been in situations before where I've
worked with C-suite people and people
around me are like,
this person likes this.
So when they say this, that's the answer.
And I'm like, then why am I here?
Right.
Because it's going to come out, not work.
And then I'm going to get blamed for
it.
When it was a shitty idea to begin
with.
I was like,
there's no polishing this turd.
So why don't we call it a turd
in the first meeting?
You don't do that because how hard can
marketing be?
How hard can messaging be?
This person is doing it.
And maybe ten years ago,
that person was doing it.
But now the world has changed.
Their viewpoint has changed.
Their bank account has changed.
The people they hang out with have
changed.
They've changed.
They're not the audience anymore.
Right.
So that is a big problem, which is,
again, I always dumb it down.
The CEO's nephew says our Instagram sucks.
And I'm like, well,
the CEO's nephew is twenty eight years
younger than our target.
So good.
I'm glad it repels them.
So I've said this before.
People have said this before.
I only know of very few healthcare
organizations who actually do this,
actually do this.
What would happen if a clinic or an
urgent care or something truly,
honestly acted like a media company for
ninety days?
What if you sat down and said,
we become in thirty days,
we don't just not tomorrow.
Let's give it some lead because we've got
to figure out the structure.
In thirty days,
you have a budget of three thousand
dollars.
It can go towards people, editors,
cameras, microphones.
I don't care.
Three thousand dollars.
In thirty days,
you will then begin a ninety day sprint
and you will need to produce ten pieces
of content per day for ninety days.
That is nine hundred lottery tickets.
That's how I look at it.
It's nine hundred
notes in a bottle that we're going to
throw into the ocean.
I'm okay now with playing a major league
baseball manager going hit three out of
ten and we'll put you in the Hall
of Fame.
I now think we are at that level
where if you think doing it twice a
day
I mean,
you know how many times I'm like,
this is going to take off.
I got it.
And I get thirty-two whatevers.
Right.
Or the one I got a hundred and
fifty thousand views,
I recorded over there in the corner.
I didn't even have the gunk out of
my eyes yet.
I was like, this is a cute idea.
Let's just beta test this.
And now I have all my friends going,
your most viewed video,
you didn't even comb your hair.
And I hate combing my hair.
That's why I used to shave my head.
But what would actually happen if someone
embraced that?
And by media company,
I need you to think.
I don't need you to be CNN.
or iHeartRadio or VaynerMedia,
I need you to say, we tell people,
we are the authority on our domains that
happen to also sell the thing.
What if none of it involved sales,
just involved connection?
Honestly, what would happen?
I don't know.
Well, it's worth trying, right?
Because we used to pay PR agencies a
lot of money to try to get our
names, our brands out there.
And they controlled the narrative.
The media controlled the narrative.
And we're now in a time where we
can control the narrative.
We just have to do it.
Oh, oh, oh.
We would have, we would have, in,
twenty-five years ago,
you would have crawled over broken glass
to control the narrative.
And now that you can, people are like,
let's drop two things a day.
Right.
And let's half-ass two things a day.
And maybe they'll be okay.
PR is, I mean, I was in communications,
but I was never in PR.
And I respect PR people.
But do you know who reads press releases?
I was in the press.
It wasn't me.
I don't know who read them.
I don't.
So I worked at PR.
That was my first job out of college.
I was at an agency.
Great question.
Don't know.
Still don't know.
Sometimes we ended up in the news,
but it wasn't what the press release that
I wrote.
It was what they wanted to say with
like one sentence from the person.
It was political consulting.
It wasn't health care.
And it was a wild time.
It's we used to call it and like
they were saying it when I was like,
you know, new at the radio station.
And I would be like,
there'd be like the press release.
And I'm like, oh, hey, everybody.
I was like Steve Martin in the movie
The Jerk when the phone book came out.
I was like, the phone book is here.
The phone book is here.
My name's in there.
Do you know how many people read this?
And I was like, the phone book.
It's so much that it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
But a press release would come out.
There was a printer in the corner of
the newsroom that was just for press
releases.
And I forget how they had it set
up.
It was like a telex.
When a press release came out,
it just printed.
You didn't need to hit print.
And I'd be like, Johnny,
what if it's something good?
That was our news feed.
Just kept coming through.
And I remember they started using this
term.
And I was like, when you're new,
you're like, I know that.
Yep, yep, yep.
And the news director, Brian, was like,
let me see that one.
And he'd take it out of my hand.
I'm going to go put this in.
I'm going to go file this in the
circular file.
And I was like, good idea.
Yeah.
Got to make sure we file it because
we got to refer to it later.
And it was two weeks before I realized
Brian was throwing it in the garbage can.
And the circular file was the garbage can.
Garbage can.
And I was like,
we went through a package of paper a
week just on press releases.
Because, and this proves it,
when everyone is shouting,
it's just noise.
It's just noise.
I worked with a founder a few years
ago.
It was in the B to B space.
It was a health tech company.
And he's like,
we need to do a press release on
this.
And I'm like, I don't think we do.
And he's like, well,
how are we going to end up in
tech crunch?
Because that's where every founder wants
to end up.
And I'm like,
you need to have a good story and
a good product,
and then you'll be discovered.
I mean,
wouldn't a better strategy have been to
get a large banner and paint a headline
and stand outside of TechCrunch and...
You probably have a better chance of
getting into TechCrunch by doing that than
you do by sending them a press release.
That ends up in the digital circular file.
Circular file, right.
And now the circular file is when someone
flicks, like you got flicked,
like just skim past your boring bowl.
Here's why.
You didn't make it relevant to me.
Right.
It's about, it's,
it's one hundred percent of the time about
the brand sharing their company news that
nobody cares about.
So that is,
we had a discussion the other day where
the first time I heard these two phrases,
I was like, they're the same thing.
But then of course you look deeper.
So the difference between storytelling and
telling stories.
And like,
I even have to pause and remember which
one's which.
So storytelling would be like someone
really saying something compelling that is
authentic,
or at least you feel like it's authentic
and real and provides them value.
And they trade you their time for,
they give you time and attention and you
get connection or whatever.
And then there's telling stories.
And if you ever want to figure out
the difference between
Storytelling is what coworkers do with
gossip at the water cooler.
But telling stories is everything that
comes off a press release.
It's just you talking about you.
Right.
Storytelling makes you feel something.
Correct.
And you've been handed devices,
digital devices and distribution.
And what do most organizations do?
They do storytelling.
No, they tell stories.
See, I screwed up.
They tell stories.
We did this.
This feature is out.
Look, it looks slick.
The CEO likes it.
That video is dope.
Good.
Play it at your Christmas party.
That is the rah-rah thing to do with
it.
No one else cares.
Even the people at your organization
probably don't care.
They are there for...
Most of them are there for a paycheck.
And I commend them for that.
Right.
So when you make hype videos about your
stuff, God, the CEO loves it.
That's about it.
It's such a mess.
Um...
Let me ask this, is authenticity scalable?
It is.
I mean, if you do it right, right?
It's just who you are and it's woven
into everything you do and then you scale
that.
I applied for a job a week ago.
I won't say where.
But it's in healthcare.
And I talked with my little AI that
knows everything about me, my experience.
And it knows me a little scary well.
Where it's like, no.
I'll give it a job and be like...
And I have it like,
rank me from zero to a hundred on
the five main characters that you think
I'll get judged with.
And it's like...
And it's literally said things to me like,
Jimmy, you're pushing this.
You're forcing this one.
And I'm like... And I knew I was...
But I wanted it to prove me wrong
and it didn't.
And all I did was say,
rank me on this, copy paste.
And it's been like,
you'd be forcing this one.
And I'm like, damn.
Anyway, the one I applied for was like,
this is good.
But if you apply as a normal person,
no.
But if you apply as this, then yes.
Because there's always a list of things
you need to do.
And it's like, you've never done that,
but you could figure that out or you're
in charge.
Now you can give that to someone else
and you oversee them.
Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.
So here's the thing.
I saw the job and applied for it.
Then I saw someone else within the
organization talking about it.
And like, hey, just so you know,
this is open.
And I wrote a post...
That essentially says like, hey,
I spent some time with that job
description.
I put together a three-pronged playbook of
the first three things I do because I
did a series like that.
And then I just said something along the
lines of like,
is that something worth getting on a call
or should I just put the playbook here?
Because essentially,
your competition could steal it.
It's like,
I'm not working for you or against you.
I'm just me.
And I could be working.
This might be a killer idea that I
give away to everybody.
And I've gotten no response yet.
Oh.
But it was over the weekend.
And it was LinkedIn.
It was LinkedIn.
So I will wait until halfway through
Monday or whatever.
I'm curious to hear what happens with
that.
Yeah.
Because I'm sitting there going,
do you shoot your shot?
Everybody's like, shoot your shot, man.
But don't be unprofessional.
But shoot your shot.
But don't be unprofessional.
But shoot your shot.
But don't be too pushy.
But push.
But not too hard.
But not too early.
But not too late.
And don't miss your shot.
But don't take your shot if it's...
And I'm like...
That's literally the advice.
So then I just listened to Kurt Cobain
and just thought,
I'd rather be hated for who I am.
If you hate this,
you're going to hate my next thirteen
things that come out of my mouth.
So I'm like, you know what?
Let's get to the know as quick as
possible.
If you hate me being like that,
you will hate working with me.
That's authenticity right there.
And I can fake it for a month
or two.
Everybody can.
But you'll hate me.
You'll be like,
this guy has so many questions.
I'm like, yes.
That's how we get answers.
Like,
do you dislike the questions or do you
like, I like the answers.
I think they dislike the fact that it
makes them think,
have to think about things they don't want
to think about.
Yes,
but we're going to have to think about
them anyway when they come.
Right.
So let's think about them now.
Maybe that's... So my dad was a fireman.
And he'd always be giving me these...
I don't know if all dads did this
because I only had one dad, right?
My end is one.
He would always give me these weird
situations where he's like,
you're in a room and it's on fire.
And what do you do?
And I'm like, nine.
And I'm like, go out, yell.
And he's like, no one's home.
He'd always just rug me.
He's like, no one's home.
And I'm like, climb out the window.
He's like, you're on the
not go in those buildings anymore.
He's like, no buildings on fire.
What do you do?
And I'm like, I don't call for help.
And he's like, no phone.
And I'm like, but what he was doing,
he's like forcing me,
the box was getting smaller.
Right.
So he's like, step one,
get on the floor.
I'm like, why?
He's like,
you're the buildings on fire top.
And smoke rises.
And I'm like, oh.
But that sort of stuff sticks with you.
I don't know.
When I look at projects, I'm like, okay,
so before we go down this road and
spend time, effort, and money,
what if that happens?
What would we do then?
And we can just have this exercise and
then be like, you know what?
That first option is, in fact,
the best decision.
I'm okay with that.
But never questioning it bothers me.
And it should.
I get into conversations with potential
clients and clients sometimes,
and they think their problem is a thing.
And then I start asking questions,
and it turns out to be another thing.
And that's scary because you're like,
well, no,
I called you to solve this thing.
It's not a problem.
Right.
It looks like that problem.
It walks like it, talks like it.
I'm a symptom of that problem,
but it's not a problem.
Correct.
Yeah.
So a lot of this has to do
with like psychology.
So did we decide what would actually
happen if a healthcare company truly,
madly, deeply, Savage Garden reference,
acted like a media company for ninety
days?
I don't think that there could be a
net loss, right?
If you did it.
Here's where I think people get lost.
I have to act like a media company
for ninety days.
Let's say the number and Tony's been doing
this.
I have to produce.
Tony.
Not Tony's company.
Tony has been making ten pieces of content
a day.
I don't think I've ever seen Tony use
Canva.
Nothing is generic.
Also,
nothing is a hundred percent polished.
His stuff's good.
But if you looked at it... Yeah, Tony.
Yeah, you.
If you looked at it and you had
to show the CEO,
you'd stand outside the CEO's office and
be like, oh,
the CEO's not going to like this.
It doesn't look great.
It doesn't look polished.
And then Tony's like, I don't know, man.
I got a million views on my this.
And Tony is not a team.
And if Tony can do it,
why can't a team of three?
Here's the thing I would do.
If I ran into the room,
I was like, okay, team,
we're going to act like it.
And the people in the room are probably
like,
I'm used to doing two a day or
four a week.
Why?
Yes, Tony,
I would only show the CEO the view
counts.
That's what I used to do.
I used to tell in radio,
I would tell my staff, hey,
we're doing this.
And I do this move where I look
around.
We're going to do it this way.
And we're just not going to tell anybody.
And we're all going to show them the
results.
And you have to like,
you're putting yourself out there.
Except if you do it the other way,
you're still putting yourself out there,
but you don't have any of your actual
control.
Exactly.
Like your name's on the door.
If you do it the bullshit way and
get fired,
wouldn't you be infinitely pissed and be
like, why don't you do it your way?
Safe's dangerous.
So here's what I would say.
If you actually walked into your team and
said,
we need to act like a media company.
We need to produce ten pieces of content
today.
Breathe.
I would do it in thirds.
So I would break it down so it's
not overwhelming.
I get overwhelmed.
I know I talk like I'm nuts.
That overwhelms me.
I know you listening to me overwhelms you.
It overwhelms me.
But I would break it down.
Okay.
Number one,
we're not going to start for a week.
We're going to think for a week.
Okay.
And then it's not going to be ninety
days.
We're going to do three thirty day
increments.
The first thirty days we're allowed to do
anything we want.
We're going to whiteboard in the next
seven days of.
We're just going to all separately go on
social media, not in the same room.
And just show me what you like or
what's interesting.
And then we're going to go thing you
like, what we are.
Is there a good straight line?
If there's not, that's cool, but it's out.
And we're going to come down to ten.
Just picking a number.
Ten formats.
So now I need you to run the
playbook for the first thirty days.
One piece of content in ten formats.
We have our ten.
We know what it looks like.
Your job every day is to just go
to that board with the ten formats and
draw a line to us today that was
different than yesterday.
That's it.
We do that for thirty days.
Then we pause.
Then we look.
What worked.
Bell curve it.
Hey,
some of it's going to be dog shit.
some of it's going to pop and the
best part is you're in the beginning
you're not going to know which ones so
have fun with it and like place bets
right like place bets which ones do you
think are going to pop and then let's
truly say it's a bell curve and i'm
not good with math but let's say three
suck three are great three are mediocre i
know that's nine let's say four are great
four right
You throw out six, replace it with six.
Now you have four solid things.
So, forty percent is sort of like,
these are really good.
These are three hundred hitters.
Out of these six,
if we get two more, we now got.
So,
I would do it in thirds and I
would do it again.
And then I'd pause and do exactly what
Tony said,
which is I just look at the view
counts.
We did a thing.
Here's what it produced.
As long as you say, like, just pause.
I don't need you to think of the
entire campaign.
Just pause and be like,
we're going to do these ten things.
We looked at a hundred.
These are the best ten.
Guys, we don't make great decisions.
We make the best decision with what is
available.
That's why my dad was saying,
you're in a car.
It goes off the road.
It's in a lake.
what do you do?
And I'm like, get out.
He's like,
the door is stuck because the water
pressure.
And I'm like, roll the window down.
He's like,
it's an electric window and the battery's
dead.
I'm like, I don't.
And he's like,
you wait till the car fills up when
the pressure is equal on both sides and
then you get out.
And then you get out.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
Or you get one of those tools,
but you would have had to thought of
that in advance.
Correct.
And you can only plan for so much,
guys.
So when someone says, act like a media,
when me, when I say this,
I've said this before.
Tony said this before.
Dave said this.
Everybody said this before.
Gary Vee said this until he's blue in
the face.
Act like a media company.
Make it a sprint for thirty days because
companies,
if you're a marketing person or you are
the CEO, it's digestible.
It's controllable.
I know ninety days feels like a long
time,
but like ninety days is going to come
and go.
And if hope and prayer is how you
reach your goal in ninety days,
I got to be honest with you,
that way feels more controllable,
even if it's under even if it's out
of control.
So that's what I would do in ninety
days.
I break it into thirds and I would
say the number is ten.
We're producing ten pieces a day,
one piece, one format.
Right.
We do it for a third.
We review.
We throw out everything that sucks.
We keep what's great.
We do it again.
Hey, guys, that's what I did in media,
in radio for fifteen years.
Did I ever tell you about low ride
out?
No.
This is a brilliant idea that I stole.
I'm going to look deep into your eyes
right now.
All of my good ideas are stolen.
Actually, no,
I've had a few of good ideas.
Borrow ideas,
but I feel like you've had some ideas
that were not borrowed.
So Disney's low ride out is brilliant.
Have you been to a Disney park,
Disney world, Disneyland?
We went a few months ago.
Okay.
What is a Disney ticket ballparking for
me?
Jesus.
It was a lot of money for four
of us to go.
It was like fifteen hundred dollars for
the four of us to go for three
days.
Woo.
Okay.
Got it.
For one.
But that wasn't like the hopper.
Those are even more.
We didn't.
Yeah.
Then you got to buy the fast pass.
Yeah.
But here's the thing, we've all seen this.
You go into Disney and it's just,
you can go wherever you want, right?
Your only thing is time.
Like that's why everybody gets there at
the buck crack of dawn because you're
like, it's time.
Yeah, rope drop.
So now you can go.
You can go on any ride you want.
You just got to wait in line.
Popular line, popular ride, longer line.
Less popular ride, shorter line.
Doesn't matter.
But did you notice hiding in plain sight
was a customer survey and you took it
every time you went on a ride?
Did you notice it?
Let's see.
You're stumping me.
It looks like this.
Every time we...
Or when we swiped our fast lane.
It's the turnstile.
Right.
There's a turnstile.
Why?
They're counting.
If your only limitation on what you can
do is time,
now time becomes the precious resource.
I don't know.
It opens at seven a.m.
It closes at midnight.
I'm making that up.
I don't know, but whatever.
So Disney is also looking at finite
things.
Let's say Disney owns thirty thousand
acres in Florida.
I don't know, but whatever.
And they just can't build anymore.
Also,
like you can't build a park that's so
big that you can't traverse.
That's why they start building different
parks that you hop to.
But in Magic Kingdom or whatever,
that Epcot Center or wherever that is like
in that park,
it could only sort of be so big
before it's like just too big.
Right.
Then how do you make room for a
new ride?
Like physically, where do you put it?
So their concept was low ride out.
So I could stand at rope drop or
I could stand at the exit line after
the fireworks thing and say,
what's your favorite ride and what's your
least favorite ride?
And you will get bad data because even
though
The teacups is the least ridden ride.
I'm just knocking on teacups.
People nostalgically would never say that
because I don't want to be the reason
the teacups goes away.
Small world.
The small world after all, everybody.
Been there forever.
But at some point,
something has to go or else they can't.
iterate this is the argonaut theory too
like the whole if i have a boat
and i replace one board on it every
day after ten thousand days is it a
new boat because it's all new wood but
it's been changed over time so low ride
out is brilliant right i've got a format
that's working
If I'm testing ten formats,
I can now see it was my best
performing,
and now it's my fifth best performing,
and now it's my eighth best performing.
It needs to go.
So I would say after your first ninety
days,
you don't have to overhaul and drop four
or six or ten.
One.
The lowest performing format goes away,
put it on the shelf.
It was good once.
I don't know if you know a little
thing about fashion.
I'm sort of a fashionista, Andrea.
But bell bottoms were once the shit.
And then they became shitty.
And then they became the shit again.
And then they became shitty.
And I got a prediction for you, Andrea.
Bell bottoms will make a return.
Why?
Because there's only so many things you
can do with pants.
Have they even gone?
I don't know.
I wear the same pants as I did
five years ago.
But I think people are overcomplicating
it.
I think they're measuring themselves
against the Kardashians or whoever.
And that's the same.
I'll use rehab terms.
If you trained like Patrick Mahomes as a
thirteen-year-old,
you have to ask what Patrick Mahomes was
doing at thirteen,
not what he's doing at twenty-nine.
So that's what I would do.
That's my job interview.
I should just clip that.
If I worked for your company,
here's what I would do.
That, what I just said.
I don't even care where you are.
I don't want to give generic advice,
but that's what you should be doing.
I got news for you.
That's kind of all you can do.
Right.
Or you just take loon shots,
which I don't know.
I'm a crazy loon shot kind of guy,
but...
I don't know.
Who was selling insurance?
Am I selling insurance?
I'm not sure, Tony.
What does that mean?
Am I selling insurance?
I don't think I can sell insurance.
I don't think I can sell anything,
to be honest with you.
I've done a little bit of sales.
I hated it.
Because I don't want to sell anything.
I want to connect with people,
which is ironically how you sell things.
But I'm typically measured about how many
units I move and how many connections I
made.
The pipeline.
Yeah.
All right.
So to review, who's doing it real well?
Aerie?
outlawing all ai everything you see models
clothing everything you see one hundred
percent real we don't use ai what was
done poorly everybody else and then what's
trending airy but doesn't matter now
because ari went first now at best you
are thirteenth place or sixty eighth place
or one hundred and ninety second place and
we don't know um
So what is your parting shot for today?
I feel like I talked a lot and
I let Andrea talk a lot.
It's okay.
It's Monday morning.
I haven't finished my coffee yet.
My parting shot is use AI responsibly.
So there is a place and a need
and a benefit to use AI and it's
not in your advertising.
I think that's important.
I think it's the shiny new toy.
And people think this is the infinity
gauntlet with all the stones from the
Avengers.
And it is tremendously powerful.
And it could be tremendously bad, too.
So yeah, I think, not to quote,
but I feel like there's a lot of
comic book references today.
With great power comes great
responsibility.
And if you walk around with a hammer,
everything you see is nails.
And if you walk around with AI in
your pocket,
everything you see is whatever.
I'm saying use it responsibly and ask
yourself if it aligns to your values.
Andrea, what's coming up with you?
What are you writing about this week?
Do you have any topics in mind or
what are you working on this week?
You don't have to be specific,
just general.
Well,
I've gotten into this little trend of
writing about AI in healthcare because
it's so hot and so relevant to what
I'm doing because I, surprisingly,
based on what we're saying,
I've been using AI a lot in my
work,
but I've been using it behind the scenes.
I've been using it for data.
I've been using it for workflows.
I've been using it as a sparring partner
for messaging and asking it to challenge
me.
That's what's on my...
That feels responsibly.
It feels like there's a human filter in
the beginning.
Have you ever heard of Ten Eighty Ten?
No, I don't think I have.
I'll do it real quick.
Whenever I work on a project with an
organization that's not internal,
that I'm not internal to, actually,
I still use it internally.
We sit down.
I'll use that example of becoming a media
company.
Okay, let's sit down.
everybody blank dry erase board but i put
in the middle here's the thing ten pieces
per day ready and then we fill the
board with everything good bad ugly no
wrong no right answers no wrong answers
then we wipe away everything that we're
like absolutely not definitely include
definitely don't include when we're done
with that we're done with ten percent of
the project
Now you tell me,
I just gave you the plan.
Ten pieces a day, ten formats,
which is one piece per format per day
for the first thirty days.
Then we're going to wipe out the crappy
ones, keep everything, change,
do it again, do it again.
If I do that,
do I need to knock on the CEO's
door one time in the next ninety days?
No.
So that's that's eighty percent.
So ten, eighty percent.
We're at ninety percent.
When that's done,
the sitting down and going,
here's what happens.
That's the last ten percent because I
don't know what what do we do on
day ninety one.
Right.
My mind is we keep doing this because
that's what we iterate.
Right.
What worked, what didn't.
But that's ten, eighty, ten,
because nobody wants me to go away.
after our first meeting,
what I'm doing is I'm letting them put
their fingerprints on the first, last,
but you can't walk in the middle of
me shooting a scene and be like,
let's make the thing blue.
It's like, dude, you didn't see act one.
Act one, it's called the red balloon.
It can't be blue.
But people love to pee on things or
put their fingerprints on things.
I like saying, I love the Frankenstein.
Like, what if we, and I'm like,
like Frankenstein.
And they're like, what?
This is Frankenstein.
You're like, well,
that's because we Frankensteined it.
So nobody touches anything.
You put the machine in motion in the
middle, eighty percent.
That's mine.
I can change it.
You can't.
The last ten percent is usually it's
before we release it.
It's like, but you agreed.
And this is good for when I work
as a freelancer because it puts like
phases.
So everybody's like,
I'm going to give you ten thousand dollars
and you're just going to go do a
thing.
And I don't get to see it until
it comes out.
It's like, no,
you I like to use food analogies for
this one,
which is like we went to the supermarket
together and I told you everything.
What does it need to feel like,
smell like?
And I go, if I can,
you put all the ingredients in the cart,
I will only cook from what's in the
cart.
I'm going to go cook though.
You can't tell me what to cook.
Can't tell me what to cook.
And then at the end, I'm like,
here's ten dishes.
And you're like, I don't like these three.
I'm like, three is okay.
We'll toss those three.
We still have seven.
I'm okay because my goal was five.
But I got seven across the finish line.
That's a menu.
But you can't touch it every step of
the way.
For my brain,
but I think any projects don't work that
way.
Contractors are...
Good contractors are very good at this,
which is they show you the end.
And then there's going to be, listen,
I'm going to tear your wall down.
There's going to be some shit in there
that we're not going to be able to
predict.
Your house is nineteen thirty seven.
We're going to have to pivot,
but it's only ten percent at the end.
It's like your house is still going to
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Got it.
All right.
So parting shot is use it appropriately
with great power.
AI comes great responsibility.
Andrea, you can find her on LinkedIn.
uh, writing about AI and healthcare.
And she might be, uh,
the person you hire next week to tell
you that you are doing it wrong.
That's it for this one.
We're just getting warmed up.
Smash follow,
send it to a friend or crank up
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And legally, none of this was advice.
It's for entertainment purposes only.
See, Keith?
We read the script.
Happy now?