How Brands Grow: Marketing Science, Brand Loyalty, Creativity & Strategy with Byron Sharp

0:01 I should point out to all the all all the all the viewers all the listeners I it's dinner time for me it's not for you you didn't have to say that now you make me look an like an alcoholic on the channel

0:36 hey Baron welcome to a glass of marketing and thank you for accepting the invite the concept is pretty simple here we usually have a glass and we talk about marketing of course personal and professional growth but before getting started what are you drinking today this is a reasing from the Adelaide Hills which is just 10 minutes very steep drive from from where I am now so it's a high altitude cool climate we've had a lot of cool vintages

1:08 recently in Australia reing planted the vineyard like 150 years ago or so yeah it's good I mean a new world wine right you from Australia so the wine is Australian I love the new world wine I mean of course they get him bigger over time and I think it's a glass of marketing as well right because you know wine and marketing go together right I mean I'm I'm From Italy as you can tell from my British accent and of

1:38 course Italian and French wine have been more famous you know through the history because I mean because of the history and everything but I think the new world wine like Australian is is very good and I think you know it needs a little bit of advertising as well so you're probably building some mental availability today right on the on the wine side yeah well the more the Italian wine industry is probably newer actually even than the Australian

2:04 industry you know I mean it goes back a long way but you know the actual quality modern wine industry is more like wine now is becoming an asset right it's also an asset like you know some people buy bottles not like to drink it but like as an investment so it's more like you know also the industri is is is changing a lot as well anyway Byron thank you so much for accepting the invite so so

2:31 would you please introduce yourself I I I usually leave the responsibility to the guest so I can make mistakes okay okay hi I'm Byron sharp I'm an Australian Professor who is known for leading the arberg bass Institute which is by far the world's largest academic Institute for studying marketing so we study buying and selling and consumer behavior and that fundamental question of why does some Brands sell so much more than

3:01 others and you may know you may know me copy me from this book brand grow and and and the other books from The Institute so probably the main point here is why your book how Brands grow got this big right probably because you had some controversial ideas that had been proved right right so I you kind of challenge the idea of brand loyalty of differentiation can you can you kind of develop it a little bit like

3:33 the concept of mental availability physical availability how Brands grow and why people are not loyal okay it's a lot look the the book is the book is has had a big impact I think because it introduced scientific laws in to readers and that's pretty you know it's pretty amazing for a lot of people to realize there are scientific and you know the thing is they what the

4:04 book the book is you know deliberately presents those scientific laws in a way that anyone can can see the data you know and if you don't believe it you can go to a simple survey or if you've got access to neelson or can or or something data you can you can check everything and that's pretty unusual in marketing right you get all these proprietary studies that claim make these big claims and it's amazing how many marketers just full for

4:32 this stuff and yet you know the data is hidden it you know there's some Bizarro statistical model that you you know it's very unscientific you can't actually check so hman SC presents stuff that you can look and and it's very trustworthy and it's very you know the real world I always love to say is most scientific discoveries are pretty odd right our intuitive understanding of the way the world works is is just not not not very

5:01 good and so like so many other scientific discoveries it presented things that were quite surprising shocking even to marketers and so but you know you can't really deny them and and you know no I mean no one has ever no one really denies the things that are now Brin gra because you know they can go and check themselves and you can see it the the patterns are there so by scientific laws we mean things that can

5:26 just keep repeating under all sorts of different conditions you know in the same way that did you say you're from Milan you know no one no one asks what's the difference in you know gravity and Milan compared to say Australian gravity you know it's it's it's like it's knowing and and it's the same laws like the famous double jeopardy law the the bigger brands have in any time period a lot more customers than a small brand but the Loyalty doesn't vary very

5:52 much is you know it's fundamental it's it's that we see this just everywhere you don't have to go up well you know there there'll still be some people who go I'm sure my brain's different it's like will you go look at go and get some data think they kind of grew us up teaching us you know Brands grow by focusing on loyalty by you know differentiating yourself from competitors but you actually said something different you said look brands

6:21 are not that special people are not like that loyal people want to find shortcuts and because they lazy right so you need to build mental availability because people need to think of you when thinking about the category so let's say t people want to think of Lipton when thinking about a cup of tea but then of course they need to find the product in store when they're going to buy it otherwise they're going to buy the

6:48 competitor which is the physical availability I think it's pretty interesting because I think if we get back to you know the digital marketing world is the never ending battle between you know long-term and shortterm growth as well right right like how do you build a brand how do you grow the brand but the same time how do you monetize it in the short term right and I think it's very interesting when you talk about loyalty I look this is this

7:14 is really very confused thinking the whole shortterm long-term nonsense what do you think about the long and short like why is confusing because it suggests that there's some stuff that we do that somehow is not working today that somehow sort of works magically in the future like a like a time bomb or something and then and then there's also this idea what the shortterm stuff that we can just we do lots of that and then that will somehow magically add up

7:44 in the long term and no what we're talking about is physical availability being here today doing a really good job of that so that we capture as many people as possible who are buying today fine do a very good job of that but you've also you've also but that will the reach of that is so tiny and you've got to have mental availability as well and so they're very different things of like being easy to buy is very

8:12 different from being easy to think to be thought of and known and and know what you actually do and and then and so rather than these mystical ideas of shortterm versus longterm we have to think of mental availability and physical availability and we've got to do both every day you know this it's not an optional thing of well I'm not going to I think I'm going to go broke so I'll you know or I don't know I somehow think I it's more

8:41 efficient if I just concentrate on lots of short-term things well it'll add up to the long term no it isn't I think the confusion comes as well like today in the I mean the digital marketing world you know we always split it to like Performance Marketing which is actually driving you know clicks is actually driving you know performance short-term performance where you know long-term growth is like building brand awareness but I think they they go together as

9:08 well right because while I'm driving clicks to to a website while I'm try I'm driving like views I I'm I mean I'm also like driving awareness so I think they they go together is the same thing with physical availability no no sorry no they are different because they differ massively in reach so it's like that analogy which has used Lots in digital right is like saying if I only use a sales team and I just arranged the the things on shelf really

9:38 well and I just use price promotions that's all I can reach everyone well no you can't actually most people will just go past you they will not see you they will not know you have to have mental and physical availability and and use different things to do them so you you can you can you can spend as much as you want on sh Search terms and things but that won't build mental availability it's like shelf space so no you you you need to do both

10:08 but most of the things that achieve one are not the same things that achieve the other thing if you if you maximize for clicks you yeah I mean you just get your dashboard right for anything using any social media or anything if you maximize for clicks you you'll get miserable reach you know the algorithm will just chase the same people over and over or actually it'll and it'll skew heavily the Bots and things so you're saying

10:33 reach everyone and then make sure they can find you yes but to different objectives yeah they're two different things and you'll have different levers for each and you and you and you judge them differently but you have to do both so why people are not loyal to Brands and then what's the mean of brand Equity yeah they are okay they are it's amazing I mean people are loyalty is everywhere every single category that we look at

10:58 people don't buy all the categories they they don't randomly buy was Frank bass who said You Know That Bass from arenburg bass a famous American Professor he said if an intelligent alien came down from outter space and and was told you know that there are all these Brands competing but you know it's not in most cases not very much difference between them and not very not even very much price difference like you know that can't explain why summer

11:24 you know would be you know you know what would the alien predict the alien would predict well all the will have the same share and that's not true we don't see that at all right so no we definitely see loyalty we definitely see preferences but but they're not the Fallen they're not the fall in love type preference or you know I'm banking with this bank cuz I think this bank is just it's the best bank in the country it's

11:50 just so it's this is the bank this is the absolute best bank for me I you know I'll never change this Bank in my life because this is the best no we go so yeah this is this bank's good I know of it I don't I wouldn't wouldn't have chosen a bank that I didn't know of and yeah it's very convenient for me and and and and so markeing science brings us to a much more prosaic but it's quite

12:16 an interesting world for marketers right we're in a constant battle for mental and physical availability that that's that is a profound yes you're right is a profound shift in reasoning in thinking so it's it's not that there's no loyalty it's rather there is loyalty but it's not that important yeah you you get your amount of loyalty right it's it's like your your problem is not that you don't get enough mty from your customers your problem is that you don't

12:42 have enough customers yeah so you're saying and also like over time those loyal people might want to try something else so they might switch so you're losing them right yeah I mean all All Brands lose customers even growing Brands and the Loyalty that we get is is is quite polygamous you know people don't randomly buy Brands they don't buy all the brands but they're not sold it they they buy multiple Brands what about like the I mean of course broadreach right but

13:12 then in the hyper personalized landscape of marketing today don't you think we can Leverage The personalization on on that so like I can actually target the people I want I mean CU I think there is a constraint there which is budget right if I'm if I'm a small brand and I can afford to reach everyone so let let's say I just started yeah that's that's true of All Brands right so but you try to reach as many as you can

13:40 unless you want to shrink but the the second thing you said about hyper personalization that we can really do like we can't that we can't that is a complete myth right do do is do you see anything in your life where you get hyper personalized whether there's a marketer who's able to do something that is distinctly per I mean I see brands I see Brands kind kind of personalizing the message or like focusing on a niche

14:06 right so for example right a bit of target market yeah yeah but but that that restricts their reach and and and tends to make them smaller Brands but but personalization we've always had some personalization in marketing but it tends to happen at at point of sale where where people say things like well do you want fries with that order do you know do you want it delivered how do you want to pay we do that sort of

14:32 personalization but I'm amazed at how many marketers fall for this like oh yeah in this digital age we can do hyper personalizations like really can you show me how I mean I I mean I think today differently from yesterday because of the you know the paid media landscape bought seriously have you bought any digital media and seen what sort of targeting you can get have you T to do you can't yeah you can't I mean you can personalize like audiences

15:05 the message based on each person looking at the channel get God about the only thing you can do is retargeting where you go well someone came into our website we can we can keep following them or something but that gets very that gets very expensive and you end up paying a lot just to reach people who we going to buy anyway but no our ability to actually do targeting is probably about of the same level it has been for for decades right

15:32 we've been able to Target geographically is probably the most important way we've been able to develop products that are more and less expensive and they will appeal to different people but our ability to like is it's no it's not it has not improved dramatically you know I get I mean probably I go on I get speaking of which I mean maybe it's because I'm I am actually interested in wine but I get served ads for things

16:00 pesticides and Vineyards and you and I'm like I don't own a Vineyard this is not no of I mean 100% because of you know the iOS updates and everything else it's much harder to Target today probably some ways I always use Amazon we have more power as marketers today than yesterday right I mean considering let's think about their shelf right like for example if we talk about the digital shelf let's say like

16:31 online grocery shopping you can deliver a more personalized you know shelf because everyone is seeing a different shelf based on their data on their you know what they've been purchasing So eventually if you're going to buy you that sounds let's let's have a look at Amazon right CU they've been at this the longest they probably you know they are the Pioneers and look at their algorithms and what they recommend it it's it's rubbish right when they say

16:56 that you know you know You' bought this so you should buy that it's rubbish it's really bad and they they're probably the best they tell me I should buy H Brands grow which is actually I've got I've got a you know author page they should the computer should know guy is he he is the who wrote the book you know like no they have no capacity to do that but look this doesn't matter we but we do

17:22 have some we do have some yeah interesting new tools we have some New Media but not that that's really a new phen if you had interviewed marketers 40 years ago they would have been talking about New Media right every decade marketers had New Media so you know that really isn't that amazing but but we do have some nice new tools and some of them have become really big reach I mean YouTube is probably the world's first Global

17:49 advertising supported TV station that's yeah exact if if you compare YouTube and television which probably it's easier to to compare those two right you can tell that like as a as an Advertiser on YouTube you have more power right because you can actually retarget People based on what they've been watching you can actually Target certain Channel you can actually you know kind of reach everyone in some ways but like in a more personalized way as well which is more

18:21 powerful well maybe no no we need to research that whether the personalization pays off much so far research shows so much what about the emotional connections do you do you do you think it's it's important or it's just about mental availability so I'm consistent I'm there physical availability consistent I'm there and is is not really about emotions so is there space for love in marketing or is this well everything we do is

18:51 emotional and rational and and probably probably the biggest thing is that we we have to be humble in marketing and and recognize that people aren't going to listen to our communication much right they're going to glance up see the digital ad you know BLS away we're going to get fleeting exposures so emotional content is faster to process it's more simple than rational

19:23 messages but the idea that we can build a some sort of emotional connection with the consumers through things like advertising and make them think differently you know have a different perception of our brand or fall in love with our brand that needs more research and and so far the evidence is pretty you know I was reading an article yesterday which where we're going to do replication Research In The Institute

19:53 and the author very famous advertising researcher just said basically this shows there's no real evidence that advertising can be used to build an emotional connection it's like wow that's that I thought that's going to that would shock a lot of people in the UK particularly you know it's felt that it's felt that you like you have famous department stores like this time of year you have this sort of little war don't you between your department stores and

20:23 things to to run the most heart tugging you know Christmas ad and the question is is is that are those ads you know the better ones working better because they're just more entertaining or do they actually make people have a you know feeling about the store it's different and that latter thing is well put it this way the evidence so far is not very good I mean it suggests that no people don't

20:54 terribly so you're saying the emotions are just good in terms of entertainment M CU people can kind of fall in love in that way like they pay more attention to emotions yeah that they go oh I like this yeah I like this ad I'll give it I I I'll watch it more or or just or just that I'll process it faster you know it's it's easier to understand I don't think that's terribly controversial does it make them feel

21:21 better about the store and therefore that's a driver for why they might do their more of their Christmas shopping there that that's something that we really need to do a bit more more research on because I think we tend to we like the idea so what about sustainable product you think people really care that your product is sustainable so I'm going to you know I'm going going to buy it because of that is he is he playing a

21:45 role like or or they don't really you know have emotions about that it's just about okay grab my attention because I'm I think I care about sustainability so I I buy it yeah all the evidence is pretty damning on that yes people care about the world but they don't they don't they don't even know which brands are the sort of more sustainable ones and and even then they don't you know it's not a d it's not a

22:18 super driving factor for them you know only when they're interviewed by a market researcher do they tend to say that cuz we all like to think we're nice people but the real world gets in the way and so they look at things like Bryon features and why did you buy that one well it was there you know no and I I really like your approach because like a few months ago I came up with this presentation it's called the

22:41 digital maids and you are in the presentation so I will I will send it to you and essentially I Define today customer Journey as a Maids because there are there is so much information and people get lost so it it's a maze and the job as a marketing managers is to get people out of the maids right and I come up with like three keys to get out to get people out of the meds which is always on campaigns because you

23:10 you want to be always on make sure that people you know have this mental availability so they can always think of you then having an Opti Channel approach which is not like being a multi CH Channel because sometimes you can afford to be everywhere but I be on your Optimum Channel be on the right Channel and then have a full funnel strategy which means that yes build the mental availability but then also make sure that you build the physical availability

23:36 because as you said I can always say look I'm the best hamir think of me when thinking about the category but then as you said it's less romantic than we think if people go to the supermarket and they want to buy me then they need to find me right and all of this with a consistent messaging because like I always give the Red Bull example what I really like about Red Bull is that they've been repeating the

24:04 same message for years so different cultures different you know countries everyone knows that Red Bull gives you wings then of course they personalize it based on the environment they do for students they say the same thing but in an interesting way yes and I really like this approach CU I feel I think today we have the tools that allow us as you said to personalize the message the hyper personalization but sometimes personalizing too much

24:36 gets people lost as well because like changing the message every hour changing the message you know for each audience country gets people lost so I really like this approach of being very analytical if you know what I mean like very like let's reach everyone and then make sure they can find us well one of the great discoveries of marketing science is the you know ratios between heavy to light buyers and showing that most are incredibly light and very

25:04 infrequent so the most typical Red Bull buyer is someone who buys them like once every two years so you don't need to say much new but you do need to say something interesting you need to get their attention and just say hi we're still here yeah you need to reach a lot of people and you need to be consistent because if you keep changing things they won't they'll forget about you or won't see you so mental availability

25:34 is not about being like first to mind it's just that you do come to mind sometimes people have multiple brand I mean how many soft drink brands do you know a few more than a few yeah how many do you buy yeah more than a few not so I get your point when you say it's good to be loyal but in the long run you are not loyal prob is not even the human nature right yeah well polygamous loyalty as we put

26:02 it seems to be the seems to be the fundamental all all humans seem to it's like they don't buy all the brands but they don't just buy one brand my colleague John Dos did a lovely analysis on you know particular looking at Nike because in America Americans in particularly think Nike is this sort of American marketers sorry think that Nike is the sort of brand that consumers like fall in love with and a hyper Loy and

26:27 things and you and you you know he showed that no you only have to look in someone's wardrobe right and you go oh wow we nice Nikes there and that's a nice jacket there from oh that's that's Fela oh that's Adidas and oh what's that other pair of shoes oh that's New Balance all right yeah you you got quite a few Brands there yeah what what about luxury Brands because I mean I believe is there anyone on this planet who like only buy

26:54 you know who buy who's a luxury buyer and only buy Gucci no no but I'm saying they like for example let's think about know the luxury watch world right they are hard to find I mean the mental availability is there I mean of course they've been advertising you know them you know they exist you know everything but then they are harder to find so the physical availability how do you how do you see the physical availability in there like

27:23 because they are hard to find they can be limited edition it's not easy to get there's a lot of luxury brands in the world and most of them have really low mental availability and you know they don't sell very much the the main thing that makes a luxury brand hard to get is the price tag but if you want to buy a nice watch it's not hard to go buy a nice watch right it's not hard to

27:48 find a luxury watch I mean there are watches there are many watches right now where it's not just about the money but it's all about if you can find it so they added the extra layer of you know of a challenge which is if you have enough money to buy hyrax you can buy it you need to be on a waiting list you might if you want a certain model you know there is this game essentially that

28:13 brands are using and there's this dumb idea sorry there's this idea in marketing that somehow that makes them that that is essential to do and it makes them more appealing no it doesn't it makes them smaller but get real if you've got the money and you want to buy a Rolex it is not hard to buy a Rolex they compete like other brands they compete for mental and physical availability and they you know they don't sell that much cuz most

28:41 people don't want to spend 15,000 on a watch so if if you were like a luxury brand like this right would you would you let everyone buy it if they have the budget or would you play the strategy where oh you can buy me like you need to be on a waiting list is the same thing for Ferrari like if you have the money tomorrow you can't really buy Ferrari you need to be on a waiting list they

29:02 need to do some you know checks yeah yeah no it's not a it's not a clever strategy but and it's not usually a marketing strategy to be honest most of the time this comes about because the company actually has limited massively massively limited product you know Apple used to have this problem and they worked really hard to get rid of it remember when they'd launch a new model and there were you know cues and things like that they worked really hard to get

29:27 rid of that problem and that's why they're one of the most valuable companies in the world CU you want to try to from like you know you want you want to learn from a car company that sells makes 6,000 cars a year it sells 6,000 cars a year y I mean in a world where everyone wants to feel unique yeah I can have a car that you can have not because of the money but because I'm

29:49 you know I'm in that list look let's face it most of the scarcity for luxury Brands is done because of the price and it's exactly the same you know domain Roman Conti you know like most expensive wine in the world you can still pretty much buy it it's not hard to get domain run property if you've got the money if if you want to pay $115,000 for not a case a bottle single bottle yeah because it's

30:16 a limited quantities so of course they increase the price but yeah you're saying it's just Ferrari probably it's a it's a they decide to don't increase the production so they would rather sell less so so it's more like a business strategy than a marke business thing to be small now most people do not work for businesses that say I you know most marketers do not work I mean they don't need marketers then if they can sell

30:42 every car three times over most marketers do not work for that and I I don't know why marketers would think that it's a clever strategy make it hard for people to buy for us it's funny it's fun what about cross selling and upselling what what what's your take On's the evidence on that the evidence is really hard it seems to be really really really difficult to get more out of your existing customer not imposs but really hard really expensive

31:09 yeah it's easier to get more customers increase your mental and physical availability and your existing customers will buy a bit more that's the double jeopardy law right I mean you will get more loyalty from your existing customers but only if you increase penetration get lots customers which means only if you increase mental and physical availability a lot more if if if you want a simple analogy to understand this imagine you have stores in the South

31:40 right so who do you sell to well you sell to largely people in the South but you occasionally sell to people in the north you know when they come South what happens if you open a store in the north well you suddenly get a big you know he sells to lots more customers because now the people in the north can buy you and they can buy but also the people in the South can buy you now when

32:02 they're in the north so you get a little bit more loyalty from your existing customers but the main thing you get is a lot more customers and that simple analogy describes how Brands compete I think it's pretty clear when we look at the wine industry for example I'm picking at random industry only because the the YouTube channel is called glass of by and it's I should point out to all the all all the viewers all the listeners I it's

32:33 dinner time for me it's not for you you didn't have to say that now you make me look an like an alcoholic on the channel if if we look at the wine industry right I I think it's it's pretty interesting to see that you can build like mental availability like saying oh this is my wine right like Jaw wine but then you need to be able to find it and I was having the episode with people working in the wine industry

32:59 and of course they were like it's all about the distribution because I can build the mental availability in the United States about my wine but then if people can't find it in store there is no point there right so for certain products like wine physical availability products you have to have both you know typical wine store I mean wine is a weird category well it's like Cosmetics or books or maybe Hardware in the you go into

33:34 a store and whoa It's you have so many Brands to choose from so yes physical availability you know being able to be purchased is is absolutely vital but it doesn't you must have mental as well otherwise you're just so easy not to be seen on shelf and an awful lot of wine brands are very poor at building mental Aba ability they spend their money on sales DPS they get into a store and then they just you know hope and pray that the

34:03 store will somehow do some selling for them and point people towards their wine yeah so that that's I think for the wine industry the great grands of think for the wine indust it's easy to see why though because like if you think about it like there must be some products where people are more loyal right they fall in love a little bit more in the long run they are not loyal I agree with you but like in the short

34:27 time people might fall in love a little bit you know faster and with more intensity and wine in my opinion is one of is not one of these you know Industries because you want to try also different bottles right so you might fall in love with a grape you might have your favorite Vineyard but at the end of the day it's more about exploring different you know Solutions if you want right well yeah some people aren't

34:56 some people are incredibly but you know some people aren't ready in some people like wine but they they don't want to learn about it so they just you know they know they're like New Zealand serving up Blan and that's what they drink every time so you know the if you're a wine marketer the biggest problem is is not that the consumer behavior is fundamentally different or anything it's just that you have so many brands that

35:27 you competing against there's some incredible statistics like like something like every 4 and a half minutes a new winery opens in Australia wow that's tough so you you see very few regions have been able to even build Brands let alone individual Brands champagne I think is the greatest marketing success story in the wine industry because it's let's be blunt it's a pretty margin

35:58 area to grow grapes you can barely get them ripe they had to work out a way to sort of turn this pretty unpalatable wine and something you could drink right which was the method champo the sparkling right so they worked out this is this is great right it was a great technological thing to to to make this but still you had you know problem you know Pro B it was expensive to do and Bottles could explode you're

36:23 thinking all these disadvantages but they worked so hard to build mental and physical availability and they absolutely went for broad reach right and today almost any like you can go to an Outback Hub in Australia where they made beer but if they've got a little bit of wine you'll be able to buy a bottle of champagne wow that's that's incredible right you go to Tokyo you go to BU series it doesn't

36:56 matter you can get champagne everywhere from this tiny little French region that's pretty impressive man I mean they've been doing it for many many years like the advertising they've been they've been doing right yeah it's huge yeah so it's it's about building the mental availability but then of course you need to be able to find it otherwise you're going to you're going to drink something else and I and I can imagine in some places in the world people might

37:23 be drinking prco and call it champagne you know what I mean because the mental availability is is even bigger than the physical ability right that's yeah so that's yeah that's absolute Benchmark of quality marketing and long-term brand building what about creativity what's your take on on the importance of creativity because like my point of view on creativity I give you my point of view first so then you can agree or disagree with me I think in in a

37:52 world where today everyone can advertise so I think there is more competition I think creativity helps you kind of stand out a bit more so I think we we are in a world where we fighting for attention and creativity is you know what really makes us win among the others because you know everything looks a little bit more standardized today ai ai will probably make it even more so I believe like

38:24 storytelling it's it's key but what what's your take on that are we giving too much importance to storytelling and creativity maybe because we we maybe because we just assume that something that you know I like stories So Stories will work better we don't know a lot about you know what what is great creativity but we from as an advertising perspective but we do know that some ads work so much better than others so there

38:56 is this m there is this magic about getting the creative right it really has a huge effect when we get it right when it I'm not sure it's so much a battle for attention because well classic is those Billboards that you know that are that that are put out by the people who own the Billboards that say something like unsee this yeah you know I mean you know you see it right because you can't help yourself particularly if it's a movement

39:25 particular it's a video you know you can't help give you it give it some attention but creativity great creativity lets us get it right that we that we that we know which brand it's for and and therefore it lays down the right refreshes the right memory structures or lays down new memory structures so I think that is the that's that's the beauty of that that is what in advertising is great creativity

39:56 that it that it really shin that Spotlight on the brand that we get it that we don't just go yeah it's an it's it's an it's an inment or hey it's a way to grab attention yeah but then you need to be there yeah good no it's it's it's a good point and then like any any advice to marketers like summing up all the theories and everything you you've been you know studying if like I have my podcast

40:27 right I want to promote my podcast make sure people I want I want to get famous tomorrow with my YouTube channel what's your advice how would you do it would you focus on of people that are like interested in marketing like marketing students marketing professionals would you maximize your reach there or would you reach everyone I mean of course with my budget constraint but eventually I will have more money over time because I will become more famous would you reach

40:55 everyone because then eventually even people that are not interested in marketing today they might be interested in marketing tomorrow and they're going to you know follow me yeah so certainly the the the most important decision you make is not about any sort of hyper targeting you should know who your potential audiences but then you then you try to think okay but how do I re how do I reach these brains so that should just be a thing

41:22 you're thinking every single day how do I get more Rich how do I reach some new people that and you know I'll do that more I'll get put out if I can say something interesting what could I do that's interesting what could I you know what could what what's the chance that would give me some publicity because if if you like most of us we don't have Limitless we don't have large budgets even let's let's forget about we

41:46 all have limited budgets right but we we just don't let's be honest we just have a small budget we no one has the budget they want to do so time is our friend we have to recognize it's going to take time but every single day we should be thinking how do I reach some people that I didn't reach last week yeah how do I reach some new people how do I go further how do I stop talking to the

42:07 same people because that's the only way that you will build your Fame make your business valuable make it big you know it's a great point I really agree in reaching as many people as possible with with a podcast for example because then you know among all of these people it's you have more probability to find you know the people that are interest in what you do they're not like trying to just Target over time always the same

42:34 segment because they might end up not even loving you they might just hate you because they see you too much right so I you know what I mean I think you need to find that balance as well you know A good rule of A good rule of thumb is to always think probably 99% of the people who are in my market don't don't care don't don't don't know me don't think or if they do they think of me once every 3

43:00 years you know like and so just always remember that and that will keep you on track I think for marketing what's the right frequency do you have a number like what's the right frequency that people should see you I don't know how many times per week or per month in order to well you buy as much frequency as you can afford but frequency is not your friend you're every media will give you fre frequency is easy right every

43:24 you always get frequency re reach is hard so never plan for frequency you'll get it okay you'll get it will you get reach well that's the creative tricky thing that's a good point and then moving into more like the educational side cuz like my second job I'm actually your your colleague I me I try to say hi I teach a university as well I teach in Milan digital marketing yes and I've been teaching for like three four years now so pretty new but I

43:57 have since AI came I already noticed a huge you know impact and and and how it change the way people are studying learning right writing your assignments yes and the research so I had I had a few questions about this probably the first one is do you think students today need new skills than yesterday what's the difference in the skills set that students need to have today in

44:29 2024 than I don't know 10 years ago that's a good question I was going to say my my natural thing was to say nothing really I mean that's the same things as before but no I'm going to I think AI has a lot of bright students sort of by the time they were about 13 14 had sort of mastered the standard essay thing right and and they and these were the students who just distinguish themselves these are the a students from

45:00 they distinguish themselves from the others and that they could pretty much craft a a sensible essay saying well on this hand is this and this that and there's the summary that skill it's now available to sort of everyone CU AI will do that for you and I think that's that's pretty cool really because it now pushes students to actually go beyond that so in future sure I think we're going to need well students are going to need much more higher level of

45:33 sort of scientific skills of being open-minded but skeptical and being able to go that to use AI to do the sort of grun work but but to really switch their brains on yeah suddenly the a students will find they can't just s it's it's not easy to distinguish themselves from from the other students the other students have all got this leg up now they can produce an essay that looks you know quite like the a essay so the whole

45:59 whole students I think it's great at the moment right particularly cuz they they can get AI to write an assignment and soon and then what makes a great assignment so if we're talking about essay right so you're saying of course now everyone has the are the skill to be good at writing so success today is not who is best at writing but probably is about who has the best bigger picture you know idea point of view

46:27 right or being able to do through much more analytical much more you know the stuff that yeah the scientists do yes so it is going to elevate everything I think and in in marketing it means we'll be teaching much more application things where we we ask people to work something out and doing yeah far less sort of basic essay work which is that is a good thing actually it means marketers will have to teach much more factual descriptive things

46:57 about the real world that's yeah know it's it's it's a great Point I mean my actually my teaching method is very practical so what I do I I get into the class and I give my students like actually a real brief so for example I explain what media plan is right what but then I give them a a brief and then I ask them plan campaign yes plan a full funnel campaign with with you know real insights yes yeah it's very

47:27 interesting application questions that require you to have a deep knowledge but you have to defend something up that something use AI to help you a bit but no it you still need to drive there right so what I usually do for example in my media planning class I 80% of the class is about yeah this is how you media plan now show me how you how you do the media plan you know the old School way and

47:57 then the last 20% of the time then I I'm I'm like okay now you can use CH GPT use AI to help you do that and they they realize that if you already know how to do it then AI can actually improve your capabilities you have better speed you know you you you can you can be more accurate in many ways but you still need to know how to do it because if you just ask AI oh can you plan this

48:23 campaign it's not going to do it right you need to be a driver and in order to you know I always you know it's like with driving cars right you can you can go with the manual gear and the automatic but if you come with a manual and you have a little bit of knowledge how it works I think it's easier to you know to do it as well the other day I went I asked a fairly Advanced AI you

48:48 know to tell me about marketing double jity law and it and it did it did a beautiful description of the law better than most students would do but then on to say and this is what it means for marketing practice and that was awful and I thought okay don't you think the new creative thinking to to think about what what what it means for practice it could not could not do that don't you think the new skill is actually being

49:13 able to you know go through a lot of information and understand what's right what's wrong right yes because there is so much information right now you need to be able to find patterns across different information and build your own you know way so it feels like today we are like more like art directors in some ways you know we need to look at a bigger picture and understand where you want to go with all the tools you

49:43 have because it's very easy to get lost yeah like as well in some ways very it's important to know very fundamental things like I cannot have that sales growth unless I increase my penetration okay that is terribly important to know but then how I do that in there's a million different ways you can do that it depends on all sorts of circumstances so that's where sort of creativity and things comes in you I don't I don't

50:09 think AO is going to help you much there large language models aren't going to help you very much in that what about the academic research I mean AI had a huge impact I guess right so if you want to write a paper today compared to 5 years ago how faster can you be how different it is well so far it's mainly helping us do things like write code and things that's what it's pretty good at I

50:35 haven't in my Institute seen anyone really using AI to help them write Journal articles but I can certainly see a in fact I can see a day when Journal articles just disappear right why why should academics waste so much time writing journal articles instead they'll be interviewed by the AI who will say you know like so so what did you do what did you do with this experiment and how did you do it and can I see your data and it'll interrogate

50:58 you to the point where it's got a really good understanding of what you did and what you found and then it'll just build that into its AI you know and so if anyone asks about that we don't need to have a it's a pretty weird system right that if you want to know something about that you know at the moment Google Scholar or something will say well here's 67 articles you can read they're all a bit different they're

51:20 a bit hard to understand and you got to sort of figure it out I think in the future you'll be was specific you'll just ask some AI you know like in the same way that doctors would will be asking the AI to and it will have it will have all the medical it'll know about all the latest experiments that have been done it's interesting how then it's more about the evidence you have and less about the story if you want

51:49 like around the paper yes right because at the end of the day you can write it with ch GPT you can write a paper in 10 minutes if you have outline you can you can write everything right the only thing that you're missing is actually the data how did you prove this right and it's all about the experiment right so yeah so so humans thinking up interesting things to research will not go away and doing that

52:16 research well I can help them but that will still need to be done but yeah the writing up of the Articles and the reading of articles I think that can all be just done by yeah that's a good point and then usually at the end of my YouTube channel we usually go through personal growth as well and what I usually ask people is I mean you must be very busy right you have so many podcasts and so many articles you

52:46 must have your students as well how do you find your work life balance how do you balance I'm a person who needs a certain amount of exercise exercise I I have to have some exercise every day so that's quite good cuz I live about 3 kilometers away from the University and which is enough to walk so I can walk in the inan back every day so I'm guaranteed a certain amount of time Outdoors adela's a very very beautiful

53:12 city if I want to I can detour a little bit and go through the botanic garden so that that's that's a lovely thing and you know you have other interests things like a well I have I have a wine seller I live in a great wine capital of the world it's a nice to nice any advice to marketing students or like to students in general oh is a wonderful I mean marketing is a wonderful if if you well particularly if

53:40 you're interested in what makes the world tick right so so say you're thinking of being something like you know you like that sort of scientific perspective well marketing is pretty cool because it's it's a huge part of the world it's a very important part of the world it's made the world's wealthier healthier more peaceful so you know you do good but but but as a as a if you're the if you're intuitive if you're interested in the world

54:07 interested in like why do people buy that how why does that sell more it's great because you are actually in that world I sort of feel a bit sorry for people who study like I don't know astrophysics or something they just have to why their data source comes from some you know radio telescope so it's like so much fun you know whereas a marketing student can just walk into a supermarket and and there's their world cuz we are

54:35 like datadriven psychologists yeah and sociologists and and geographers and yeah but we live we are in the world that we study which that's pretty oh yeah what I really find interesting about marketing is that marketing is everywhere like when you're trying to make a new friend you know what I mean or find a new wife girlfriend or anything right it's like the way you know you need to approach someone you personalize your communication you know in order to

55:07 perceive be perceived in some ways it's it's it's crazy and yeah this is why I fell in love with this with this job and of course some some days can be more analytical some some days can be less analytical but I agree with you it always gets to the point where it's all about understanding people why they're making a decision and sometimes you know it's less complicated than we think as you as you proved right it's yeah all

55:36 sorts of things but you know remember the great the Scottish writer Lou Louis Stevenson who did Treasure Island and things you know he he has this great quote you know every everyone lives by selling some true the economy is just people people right we all do stuff for other people and they do things for us and that's wonderful it's also about you need to sell ideas cuz until you don't communicate something it doesn't exist like you can write the

56:05 best book of in the world right but then you need to actually share it with the others promote it challenge it right and it's all about putting it out there out loud and make sure people talk about it right it's all about the rich yeah and then last but not least books I think well there some of a quote you know 99% of the books that are published this year will never be reprinted they will be have one print run

56:34 ever you know it's interesting how like treasure I'm sure is still being printed no but I I I totally agree for example with academic University I think that needs more marketing I really like the you know the work you guys doing like actually promoting you know your your work talking about it because I think it's it's a great way to you know drive a discussion but also like kind of you know bring visibility because I think what I've

57:03 noticed and I live in the middle right because I I I work in in a corporate but then I also work at University and what I've noticed is that sometimes universities are not very good in marketing you know sometimes they they they they write their own work and they keep it forel you know that sometimes they're kind of jealous about it where you know I think it's all about sharing right and talking about it yeah a lot

57:28 are in a bubble I mean a lot just right to impress their friends so the researchers in the B Institute want to do things that they want to do studies that actually would be useful to people and then when they've done those of course they want lots of people to know about them that that's probably the fundamental difference and solving like like problems you know that challenges that you know companies have but then talking about it showing data I think

57:57 the the data driven approach is key because then a lot of people can talk about I believe this I think about this but then what data says at the end of the day it's all about data and I really like your approach and you're like look this is not what I think it's what data is saying right and people don't care about what I think people care about yeah science science is not about theories it's about does this does this predict the

58:26 real world does it fit with the real world and if it doesn't well I don't care how beautiful your theory is it's wrong Bon last question what's your definition of success CU for some people you know success is you know trying every wine in the world for other people is you know just becoming billionaires for other people is writing books what's your personal definition of success well as humans we we we like to have a purpose right we

58:56 like to go what's this all for why am I here and I think the answer to that I think for humans it's you look at human civilization and it's it's pretty amazing and so you know the purpose of our life is to make some contribution to that and there's seven billion of us right you don't we don't all have to win Nobel prizes or discover nuclear fusion and things you know for a lot of us our major contribution is that we

59:26 have some children and we bring them up well right so that they can contribute you you make a small contribution but you should all but but that is I think the secret of of saying you know I had a life that was useful I did some good things for I made the world a little bit of a better play and I mean as a as a professor I think you do this every day my favorite part of of of this job is

59:48 actually in a even if in a minimal part you can contribute to someone else life and you know improve it a bit I really have a lot of respect you know I usually I usually say the most important jobs at least two of the most Imports are like doctors and professors because they can save your life or they or they can ruin it right but yeah Byron thank you so much for accepting the invite that was great

60:19 that was an honor thank you for sharing this class with me thank you go and cook my dinner I