Pixels vs People: The Virtual Influencer Marketing Debate

Kelly Celebrities are a character or putting on a show or those types of things. I mean, there's plenty of instances where the personality of what is known about someone and this is really big in the the YouTube influencer community and things like that, where it's the show or the character that someone's putting on isn't necessarily who they really are on a day to day. And you hear all these stories on that. Intro Welcome to Contrary to Popular Opinion, a podcast hosted by JD digital. In each episode, we bring you provocative topics and novel perspectives around leadership, business and marketing that defy the norms because exponential growth demands unconventional thinking and visionary action. So open your mind and let's get. Kelly Kelly Maguire with digital excited to get into today's topic. Todd Hey, it's Todd Kelly's partner. It's Monday, November third. Halloween is over and I'm still eating candy, which is not good for me. Um, and here we go. Race to the end of the year. Um, and the holidays. And I saw a ton of Christmas commercials this weekend, which my wife and I were screaming at the TV to go away. Not it's not. We're not ready yet. Kelly Know November. It's allowed starting November. Todd No, it's not December yet. We should have Christmas commercials in December, not November. so today, interesting topic that's starting to trend and emerge across all the wires. And, um, I think the headline for me is, AI ate my brand ambassador, not my homework. Ate my brand ambassador. in other words, we are going to talk about virtual influencers and their impact so far to date, um, on the industry and at what cost or cause, is it worth it? And so on and so forth. So we're talking about virtual influencers. Is it innovation? Is an illusion. Are we attempting to replace humans with pixels? and can we Safely say A.I. ate my brand ambassador. So here's what I want to debate. I've got some themes prompted and ready to go for virtual influencers or virtual creators, whatever terminology we want to use and against which I will get your opinion on. Um, and so our core sort of topic is our virtual creators, virtual influencers of the likes. Is this like the future of advertising? Is this something that we as an advertising agency are going to have to start to figure out how to embrace? Or is it maybe one of those sort of shortcuts that is not going to last because people are going to revolt against, virtual, creators or influencers versus real humans because I have seen I've actually saw something over the weekend that said. People are reducing their scroll time because they're just getting tired of it. And I was like, wow, that's the first time I've seen that statistic. So I thought that was interesting. Um, so virtual influencers. Kelly, my first talking point, around virtual influencers in favor of is efficiency and cost. It can be much cheaper than paying real talent. Um, what do you think about that? Kelly I mean, it definitely it. The way I think of it is it's it's just a messaging vehicle. It's another version of different mediums in which to tell a story. And how you use those mediums determines how effective, useful, uh, or believable it really is. So I don't see anything inherently wrong with it, I don't. It's funny because one of the things that I think about is if you if you think about the concept of an influencer, one of the biggest versions of that is historically been celebrities to some degree. And oftentimes celebrities are a character or putting on a show or those types of things. I mean, there's plenty of instances where the personality of what is known about someone and this is really big in the the YouTube influencer community and things like that, where it's the show or the character that someone's putting on isn't necessarily who they really are on a day to day. And you hear all these stories on that. And I just I think about that when I think about the authenticity of an AI creator. is it a character? Is it any different in that way? I know we're talking about the difference between virtual and human, and that takes it a step further. But again, I think it's an iteration or a variation of other challenges and similarities that have always historically existed in in other ways. So that brings me back around to if it can fit a brand, if you can tell a story through it, if you can connect, if you can be creative about it. And people ultimately people vote with their with their dollars and their eyeballs and their time and all of that. Um, I think it's absolutely worth exploring and kind of going through and figuring out, but I don't necessarily see it as the end all, be all. And I, I think it's got a long ways to go before it would do a full replacement. But I think it's a fun I think there's a novelty to it. I have no idea where it'll evolve. It also makes me think of the story that you heard about the I'm going back to celebrity. There was this big uproar about a virtual actress who was supposed to get signed by a talent agent and then, like the whole SAG revolted, and there's this whole idea. And so I don't know it, it creates this whirlwind of, you know, excitement and cool and novelty and where is this going to go? It creates the fear mongering of like, what is it going to do? And how does this cost the humanity element of it? And it's just a continuation of that, that same AI conversation. So that's a big way of me saying, I don't really know. I think it's worth exploring. I think it's a creative medium that could be really cool. And yeah, it carries a lot of efficiency and opportunity that could be interesting to see what what someone could do with it. Todd Well, yeah, the big topic is around sort of the the soul and culture of humans and creativity and does a virtual influencer sort of undermine that and just basically democratize this idea and it begins to replace humans with, you know, pixels, if you will. But so the the original question for this was, let's say normally you're used to paying a, you know, a fairly fairly high end influencer, fifty K, fifty grand. but You could create a virtual one for a thousand bucks and have it do whatever you want it to do. Does that matter? Does it? Do you think that. Being able to just recreate something that is supposed to do the same thing as the human did for, you know, one tenth the cost? Do you think just that alone is going to create some sort of system where companies are just going to mass produce these things? And then and then it democratizes this, this whole idea of like, an influencer is supposed to be an influencer because they authentically, authentically represent a brand or a product that they buy into and believe and want to promote, because they're actually they're the testimonial, right? And that they're the ones saying, hey, I don't know, I'll use something extreme. I'm a rock climber and I use this rope because technically, this rope is never broken and nobody's ever died. Like, are you going to trust? a rock climber telling you that, like a real human influencer, are you going to trust a fake one, telling you that just for the sake of the cost? Let's stick to the cost argument right now. Does the minuscule cost of creating virtual influencers versus the cost of real human talent? Do you think that's going to democratize and just create an overwhelming overflow of this stuff? Kelly I don't think you can decouple the cost with the the practicality and the reality of what it is, though, because, you know, even in in what you just said, you sort of skip past the whole idea, like, we're not at Skynet, right? It's not machines making machines, right. There are people behind these virtual AI influencers. There's training being done. There's information and and it's a reflection of of what it's consuming, what it's adapting to, what it is, figuring out how to deliver information in a way that fits its guidelines and narratives to make that connection. Right. So I don't know, you get into a very existential thinking when you come into that, like your rock climber example, right? The person that you're following, I mean, it's still their opinion, it's still a formulation of their experience and then their own biases and their own things, like they're not the end all be all that. Everything they say is, you know, gospel. I mean, there's lots of instances where you spend a lot of money on an influencer, or brands will use an influencer and they don't know anything about the brand. They maybe never use it. They're just getting paid to talk about it. That's not the ideal situation, but that happens all of the time. And so how is that all that much different when you talk about the credibility and the authenticity of it? You know, the whole point of it is just creating that connection. And at the end of the day, the whole point of why someone is an influencer is because they have cultivated entertaining enough content that someone's willing to tune in and spend the time it takes to absorb what it is they're delivering. If the AI creator has gotten good enough to get someone to stop scrolling and to pay attention, and to work into the algorithm that says, I am interested in this versus the next thing that I can scroll to, then that is still tapping into the same thing of value, which is you're delivering your message through someone who's capturing attention, who is conveying something of value to get that time in front of them. And so that's where it gets really weird. are you simply buying attention and time? Are you buying someone's opinion and experience and expertise? Like all of these things I think have to be factored when you decide that if at the end of the day, you're just talking about getting a message in time, like air time on TV, right? The digital version of that, then yeah, spending one thousand dollars for someone to spend ten or 20s getting exposed to your brand story is way better than fifty thousand of the same thing. But that may just the time and attention factor may not be it. It may be the credibility factor, the endorsement factor, the recommendation factor, the association with this person who I like, their look and feel in their style is saying, this is cool and therefore I'm going to buy it because it's cool. Like that's that's going back to we've had this conversation before, the value of brand. And so I don't know I'm bringing this all around. I'm not giving you an answer. But it's is it commercial time. Is it endorsement time. Is it belief to buy. Is it just awareness that it exists? These are all considerations. You have to go in on how much you should spend and where you should spend it. Todd Yeah. So I'm going to reframe the story again and ask you in a different way with a similar example, but the, arguments in favor of this whole idea of virtual creators, virtual influencers is it's it's efficient. It's cost effective. You have absolute production control and freedom, right? Like, you don't have to worry about an influencer or celebrity not showing up or showing up late or weather causing a problem. You don't have to worry about, you know, scandals that the influencer gets involved in and impacting your brand. You have total creative control, right in that in that situation. So those are all the arguments in favor we'll get into the arguments against. Let me reframe the story. So I'm going to for some reason, I don't know why I'm thinking of rock climbing, but I'm thinking of rock climbing. So let's go with this. With this storyline, how would you feel? Because I could see this happening right now. Today I'm a rock climber and I'm scrolling my Instagram feed and I come across this video of this guy climbing some face, some pitch or something that, you know, maybe I know because I'm a rock climber. I'm like, oh my God, he's Half Dome or whatever it is, like, look at this great pitch that this climber's climbing. And then I'm like, oh, that's cool. This guy's name is Alex Smith. I'm going to start following him and I start following him. And you know, he I keep seeing posts from Alex climbing these amazing routes and then this climber starts doing gear reviews and starts talking about gear and starts talking about, you know, the harnesses and the ropes and all this stuff and the packs or whatever. And he's talking about this rope and saying all these great things about this rope. And then I find out that climber is not real, that climbers fake. Is that in your mind? If you were a rock climber, replace this with whatever you're into and you find that out, do you care? Does it matter? Does authenticity and credibility and truth just go flying out the window and you just go, oh my God, I got completely duped. I would never trust this brand who's promoting who created this fake influencer to promote these products that we make. Because now I know they're just trying to sell me shit. I actually don't know if a human's ever really used this product in the wild, and whether or not it works. Kelly I'm going to use a different example of a very similar experience to answer the question. It it depends on if if they are actively trying to deceive me, if they are passing it off as real in there. And I liken it to if you've ever seen these commercials, I don't know if you remember these, but there was a there was a soccer commercial of Ronaldinho where he would where he kick the ball off the bar like three different times and chest it from below. There's one about Tiger Woods, like bouncing it up and then hitting it. Or, you know, there's news. There's stories about if you watch like dude, perfect. And they're amazing trick shots whether or not it's edited in there. Right. And so if you if it's being passed off as it is meant to be real and you find out it's fake, that is problematic. If it is not presented that way, if you have the option to say it's not real, but it's still entertaining. And I know that going in and I've made the choice that, okay, it's not real, but I'm still entertained. It's still cool, then there's nothing wrong with that. There's an entertainment factor of it, right? Just because Ronaldinho didn't really kick the soccer ball against it, it's still a really cool commercial that I enjoy watching on it. Todd But would it make you buy something? Because no brand is just doing stuff for pure entertainment. They're doing this because eventually they want you to buy their product. So would it, would it influence you if let's go with your scenario? I know it's fake. I understand that this is a virtual persona that was created and it's still amazing cinematography. It's amazing accomplishments, amazing feats, whatever it is. And this thing is being promoted. This product or service is being promoted. does it influence you differently to buy it versus a real human? Kelly again, I keep giving these caveat answers, but there's nuance to it, right? It it depends on if it was if the content was entertaining enough to get me in it. And therefore I got exposed to learning about the existence of this product or this brand. And now now it's in my mind I can consider it. It's effective if the goal is to convince me that an expert. So again, because I'm soccer and not rock climbing for you, if the message of Ronaldinho's commercial was about a particular pair of shoes, that was so good that it could give you creative control over the ball to do that, and then I find out it's fake. Now, I don't believe in the product as much. If the goal is just to get me to know about Nike and to think about Nike for the next time I buy it, it's probably effective because now I've been entertained and it's sitting in my mind again. It's it's all about how you use the vehicle of the message and what your intention is. If you need the endorsement. And the belief in this product works as we're promising, as shown by this expert or this real thing, it's not going to work if it's just. We need you to spend 10s thinking about our brand and remembering it. When you go to buy something, it can be effective. It's all different things on there and the way that you use it in the creative vehicle to it. And so all of this comes into inherently I do don't see anything wrong with using virtual creators. If you use it to the to the intent and the effect, and you're not deceptive about it. The bigger question I would have is I'll go back to your rock climbing example. Will you reach the same ten thousand consumers who might consider buying your product with the virtual content, as you will with the real climber? If the answer is yes, then whatever is more cost effective and cheap and conveys your brand is perfectly easy. The the theory here is, is that a different ten thousand consumers are probably spending their time and energy watching the real climber and believing in the message that that person is conveying than the AI creator, in which case it's on the marketer to decide is is it better for me to spend a thousand dollars reaching ten thousand of this type of consumer, or fifty thousand getting endorsement and belief in reaching this consumer? Which one's going to deliver better ROI? And I'll take that one step further in. Is your marketing dollar intended just to sell product, or is it meant to sell product because everything's meant to sell eventually and give you some kind of brand credibility, some virality, create a conversation and do types of things. You got to think about your objectives and your outcomes in, in making all of these decisions. Todd Yeah. Oh, here's where I probably would differ with you. Then I in the scenario of could I if I could spend a thousand dollars creating, let's say all the upfront costs have already been been expensed and are are being amortized for the technology and the software and all this kind of stuff. But let's say I could go and create, you know, a virtual creator influencer for rock climbing or soccer on the cheap. And I could reach and I in this case I'm going to you argue different audiences. I'm I'm going to argue. No, you're trying to reach the same audience. You're trying to reach enthusiasts of that, whoever's following Alex Honnold or or any soccer player or whatever is you're trying to get them. You want the authentic enthusiast who's going to buy your product and be receptive to your message. So I'm going to assume it's the same ten thousand people. If you could reach them by a virtual influencer for one thousand dollars that you created or you had to pay a top a top athlete in soccer, or climbing fifty thousand dollars to reach that same ten thousand people. I'm going to go with the real human all day long, because I think the threat to sort of the human social component of it being a virtual and in this case, I will go with it's an assumed known virtual influencer. It's not faked or hidden, but it's it's known the cultural distortion that I think comes away from that related to humanity and just sort of the threat of. Me personally feeling like I could buy into and be influenced by a robotic influencer that was created through AI. As much as I could through an athlete or somebody that I genuinely like and, and have watched and seen do stuff that I would really feel I have a big problem with that. Kelly Man, you're you're treading down a very interesting road there though is because immediately what I think what I, what I think about is I'm not sure who who I'm asking this about. I think I'm going to ask it about the brand or the company. Maybe it's the marketer, maybe it's all of us. What is the truest responsibility of a brand or a company? Is it to care about what you just talked about, the existential, all of that? Or is it to spend their dollars to maximize their sales and their profit? Todd Well, they're a publicly traded company that then, of course it is. It is to do nothing more than make money for the for their shareholders. Right. That's why Yvon Chouinard has vowed to never sell Patagonia. Because he said, as soon as I do, then it's no longer about the brand, it's about the shareholders and I. And I'm not going to sell the soul of the company so that I can make money for shareholders. And that is the existential part of what we're talking about, which is do virtual influencers cross that line? It doesn't cross. Kelly I do think you are discounting the fact that, again, virtual influencers don't pop up and exist in a vacuum. It is. You're supporting a different human investment. Again, that virtual influencer, at least for now, is still a byproduct of a lot of human ingenuity and effort and training. And it's just different. So it's not the person climbing the face of the rock wall, but it is a programmer or a coder or someone who is creating that nurturing and cultivating and putting time and energy into it. Just as much human effort is going into creating a virtual creator that is believable and skillful enough to be useful, at least for now, as the person that's climbing the face of the rock. You're supporting a different human endeavor. Todd Yeah, maybe in some really, you know, not not super technical things where the person that's created, the virtual influencer would, would actually have had to have done themselves in order to be able to talk about or explain things, you know, maybe in maybe in scenarios where that hasn't happened. So so here's some arguments. Against it besides what we're just talking about. high up front technology costs. So you have to have a software to be able to create these things. And of course, a lot of the things we've talked about, lack of human emotion, um, again, sort of the more existential threat to human creators, the authenticity question, um, what sort of cultural distortion does it, does it create so further from from that or further along that line of thinking? What happens if let's take fashion and beauty, for example? The people who are creating the virtual influencers. Do they have a cultural or ethical responsibility to create models who are donning the fashion or the makeup or whatever, in a certain way? you're going to do that if you're a clothing company, right? If you're I don't know, I'm going to say bad clothing, not bad names, but old school names, Levi's or, you know, whatever. Do you have a a cultural and ethical responsibility if you're going to create virtual. Think about this. We remember when we were going to get involved in that AI company to be able to create, what would we have had a cultural and ethical responsibility to make sure our virtual models looked a certain way. Kelly Yeah. I mean, it's again, it's a very slippery slope on that front. And we've seen variations of this play out. Right. are you creating unrealistic beauty standards or, you know, things like that. I mean, we've seen that in without the use of AI and models. We've seen that in the fashion industry. Right. You have, you know, certain beauty standards or body type standards or representation standards. So this is again, it's a continued variation in our in our sort of evolution of humanity. That kind of creates a problem. like what's the they've gone gone in and done this the proportion studies of a Barbie. And if it was a real human being it's completely unrealistic. Yet little girls were exposed to that being a beauty standard for the longest time. right? So if you're creating virtual influencers that are creating beauty standards that literally aren't humanly realistic, and you create skews like, I would argue that that's a problem, but also whose responsibility is it? Is it the brand's responsibility to not reflect it that way? Is it the consumer's responsibility to understand, like a Barbie is not a real person, and therefore I shouldn't expect it to be like, and it's a virtual side of that, I don't know. These aren't things that I have answers to, but they create interesting questions. and again it's who's where does the responsibility lie if I can if I can create a beautiful, incredible, engaging ad that gets people to spend time and therefore they're exposed to my product and they go and buy it. Have I done my job regardless of whether or not I've, you know, properly represented, you know, humans in a certain way or reflected a certain way. I, I think, I think a lot of this ends up being pretty self policed, if you will, because I don't know, like I'm now I'm starting to think about think of all the cool things that Red bull has done, right? Think about that space jump thing that was such a cultural thing. What have you found out that was fake all these years later? That would stink and be like, oh, that's terrible. But at the same time you're like, but it was effective. It worked pretty damn well. So you know. Was is that problematic? I you know, I think the transparency of what is real and what isn't is a pretty critical linchpin in all of this. If if it's relatively easy or clear that things aren't real and people still choose to be entertained and want to watch it, I think it's just an evolution of what's available to us. Like, you know, again, like we've had so many technological evolutions that it's in there. I do think if you start to pretend and ask, hey, I'm pretending this is a real person and you find out it's not I, that's pretty hard to defend, I think. Todd Well, we know that's happening and and more of like the political, you know, realms of news and things like that. Right. Like fake news and all. We know that that's a possibility that's either already happening or is going to continue to happen. That and that's a really scary space, right? What happens when a message comes out from a political person and and it looks real. It's great propaganda. And then and I think that's, that's going. Kelly To have to be regulated. Right. You already aren't allowed to make misleading claims in ads. There's regulation of that even with real influencers. They're supposed to disclose when they're being paid for. Things like there are rules that are meant to protect consumers from. Todd There's no rules in war and geopolitical. Kelly No, no, no, no. But I'm saying in advertising, I think there are whether or not people follow him, I think that will naturally fall under a lot of the rules that are meant to protect consumers, as is, again, whether or not people follow them, skirt them, go around them, I don't know, but I think all of that will. Again, there will be some self-policing amongst all of this. Todd Okay, so to recap, in a in a fully transparent environment, you're arguing that it's not a shortcut. It's a conscious choice that can be done right in a transparent way, and that there are consumers out there that you would argue would probably still be in favor of that. If it's all done right and you and your argument is, that's okay. versus it's totally not okay. we should not be getting influenced by AI created influencers. We should only be responding to and and akin to and liking real humans. and if that's the case, do the real humans all of a sudden become this outlier luxury? Does like a real human influencer become like, you know, worth ten times more because now there's so many virtual ones in the marketplace. Kelly I mean, it could shift in that, right? Again, I'm going to use one more example, and then I'm going to go go back to my closing and move on. I don't how is it all that much different than when Butterfinger used Bart Simpson as an animated character? As an endorsement? Right. That's not a real person versus an actor, right? Like, we've seen variations of this. It's not that big of a difference, right? It's Toy Story versus live action movie. There's animation. There's computer like there's there's video game characters. There's Mickey Mouse. Like he's not a real person. He's a he's a byproduct of things like it's not that different in those variations. so again, ultimately, I think my takeaway on it is I think it's a creative medium that if you, as a company, have a great creative idea, can use it to deliver a story that that hits. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think it's early and there's novelty to it, and so therefore it has the chance for much more breakthrough. I think once it if and when it were to become more ubiquitous, I think the novelty of it would wear off. It'd be harder to break through. And it could the pendulum could shift the other way, and the outlier could be going back to the human creator. I think everything is is novelty, interest, nailing the timing, nailing the utilization. I just see it as one more available option for a good marketer and a good brand to explore. Can I use this to convey a message, to connect with an audience, and to create a behavioral reaction that is favorable for my brand? Todd Well, okay. Kelly Or can it be a flop? Can I try it and can it fail miserably because I didn't have a good idea and creatively, it stunk like a bad Super Bowl commercial? Todd Yeah. And look, I think there's a just to sort of put my wrap up thoughts on it. I think there's there's definitely a generational component to this too. Right. you're a millennial. I'm a Gen Xer right. I might be just old enough to go, man. You know what? I just don't think I can get behind a virtual influencer and trying to influence me for whatever I'm interested in following, whether it's surfing or rock climbing or sailing or whatever I'm into, right? Like the idea of a virtual front being programmed behind by somebody in the background. Just. I just don't think I, I can buy into that. But I think your generation and younger will not only buy into it, they will in many cases seek it out and, um, try to, you know, engage with it more. I think that's what's going to happen. I guess only time will tell. And maybe I mean, I. Kelly Would argue that if there's a brand out there where you are their customer and they try to reach you that way, then they've made a really bad creative and marketing decision. Todd Well, maybe I don't know. I mean, look, again, I'm just I'm, I'm stereotyping myself as a as Gen X being in my fifties, I'm, I'm just old enough on the outside edge of all this stuff that I don't know that I personally could ever fall in love with a, with a virtual influencer and like, buy into what they're promoting. Kelly You know what? I bet you would work on you. And I'm just going to hypothesize, and you've seen this a little bit with like the holograms, like if they brought back a singer or someone like a nostalgia thing from you and recreated like a dead celebrity or someone that you really loved and made it really cool, I bet you that would get your attention. I bet you would work. And that's not a real person. That's a recreation. And I bet you could be super effective on you. Todd Okay, yes, but we're talking about in different contexts what I, what I was framing this whole thing up around influencers using the word influencers because they're paid to sell something. So yes, if if somebody came back and, and put on a virtual, uh, concert with, I don't know, Elvis or if somebody brought back, uh, John Candy in a movie, you know, I'd probably go watch it. So they're selling me a movie, and I'm paying for it because I want to see John Candy. So in that context, yeah, you're probably you're probably right. And maybe that's a good way to to spin it. but I was thinking of it more in the in just the typical I'm scrolling my feed and there's a, there's a influencer who's promoting whatever they're promoting that's in my feed because my feed knows what I like and in full transparency. I know this is not a real human. Would I be as influenced by what that message is, versus if the exact same script and message was delivered by a known personality in that field that I trust and like? Would it have the same impact or different impact? I'm narrowing it down to that. And I think for me, a virtual influencer would have far less of an impact versus a real human in that context. But what I. Kelly It depends on how good the content is, how entertaining. It's like if it was a really well done piece of content that that engaged you and you found interesting, it's still at the end of the day. what do we go back to? When we were talking about we were walking in London and how the have the conversation. Everything boils down to can I grab a couple of seconds of someone's attention? Everything comes back down to that one way or another. More or less. Todd Yes. But for me, in this particular context, I almost have an ethical problem with it. I just I'm too old for it. And like I said, I think younger generations will embrace it and it'll thrive and they won't care. I think probably anybody my age or older probably cares from just the it's too radical of a thing to embrace. It's it's too I'm too far gone down that down that pipeline of not being able to accept it. But boy would I would. I love to see John Candy come back in a movie or Chris Farley or, you know, anybody like that? or Michael Jackson do a virtual conference, a concert, and it looks like him and it behaves like him. And you just it looks as real as a real human. Yeah, I'd buy a ticket to that. Kelly Complete and total tangent on that because you use the name. And I absolutely loved Chris Farley. I'm like, now I'm trying to think is what is the first company that's going to go license and pay for the rights of Chris Farley and completely recreate him? And would that work or not? I bet you I bet you it would like that I even thought about anything like that. Todd From what I've little I have read, movie studios are already securing deals with the estates of celebrities and things like that because they will be able to recreate. They can go back and inject their voices from everything they've done right. We now have voice synthesis with AI. They can go back and ingest all their movies they've ever done, and AI can completely build that character based on their personality, their tone of voice, their emotions, everything, and recreate it. It will happen. Kelly As a human, I would love to know if I watched a completely new movie with a virtual Chris Farley, if it would, if if that's where I'm now, I'm on your page of thinking, like, would it hit me the same as him really being on screen? Or is it literally just what I was seeing because it's coming through pixels on a screen? Anyway, it's not like I'm going to see a live play where I meet him. Would that hit the same for me? That is an experience I will be very interested to see if it makes any difference to me if and when that ever happens. Todd Well, that was sort of my point earlier. Do pixels do you differentiate between cells or pixels? Does that change anything? I don't know, we'll see. It's a good debate. And I know that it will happen probably in our lifetime. we'll watch a movie or something with virtual actors in it that aren't real. And I hope they bring back some really amazing, you know, people that. Kelly I wonder what that arc will be as well. Right. Because there will be inevitably some degree of novelty to it, and initially that it'll ride a wave to, well, once it once that wears off and becomes a normal that shift the attitude and the adoption of it differently. lot of shifting sands in the horizon there. Todd I don't know, my friend. You've got fourteen years more than I do to see it all unfold before your eyes, because you're that much younger than me. So you get to enjoy more of it than I will ever get to enjoy. Kelly Or not enjoy, depending on your point of view. Todd Or not. all right. we're going to wrap up. We've got some interesting guests coming up in the next couple of shows on the creative side, and some more on the AI tech side with companies that we've invested in. And, um, those will be fun to talk to. So I will catch you on the next show. Kelly Thanks, everyone. Intro Thanks for listening to. Contrary to popular opinion, where we challenge you to think independently, push the limits and take uncommon action so you can achieve game changing results in your business and your life. To stay up to date with our latest episodes, be sure to click the Follow or Subscribe button now. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.