Navigating Transparency in Media Buying

[00:00:00] Todd: cultural relevancy, social responsibility, environmental responsibility, it's a big bite to chew for any brand.

[00:00:07] Todd: That's really making a big splash out there and selling lots of products. They have a lot of responsibility to address those things. There's a lot of. Two sides to those equations that could go, like you said, right or wrong. I think it's a, it's a tough, but interesting conversation to have if you're on the brand side.

[00:00:25] Todd: hopefully you have a good agency partner that's helping you think through those strategies and tactics on how to present yourself to your customers.

[00:01:00] Kelly: Hey everyone, Kelly McGuire from Vujaday Digital, looking forward to discussing today's topics.

[00:01:05] Todd: Hey everybody, Todd Juno, Kelly's co founding partner at Vujaday Digital. And today we're going to talk about some things like cultural relevance of a company and a brand. And, I was going to start this off today, Kelly, by thinking back and reflecting back on the idea that culturally relevant seems relevantly new to me or recently new to me.

[00:01:29] Todd: In the past, maybe 10 years. And it made me think when we were preparing for this today, that does it even matter and how much does it matter? And. Do people just sort of think about brands originally sort of in the beginning and look for that kind of stuff and then eventually they're, they don't care or they just, and I'm thinking of it through the lens of like, does it really matter in terms of how people consider shopping and buying products from, from companies and brands?

[00:01:57] Todd: and so a couple of the examples we could talk about, but, we'll kick off with what does it mean for brands to be culturally relevant? And what I was thinking about was, okay, well, I love the brand Patagonia. Why do I love the brand Patagonia culturally? They serve the values that I align with. So I buy products from them.

[00:02:18] Todd: I also buy products from them because they make really good products. And if I buy one jacket from them, I probably don't ever need to buy another one, which is good for the environment. So I like things like that. But it does make me wonder, do most consumers think and shop that way? Or are we just focused on the 1 percent that actually think about that?

[00:02:38] Todd: And largely globally, people don't really care about that stuff. And it, it makes me really wonder. And then I thought about, Oh, well, when Budweiser did what they did, they lost their number one position in their category, which is now owned by Modelo. So it must have had some sort of sales impact. Thanks.

[00:02:58] Todd: And maybe that's because that's a mainstream brand, but, I think what I want to start off with is in your opinion, as we work with brands and companies, and we have to sort of contend with this, what do you think it means for a brand to be culturally relevant? And, and if you have an example of 1 that you think is, or isn't, maybe you can cite that.

[00:03:18] Kelly: Yeah, I mean, I think like a lot of the things that we talked about, and I use this term a lot, I think there's a spectrum to it. and I think there's a difference of impact that it can have. There's everything from the deep seated cultural values and pillars and, you know, the Patagonia level type things that you talked about, which is.

[00:03:36] Kelly: I think that's a lot more akin to driving loyalty and long term customer nurturing and things like that. And I think the other end of the spectrum is just a clever and creative way to break through the noise, to grab attention around something that might get someone to stop or look or believe That they may not if they were just being told about a product.

[00:03:57] Kelly: And so, you know, I look at it as that spectrum. And then the other part of that is the dangerous side of the two sided sword there, where if you get it wrong, if you try to be clever or insert yourself in a way, and it doesn't fall just right. we have an environment in the world where you don't really get away with that very well.

[00:04:17] Kelly: Like you can get hit pretty hard if there's a misstep. and there's a lot of polarization around that. And so I think it becomes something that you really have to think about as a brand when you try and understand what you're trying to achieve and what the objectives are. And that's where you have to weigh out the risk and the reward that trying to be culturally relevant can bring to what you're trying to accomplish.

[00:04:39] Kelly: And again, there's really understanding, are you using it for the long term? Is this something that matters to you? Are you using it as a sales tool and a sales vehicle? and does your brand make sense in the conversation that you want to have? Because. It can be powerful and it can be effective in making it something that stands out making it something that we talk a lot about when we're looking through media.

[00:05:02] Kelly: We're trying to get someone to stop scrolling to stop reading, stop watching a video to pay attention in a very noisy and crowded space. And that's one of the reasons why this topic was interesting to me and timely is because obviously we're going through the Olympics right now and you see all these brands aligned with the Olympics and we got sold as an agency, all these packages around, you know, sponsor the Olympics and streaming and all these things.

[00:05:23] Kelly: And, you know, it's, it's this combination of a vanity thing and an effectiveness thing and trying to align it and does it make sense for the brand and all of that. And we've had clients that have had great success tapping into sort of the cultural zeitgeist and what's being talked about in any given moment and being creative.

[00:05:41] Kelly: And it's also becomes interesting when you think about how you do it in, do you do it in a humorous way? Do you do it in a serious way? you know, there's just a lot of ways. And I think it becomes a creative question, but I think it's very campaign driven. I think it's very objective driven. I think you have to be very cautious.

[00:05:59] Kelly: the most interesting thing to me is I think some of the. What I'll call the worst examples or the worst outcome examples is, is so easy with hindsight to look back and be like, how did no one anticipate that outcome? How did no one see that coming? You know, how did that get through review and, and all of that?

[00:06:15] Kelly: And I think that's sometimes what doesn't necessarily take places is you almost move too fast and you want to be too clever for your own good. You know, Look at all possibilities and really weigh out what the outcomes are. you know, again, I go back to the spectrum of why does a brand do it? Why is it important?

[00:06:33] Kelly: And I think first and foremost, it is a way to break through. It's it's a way to connect with new customers. It's a way to create, connect with younger customers that are just getting to know you and have these choices and don't have brand loyalty. I mean, you have legacy older brands that have to find a way to refresh themselves.

[00:06:49] Kelly: You have new brands that have to find a way to be relevant and knock off legacy brands that have credibility and authenticity. So there's a lot of answers and reasons why this is an important topic for brands to consider and think through. I just think there's a lot to consider and how they do it.

[00:07:03] Todd: so that what that makes me think of is 10, 20 years ago when companies were trying to get behind the whole environmental sort of cause and you saw companies being sort of judged as greenwashers and greenwashing because they were saying they were doing all these things and then people find out they actually aren't.

[00:07:23] Todd: And so I think about the brands that are trying to be culturally relevant. are they guilty of sort of the same thing, right? Like I think about, again, I'll use Patagonia as an example. Yes, they're producing materials. In the most, or they would say the most environmentally sustainable way, but it's still harmful to the environment, the dyes, the type, some of the things that they're using.

[00:07:48] Todd: A lot of people criticize them for sort of trying to take too much of a. Environmentally perfect position when they're not totally perfect in that space, but you know, Yvonne's position as well, we're as good as you could be given the fact that we still have to produce clothing. And our job is to produce, like they would say one jacket and you never have to buy another jacket from us again.

[00:08:10] Todd: That's the best thing they can do to help the environment. but again, I think about can, can you be culturally relevant in authentic way and Is that by design or is that potentially because of how your brand was originally created in the first place and what purpose it serves.

[00:08:29] Todd: So an example would be, Dove soap. they have that whole like body campaign where they're supporting, different body types and all these things. Okay. There are so anybody can use a soap. Doesn't matter what your body type is. They can't be judged for being not culturally relevant depending on what body type they're promoting.

[00:08:48] Todd: So I think a soap doesn't matter. Whereas the clothing brand, you could say, Hey, we're being environmentally friendly, but you can say, no, you're not. You can't say that about a soap because soap goes on a body the same for everyone. It doesn't matter what size it is. Or color you are. So I'm, I'm also conflicted of whether or not brands can be authentically culturally relevant, if they weren't created that way to serve a purpose in the first place.

[00:09:14] Todd: And so I'll give you another example.we recently talked to a luggage company and they have a unique feature on their product. So I'm going to use something as. Maybe difficult to be culturally relevant as possible. Let's talk about a roller bag. How does a roller bag become culturally relevant? Like what, what would you say to a roller bag company to say you could be culturally relevant in this way?

[00:09:40] Kelly: So again, that that's the slippery slope of this topic, right? Is, which angle are we talking about? Because they're very different sides of the same coin where there is the genuine business principles and. Authenticity and philanthropic and considerate trying to achieve something, you know, like a Patagonia type thing, or there is the, the sales vehicle and the idea that in order to produce reasons to believe and to get people over that hurdle of should I buy?

[00:10:10] Kelly: Do I believe is this worth my investment? You're working these margins and yes, you have to have a good product, but you also have to break through and be noisy and give people a reason to say. To overcome these hurdles in their minds of like, do I want to spend my 20 or 50 on this or this other 500 things that are trying to get my money?

[00:10:27] Kelly: Or do I believe this brand's going to sell me a roller bag that is quality and that I can believe in? Or am I going to get it? And it's going to fall up, fall apart after two trips. Like you just have to overcome these and these margins and, and tying it to something that someone recognizes or believes in, or is, or connects with them in that moment.

[00:10:46] Kelly: Becomes really interesting, you know, you could go from anything from a popular tv show to an artist to a celebrity and there's There's just all these things that become this conduit of your message and your value proposition and why you should pay attention to me versus the 9, 999 other ads you're going to see today that are all vying for that.

[00:11:07] Kelly: And it becomes , this really difficult thing. And then there's also the, consideration of. Let's say you are using philanthropic giveaway or, you know, a contribution for, not altruistic purposes, you know, mainly to try and say, okay, give reason to be able to buy my product. You're still net positive.

[00:11:25] Kelly: You're still making a contribution. You're still helping someone on it. You're still using that. Is that better than not doing it? And it becomes this really difficult conversation to have, but what I pull it back to is the objectives and the outcomes and business is still business, right? So unless you're actually working for a, for a 501 C three, you know, a charity, whether you truly genuinely believe in it or whether you're using it for a sales vehicle, You're still trying to leverage that in a way to move your business forward to generate authenticity to create sales to create loyalty to create advocacy.

[00:12:00] Kelly: You still want an outcome out of that. And I think that's what it where my head comes back. When you talk about cultural relevance is how am I using that? Or the net positive of the business in some way. How is it going to help me produce sales that I wouldn't otherwise? How is it going to help me get people talking about my brand in a way they wouldn't?

[00:12:18] Kelly: How can I use that to create a viral effect in a social media conversation and get more mentions? But again, you're also opening yourself up to being in, in the wild and social media, we all know can be a very fraught place to be. And if you enter into a conversation that you're not ready for, there are different points of views and different standards that you may get blindsided by, and you may get a counterpoint.

[00:12:43] Kelly: You could have a great celebrity that you think is squeaky clean. And there's a group of people that don't like that person and don't like that you pay them and work with them. And you were now opening yourself up to that and a whole side of things. so again, I get it and I understand why cultural relevance is a tool in a vehicle and something that's part of the business environment, but that's why I like this conversation is trying to think about what does it mean?

[00:13:05] Kelly: How Should it be truly use? What are the risks? And You know, what does it mean in a business environment? And how important is it? And that's where a lot of this kind of gets my head going. And again, I like this conversation because this isn't something that I just have a natural opinion on.

[00:13:19] Kelly: This is a discussion that, you know, talked about. Can we think through this? Can we talk this through as we go? And, you know, it is bringing up all these kinds of thoughts and inconsiderations, and there's so many different tentacles to, to this conversation that it can go in that way.

[00:13:34] Todd: So the comment you just made about charities, I think about that. I think about charities, environmental, I think about the cause marketing. Is that, is that what we want to label this cause marketing that brands get involved in? And again, I question. How many consumers actually believe in the authenticity of that?

[00:13:55] Todd: And does it really, does it really make a difference on whether or not I'm going to buy that product over another product? Like, can you count on one hand or both hands, how many times you've compared one product over a similar product that maybe are similar price points, similar features and benefits.

[00:14:14] Todd: And you chose one over the other because you knew that 5 percent of your purchase was going to go to. a charity that, you know, nothing about, or maybe a charity that you care about, again, I. I know brands do that's not to interrupt you because I think

[00:14:30] Kelly: I think it's important the way you said it I do not believe that what you just described will make you buy something over not buying it But

[00:14:36] Todd: that's why

[00:14:37] Kelly: they do it.

[00:14:38] Kelly: That's what I don't think it is So that this is why I love what you said you said what I think it gives you the chance to do Is does it buy you two more seconds of their attention? Does it buy you five percent more people that stop scrolling on that ad that would have just blown past it? Does it get you?

[00:14:54] Kelly: You 0. 1 percent more conversion rate on people that just were on the fence. And this was just enough to tip them over versus if it wasn't there, they might've fallen the other way. So again, these are the fine margins of business that I think these things help you guide. I, there's no part of me that thinks the vast majority of is it, I wasn't going to buy that, but because they had a charity giveaway, I did buy it, but it might've been, I was 95 percent thinking about buying it, but I wasn't quite there.

[00:15:21] Kelly: And it got me over. You know, I would have never noticed that, but I saw, you know, that there's a giveaway and it made me look at it for three extra seconds and that let me get the value proposition message that I would have blown right by. So this is, I think it becomes interesting because these are the very fine margins.

[00:15:37] Kelly: And this brings it into the bigger conversation that we talk about, which is, how do you go beyond just selling a product? How do you figure out ways to convince people to buy and to believe and to do things? Beyond just, I have a great roller back. I have a great X, Y, Z fill in the blank. And this is where you start to get into, well, why would you, buy one t shirt over another, one pair of jeans over another, one pair of shoes over another, one car over another, this is where that idea of brand and value and reasons to believe start to work those margins.

[00:16:10] Kelly: And again, this isn't in a vacuum, right? If you were just saying I have the only roller bag to sell, then you're a sell it. But if I have one of 100 roller bags to sell, I need to work on very, very fine margins to start to break through and generate things that are in there. And this becomes. What I would consider a potentially very powerful lever to pull in your overall marketing strategy and your communication strategy and your brand strategy that can help you move forward.

[00:16:37] Kelly: And again, I don't think it works in isolation, but I think it can be a strong lever in a, in a very strong marketing mix when you're, trying to be creative and trying to find ways to break through, but it can be dangerous. Also people take big swings that miss. But this is the other analogy that comes into my mind is to me.

[00:16:57] Kelly: It's like a baseball analogy, right? You can have a, a home run hitter that is going for home runs and it's amazing when they hit, but then they strike out and they have a 200 batting average. Or you can have a 400 batting average. It's getting singles and on base and it's very valuable to the team, but it's not as fun as an exciting as that home run hitter.

[00:17:15] Kelly: And there's this balance between the values that those bring to, to the makeup of an overall team.

[00:17:20] Todd: So I'm not sure I get what you said, because what you said was having some sort of, in this case, a charitable sort of play and a, in a brand. Product offering might get two or three seconds more of someone's time and attention, and that might be enough to get them over the finish line to buy the product.

[00:17:41] Todd: And what I said prior to that was I would argue a lot of brands maybe just do those kinds of things simply as a sales. And it's not really aligned with their values. That's, I guess that's what I was trying to get, get at is could a luggage brand, for example, have some sort of values in their company that gives them permission or the capability of even having cultural relevance to something.

[00:18:11] Todd: And I, and I don't know what that is, but I just, again, I think about how to brands really create an authentic cultural relevance when. I don't really know that that many brands have an angle that they can have a true authentic cultural relevancy. And so, and maybe that goes a little bit further to the fact of what you said, which was consumers or people want that.

[00:18:36] Todd: And that's a, that's a double edged sword. It's a slippery slope. For example, if you're of one sort of social belief system, And I'm of another social belief system. And let's say we're both really far apart on that spectrum. We're radically different than each other. And I say, well, I want my brand to have, to align with my social responsibility values and you say, well, no, I want them to align with my social responsibility and values and that brand picks a side.

[00:19:06] Todd: Well, guess what? Now, one of us is never going to buy their product. And we might tell people that we know who share our cultural values or our social values to never buy that product. So I just even question again, sort of very holistically at a macro level, can brands even safely take an authentic, culturally relevant position, or should they just stay away from that and say.

[00:19:34] Todd: Like the old advertising days of David Ogilvie. We make a product. Here's all of its features. Here's all of its benefits. Here's the problem that solves for you. You either want to buy this product for that to solve that problem or you don't. And that's that. Can we can we have that world or are we too far down the that role of consumers expecting brands to have cultural responsibility social responsibility like is Are we expecting too much from a company that makes a cup or a suitcase or shoes?

[00:20:06] Kelly: think you want to be careful as a brand. I don't think you want to go too extreme unless, unless again, unless at the core of your business values, you are in fact willing to accept that alienation and that sacrifice, and, you, you believe that by aligning yourself with a particular place.

[00:20:25] Kelly: It is best for your business, but what you're bringing up, I think, is very long term versus short term considerations. Short term, very much so. Do you want that pop? Do you want that campaign? Do you want that? Like, we've run a lot of very culturally relevant things for like the Olympics or the Super Bowl or, you know, Oprah's favorite things or these other things.

[00:20:44] Kelly: And you want to lean into it. You want to use that storytelling and you want to make that connection. Again, that I would say is kind of safely in the middle where you're capitalizing on things that aren't polarizing. I mean, you don't necessarily want to get into politics and religion and other things that can be really dangerous on those sides of things.

[00:20:59] Kelly: So I think you have to make that consideration of alienation and who you're going to connect with and how you can kind of thread that needle a little bit. But I think for the most part we're talking about saying more in the middle of sides of things where you're not going so far as to alienate a group of people, but you're more tapping into something that maybe doesn't matter to everyone, but it matters to a certain group of people.

[00:21:22] Kelly: And this is where I think the marketing component really comes into play, because I think it's on the marketing and the media engine to say. If we decide to create a campaign and a message and a story and an angle, how do we make sure that we're delivering that responsibly to the people who it is relevant to, right?

[00:21:39] Kelly: When do we know when to put that onto certain media types, to target certain groups, to, to place it in environments that are going to reach people that it is meant for and not necessarily to the others, versus just broadly throwing it out there? again, I weighed less away from, I mean, the long term value proposition, I think that's less about sales and that's more about customer nurturing and, and again, advocacy and getting people to talk about the greatness of a brand and repeat purchases and things like that.

[00:22:09] Kelly: More of the moment cultural relevance, I think, is sales pops, campaigns, what, what draws attention and gets through. I think those are very, very different things, but they're different pieces of that same conversation. Appreciate it. I like, again, I like this topic because we're talking about. Non media buying things that drive media outcomes and drive brand outcomes and drive sales outcomes, because how much time do we spend talking about?

[00:22:36] Kelly: I don't know that more Facebook ads are going to sell this product. I don't know that if I get this product in front of people, that they're going to be ready to put their credit card down and buy, like we do need to think about the entirety of what we're trying to convince people to do. We go back to this topic.

[00:22:51] Kelly: We've talked a lot about, which is. Our job in media is to create a communication vehicle, a way to deliver a message, a way to make people aware and show them how to do something. But at the end of the day, that person still has to believe in the product or service that we're making them aware of and talking to them.

[00:23:09] Kelly: And the reasons to believe are a spectrum of things like I keep talking about. It is. This thing looks good. A celebrity told me it's good. A review site told me it's good. 500 online reviews at five stars told me it was great. Some, you know, they, they give away to charity and that makes me feel good. Or, you know, they, I buy a pair of shoes and they give a pair of shoes away to a child in Africa.

[00:23:31] Kelly: That makes me feel good. Like there's all these things that emotionally tap into human beings that now that I've been made aware of the product. I've learned a little bit about it. Now I'm making a decision of here's my credit card. Go ahead and charge it and send me this thing. I'm ready for it. And then beyond that, it's, do you have a sale or have you created a customer?

[00:23:55] Kelly: And that customer becomes, okay, the product I got was good. It lived up to its promise. I actually like this brand. I want to tell my friends about it. I want to post about it online. I want to leave a five star review. I want to. I I really, and, and the, the, the holy grail of that is I, I really love this brand and I actually want to proactively advocate for, and I want to tell people 'cause I love what they're doing and I really connect with them and they really align with my values.

[00:24:22] Kelly: So again, this goes back to the spectrum of you can produce sales out of it, you can produce you golden word of mouth review advocates and, and everything in between. But it's all comes down to a, a non, $1 into the next Facebook ad is how you're gonna get ROI in return to try and break through all the noise.

[00:24:40] Todd: All right. Well, I'm going to take a little bit of a pivot turn to expand this conversation into a little bit of a different area, but I'm going to give you a question now to think about for the end, instead of asking you today, what is the last ad that you remember? I'm going to ask you, is there a brand?

[00:24:58] Todd: That you buy, that you do all the things that you just described, that you love, that you tell people about, that you buy more of, that you just can't get enough of, that you want the world to know about. So don't answer it now, but think about it. instead of the last ad you saw, I'm going to ask you if you have a brand that you are the ultimate advocate for, and that that company has done everything right, culturally, sales wise, product feature benefit, utilitarian, sort of Purpose, whatever your reason is, you can talk about it at the end.

[00:25:30] Todd: And I probably can think of a couple of tubes. So the pivot I want to take is we've talked about, you know, this idea of social responsibility or cultural relevancy. It's a slippery slope. You could end up too far on one side of the other of these things. You're, you're opining about, you know, ways to maybe think about being somewhat in the middle of, of that ecosystem, if you will.

[00:25:53] Todd: so we've, we're in an election year. And anybody who's And advertising and marketing during election years knows that There's a lot of opportunity for things to happen good and bad in an election year depending on what side you're on certainly on the media side over the decades we've been faced with You know buying media during election years gets really complicated because inventory gets sold and inventory gets expensive And then you have to be careful about Oh, well, what's what candidate or what side of the fence does my advertising show up on?

[00:26:28] Todd: And is there some sort of cultural backlash from that? So as we go into the final stretch of this election year, you know, what are your thoughts about that? Are you seeing brands starting to sort of show up on one side of the other? We have a big, probably the most polarizing elections happening in the last one in this Upcoming one here in the US.

[00:26:49] Todd: So I think It's probably interesting. And I don't know how much on a marketer's mind that is right now about, Hey, we're advertising nationally. Let's call it, do I need to tell my media agency, Hey, make sure I don't show up. And content that's positively promoting one side or the other, because I don't want to be, I don't want to be deemed as in favor of that side or the other.

[00:27:15] Todd: Like, what are your thoughts on that?

[00:27:18] Kelly: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a dangerous environment and again, all things being equal, unless there's a compelling reason for the brand, it's just safest to stay out of it. Stay as close to the middle as possible. of course, you know, , as an agency for our clients.

[00:27:33] Kelly: We very naturally avoid a lot of controversy. We were very brand safe. We're very careful political news sites. Things is something we own. We very, very carefully weighed through. We have very much sentiment things because the risk reward, the benefit of being there is not generally there for most brands.

[00:27:51] Kelly: Now, the other side of that is there's some brands that absolutely can capitalize on this. I can think of lots of. Very fox news oriented brands that really lean into a certain audience that that does very very well and that's everything from what I would say are good brands to sort ofnot so good brands that kind of capitalize on an opportunity and a spacing on that but I think all things being equal unless there's a brand that Has a reason to lean into it.

[00:28:16] Kelly: And again, unless you are willing to sacrifice what it takes To really go to either end of the spectrum You It's best to try and avoid it. It's best to try and navigate it and understand the impacts of it. And to, to be very cautious. And again, you should have a partner working for you that you do not have to prescribe and tell that to.

[00:28:35] Kelly: They should know. They should be thinking about it. They should understand the risks, well before you have to say anything on that. I mean, that should just be table stakes of, Hey, we understand the fraughtness of what can happen in this. I remember years ago, I worked at a big agency and it wasn't my direct client, but I worked on it.

[00:28:51] Kelly: they had an airline client. And it was very much like if there was any bad news about, you know, a plane crash or any kind of, you know, bad things in there, like it was all media off all hands on deck. It was this crazy reaction, to it. And, you know, you had to understand and know that that was something in there.

[00:29:08] Kelly: And it became kind of second nature of as soon as you got wind of those things, it was in there. I mean, we have some clients that have it. Have navigated certain legal things or negative press and again, we don't wait for the client to be like, Hey, look at this thing's in there. Like we have monitoring.

[00:29:23] Kelly: We're bought into these brands. We're trying to and a lot of times we'll tell them like, Hey, we're seeing progress here. We're seeing this on the news. Here's some actions we've taken. Here's like, there are times where we've told clients about things that have popped up or have occurred to them that they didn't even know about yet because our job is a partner.

[00:29:39] Kelly: Is to be invested in their business, be invested in their brands and to be navigating that for them on that behalf. Again, not just like, Oh, you told me to stop buying against political sites. Sure. No problem. It should be no, like there's a lot of danger for your brand. We're telling you we're not buying here and here's why not.

[00:29:54] Kelly: And if you don't agree with it, we can go in there. Those are conversations should be part and parcel of that.

[00:29:59] Todd: They should. But if a client doesn't communicate their values in any one way or the other, how would you know, like I could tell you right now, well, this was my opinion based on Our particular client roster.

[00:30:12] Todd: I don't know that we have any clients that would tell us to lean one way or the other. I don't know that any of them put their brands. I think they're all very centric. They're a centrist. They're in the middle. We don't have a, we don't, we don't play

[00:30:23] Kelly: right now. Our bear, one of our very biggest clients has a lot of political nature in there because it's in that particular healthcare space with a lot of policies in certain states and certain areas and certain things that we have to be hyper, hyper aware of.

[00:30:36] Kelly: True,

[00:30:37] Todd: true, but we're not, we're not throttling their advertising. In one way or the other to appear or not appear relative to social responsibility or cultural responsibility type content. So I mean, yes, but it's not so much for them to say, Hey, we want to, or don't want to appear next to certain types of content.

[00:30:58] Todd: We've never heard that. Am I,

[00:30:59] Kelly: we'll, we'll make recommendations. We will make certain decisions on certain, I mean, just by natural brand safety things again, it's, it's having those conversations, but yeah, it, it, it's all part of that stuff.

[00:31:10] Todd: All right. did you think of a brand where you are the ultimate advocate for and they should sign you up and put a billboard on your, on your car?

[00:31:19] Kelly: Yes and no. So I don't know if this is going to be exactly what you're asking, but I'll tell you the example that came to mind. This is something you and I argued tooth and nail into. I am an Android person. I just, and so it's the opposite, right? So to me, Apple is a bit of a cult of things on people. And I fundamentally disagree with the business direction that Apple takes.

[00:31:40] Kelly: Because to me, Apple makes non consumer friendly decisions that are in the best interest of them as the business. They make proprietary dongles and connectors and things that. And they don't let you expand the memory. They don't let you do things as devices. They make things that are in their best interest for consumers have to spend more money with them.

[00:31:59] Kelly: Whereas Android is expandable, universal things. And again, this is why I very much, and now there are a few Apple things. It's not the products themselves are great, but I fundamentally do not like the business operation decisions that they do, because I do not think that they are consumer friendly in an open way.

[00:32:17] Kelly: It's consumer friendly in what they build. They build great products. But they build in a way that says you spend all your money with me, everything you want to do. Everything is essential to me. And I just, I hate that and the way that they approach it. And it rubs me the wrong way. And I am an Android user a lot of times because it, I also have other reasons for it, but that's the biggest thing that struck to me as the opposite of I am one of few people and I'm very alienated amongst the groups of people that I just do not like Apple.

[00:32:43] Kelly: And that is something that I really don't like about them.

[00:32:46] Todd: Well, I'm glad to hear you finally conceded that you're in the minority since we've debated this for years and years and years. And you seem to think that there is more fanfare for Android than there is

[00:32:56] Kelly: statistically. There absolutely is. This is very regionally and all of that, but.

[00:33:01] Kelly: In my bubbles in world, I am in the minority. Trust me. I know that

[00:33:04] Todd: safe to say that apple will probably never be a client of ours based on this podcast if they ever hear it. but maybe Samsung would want to work with us again, based on your love for. Their devices in the Android, operating system.

[00:33:17] Todd: I'll share one with you that I've been a huge fan of. And I have told I at least a dozen people and all of those people, I think, but one, my mom has tried the product and absolutely fell in love with it. And it's a mushroom based coffee drink called mud water. And I just like it. It's good for you. I like the taste.

[00:33:36] Todd: And so when you do find a product that you really, really like, and you think it adds value to your life, I think we're all sort of in that same camp of telling, telling people about it and becoming evangelists. So I guess that's what a brand's job is to win us over and make us love their products so much so that we tell 10 people and they tell 10 people and so on and so forth.

[00:33:57] Todd: I won't. Be telling anybody to buy an Android product and you probably won't tell anybody to buy an Apple product, but that's okay. We can get past that one. thanks for the conversation. Boy, this is a tough one. Brands, cultural relevancy, social responsibility, environmental responsibility, it's a big bite to chew for any brand.

[00:34:17] Todd: That's really making a big splash out there and selling lots of products. They have a lot of responsibility to address those things. There's a lot of. Two sides to those equations that could go, like you said, right or wrong. I think it's a, it's a tough, but interesting conversation to have if you're on the brand side.

[00:34:35] Todd: hopefully you have a good agency partner that's helping you think through those strategies and tactics on how to present yourself to your customers. good conversation. Thanks very much.

[00:34:45] Kelly: Adios.