Digital & Dirt
01:41:29 · Ian Dallimore, David Sable
[01:41:29] S0: Mhmm. [01:41:29] S9: Nothing. Now if it was true that retargeting and better targeting and optimization could get you to buy anything, there would be one business in the world called Amazon. Yep. And maybe a second one called Tameware. Right? That's it. Everybody else would be dead, but they're not. And there's a reason that all of the businesses that started being only digital like Warby Parker or Bond and Blossom, they can't open stores fast enough. Right. Now, it's not... Knee jerk alert. It's not that digital's bad. Right. It's not that digital doesn't work. Right. It's that people are whole human beings. Right. It's a $3.60 deal here. [01:42:08] S0: Right. And we wanna physically touch things. Right. A good friend of mine is the co founder of Goodr Sunglasses. And, you know, he sits on Abbot Kinney with Warby Parker, Ray Ban, all those things. And his approach was a bit different. It was... If I was in that audience, I would have raised my hand and said, no. I think a retail experience is perfect. And in that example, he built out this entire experiential slash you could also purchase his sunglasses in a very cluttered Abbot Kinney. Right? So utilizing out of home, but talking to the consumer. And doing a little bit of research on you throughout your your very long tenured beautiful career. It's like consumers are curious. So pique my curiosity. [01:42:51] S9: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Long tenure is a way of saying I'm old.
01:42:51 · David Sable, Ian Dallimore
[01:42:51] S9: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Long tenure is a way of saying I'm old. [01:42:54] S0: No. Thank you very You're a man and you've done a lot of things. So you've been at the front row for five decades, right? I feel like you've probably seen this story play out just in a different model. And so what are advertisers getting right today and what are they missing out on? [01:43:10] S9: So look, I've seen this play out from the day I came into the business. I walked in to Young & Rubicam at 285 Madison Avenue when it was there in June 1976. I sat down, I was in the training program, one of five people who had been chosen with like 1,500 applicants. It's pretty crazy. First thing they did is tell us, okay, everything's changed. The good news for me was that I had no clue. [01:43:35] S0: I Yeah, didn't no know what was.
01:43:35 · Ian Dallimore, David Sable, Anthony Scaramucci
[01:43:35] S0: I Yeah, didn't no know what was. [01:43:37] S9: Great. Like to me, I was ground zero. So I didn't know anything had changed. I just knew what was. I have heard that same thing. I've seen that from that day to today. Everything changes. It changes all the time. When I was there, like literally while I was in the training program, cable launched. Yep. That was gonna put everything else out of business. It didn't. And I'm proud to say that we placed, and I was part of it, the very first cable ad ever placed by a advertising agency. It was on the SciFi channel, was like a big deal back in that early thing. So my sense is that everything's changing and the people who get it right are the people who aren't scared of the change. They understand what doesn't change is as a consumer. What doesn't change is the consumer wants to hear a story. What doesn't change is that the consumer wants to hear a story because they do want brands. Like the biggest mistake and the biggest fallacy is that brands aren't important. Oh yeah, they're pretty important. Like these kids, these Gen Z kids are still running after brands. Let's be really, really clear. And the younger kids, the Gen A, they're also, they're crazy for you. And my grandkids playing, know these squishies? [01:44:55] S0: Yeah, my daughter's. [01:44:56] S9: So you know about squishies, right? Squishies become the biggest thing. You gotta invite, and they know which are the real squishies, [01:45:03] S4: Correct, yeah.
01:45:03 · Anthony Scaramucci, David Sable, Ian Dallimore
[01:45:03] S4: Correct, yeah. [01:45:03] S9: The brass root versus which are the fake squishies. Right. It is the oldest story in history. Right. Right? We crave real things. We crave things that have provenance. We crave things that make us feel good. That is never going to change. Yeah. And I think that the best marketers like Craig on this. Yep. That's what they go for. [01:45:25] S0: So let's let's give Craig a shout out here. There he is. We'll get... We're going get you on. Yeah. Following trends is not something that you've ever done in your career. You've never followed the crowd. Right? So where do you think advertising industry is following the crowd right now successfully? And I'll add the influencer economy. There's so much put into that space. But also... And I love that you're sparking because I agree with you. [01:45:51] S9: But there's... We're lemmings. Let's be [01:45:53] S0: really clear. [01:45:54] S9: We're in a lemming world here. [01:45:55] S0: Yes. We
01:45:55 · Ian Dallimore, David Sable, Jim Norton
[01:45:55] S0: Yes. We [01:45:56] S9: tend to be lemmings. You know, I'll just go back and I'll point out how there was a time everything was going to be gamified. Gamification was it. And I remember agencies are going to their clients and saying, Oh my God, you've got to completely gamify your marketing. Voting is going to be gamified. Now it is sort of, but not in that way. Yeah. So we went through everything is going to be a wearable. Everything is going to be on and on and on. Roblox, oh my God. During COVID, I was on four different panels with otherwise smart people whose point of view was that Roblox was going to replace everything that ever was. And that's what they're telling their clients. And clients were buying this crap. [01:46:43] S0: Buying blocks and lands. Was And [01:46:45] S9: like, what are you talking about? And I kept saying, Guys, it's a great thing. It's nice. And it's very good that a Gucci you know, purse sold for $5,000, nuts, and seven... NFTs. This is my favorite one. Right? NFTs are gonna replace everything. Yep. But what happened was we, an industry, we turned NFTs into crappy digital art that we were that were being sold for crazy. Now the truth is what's an NFT? It's nothing but guaranteeing provenance of something. So for example, we went to a major car company and said, here's the deal. Let's get rid of VINs, vehicle identification number, and we'll create each car as an NFT. Now what happens? All the parts now are NFT. So that whole car, [01:47:31] S6: you can't touch that car.
01:47:31 · Jim Norton, David Sable, Ian Dallimore, Barry Frey, Alex Grieves
[01:47:31] S6: you can't touch that car. [01:47:32] S9: Right. For the rest of its life, without it being noticed because it's on the blockchain, it's an empty. Think about what that would do. But nobody wanted to do that because they didn't believe we had cheapened [01:47:44] S0: what They it [01:47:46] S9: thought, how can we go back to our investors and our customers and tell them? Because they think it's art. They think somehow they're buying a piece of digital. Right. It's like, my god. Congratulations. So one day [01:47:56] S1: that's gonna come back up. [01:47:58] S0: Oh, for sure. Yep. So last question. So in the world of AI and automation and and measurement and those things, sure, there's a time and place for that. But my question more to you is around creativity and creative. What is the biggest fear with utilizing AI? And I know Craig was talking about it on stage as well. Sameness. Sameness. [01:48:16] S9: Yep. Yeah. That's it. It's sameness. Like there is nothing else. That's the problem. [01:48:20] S2: Yeah. [01:48:20] S9: AI is critical. AI is his. See, AI is different than all the trends. It's different than robots. [01:48:25] S0: It's different