Duke of Digital

038 - How to Produce Ads with Effective Storytelling with Chase Friedman

• Brian Meert

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Speaker 1:

Big game results require big game storytelling. Raise those pinkies because in today's episode we're breaking down the storytelling that happens in the biggest day of commercials on the planet

Speaker 2:

presented by advertisement. The juke of digital will guide you through the rapidly changing landscape of digital marketing, social media, and how to grow your business online. To submit a question for the show, text(323) 821-2044 or visit Duke of digital.com if you need an expert to fix your ads, the friendly team at advertisement is ready to help visit advertisement. That's M I N t.com or call(844) 236-4686 to grow your business. Here's your host Brian[inaudible].

Speaker 1:

I am really excited because we've got chase Friedman here today. Thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Oh, it's, it's great to have you here. Now you are the CEO of vanquish media group. That's right. Uh, you guys are doing some big, big stuff. It's incredible. As I looked through your, your, um, kind of background, you've had 12 over 12 years working in the film and TV industry. Uh, you produced your first TV series at age 22. You've, uh, you've recorded or directed over a hundred different commercials or video projects that you've worked on. Um, Matt, did I miss anything?

Speaker 3:

Uh, hundreds I'd say. Yeah, I mean a lot of short form content, but, uh, those are pretty much the milestones. I've been blessed to work with a lot of great brands and influencers over the years. Uh, again, coming from a background in traditional media, film and TV and seeing the migration into digital and, and it is just everyday constantly changing.

Speaker 1:

Oh, for sure. For sharing. Now I heard that, um, you are a diehard Miami heat fan. Is that true? You're born and raised from Miami,

Speaker 3:

born and raised in Miami. Mr three. Oh five, mr three or five, more like a nine, five, four for those who know. Um, but uh, yeah, it's something I don't get to talk about out here cause it's Laker nation. So, yeah, you gotta I gotta wear the colors proud. But uh, yeah, for better or worse, I'll all Miami fan, but, uh, dolphins and other folks aren't doing[inaudible].

Speaker 1:

I love it. I love it. And that, that brings us to what we'll be talking about later today, which is some Superbowl ads. Um, but also I, I heard a rumor that you have a new daughter or

Speaker 3:

I do new ish. I mean, I guess my contacts. Yeah, 20 months. Um, it's been wild. Uh, it's, it's the biggest challenge of my life. But greatest accomplishments so far. I mean, it's like my greatest creation. Yeah. You have one. I have one daughter. Okay. Um, you know, my wife would like to multiply that as soon as possible, but, uh, it's interesting. I was delivering one of the biggest PR project campaigns we've ever delivered. The day my daughter was born. Uh, it was just kind of this massive delivery for a big Acer project we can talk about later. Um, and I like to think that I

Speaker 1:

delivered two babies on that, on that same day. I used to love it. Now we, I just had my, uh, my first daughter, uh, she's, I think five weeks old. So you knew, knew yet. What are you doing out of the house, man? That's, you know, it's uh, it's like the sleep is, is rough. Uh, you're in survival mode right now. It really is. Like, I was like, man, so many of my friends are like, babies are wonderful and I'm like, man, you lied to me. Like people will be like, it's rough, but they don't tell you it's rough. Like it's tough to not, I just, you know, I'm so used to getting to sleep and to have it be interrupted multiple times when you're like, Oh man. All right. That's it. It's the most precious commodity. I mean, talk to me in another few months when you're out of the kind of the dark space. Cause it's, it's all, if I tried to reflect back on the first say six months, it's a little bit just hazy. Like, yeah, I know we got through it. I'm not sure how it's weird because everyone, you know, people do it everywhere on planet earth. They're able to make it through, but there are moments where I feel like I'm decently civilized and can problem solve things and man, you just put a crying baby that won't stop and within five minutes I'm just breaking down and be like, Oh, what am I doing? You know what the thing that you draw back to is, is people have been doing it since the Dawn of the Dawn of mankind and with far less resources than we have. So I feel like we overcomplicate things sometimes with a lot of the stuff. Oh yeah. But, uh, I just like to think back, all right, people probably slightly less competent than when I'm working with. It's so true. It's crazy. The one thing that really surprised me was the baby shusher. It's like a little, like a little thing and you just turn it on and goes to sh, but you don't have to say it. And I was like, that seems like such a waste until you've done it for like 20 minutes and you're like, ah, that's my favorite. Do you have it? I do. Yeah, we got it. It creeped my daughter out. So we ended up returning it. But I thought again, I was like, wait, I'm not going to meet him machine to shush. For me it was like, what kind of age are we living? Totally. It works for a lot of people. I thought the exact same thing and then sure enough I was like, Oh man, it works. And anything that works I'm happy with, so I'll come back to baby top digital. Exactly. Exactly. Well man, I, I'm excited cause I wanted to have you on the show. Yesterday was a big day in Miami. Uh, it was a Superbowl, which is always a fantastic day. And so, you know, you come from a background of storytelling, right. Um, and what I wanted you to be able to do was to maybe dive in a little bit to kind of your background and your thoughts into the art of storytelling. You know, especially in terms of advertising, um, or creating videos that tend to need, that need to be short, uh, due to time constraints. And then I love and kind of the after that to run through the top five, uh, Superbowl commercials and we can do some critiques on them. Does that sound good? Let's do it. Alright. So give us a little bit for the listeners out there, some of the background

Speaker 3:

that, how did you get into video? Um, how'd you get into storytelling? Um, you'll fill us in on that. Uh, so pretty much, you know, right after college I moved out to LA, you know, chasing that proverbial entertainment dream. Um, I had interned, uh, over college, et cetera, through a variety of different production companies out here. Growing up in Miami, there wasn't a lot of access to film and filmmaking. I mean, there is much more now, um, but hadn't stepped foot on a set before. So, uh, I was kind of going down this road whether, um, and I don't, I didn't go to film school either. I went to university of Florida go Gators, big Gator fan as well, um, where it was, you know, you go to film school and you go into some sort of, you know, debt, you don't pay you for that or kind of a little more that bootstrap approach. Um, and I took the ladder and so I was fortunate enough to uh, hook up and work for a, uh, a pretty prolific director, writer, producer, Dean Devlin, who, who produced and wrote Stargate independence day, Patriot Godzilla, uh, a variety of other, you know, big, big blockbusters. And that was kind of my de facto film school. Um, bootstrap working from the bottom up, starting as kind of a PA, an executive assistant. The beauty of that was really championing more of an independent mentality towards the studio system. He had come from the studio and had built his own kind of micro studio that was self devastating, uh, a variety of different series that I had the pleasure of working on leverage librarians of variety of others. Um, and so it was a really great touch point to be able to see everything that's required to make great content from, uh, from development, from a blank page, you know, being a fly on the wall in the writer's room, to, uh, to prep, to being on set, directing second unit, directing, uh, working with the crew, and then every phase of post. So the edit, the color, the mix, the, the, the, the final, the everything. It was a really good comprehensive boot camp, if you will. Um, so that was my defacto film school, worked my way up through there, did a variety of work on a variety of different features and TV projects. Uh, and then it was time to kind of go and cut my teeth as a director and producer myself. And I went ahead and worked on a variety of commercials, music videos, short form long form. Um, and I loved it. Uh, but at that time, seeing the industry really take a major shift. And this was kind of the early iteration of democratization of filmmaking that we know today, the, you know, proliferation of YouTube, et cetera. Um, and it did a few different interesting things to, to the medium, one of which was, it's great to be able to give people the access to create content, but with that, you know, with great power comes great responsibility and, and seeing in a lot of cases, quite frankly, the, the bar being lowered in terms of production value and, um, approaching it from a kind of a purist storytelling standpoint. Um, so for me it was a, a kind of ward as a badge of honor to take everything I had learned and nurtured in a traditional medium film and TV into the digital, you know, just because we're producing fast with no budget and at scale, uh, I still believe you can provide a lot of great value, a lot of great storytelling. And, you know, what I learned over time, obviously was, is that a lot of the same rules apply. I mean, it's just flexing the same sort of muscles, uh, whether it's telling stories of characters and worlds and, uh, or, or products. Right. That sounds sexy.

Speaker 1:

What would you say is generally kind of some of those rules that apply to storytelling? Like some of the guidelines that you are trying to stick with? You know, as you're working on a variety of different projects,

Speaker 3:

I mean if you have to distill it down, you know, a lot of it comes down to, you know, uh, that friction that's, that's the core of any sort of narrative storytelling, right? Is, uh, is drama and conflict. Or in the case of, you know, more commercial advertising is problem solution, you know, speaking to problems, concerns, issues, needs, wants, desires that are out there in the audience. And how does this particular product and or service sort of deliver joy, deliver a valuable solution? Um, you know, what you see in a lot of the big commercials, especially during the super bowl, a lot of them are more about building brand equity, right? Sometimes you're looking at, you're watching a commercial, you're like, okay, I barely even noticed a product in there. And that's part of branded content and today is, is providing a little bit more of an experience for the, for the audience. Um, telling a narrative that represents the vibe, the essence, the ethos, the culture of the brand. Um, not a hard sell, right? It's an experience with light touch, branding. Just because audiences are so more, so much more savvy than they ever were before. It's, they can see right through the BS, you know, it's give me something that I can attach and relate to. Uh, and I can be, you know, a consumer for life. Yeah. Yeah. At least what the brands are up.

Speaker 1:

Um, and, and this is what's incredible is because, you know, as we were looking through, uh, the Superbowl ads, uh, before we started this show, I mean, there's such a wide range of, you know, videos that are emotional and videos that are, they go after humor and videos that are, you know, try to touch on a social topic and say, Hey, we're aligned with this. Um, and it's just fascinating to see the different elements that go into the process of storytelling and what the brands are looking to achieve and get out of it. So, um, with that, you know, we wanted to run through a list. Uh, we picked the top five, uh, that ad week, uh, posted and we'll kind of run through and go from there. So the first one was, uh, the Snickers, uh, fix the world ad. And in this ad it's where, uh, you know, people are kind of seeing together kind of a, what would you say it was a mock of,

Speaker 3:

kind of a little bit of a lift from, you know, a have a Coke and smile campaign. Yep. Right. You know, togetherness and we're all kind of joining in unity and hands and feel good. I mean, that was the interesting thing running through not only these, but some of the other commercials. There was this overall sort of theme and trend of nostalgia. Right. And this is[inaudible] towards the, towards going to bringing that back. I mean, I think that's what's, what's great about 80 commercial is whether it's a new brand or an existing brand is, um, reflecting back on, on moments that, that, you know, uh, are a part of, you know, nostalgia, whether it's your family or commercials you used to see on TV and there's a certain sort of, kind of comfort and affinity there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Yeah. And what I love too is, you know, it's a song, kind of like a song that everyone's sing along with and they address some of what would be, you know, things that are different in the world today, which would be like, they're like grown men riding on scooters. Um, what else do they have in there? I'm trying think. What was the other one? Oh, that was really funny. Ah, man, it's, you drive me nuts. Um,

Speaker 3:

Oh, there was one more, hold on. There was, yeah, there was the, uh, the whole, kind of a ubiquitous ever listening, like AI echo and the Roomba and all that.

Speaker 1:

That's what it was. Yep. And they're like babies named after fruit or vegetables. So, you know, there's a lot of things that they're changing, you know, in the world, you know, politicians, uh, and at the end of it, you know, they walk to and they're like, we dug a big hole, we're going to throw a sneakers in. And I actually like how they poke fun and they're like, will it work? And they're like, we don't know, but the world changing and we think that, you know, giving it a Snickers would make it a better place. And what I loved about this one was the product is actually, you know, a massive, a solution at the end and it's like an overexaggeration, like we're going to create a giant Snickers bar and feed it to planet earth. Uh, which I just, I, it made me smile and I was like, Oh, this is good. This is, uh, it really seemed like a good one. They drop it into the helicopter.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. It's a great setup to like, this has been a campaign for them for quite some time. I mean, have her Snickers doesn't smile. They've done it a lot with really well executed, you know, they've done, you know, Danny DeVito and, and uh, uh, what I said, Betty White, I think his in one. Um, and so those are obviously more character based problem solution. I'm cranky. I'm, I'm fussy, I'm irritable, have a snicker sort of thing. This is more global in nature, which I think was a really good step up for them, especially if it's your role. And um, and yeah, once again, problem solution world is in a pretty ugly, complicated, weird, funky place. Let's solve it with a sneaker.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I, I really liked that one. It made me smile. Um, all right, next up. Hondai Sonata. This is the smart POC, uh, one where you've got, uh, several different actors. You've got a Chris Evans, uh, you've got man, I don't know her name, but the lady from Saturday night live.

Speaker 3:

Oh, right. Um,

Speaker 1:

I forget her name. Um, but you would know her if you saw her. Um, and then John, what's his last name?[inaudible]. Um, so yeah, you've got three of them talking about, uh, the, the smart park car, which is a Honda is feature where you push it and it can park itself. Uh, but they do it with the Jersey accent. Um, Austin or Boston. Um, and what I loved was, that's right. Boston. Um, what I loved was how much went back to the feature, like in creative ways. They kept driving in you can you, can you park it here, can you park it there? And they're like, yes, yes, yes. And they go through all of these segments, um, all focused around one core feature in a fun and creative.

Speaker 3:

And that's like, that was the brilliance. Cause I had just seen, you just showed it to me this morning. There was a few that I missed last night, uh, in between grabbing wings and ribs and all that. Um, this is a brilliant use of, they are heavily leading on a feature of the product. Right. Um, and that could easily go awry when you're just hitting people over the head, over and over with the messaging of the product. But the brilliance is just kind of, once again, the, the kind of quaint end up to, you know, a hard kind of Southeast sort of Boston accent, you know, pock Hafod Yad, um, was, was great and it kind of creates this thing where not being from Boston, right. But it's such an iconic accent and characters I can hear, I can see and imagine people repeating this all the time. I mean, that is a memorable phrase. Oh, Coppock you can do Coppock that's a, that's a thing. Um, and so it was a brilliant mix of, yeah, we're hitting a highlight feature of the product, but we're doing it in a way that's fun and catchy and, you know, it's not salesy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, uh, not salesy at all. And for a car ad, it's something that is, is definitely like, as you mentioned, memorable. Like you could repeat this multiple times and it just, it was a fun, lighthearted, um, ad, but it just, it reinforced the feature again and again and again.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. When you can kind of poke fun at yourself a little bit or have a little bit of levity to it. Um, especially again, like if you're in Boston, I would imagine, hopefully, you know, you're loving that ad and you've got a big poppy in there. You've got like all the Boston icons mixed together. Um, and the going back and forth, ripping on the different, you park it here, you park it there at your bucket here. Uh, most of some of them I knew, some of them I'm assuming are just kind of niche, you know, references to different places in Boston. Yep.

Speaker 1:

Yup. Rachel drafts, that was her name. I forgot about that. Okay. There we go. All right. Number three, uh, Amazon before Alexa. So this was the commercial, uh, that had Ellen, um, in it where, uh, she's talking with Porsche a Porsche and they're, uh, they're talking about what did people do before Alexa where it then runs through a bunch of, uh, you know, humorous scenarios, uh, where people are asking someone named Alex or Alexandra, you know, to do a task that we take for granted every day. Sure. What did you think on this one?

Speaker 3:

Um, again, it's great. I mean the fact that they're kind of spanning in a time and place and people and culture, again, that this is extreme nostalgia, right? We didn't live in most of these times, but getting to see a little snippet, a little glimpse of these different periods throughout history when, um, hypothetically people would be axing asking their version of local Alex, Alexa, Alexi, whatever it may be. It was cute. It was fun. Um, voice assist and AI, as you'll see it was kind of one of the Google ones we'll talk about is just, it's just huge. It's, it's booming. I mean, it's something that not only just for B to C for consumer use, but brands are heavily investing in as well. Um, what can they do to be, again, part of the more interpersonal lives of their, of their customers, right when they're at home, when they're in the car. Um, and it was kind of a little bit of a light touch, not to the new, uh, uh, Alexa car play feature, whatever it is with a tape deck at the end of the thing when she's asking you to play her favorite song. Um, so it was fun. Um, you got a little kind of game of Thrones dragon.

Speaker 1:

Yep. Yeah. They had a lot of, um, he was a lot of different, I think what was interesting is that, you know, all these problems have always existed, right? And so they're going back and be able to show fun scenarios of people needed help, um, with whatever they were like, I think the first one is she's like, turn the temperature down two degrees and the girl, uh, the, you know, assistant grabs the log and throws it out the window. Right. There we go. Um, like I love that it was able to help reference that people have always struggled with problems or needed help and this now Alexa is able to help do all of those today in today's age in a, in a fun sort of way.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I mean, again, that problem, solution orientation, but it's like a first world sort of what we think a lot of times is first world problems or at least first-world contextualized, turn the temperature down two degrees, right? Versus, Oh, it's a bit stuffy in here. And seeing old world solutions to it, um, is, you know, it was really, it was really brilliant.

Speaker 1:

What I love is when commercials can bring it back around. Like in the, in the commercial there's a part where they're on the, what do you call it, a covered wagon and he's like, play a play a song. And he's in the bottle being like, yeah, the jug. Um, and at the very end, um, Ellen is like, Hey Alexa, play my favorite song. And the jug song plays exactly ties back in, in that fun sort of, you know, wrapping it all together. Um, I always like it when, when storytelling can do that, you know, I think when people see that they're like, ah, that was a nice little touch. Like you wrapped it up and put a bow on top. It was a nice little

Speaker 3:

not, and I think once again, I think knowing that this is hitting millions upon millions of people, right? Um, you know, Amazon is trying to figure out a way, you know, market penetration for a lot of people. This is still new technology and it's not in the home yet. And it's not embraced. And how do you demystify it a little bit, right? How do you make it a little more approachable? Uh, and funny is by kind of laughing about it and seeing scenes from, you know, from history that, you know, uh, all of us have asked and dealt with and have requests for and had problems with and Hey look, you know, it makes life a little easier and you can laugh along the way. Right. So I think taking away the, the, uh, the stigma of what we saw, uh, in the other ad where it was like the room button, the Alexa listening in, right. The negative stigma around everything's listening and surveillance culture. It's, no, no, no, no. Just have fun. Sit back, ask him to tell you a joke. Your favorite song.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Yeah. This is interesting because this kind of brings us in to the next one in my question here would be, does a Superbowl ad need to have celebrity star power to be able to get the type of notoriety that it needs?

Speaker 3:

No. I mean, as evidenced by this next commercial. It's a great question. I don't think so. I think obviously when you're going right for the juggler and you can get, you know, an Ellen or a bill Murray like for the, uh, the Jeep commercial, it's great, you know, brand resonance. Hey look, uh, we got sorta thing instantly recognizable, but I think what's a little bit more of a challenge and more worthwhile in the end if it works as evidenced by this next Google commercial is when you can build a relatable and compelling and emotional story with someone you've never met or heard from before. That's, that's really something that is, we're not just paying a few million dollars to get a celebrity to do a voice or do an appearance, but we're showing you a real person as authentically, ideally as can be. Um, and by the end of it, you feel like that was someone, you know, someone you've met. Uh, that to me is potent. That's real good. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I always find that I like the ones where I don't know anyone because it feels like opening a Christmas present. Like I'm like, what's going to be at the end? The upside of using, I think celebrities is you're able to in a short period of time, align with the type of person and their brand with yours. It's a quick way to be able to make that connection of here's who we are and we're very similar to these, or we want these type of people to be in our ads, whether it's popular or beauty or you know, famous musicians or celebrities. Like you can make that connection very quickly.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's, you're exactly, there's, they're already kind of in the known kind of culture and Zeit guys. So, you know, they're sort of persona. It's definitely more aspirational in nature of an approach. So if I'm watching Ellen, it's like, Oh man, I love Allen, she's great. You know, I want to do, I want to kind of have the same, you know, feeling as here when I popped into the car and ask her to play my song or whatever it may be. So it's kind of a quick, almost a growth hack, if you will. And it's the commercial, like you immediately recognize the person and the persona, you know, kind of what they're all about. And now it's about just kind of delighting in them being them, right versus the other side of things. Um, is a little bit more of kind of this authentic journey in building that relationship with the unknown. Um, so yeah, I think Google did a really nice job, but this Loretta commercial. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Um,

Speaker 1:

all right. So then the next one is the Loretta one. Just as you mentioned now this is where, you know, it goes through in Google. This is not, there's um, celebrities in this one. Um, this is a straight commercial, uh, through it. You know, they said it was the biggest tear jerker the night, which basically walks through a story of uh, an elderly man talking to Google, being like, remind me about this and these moments and show me a photo. Um, and, and this one was, was very powerful cause it's very, not a lot of visuals. Um, very clean, very simple. Uh, maybe a little bit slower than most Superbowl commercials generally are, which is how do we pack all the biggest things into 30 seconds. Um, this one was, you know, again, kind of counterculture to that, uh, much slower, very clear in terms of what they're trying to do or the story that they're trying to tell, which is of this man who's trying to remember, um, the love of his life.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. It's really interesting. I think they did a really brilliant approach there. There's just such a huge market opening up for kind of, uh, you know, voice, uh, in AI automation, especially in kind of the elderly care space. Um, so that's kind of a big demo that, you know, I think any of these brands, Alexa, Google, are, are starting to nod and tip their hat to about not just early adopters and millennials. Right. But how can we kind of think about a little bit deeper market penetration, you know, people that we would last think of adopting a technology like this and the elderly, right? Yeah. To not only for remembering things, but for assisting in daily tasks. Um, and I think that's something that you're going to see more of over time with this becoming a little bit more commonplace in the home, not just for families and younger generations, but the elderly in terms of assistance and voice assistance. And so this was a beautiful way and eloquent way of presenting that while still pulling on the heartstrings of anybody and everyone. Right? Imagine, Hey, I want to get this from my grandpa, you know, so he doesn't forget grandma, something like that.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I love the fact that it used, you know, someone that is just a story of, of a man. So it could be anyone. It isn't, you know, a, you know, celebrities. And I think that, so it's, it's very, um, simple in that way. I, number two, man, it goes after you know, someone that's probably, and you can assume is it further along in their life. Um, and they're wanting to remember back of the moments of love, their favorite movies together, their travels together, all those memories, which are, I would imagine at the end of someone's life, they're, their riches. Like that is their wealth is the memories that they've shared. And so Google just did such a good job of going into that point and being like, what's really important to you in life? We help you be able to remember that. Um, and we help you to, to store what is important. Um,

Speaker 3:

it was really, yeah, it was really poignant. That's a great point you bring up because it's, it's easy and a lot of brands as you see, go for the humor[inaudible] right? They go for the laugh. They go for the levity. I mean we're watching, we're in the midst of watching football, right? So how can we break up that, that intensity? Um, it's a lot riskier and harder to execute it properly on the emotional side and pull heartstrings. Especially when there's a million things going on. You're getting food, you're a hundred percent taking breaks. And I know when I was sitting watching it with, with family, it's one of those commercials you have to sit and listen and watch end to end. And just watching it again with you before the show gave me a whole different context because you come in midway and you're like, what is the text on screen? Is it a text thread? Is it a Google? You know, um, this requires you to lean in. But I think trusting the process and trusting the fact that they were trying to do something a little bit disruptive, a little bit more serious, um, hopefully pays off because I think this is something that can be, you know, viral and shareable and conjure feelings of family, wanting to think back of whether it's your life or grandma or uncle or whoever it may be.

Speaker 1:

Because, you know, in the process, I've attended many Superbowl parties and there's some that, you know, last night I was with the baby and so it was quiet and I was able to watch and that's where I, yeah, that moment it was exactly. Um, and so I was able to catch this one and I was like, Aw, man. Like, you know, I can feel myself like starting to tear up and like, Oh, it's a beautiful commercial. And so for one, you're able to get that emotional element out of it within a couple, you know, 30 seconds. On the flip side, I've been to Superbowl parties where there's people everywhere and you know, you can barely pay attention as people are talking and the minute the game's done, everyone's up and moving around and there's that, that low hum. So you know, knowing kind of what that audience is, it's a risk to be able to go the slow emotional route because there is generally noise with most people in the rooms while they're watching the Superbowl. There's a lot of things going on.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, again, trust in that process of a lot of, lot of these brands are going right for the J, you know, like I said, just for the[inaudible] when I see, you know, Ellen or bill Murray or John Krasinski or whoever may be right in front of screen, I'm looking, I'm tuning in, I'm engaged, I know who they are, there's recommendation there versus I'm seeing otherwise pretty kind of niche, esoteric photos of a couple that I've never seen before. And a couple of different text threads, um, that's expensive real estate to buy on TV and people are missing it. But I think Google enrolling this type of campaign out, no one gets gonna have less or hoping it's going to have legs. Um, I think was, was really special.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating because, you know, on the Facebook ad side, which is what we work a lot with, um, a lot of times you can have incredible videos and you only have one to two seconds before someone scrolls by it. So if it isn't, if there isn't an element, they can capture their attention right off the bat. Amazing videos can get passed over. Um, and people are just like, Oh, that's it. And they're gone. So it's, it's a tough challenge to be. How do you do, you know, very artistic storytelling while also catering to a generation of, you know, I'm going through, I'm going through the content is like, cause think about it, you're, you know, game's paused and, or you know, it's, it's, it's during a commercial break and you know, there's a good chance maybe you're watching the commercials on TV cause you know, Oh, it's super blog about a watch and a lot of folks are just right back off, down on their phones, scrolling updates and tweets and all this kind of stuff. So again, super bowl, so much about brand resonance and equity getting in people's minds and hearts and all that. Um, because it's the super bowl and people are watching and just being, having a spot. There is such a feather in your cap. But in terms of engagement, you know, I'm sure it can go, uh, every which way. Whereas like to your point, we run a lot of Facebook ads as well. And when you see that drop off after the first few seconds, it's like miss them. Yeah, for sure. You know, I saw a guy one time give her a presentation. Um, and he did a lot of YouTube videos on these kinds of social issues or social experiments where he would do. Um, and what he would show is he was running through some of the data was the amount of people that would come back and be like, this story resonated with me. And so what he said was the comments that he would get were incredible. Meaning it wasn't just like, wow, what a good video. Someone would write like three paragraphs of like, man, this reminded me of my father and you know, and they would go into this story and then other people would be like, Oh, here's my story too. So it touched a deeper nerve, um, or resonated with people at a, at a more, a deeper level. I mean, he was like, this is incredible. He didn't expect that cause he was like, we were just trying to do a social experiment to see what would happen. Um, and I always found that fascinating that, you know, I think sometimes when you go deep, you have the ability to resonate with people or to, yeah, it's, it's, it's a really effective drug if you can, if you can tap on the right way. I mean, look, buying and buying and anything as an emotional experience, right? It's an emotional decision I feel. I believe it's harder to do, but I believe if you can kind of sink in and pull a heart strings and have an emotional residence, uh, it's going to be longer lasting and more, uh, more akin towards converting towards, I'm going to buy or, or, or use or try a product from this brand with, now that I have an emotional connection to it versus kind of a laugh, right. Or a joke. Um, although that Compaq is pretty, pretty wicked nice. All right, so we're back to the final one now. Uh, this is what ad we, Greg does a number one ad, uh, which is the Jeep, the Groundhog day, uh, where, uh, it is a commercial of bill Murray, uh, reliving, uh, what looks like scenes from the movie Groundhog day. But this time, uh, with the Jeep, you know, what were your thoughts on this one? I mean, to me, I love bill Murray love Groundhog day. Great. Bravo.

Speaker 3:

But I don't know if this is number one. I mean, this is, it's not terribly original, right? It's like Jeep. And I think there, I think he was driving a Jeep or she or the love interest of driving a Jeep and the original, something like that. That was a tie. I forget. But again, bill Murray being bill Murray repeating all the same steps in cadence with, you know, the Groundhog, uh, Patucket Phil, uh, of Groundhog day. It's fun. It's levity. It doesn't clearly doesn't touch too much on the product features of the car itself, right? Other than it's flashing an orange, he's doing donuts in the snow. To me, I like a little bit more of we're going to do something truly and holistically original. You know, Google's approach was really great. Um, you know, some of the others that are bringing in new characters and new stories and new elements, I don't know, I just give them a little, a little extra kudos as a luxury brownie. Right.

Speaker 1:

I agree 100% and I think it was last year is last year, the year before, but Jeep did a one with um, drastic park where the dinosaur which hit and so, you know, seeing this one now I'm like, do they just, is their approach just go to a popular movie and find a way to put our Jeeps in it?

Speaker 3:

It's E I mean look, it's a pretty easy approach, right? Yeah. Cause I'm, I'm sure the agency loves it because they get to pitch something that's, you know, think of a cool idea. Oh, wouldn't it be great if we got bill Murray and did a Groundhog day setup? Sure. Okay, well let's just, how do we work that? Let's just repeat the scenes over and over and over and have them do crazy stuff in a Jeep. Um, super expensive, right. Uh, to recreate and get all those original actors back and, and, and bill, um, and different scenes. Whereas imagine what the cost of, of that Google ad was. I mean, you're just talking to digital assets. There's no actors. There's no, there's no actual production. Um, you're just pulling in archival photos and some texts on screen. Um, and yet to me, I'm going to remember that one far more. The other thing, I don't see that any of them on here. There was a lot of kind of giveback themes going on and brand commercials last night. Um, and that was really cool. One I remember was I, I believe I don't if it was Michelob or something, it was you buy a six pack and they will grant 6 cents for six acres or something like our store, our feet for organic farming. Right? Like those are cool. And again, knowing the type of agent we're going up in and just what does the brand stand for and represent and what are they doing for the overall kind of experience in consciousness that's something a little bit fresh and unique as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. There was another one by Microsoft that had, um, Katie Sowers, which was, um, she's an assistant coach, I think on one of the teams. That was awesome. And it was that she was like, I love football growing up. And it was kind of her story of, um, here's, you know, I loved it, but I wanted, I eventually got to where I could work and football and this is incredible. And I, and I'm just for the Niners who were playing. So it was a great tie in there. Yeah, for sure. Um, so I mean, it was fantastic. Um, you know, commercial in terms of, you know, believing in your dreams, going after what you're doing. And I think people can resonate. I think it just resonates. Like anytime, I think anytime people hear a story, they look to how they could relate with that story. Would you think that's,

Speaker 3:

that's true. Absolutely. People want to see a part of themselves in whether it is a celebrity and it's a little bit more of that aspirational kind of reach. Like I love what they represent versus someone who's, you know, an every and every person. Right. It's someone that, um, you know, I feel like there's a little glimpse of me in there and I've got a dream that I'm fighting for. Um, that's a little bit more in close proximity. Um, and I, to me, I love stories like that where it's ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Were there any ads that you didn't like or that you saw that were like, Aw man, that one wasn't a, wasn't a good fit?

Speaker 3:

Um, I was kind of right off the bat. Good question. What would it, uh, I don't want to call anybody out. I mean, I'm trying to think. The Olay commercial, there was the Cheetos commercial. I know the F nine commercial for fascinating. It seems like it's like a weird

Speaker 1:

song to it. Like it didn't seem like the song matched up with any of the clips. I was just, as I was watching, I was like, it did something[inaudible]

Speaker 3:

put the wrong song right over the top of it. The post Malone fun was fun. I thought that was kind of fun. Just a brain where he's saying which one to go in. Yeah. It was kind of a little bit of a, what's the Pixar film, uh, in uh, inside out, inside out, right. Yeah. Hello. With that vibe to it. Um, yeah. I mean there's, there was certain brands there that I think, you know, it's, it's kind of, we're putting an ad out there just to kind of get back and say, Oh, P and G, that was interesting. I don't know if you know that the P and G one, they did a mashup of all their different brands, all their brands together. Yes. Um, I mean they just dove right in and it's like overt product placement and appearance. Any way they can get it with all their different kinds of characters that represent the different brands. Um, okay. It's an efficient way to get all your brands in the mix and give them some love for Superbowl. There wasn't really anything unique storytelling about that. I think it was like a friend was bringing over a pot of chili and it goes up in the air and the fan hits it and sprays everywhere and Oh, you've got mr clean and you've got, you know, the bounty guy. And it's kind of like, where's the story there? Where's the character? What's, you know, I'm not, for me it wasn't as relatable. It was just more a, a just a gratuitous appearance from multi-strain stuck into a commercial. You got 20 brands into a commercial. This is great. Sophia Veraga look at her, you know, there's definitely a financial guy behind that one and be like, this is a great option. This is a great ROI on this one. But you know, we're going to tap multiple brands and at least one of them will win off the weekend.

Speaker 1:

I love it. I love it. Um, all right, well as we, as we get close to kind of wrapping up, would you have any advice for other, um, people that are out there that maybe don't have that super bowl budget but want to create ads that have a powerful story or that could resonate with, with their consumers?

Speaker 3:

Kelly? Yeah, I think, um, to me less is more and we try and embrace that what we do at vanquish. It's coming from an independent, uh, film and production background. There's never enough time, never enough budget and you really got to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. So thinking critically about how do you tell the best story, whether it's in the shortest amount of time with the fewest amount of resources. Um, and I think that really spurs the best creativity sometimes when there's really tough constraints around something. Um, I remember I did a film festival competition a while back that was like a 24 hour film Fest to develop, write, shoot, edit, et cetera. And that was, those are such liberating experiences. When you put real constraints around something, um, it forces you to be not only uh, creative and nimble and agile with an idea, but resourceful. Um, and sometimes a lot of these, when you can throw millions upon millions of dollars at something, it's easy, but it's not really forcing you to come up with the best, most compelling, edgy, never thought of it before idea. So, um, you know, we, we work a lot right now with a lot of, uh, independent filmmakers and storytellers and content creators trying to help them cut through this white noise of content, whether it's big budget stuff or, or just content in general, living in an age where it's just a white noise. Um, how do you kind of find and discover and engage and activate your audience? Um, because there, there's communities and groups that are going to tune into a variety of different things you have to say. So know who your audience is, know who you're speaking to, know what your message is, the kind of solution or the story you're trying to convey. Um, it doesn't have to look, it doesn't have to be produced on a big budget or a big camera. If it's real, if it's authentic, draw a little bit self-deprecating, maybe it's going to stick.

Speaker 1:

I love the fact that you said, you know, your audience. And then too, you know, I think most people would look at maybe their restraints as, you know, a negative or a limiting factor, but 100%, you know, the number of times I've seen a well expensive produced video outperformed by a video that someone shot with a cell phone that was, they were just trying to be funny. That doesn't look or feel like an ad. And I look at the numbers on the back end. I'm like, this is incredible. Um, where it can flip, uh, and be able to, the other one does much better, uh, is incredible to be able to see that. So I think a lot of times knowing that those restraints can be, uh, a fantastic asset in terms of time and money. Um, and the Google was, Apple's a great example. I would imagine if you could look at the budgets behind each one of these, I would imagine that one is probably one 50th of what

Speaker 3:

I mean, it's a fraction. I mean, knowing that it's Google and there's an agency behind it, I'm sure they found ways to get it in house is that they really, they've got an in house agency, which is, which is great. I mean look good for them then. Yeah, that's brilliant. And that's just goes to show Google, one of the wealthiest companies in the world doesn't have to break the bank to do it. You can do that at home. Um, and so imagine the possibilities of don't look at what else is out there as, as, as a competition. Look at what you can do to disrupt that. Right. Look what you know. I mean, it's always, you know, write what you know, tell the stories, you know, um, what resonates with you audience, test it with your family, with friends, but people you don't know if people on the street. Um, and again, back to knowing your audience, you know, what is the tone? What kind of chords, emotional or comedic you're trying to strike. Um, yeah, I don't think budget should, you know, it's certainly a factor, but it's something that I believe the less you have, sometimes you just have to squeeze every last drop out of that to get some, some goals. Oh, I love it. Well, thank you so much chaise for being here today on the show. Um, and guys, we will catch you on the next episode.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for listening to the Duke of digital podcast with Brian Mitt. Want to network with other business owners? Join our exclusive group at facebook.com/groups/do you have digital fancy the Duke. Leave a five star review on your favorite podcast app. And you could be mentioned on the show. The Duke of digital was produced by advertisement and recorded in Hollywood, California.