November 10, 2022 • 38 mins
Although Byron Sharp grew up on a sheep farm, he’s spent his career defying herd mentality. As Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, Byron has debunked marketing conventions and helped brands stick to what works. Along the way, he wrote the seminal book “How Brands Grow,” which you can find on any CMO’s desk who is worth their salt. In today’s special episode of Math & Magic, Bob shares the mic with iHeart’s CMO Gayle Troberman for a conversation with Byron on the marketing strategies backed by science.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Math and Magic production of I Heart Radio.
The scientific laws which are they're not laws like boushaltons,
the laws that this is the way the world behaves,
so you can make predictions. I think they get wonderful guidance. Hi,
I'm Bob Pittman. Welcome to this special episode of Math
(00:22):
and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing. In this episode,
my teammate at I Heeart Media are rather Spectacular CMO
and former Gasto Math and Magic Yale Trouberman is going
to do a special marketers focused interview with one of
the world's great marketing thinkers and researchers, Byron Sharp. He's
a genuine marketing guru and he is the director of
(00:44):
the Ahremberg Bass Institute and a Professor of Marketing Science
at the University of South Australia. His approach is best
captured by the view that to break through to the
frontier of any field, first you have to navigate the
fog of conventional wisdom, the established group think that says
these are the rules because this is the way it's
always been done. Byron had the intuition to question accepted
(01:07):
marketing wisdoms and chart a new path. Born and raised
on a sheep farm outside of Auckland, New Zealand, Sharp
partners the magic of serendipity. Early in his career. He
was a marketing manager who, despite an early aversion to academia,
ended up working for an academic institution, the University of
Southern Australia. After determining that the business school there was
(01:28):
underperforming due to a strategy error, Sharp trusted his gut,
took a left turn, and here's where the math comes in.
He decided to apply rigorous testing methods to study buyer
behavior in a field he would help develop the science
of marketing. His discoveries led him to author a surprise bestseller,
widely considered one of the most influential marketing books of
(01:51):
the last fifty years, How Brands Grow and It's built
on his learnings. As the head of the Ahrenberg Bass Institute,
the world's largest center for research in the mark marketing
at the same University of Southern Australia where he started
as a marketing manager, Byron's research provides a wealth of
insight on the range of industry topics, including one near
and dear to me. Best Practices for CEOs around finding
(02:14):
the right CMO. Byron says, the best cmos of the
folks who are laser focused on the business needs and
the big goals. And in my experience this advice is
spot on. In fact, Gail has excelled in her role
at I Heart because of her laser focused, goal oriented approach.
So time for me to pass the mic over to
(02:34):
Gail to lead this conversation with Byron on this evidence
based expertise on how brand growth actually works. Marketer to
marketing guru. Here's Gale and Byron. Thank you, Bob, Byron,
I'm excited to be here with you. Before we get
into marketing science and growth, Bob always starts as interviews
(02:54):
by giving listeners a picture of you in sixty seconds.
Are you ready? I'm ready early riser or night out?
Have a later offer my Chisenhun Coker PEPSI I live
in a current country. Where's that? You know? The stats?
Mac PC, Matt Twitter or Instagram, Twitter, CEO or c MO.
(03:20):
Well that's an interesting Christian. I'm not gonna be pissing,
but I guess well near in invests. You know, I'm CEO,
not see bring your fault springing Becausan is coming call
or text taste. It's gonna get a little bit harder.
So the smartest person, you know, it's not a prison.
(03:40):
I think I have and you would have to be, Andrew.
You're big technology. You can't live without my Santa Sun
PROJECTA first job. My first job was actually a Rando
send a Minshapa roller Coast operator. Oh wow, secret talent
be at Johnson. What are you reading, watching, or listening
(04:02):
to right now? I've just finished watching the same man
on Netflix, Guilty Pleasure, my wine cell are okay? From here,
We're gonna get into why we're here today. In your
seminal book How Brands Grow, which has just been the
must read bible of marketing in so many ways. You know,
(04:23):
I think the major laws of marketing that you've outlined
and How Brands Grow, it's probably one of the most
underrated or misunderstood marketing laws. What is it really that
you think many marketers are just still getting wrong even
though you've given them this plaint book. Oh no, I
mean not just terribly impressive. I think the profession is
(04:46):
terribly imprisson But we are many ways, like so many
other disciplines. I used the medical analogy in my book
medicine used to be absolute rubishing stakes. You short people's
loves in spite of its being well educated and well
in teaching and believing that that we was doing right.
I used to say I started in PR. It's when
I used to say all the time, when people were
you know, in that exaggerated marketer fear moment, it was like,
(05:07):
it's PR, not R. It's okay, it's gonna be okay.
That's true. And particularly people who were really big brands,
have established meeting, physical availability and means of nots can't
really do that much damage. But there it lies also
the problem, and that they can be doing a lot
of things that are wrong, but they don't realize they're
wasting their time on trivial issues that really aren't kind
(05:31):
of build the value of the organization. Yeah, before we
go deeper up, we usually dig a little bit into
your early life so we'll get a little more sense
of who you are if we travel back in time.
I read that you grew up any sheep farm outside Auckland. Yes,
how about painting a quick picture of your childhood? Well,
it was quite ideal, like in the wential great country
(05:51):
school my mom was a teacher who several times the years,
which is a very good teacher, I think, into a
very large high school with no academic pretensions at all.
It was quite good though, because you know, I studied
well if humanities history and remember an art history. There
are only two of us in the class until the
other day left in the final year, so he had
(06:12):
one on one teaching, which was pretty good. That's amazing.
But I didn't want to be an academic, and if
you're going to be a history you end up in
an academic or something. So I was a business degree.
I was pretty put off when I studied the management classes,
which I thought that terribly pseudo academic. I love the
marketing classes because they talked about customers and the reason
(06:35):
why firms existed, making products, working out what you would
tell to you know, there's a eighteen year old. I thought,
this is a business. This is what I wanted to learn.
I knew on accounting and things like that, but I
wanted to know how businesses work, and the marketing classes
seemed to do that. So that's the first sort of
serendipitous all into marketing, and then the other one is,
as Bob mentioned, I ended up being a marketing manager
(06:58):
for the commercialization company of the university, and that was
actually really very useful because, you know, as a market
PRIs interesting to do as you go through the books
and see where the sales are coming from. And you know,
much to my surprise, the business schools rather ship and
it was all the revenue was coming into. It was
(07:18):
the chemical technology and pharmacists, and the Business school was
just selling you know, short versions of its courses and things.
The only futures if you make discoveries. The real world
wants discoveries, and you've got to do that, got to
do research, and so well, you know, in the rest
is history. So how did the idea of an institute
(07:39):
that focuses on research about marketing actually come about? Oh? Well,
that was easy. We were marking people, so we're supposed
to do research on that. But the I think the
odd thing was we pretty low respect for particularly top
American journals. They seemed to be just trivial questions, either
(07:59):
showing off long words and the sort of humanities orientered
marketing ones, you know, the general consumer research and things,
or showing off statistics and obscuring findings. So again it's
been inspired by those sort of Victorian scientists who actually
got out and got their hands to look to the
real world and collected real data and didn't try to
(08:22):
obscure the data was ridiculously over fitted models and things.
And so I started a journal which is about empirical generalizations.
You know, we're doing replications and extensions to see does
it hold in winter as a hold in summer? Does
a hole in this country? Is it for fast growing rands?
Is low growing rands? That sort of replication work, which
is the major journals at the time, just did not
(08:43):
touch that. That always have that new. Everything has to
be new. So the basic work of science wasn't being done.
And someone suggested to me, you should ask Andrew Ainberg
to be on the editorial board. And it knows is
he still alive of and do oh yes, well all right,
Andrew any broke back. Immedia is amazing, that's what creates
(09:05):
the best. But well, we wanted to not be broken
both sides of the Atlantic. So Frank Bass also it
was a great proponent of you know, he had the
view that we can make the marketing's real world science
studies the real world. You should be able to find
law like patterns just like everyone else has and we have.
One of my favorite things that you talk about is
(09:27):
the importance of open mindedness in marketing, right, this idea
of science and letting the data lead you any marketing
suppositions that you actually thought were right and then we're
proven untrue. But started dawning on me that the idea
of being differentiated will did not fit with some of
the scientific laws, like like couple of jeoparty, I mean,
(09:49):
that shouldn't happen. You should have you know, two grands
that are differentiated away from the others, that they're sharing
more with each other but way less with the others.
So yeah, we did some studying and compared patterns ex
entublication of purchase with the partial map data and you
know the perceptual map data which you can predict right,
(10:11):
you know, the high premium brands clustered together and the others.
This is for the department stores. When you looked at
the actual shopping, the low price and the high price
were sharing. Was than you'd expect. And then suddenly we
got out an actual map, a map map, geographical map,
and then oh it's obvious, it's where the stores are.
(10:32):
You realize that geography is a way bigger driver if
you're going to go buy a toaster or somebody can
buy it or either one and young ruberkan had was
part of the cantor the two people to be studied
track of things, and they kind of gave us their
whole data. Yeah, they had a perceived differentiation measure which
(10:53):
had be never been done in academia. Academics always infod
differentiation from perceptible maps or that you know, complicated things.
This actually just directly ask people in multiple ways, you know,
questions like you could just take it or not? You know,
it's just been different, is it unique? You know? And
schools are really really low, really love so even regular
(11:15):
buyers of something like two thirds of Apple users wouldn't
even take any of those things. Wow, and this is
what the real world is. Mind blowing right, Just that
surprises even me. And I was chief creative officer at
Microsoft for a while, so competing with Apple was We've
been of my existence quite sometime. People know that, you know,
(11:39):
the mecan dash is built on a Unix operating system,
you know, PCs based on that. And then I realized,
I thought about my parents and if I see it. Actually,
then let's say what's an operating system exactly exactly, and
they'd say, you know, we've got this map bar. You
told us to buy this map bar. We store our
(11:59):
photos on, and we do email, and we serve the web,
you know, And is that different? No, it's not different.
All the computers do that. Yes, the real world when
you realized that, Okay, the reason the scientific rules are
like that is because consumers they don't terribly see huge that,
(12:20):
you know, they do sometimes they know it Ferrari is
not half that you don't need to talk to day
to know. They see a lot of brands is in
the change, and they don't know much about the brands
they're not buying. We're so enamored of our brands, right.
We spend so much time in the data and thinking
about all the nuances, and we think that translates into
the real world. People are just like, what's on the shelf?
(12:43):
How much is it? What's convenient? Yeah, and we know
all about our competitors and things. But you know, if
someone banks with well Sargo and you asked them, what's
Bank of America? Like there, I don't know Stargo. Yeah,
it's so true. In as marketers. Right, I can tell
you all the nuances of first brands superentiation, and they
(13:03):
go they just see big banks. Yeah, exactly. Your book's
been out for a dozen years, for two years. Now,
what are you most proud of that you accomplished with
our brands grown? I guess that so many people have
brought it and read it, that's a good sign. Yes,
I mean some of the earliest findings of the Institute
(13:25):
and our advisory board members who are all you know
cmos of corporations told us to write it because they
needed a book to explain to the CFO and the
CEO what they were trying to achieve was marketing is
they're trying to move marketing to be evidence based, and
there was some for the first time of real evidence
(13:47):
behind it. So on that goal. I mean, I think
it has been useful, but to transform a big corporation
takes off lot of work and talk about it any
Bruce McCole, who is probably one of the most famous
in starting with the gene at Mars, he still says,
(14:09):
this gets forward, one step back, you know. Yeah, more
a math and magic right after this quick break, welcome
back to math and magic. Let's hear more now from
the conversation between Gail Troubleman and Byron Sharp. Some of
the criticism of your work was that it eliminates creativity
(14:32):
or what we Mathew Magic called the magic of marketing.
Why do you think people feel that way or why
do you think that completely misses the point of the book.
I used the example of the architecture of the book,
that it is a wonderful creative people, but they slept
build buildings that they can hand out. It's an engineer
and they going to stay out. Yes, and so the
(14:58):
scientific laws, which are the not laws like dur Shart laws,
their laws that this is the way the world. Perhaps,
so you can make predictions. I think they'll give you
wonderful guidance. I remember creative saying to me a blank
sheet of paper was a very scary thing. Yeah, so
doing research, knowing what your distinctive assets are and then
(15:18):
saying that it's not optional. We used to what we
now call distinctive assets used to be called creative devices,
and they were sort of optional, you know, like, well
stop using for a whole decade, stop using the M
and MS characters because someone thought, oh, you know what,
all these say about chocolate, you know, but then we say, no,
we must use those. And I think to creators, that's
(15:39):
really useful. It's like, okay, right, so I'm doing an
M and NZ it will be m ends characters. Right.
Marketers are so invested in their brands and all this
detail and all the nuance and personifying our brands that
I think sometimes when we get bored. You know, I've
seen so many times where people, you know, new new leadership,
new management, new team agencies, and people just want to
(16:02):
do new things. It's human nature. They get bored with
the same things, and and it's not necessarily because they're
not working. The duration of a campaign now it's got
to be so much shorter than the days of sort
of iconic I mean, which are goes to your whole
point of mass marketing, right. You know, one of the
things we talked a lot about it, I heart because
we reached nine out of ten US consumers just on
(16:23):
broadcast radio, and then we have our podcasting and our
events businesses, which are also bidding. But one of the
things that you know, why we quote you so often
and are huge believers, is you dispelled that false assumption
about mass marketing just not being competitive anymore in an
error of targeting as marketing still critical. Talk to us
(16:45):
a little bit about that. Well, I remember which UNI
legal ones said. You know, the great thing in the
past was that Marcas came up with these targets that
excluded most of the bias. I don't want to talk
about the bias. But unfortunately, when I handed the money
out of the media agency that was impossible to deliver,
(17:05):
the brand was saved. And you know, we've got to
stick to your grown anyway. But you know that we
now have the technology that the bus could actually deliver
on those highly restrictive targets, and that would be a
fantastic way to drink the brands. Funny, I do a
podcast like a clubhouse to podcast conversation with marketers called
(17:27):
maybe You're Not the Target. Yeah, I think that's a
human bias comes in in so many ways. We have
so much data at our fingertips now as marketers versus problem.
When you wrote this book, it was much harder to get,
you know, research and data. Now we have so much
data at our fingertips, and yet I think we're making
(17:48):
less informed decisions very often. The send was why I
now it's find as anybody who wait for big brands people,
we can like some category grows. Of course we like
category grows. You know, category, How do categories grow? I'll
(18:08):
give you a clue. It's like brand. It's okay, people
who are not buying the category buying the category? Right,
would you like to talk to people who currently do
not buy the category? Oh yeah, I suppose we would. Right,
So not only have to reach all category buyers, including
the lightest you know, but you actually people who are
(18:30):
not in the category at the moment. That how you
will grow? Well, you can chase our big drink your brain. No,
it's amazing. We see this all the time that I've heard,
you know, Mark Pritchard at PNG just a terrific example
of years back when P and had sort of moved
dramatically away from a lot of mass reach media. They
moved almost entirely out of broadcast radio. They were making
(18:52):
some decisions to cut budgets. So instead of just like
a lot of marketers cut across the board, marks started
digging in and to that principle was like, we need growth,
we need mass reach. Let's start trying some master each
media again and affordable media because we're in a moment
of making cuts, and he started reinvesting with a lot
of their big Master reach brands back into broadcast radio
(19:14):
and into out of both of which they had they
had pulled way back from, and they saw this just
amazing growth. The premise again, if you're talking to night
out of ten Americans about your laundry to churchy, you're
probably going to find some new consumers who pop into
the storm by it complementary emails saying how it really
turned the hats and you put them back up to
(19:35):
the christ to yes, you know a few years ago
and I think now they're in like the top probably
four or five broadcast radio spenders all up, and they've had,
you know, just a phenomenal track record of growth. You know,
tons of their brands now are very loyal, very dependent
on broadcast radio, which we love. Obviously, they're great clients
of ours. People going dark right, doing visted campaign and
(19:57):
then going silent. You know that suddenly the consumers have
stopped buying or some people they need to risk right, yes,
or they'll just remember for these long periods of time. Yeah,
I don't know if you have any data on this.
I've seen some research about how long it takes when
you go to our how long it takes to kind
of buy back that recall, you know, that mind share
(20:20):
with consumers someone else has coming and taken. Part of
the problem is reducing the efficiency to spend by clustering.
You know, you're pressing, clustering all your money and stid
of one month and then nothing the next month. You
just spread it out out of the two months. Golden
rule is buying media spread it out. Yeah, I think
(20:40):
that's probably gotten a little better in the you know,
the digital era. There's a little more always on probably spending,
but there's still this heavy reliance we see from so
many customers. And you talk about our OI not being
the best driver or measure of growth. So many customers
you see buying these very precious targets. I call it
(21:00):
the gritty strivers, you know. And so I'm gonna pay
a premium on a premium on a premium to reach
the this this epicenter of my target. And and I've
added so much cost to my media because I'm targeting
and targeting and targeting, and again I've shrunk my POE
consumers dramatically by doing it. Why are you paying that
huge premium because I don't want wastage? Right? Some of
(21:22):
that listage is the future customers. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Tell
us a little bit about how you think about late
buyers versus heavy buyers have to have friends. What we
did five year analysis by the continuous panel analysis and
ships a typical consumer good about eight percent of your
buio only buy you once a year or thessault than
(21:46):
once a big two years, with three years of fouritious
or five. And people go, okay, well, but then they
can't make out much of my sales, right because they're
so light. You know, well, i'mbout forty so am I? Right?
Your brand tracking only talks to people who have bought
the category of the last two months, and you're actually
buying these precise targets to only try to reach really
(22:08):
you're just talking to your friends basically. Yeah, And it
so feels like that sometimes I read these briefs. In
the States, there's a lot of media decision makers and
people writing the briefs and making a lot of these
decisions are very centralized in New York and Brooklyn. Increasingly,
Bob always says, how many of you in this room
own a tesla. How many you've been in a tesla?
(22:33):
You know, it's a It's less than one percent of
cars on the road in America. So that's what we're
always talking about it. I heart because we have this
mass reach and much lower CPMs, So we've got two
things going for radio there. What do you see as
the challenges about mass reach? Well, fragmentation obviously, but we've
(22:54):
got clever people that's got computers and then we do
get that reach. I mean, once upon a time these
I grew up in a country and in New Zealand,
we only had one of the TV stations. So yeah,
you put an ad on, you pretty much reach the country. Yeah,
and I caught some great brands and built doing that.
And then you know, later it got more complicated. And
(23:15):
so I used to tell offic I told and saying,
you know, you guys used to say, you know, this
is all of this new media and it's difficult at
leit about it. You know, whereas we new TV, you know,
really you didn't know TV. It was just easy. It
was just there's three choices. Most of Americans watching so
(23:36):
often people you know, they'll hear the data. Americans lower costs,
like we have all these cases of other brands and
chrome like g by using the mass media and people
very they'll be very skeptical, but they'll they'll do a
little test and then they'll just go Wow. It's sort
of like buying TV back in the day in New Zealand.
(23:56):
You know, you're just reaching a lot more people. You're
gonna start seeing sales grow. So I would like to
see market has drink a lot more research and learning
a lot more about things like radio, TV, outdoor. It's
like always there's also we must know a lot. Really,
what do you know about it? Yeah? You know, I
love saying so in the front Time TV show, how
many people who watched this week will be back watching
(24:18):
next week? People, I don't know. We've known this for
fifty years. We can predict this. But you know, I've
played the universities because most universities don't teach media at all. Yeah,
it's so interesting because, yeah, on the media side, I
think people get so caught up in the r o
(24:38):
I metrics and these sort of momentary KPIs. You know,
there's a lot of people touching a campaign, a lot
of hands on keyboards going I'm just going to drive
that number or that number or that number, and they're
all in isolation of they're not actually growth of sales. Yeah,
they're not thinking about mental and physical availability. Those are
(24:59):
the two big things undependent value of your company. Yes, yes,
what about message? You know you talked a lot about
not getting too specific on who you're targeting, so you're
going after the biggest pool of potential customers. But when
it comes to messaging, you do believe in specific messaging.
(25:19):
How do you advise people if you're talking to everyone,
how do you find a message that works. Well, that's
why we have advertising agencies because it was certainly, you know,
just all that persons interesting cats, right, Well, we put
again that the dollars and put a dollar. It was
that easy. We wouldn't need every agencies. No, we need
(25:40):
avertyping agencies because we go, okay, well you need to
communicate to millions of human being and they're all very different.
They do have a comment that they're human. M h.
You to work with Matt, Okay, we need will resonate
because it's very hard to act and do customization. People
are realize that. But all the research of the tests,
(26:02):
the academic tests we try personalization, the results of miserable.
So it's much better to place at bit on great
creativity that resonates with lots of people, with a little
bit of sophisticated mass marketing. I mean, obviously if someone
speaks Spanish by than English, then you talk to him.
It's been but what we wanted, mass scale without creativity
(26:24):
appreciate actually did that. We we set what do you
call it the crap track. Yes, I was there in
that room for that spanship brilliant. We're wasting all our
money creating all this different content and so we had
little money left that actually by media actually make sure
anyone heard it or so. Yeah, that's true, It's very true.
(26:47):
What do you think about in this world where everyone's
talking about privacy, you know, a world where we've become
so dependent on targeting and now with the Kingbridge Analytica
and all of the maybe abuse of targeting that's happened,
it's people are going to be pivoting back to mass marketing.
But also because they're targeting never worked. You know some
(27:09):
reports Nico human is very good work in this area,
you know, buying on programmatic platforms and showing that you know,
you could do a targe of saying men, and you
reached men about half the time, and half it's only
reached women. You know. I mean, we absolutely thought we
could do this and we couldn't. But most of the
time we don't need to target geographic right, Geographic is
hugely important because I do not have physical availability. It's
(27:33):
a very pat and so I would want to be
able to buy media on geographic basis. Yes, that's a
really important tipling thing. Where people live really matters to
their lives. Ducan lots re search shows that you know,
where people live affects what they do online. And then
some categories have end debased, you know, like I'm selling
women's clothing, so I want to the women or some
(27:55):
have some age. But after that it all gets quite trivial. Really,
we don't need anything much more than that. You think
consumers are easier dis way than we think. We don't
need to get seven hundred data points. I've seen literally
target lists from you know, digital campaigns where there's you know,
fifty sixty different criteria people are buying one impression that
(28:18):
is a mistaken belief. It's in shoudive belief that if
we get more datas My bit of predictions the forecasting
side of just just shape their heads and go Now
you wan't now you want a preid simple models out
before the most complex. Uh. How do you feel about
loyalty programs? Same problem, talking to too few people too often.
(28:42):
It might be a multi programs. Yeah, we now know
why they don't do a lot. You can detect the
dot lifting nualty. But it's rather disappointing. And the reason
it disappointing isn't because why do you join that department's
stools dualty program? Because I shot there regularly, right, And
if you don't, you don't even hear about the little
(29:02):
very true, that's the recruits are getting glass. And then
there's also the incentive effect if you don't buy, then
you go on up to get many points. So they're
very extensive or lower reach. And the low quality media
it's like Facebook friends. You know, I'm going to build
up a big thing of people who liked on Facebook.
(29:25):
That is low quality media because you're just talking to
the same people. I don't know that. It's so funny,
it's so true. I'm not a big loyalty club person,
but you have a certain retail story shop at all
the time so I accruit points. It's usually the first
story I go to, and I shopped there quite often,
and every time when they go, oh, you get fifty
dollars off this, and I'm like, amazing, but I was
(29:47):
going to buy this anyway. And country like, you've got
a lot of people living in the rule though you know,
there's only one guest station. I'm going to buck them anyway,
the one into down. That's so true. Yeah, no, it's interesting.
We've been talking a lot lately about rural America, you know,
smaller towns where you know, obviously because we have reached Americans,
(30:09):
we're reaching rural, suburban, urban, all of the flavors of
this nation. And I think so many marketers, you know,
you see campaign after campaign after campaign we want to
buy the top twenty markets, top twenty markets again, most expensive,
top twenty markets. You know, there's so many consumers out there.
You've never exposed your message too, if you just went
a little bit broader. I've done some diagnostics and brands
(30:31):
launches that have failed. One of the reasons it's the
people in the country you never reached, never even got
your message once. Wow. And usually it's the sales can
has done a great job, and you know they've got
it into Walmart or something. It's there, it's ready to
be bought. Sword on ship because you only top twenty markets. Well,
(30:55):
that's interesting to memory structures that you talked a lot about.
Can you explain the theory about memory structures. Consumers are
fairly naturally loyal. They don't really care that much about brands.
They keep going about to the same restaurants, the same stores,
the same brands on shelf. And this is what is brandiquity.
You have mental and physical availability, but you need to
(31:18):
have this to overlap. And you know a lot of
times it isn't overlapping, and that a lot of people
who are coming into the store just do not see
you because there's pins of thousands of items in the
store and they zoom in on the few that they
know and then they get out of the store. You
get a terrible return on the physical availability, whether that's
(31:39):
on a website or in a physical store, you get
a terrible return on because you went in their heads. Likewise,
there's no point being in people's heads. They don't know
where do I get this thing from? Nic As the
scot Line, the world's biggest search engine is between people's ears.
I spent so much time trying to figure out how
to do audio creative well. And we always say that
(32:02):
the world's best production machine is between your ears. So
you know, by saying Grand Canyon with jello, you're picturing
what color jello. It's amazing how we can fill in
the pictures and be even you know, targeted with audio creative. Right.
You know, I could say did you have lunch today?
Was it good? Do you even remember it? Yeah? Right,
(32:26):
And all of a sudden, I have you thinking about
your lunch. Whereas you know, back like in Microsoft, I
would have to make four spots for year for Xbox
for thirty one countries. And that living room didn't look
like anyone's living room because I was trying to bash
up you know, Southeast Asia and Europe, and no one
had that living room. But if I said picture yourself
(32:46):
in your living room, I'm relevant right there with everyone.
The impultance of having audio distinctive assets, even if you
are using video, the fact is you've got to expect
fleeting exposures. People will not be at tension to all that,
and there's something you can do about that. And you
shouldn't worry. You should just be cognisive of all that.
So I need this tv AD to work in audio
(33:08):
as well as as individual Yeah, I know, particularly people
multitasks too. I think a lot of brands have gotten
more sophisticated in understanding how important audio is because it's
tastes in your head and then like you said, there
it is on the shelf. Oh yeah, I don't even
know why I am picking that up, but it's in
my head. To stop paying more attention to jingles again, Yes,
you know we Yeah, we used to do some jingle hacks,
(33:30):
would get musicians in with marketers and actually work on
collaborating real time, and some amazing campaigns came out of that.
Because a lot of household you know brands, we know
what they are, We just need to remember to buy them.
Remember they're available. I cannot end a Math and Magic
interview if I didn't ask you to shout out your
favorite mathematician. Who's your favorite numbers person? That would be
(33:55):
Gerald Goodhart, who which with us as a cheer about
advisable Frank Emeritus Professor Honor Doctorate from the University of
Southstralia and colleague with Andrew and why do I say
Gerald because Gerald described himself as a reformed statistician than
he would always right, what's the simplest way of showing
(34:15):
this very key, not what where did the data come from?
I really understanding the data stable before subjecting it to
any sort of complex he could cut through the bullshit
very well. There's a danger when people learn statistics like
Gerald did, they just get enamored by their it's like
their machinery and yeah, the slice, and they totally lose
(34:38):
picture of the real world. So, you know, with someone
who needs statistics the Cambridge but became a silist rather
than someone who played being a statistician, that's what we
need more of. Definitely being true to the science of marketing.
How about the other side of the table, who's your
favorite creative? Who's your favorite MAGICI ship on the other
(35:01):
side of the mouth and magic coin. George Felix, who
was at Proper and Campbell gets responsible for the old
Spice revival fantastic magic and totally fitted in with you know,
the scientific laws that was really word and did it
when he went to Knowing a Chicken. He was part
of the team that finally brought back the Colonel l back.
(35:24):
I think there was a time where yeah, turn Chicken
changed its name at KFC because because the mont pun't
worried about that weird fried. This is a classic example
of marketing team just in their own little bubble, right, simnicate.
Everyone knows it's fried. Everyone knows it's fried chicken. That's
why they lost on you when you're wiping the grease
off your hands. That's why it's good. Yeah, might go, oh,
(35:48):
you know this old white guy from the South, that's
not really so good to go, Well, don't think about that.
It's a distinctive asset. It's branded. As I always point out,
no one stops to think, why does the bigger chant
a spot of shame? Also, nobody cares bringing the king back.
(36:10):
That was also genius. Yeah, that's totally in line with
the signs. And that's wonderful, gradual and right ready to
do it. So true, it's so true. We need more
bravery definitely the creative side of the equation. Well, this
has been amazing. I think marketers out there are ready
to learn a little math, a little magic, and your
(36:30):
book Our Brands Grow has just been really the bible
for so many marketers. Who are succeeding, and it's amazing
the advice you have from marketers holds up so well,
so so well today. So here are a few things
I've picked up from Gail's conversation with Byron. One, A
data driven approach can fuel creativity, not killing. Byron uses
(36:54):
the example of architectural design. Math and magic must come
together to create buildings that are beautifu full and structurally sound.
Stay rooted in data and facts, and your creative ideas
can flourish. Two. In an era of targeted advertisements, mass
marketing still works. While targeting can be a powerful tool,
(37:14):
over targeting can cause missed opportunities. Byron's research still finds
that reaching more people brings in more customers. Three numbers
don't lie. As marketers, it can be tempting to create
the campaigns we want to hear, but the data shows
that our preferences might not reflect the mass audience. Byron
(37:35):
reminds us that we need to cast aside our biases
and stick to the messages that have proven success or
Conventional wisdom often hides the truth. When we buy in
the group thing without examining the proof, we often miss
the right idea I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening. That's
(37:55):
it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to
Math and Magic, a production of Radio. The show is
hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Susan Ward for
booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no small feed,
Marissa Brown for pulling research, our editors Derek Clements, Mary
Dow and Ryan Murdoch, our producer Morgan Levoy, our executive
producer Nikki Etor, and of course Gayle Roel, Eric Angel Noel,
(38:17):
and everyone who helped bring this show to your ears.
Until next time,
You're listening to Math and Magic production of I Heart Radio.
The scientific laws which are they're not laws like boushaltons,
the laws that this is the way the world behaves,
so you can make predictions. I think they get wonderful guidance. Hi,
I'm Bob Pittman. Welcome to this special episode of Math
(00:22):
and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing. In this episode,
my teammate at I Heeart Media are rather Spectacular CMO
and former Gasto Math and Magic Yale Trouberman is going
to do a special marketers focused interview with one of
the world's great marketing thinkers and researchers, Byron Sharp. He's
a genuine marketing guru and he is the director of
(00:44):
the Ahremberg Bass Institute and a Professor of Marketing Science
at the University of South Australia. His approach is best
captured by the view that to break through to the
frontier of any field, first you have to navigate the
fog of conventional wisdom, the established group think that says
these are the rules because this is the way it's
always been done. Byron had the intuition to question accepted
(01:07):
marketing wisdoms and chart a new path. Born and raised
on a sheep farm outside of Auckland, New Zealand, Sharp
partners the magic of serendipity. Early in his career. He
was a marketing manager who, despite an early aversion to academia,
ended up working for an academic institution, the University of
Southern Australia. After determining that the business school there was
(01:28):
underperforming due to a strategy error, Sharp trusted his gut,
took a left turn, and here's where the math comes in.
He decided to apply rigorous testing methods to study buyer
behavior in a field he would help develop the science
of marketing. His discoveries led him to author a surprise bestseller,
widely considered one of the most influential marketing books of
(01:51):
the last fifty years, How Brands Grow and It's built
on his learnings. As the head of the Ahrenberg Bass Institute,
the world's largest center for research in the mark marketing
at the same University of Southern Australia where he started
as a marketing manager, Byron's research provides a wealth of
insight on the range of industry topics, including one near
and dear to me. Best Practices for CEOs around finding
(02:14):
the right CMO. Byron says, the best cmos of the
folks who are laser focused on the business needs and
the big goals. And in my experience this advice is
spot on. In fact, Gail has excelled in her role
at I Heart because of her laser focused, goal oriented approach.
So time for me to pass the mic over to
(02:34):
Gail to lead this conversation with Byron on this evidence
based expertise on how brand growth actually works. Marketer to
marketing guru. Here's Gale and Byron. Thank you, Bob, Byron,
I'm excited to be here with you. Before we get
into marketing science and growth, Bob always starts as interviews
(02:54):
by giving listeners a picture of you in sixty seconds.
Are you ready? I'm ready early riser or night out?
Have a later offer my Chisenhun Coker PEPSI I live
in a current country. Where's that? You know? The stats?
Mac PC, Matt Twitter or Instagram, Twitter, CEO or c MO.
(03:20):
Well that's an interesting Christian. I'm not gonna be pissing,
but I guess well near in invests. You know, I'm CEO,
not see bring your fault springing Becausan is coming call
or text taste. It's gonna get a little bit harder.
So the smartest person, you know, it's not a prison.
(03:40):
I think I have and you would have to be, Andrew.
You're big technology. You can't live without my Santa Sun
PROJECTA first job. My first job was actually a Rando
send a Minshapa roller Coast operator. Oh wow, secret talent
be at Johnson. What are you reading, watching, or listening
(04:02):
to right now? I've just finished watching the same man
on Netflix, Guilty Pleasure, my wine cell are okay? From here,
We're gonna get into why we're here today. In your
seminal book How Brands Grow, which has just been the
must read bible of marketing in so many ways. You know,
(04:23):
I think the major laws of marketing that you've outlined
and How Brands Grow, it's probably one of the most
underrated or misunderstood marketing laws. What is it really that
you think many marketers are just still getting wrong even
though you've given them this plaint book. Oh no, I
mean not just terribly impressive. I think the profession is
(04:46):
terribly imprisson But we are many ways, like so many
other disciplines. I used the medical analogy in my book
medicine used to be absolute rubishing stakes. You short people's
loves in spite of its being well educated and well
in teaching and believing that that we was doing right.
I used to say I started in PR. It's when
I used to say all the time, when people were
you know, in that exaggerated marketer fear moment, it was like,
(05:07):
it's PR, not R. It's okay, it's gonna be okay.
That's true. And particularly people who were really big brands,
have established meeting, physical availability and means of nots can't
really do that much damage. But there it lies also
the problem, and that they can be doing a lot
of things that are wrong, but they don't realize they're
wasting their time on trivial issues that really aren't kind
(05:31):
of build the value of the organization. Yeah, before we
go deeper up, we usually dig a little bit into
your early life so we'll get a little more sense
of who you are if we travel back in time.
I read that you grew up any sheep farm outside Auckland. Yes,
how about painting a quick picture of your childhood? Well,
it was quite ideal, like in the wential great country
(05:51):
school my mom was a teacher who several times the years,
which is a very good teacher, I think, into a
very large high school with no academic pretensions at all.
It was quite good though, because you know, I studied
well if humanities history and remember an art history. There
are only two of us in the class until the
other day left in the final year, so he had
(06:12):
one on one teaching, which was pretty good. That's amazing.
But I didn't want to be an academic, and if
you're going to be a history you end up in
an academic or something. So I was a business degree.
I was pretty put off when I studied the management classes,
which I thought that terribly pseudo academic. I love the
marketing classes because they talked about customers and the reason
(06:35):
why firms existed, making products, working out what you would
tell to you know, there's a eighteen year old. I thought,
this is a business. This is what I wanted to learn.
I knew on accounting and things like that, but I
wanted to know how businesses work, and the marketing classes
seemed to do that. So that's the first sort of
serendipitous all into marketing, and then the other one is,
as Bob mentioned, I ended up being a marketing manager
(06:58):
for the commercialization company of the university, and that was
actually really very useful because, you know, as a market
PRIs interesting to do as you go through the books
and see where the sales are coming from. And you know,
much to my surprise, the business schools rather ship and
it was all the revenue was coming into. It was
(07:18):
the chemical technology and pharmacists, and the Business school was
just selling you know, short versions of its courses and things.
The only futures if you make discoveries. The real world
wants discoveries, and you've got to do that, got to
do research, and so well, you know, in the rest
is history. So how did the idea of an institute
(07:39):
that focuses on research about marketing actually come about? Oh? Well,
that was easy. We were marking people, so we're supposed
to do research on that. But the I think the
odd thing was we pretty low respect for particularly top
American journals. They seemed to be just trivial questions, either
(07:59):
showing off long words and the sort of humanities orientered
marketing ones, you know, the general consumer research and things,
or showing off statistics and obscuring findings. So again it's
been inspired by those sort of Victorian scientists who actually
got out and got their hands to look to the
real world and collected real data and didn't try to
(08:22):
obscure the data was ridiculously over fitted models and things.
And so I started a journal which is about empirical generalizations.
You know, we're doing replications and extensions to see does
it hold in winter as a hold in summer? Does
a hole in this country? Is it for fast growing rands?
Is low growing rands? That sort of replication work, which
is the major journals at the time, just did not
(08:43):
touch that. That always have that new. Everything has to
be new. So the basic work of science wasn't being done.
And someone suggested to me, you should ask Andrew Ainberg
to be on the editorial board. And it knows is
he still alive of and do oh yes, well all right,
Andrew any broke back. Immedia is amazing, that's what creates
(09:05):
the best. But well, we wanted to not be broken
both sides of the Atlantic. So Frank Bass also it
was a great proponent of you know, he had the
view that we can make the marketing's real world science
studies the real world. You should be able to find
law like patterns just like everyone else has and we have.
One of my favorite things that you talk about is
(09:27):
the importance of open mindedness in marketing, right, this idea
of science and letting the data lead you any marketing
suppositions that you actually thought were right and then we're
proven untrue. But started dawning on me that the idea
of being differentiated will did not fit with some of
the scientific laws, like like couple of jeoparty, I mean,
(09:49):
that shouldn't happen. You should have you know, two grands
that are differentiated away from the others, that they're sharing
more with each other but way less with the others.
So yeah, we did some studying and compared patterns ex
entublication of purchase with the partial map data and you
know the perceptual map data which you can predict right,
(10:11):
you know, the high premium brands clustered together and the others.
This is for the department stores. When you looked at
the actual shopping, the low price and the high price
were sharing. Was than you'd expect. And then suddenly we
got out an actual map, a map map, geographical map,
and then oh it's obvious, it's where the stores are.
(10:32):
You realize that geography is a way bigger driver if
you're going to go buy a toaster or somebody can
buy it or either one and young ruberkan had was
part of the cantor the two people to be studied
track of things, and they kind of gave us their
whole data. Yeah, they had a perceived differentiation measure which
(10:53):
had be never been done in academia. Academics always infod
differentiation from perceptible maps or that you know, complicated things.
This actually just directly ask people in multiple ways, you know,
questions like you could just take it or not? You know,
it's just been different, is it unique? You know? And
schools are really really low, really love so even regular
(11:15):
buyers of something like two thirds of Apple users wouldn't
even take any of those things. Wow, and this is
what the real world is. Mind blowing right, Just that
surprises even me. And I was chief creative officer at
Microsoft for a while, so competing with Apple was We've
been of my existence quite sometime. People know that, you know,
(11:39):
the mecan dash is built on a Unix operating system,
you know, PCs based on that. And then I realized,
I thought about my parents and if I see it. Actually,
then let's say what's an operating system exactly exactly, and
they'd say, you know, we've got this map bar. You
told us to buy this map bar. We store our
(11:59):
photos on, and we do email, and we serve the web,
you know, And is that different? No, it's not different.
All the computers do that. Yes, the real world when
you realized that, Okay, the reason the scientific rules are
like that is because consumers they don't terribly see huge that,
(12:20):
you know, they do sometimes they know it Ferrari is
not half that you don't need to talk to day
to know. They see a lot of brands is in
the change, and they don't know much about the brands
they're not buying. We're so enamored of our brands, right.
We spend so much time in the data and thinking
about all the nuances, and we think that translates into
the real world. People are just like, what's on the shelf?
(12:43):
How much is it? What's convenient? Yeah, and we know
all about our competitors and things. But you know, if
someone banks with well Sargo and you asked them, what's
Bank of America? Like there, I don't know Stargo. Yeah,
it's so true. In as marketers. Right, I can tell
you all the nuances of first brands superentiation, and they
(13:03):
go they just see big banks. Yeah, exactly. Your book's
been out for a dozen years, for two years. Now,
what are you most proud of that you accomplished with
our brands grown? I guess that so many people have
brought it and read it, that's a good sign. Yes,
I mean some of the earliest findings of the Institute
(13:25):
and our advisory board members who are all you know
cmos of corporations told us to write it because they
needed a book to explain to the CFO and the
CEO what they were trying to achieve was marketing is
they're trying to move marketing to be evidence based, and
there was some for the first time of real evidence
(13:47):
behind it. So on that goal. I mean, I think
it has been useful, but to transform a big corporation
takes off lot of work and talk about it any
Bruce McCole, who is probably one of the most famous
in starting with the gene at Mars, he still says,
(14:09):
this gets forward, one step back, you know. Yeah, more
a math and magic right after this quick break, welcome
back to math and magic. Let's hear more now from
the conversation between Gail Troubleman and Byron Sharp. Some of
the criticism of your work was that it eliminates creativity
(14:32):
or what we Mathew Magic called the magic of marketing.
Why do you think people feel that way or why
do you think that completely misses the point of the book.
I used the example of the architecture of the book,
that it is a wonderful creative people, but they slept
build buildings that they can hand out. It's an engineer
and they going to stay out. Yes, and so the
(14:58):
scientific laws, which are the not laws like dur Shart laws,
their laws that this is the way the world. Perhaps,
so you can make predictions. I think they'll give you
wonderful guidance. I remember creative saying to me a blank
sheet of paper was a very scary thing. Yeah, so
doing research, knowing what your distinctive assets are and then
(15:18):
saying that it's not optional. We used to what we
now call distinctive assets used to be called creative devices,
and they were sort of optional, you know, like, well
stop using for a whole decade, stop using the M
and MS characters because someone thought, oh, you know what,
all these say about chocolate, you know, but then we say, no,
we must use those. And I think to creators, that's
(15:39):
really useful. It's like, okay, right, so I'm doing an
M and NZ it will be m ends characters. Right.
Marketers are so invested in their brands and all this
detail and all the nuance and personifying our brands that
I think sometimes when we get bored. You know, I've
seen so many times where people, you know, new new leadership,
new management, new team agencies, and people just want to
(16:02):
do new things. It's human nature. They get bored with
the same things, and and it's not necessarily because they're
not working. The duration of a campaign now it's got
to be so much shorter than the days of sort
of iconic I mean, which are goes to your whole
point of mass marketing, right. You know, one of the
things we talked a lot about it, I heart because
we reached nine out of ten US consumers just on
(16:23):
broadcast radio, and then we have our podcasting and our
events businesses, which are also bidding. But one of the
things that you know, why we quote you so often
and are huge believers, is you dispelled that false assumption
about mass marketing just not being competitive anymore in an
error of targeting as marketing still critical. Talk to us
(16:45):
a little bit about that. Well, I remember which UNI
legal ones said. You know, the great thing in the
past was that Marcas came up with these targets that
excluded most of the bias. I don't want to talk
about the bias. But unfortunately, when I handed the money
out of the media agency that was impossible to deliver,
(17:05):
the brand was saved. And you know, we've got to
stick to your grown anyway. But you know that we
now have the technology that the bus could actually deliver
on those highly restrictive targets, and that would be a
fantastic way to drink the brands. Funny, I do a
podcast like a clubhouse to podcast conversation with marketers called
(17:27):
maybe You're Not the Target. Yeah, I think that's a
human bias comes in in so many ways. We have
so much data at our fingertips now as marketers versus problem.
When you wrote this book, it was much harder to get,
you know, research and data. Now we have so much
data at our fingertips, and yet I think we're making
(17:48):
less informed decisions very often. The send was why I
now it's find as anybody who wait for big brands people,
we can like some category grows. Of course we like
category grows. You know, category, How do categories grow? I'll
(18:08):
give you a clue. It's like brand. It's okay, people
who are not buying the category buying the category? Right,
would you like to talk to people who currently do
not buy the category? Oh yeah, I suppose we would. Right,
So not only have to reach all category buyers, including
the lightest you know, but you actually people who are
(18:30):
not in the category at the moment. That how you
will grow? Well, you can chase our big drink your brain. No,
it's amazing. We see this all the time that I've heard,
you know, Mark Pritchard at PNG just a terrific example
of years back when P and had sort of moved
dramatically away from a lot of mass reach media. They
moved almost entirely out of broadcast radio. They were making
(18:52):
some decisions to cut budgets. So instead of just like
a lot of marketers cut across the board, marks started
digging in and to that principle was like, we need growth,
we need mass reach. Let's start trying some master each
media again and affordable media because we're in a moment
of making cuts, and he started reinvesting with a lot
of their big Master reach brands back into broadcast radio
(19:14):
and into out of both of which they had they
had pulled way back from, and they saw this just
amazing growth. The premise again, if you're talking to night
out of ten Americans about your laundry to churchy, you're
probably going to find some new consumers who pop into
the storm by it complementary emails saying how it really
turned the hats and you put them back up to
(19:35):
the christ to yes, you know a few years ago
and I think now they're in like the top probably
four or five broadcast radio spenders all up, and they've had,
you know, just a phenomenal track record of growth. You know,
tons of their brands now are very loyal, very dependent
on broadcast radio, which we love. Obviously, they're great clients
of ours. People going dark right, doing visted campaign and
(19:57):
then going silent. You know that suddenly the consumers have
stopped buying or some people they need to risk right, yes,
or they'll just remember for these long periods of time. Yeah,
I don't know if you have any data on this.
I've seen some research about how long it takes when
you go to our how long it takes to kind
of buy back that recall, you know, that mind share
(20:20):
with consumers someone else has coming and taken. Part of
the problem is reducing the efficiency to spend by clustering.
You know, you're pressing, clustering all your money and stid
of one month and then nothing the next month. You
just spread it out out of the two months. Golden
rule is buying media spread it out. Yeah, I think
(20:40):
that's probably gotten a little better in the you know,
the digital era. There's a little more always on probably spending,
but there's still this heavy reliance we see from so
many customers. And you talk about our OI not being
the best driver or measure of growth. So many customers
you see buying these very precious targets. I call it
(21:00):
the gritty strivers, you know. And so I'm gonna pay
a premium on a premium on a premium to reach
the this this epicenter of my target. And and I've
added so much cost to my media because I'm targeting
and targeting and targeting, and again I've shrunk my POE
consumers dramatically by doing it. Why are you paying that
huge premium because I don't want wastage? Right? Some of
(21:22):
that listage is the future customers. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Tell
us a little bit about how you think about late
buyers versus heavy buyers have to have friends. What we
did five year analysis by the continuous panel analysis and
ships a typical consumer good about eight percent of your
buio only buy you once a year or thessault than
(21:46):
once a big two years, with three years of fouritious
or five. And people go, okay, well, but then they
can't make out much of my sales, right because they're
so light. You know, well, i'mbout forty so am I? Right?
Your brand tracking only talks to people who have bought
the category of the last two months, and you're actually
buying these precise targets to only try to reach really
(22:08):
you're just talking to your friends basically. Yeah, And it
so feels like that sometimes I read these briefs. In
the States, there's a lot of media decision makers and
people writing the briefs and making a lot of these
decisions are very centralized in New York and Brooklyn. Increasingly,
Bob always says, how many of you in this room
own a tesla. How many you've been in a tesla?
(22:33):
You know, it's a It's less than one percent of
cars on the road in America. So that's what we're
always talking about it. I heart because we have this
mass reach and much lower CPMs, So we've got two
things going for radio there. What do you see as
the challenges about mass reach? Well, fragmentation obviously, but we've
(22:54):
got clever people that's got computers and then we do
get that reach. I mean, once upon a time these
I grew up in a country and in New Zealand,
we only had one of the TV stations. So yeah,
you put an ad on, you pretty much reach the country. Yeah,
and I caught some great brands and built doing that.
And then you know, later it got more complicated. And
(23:15):
so I used to tell offic I told and saying,
you know, you guys used to say, you know, this
is all of this new media and it's difficult at
leit about it. You know, whereas we new TV, you know,
really you didn't know TV. It was just easy. It
was just there's three choices. Most of Americans watching so
(23:36):
often people you know, they'll hear the data. Americans lower costs,
like we have all these cases of other brands and
chrome like g by using the mass media and people
very they'll be very skeptical, but they'll they'll do a
little test and then they'll just go Wow. It's sort
of like buying TV back in the day in New Zealand.
(23:56):
You know, you're just reaching a lot more people. You're
gonna start seeing sales grow. So I would like to
see market has drink a lot more research and learning
a lot more about things like radio, TV, outdoor. It's
like always there's also we must know a lot. Really,
what do you know about it? Yeah? You know, I
love saying so in the front Time TV show, how
many people who watched this week will be back watching
(24:18):
next week? People, I don't know. We've known this for
fifty years. We can predict this. But you know, I've
played the universities because most universities don't teach media at all. Yeah,
it's so interesting because, yeah, on the media side, I
think people get so caught up in the r o
(24:38):
I metrics and these sort of momentary KPIs. You know,
there's a lot of people touching a campaign, a lot
of hands on keyboards going I'm just going to drive
that number or that number or that number, and they're
all in isolation of they're not actually growth of sales. Yeah,
they're not thinking about mental and physical availability. Those are
(24:59):
the two big things undependent value of your company. Yes, yes,
what about message? You know you talked a lot about
not getting too specific on who you're targeting, so you're
going after the biggest pool of potential customers. But when
it comes to messaging, you do believe in specific messaging.
(25:19):
How do you advise people if you're talking to everyone,
how do you find a message that works. Well, that's
why we have advertising agencies because it was certainly, you know,
just all that persons interesting cats, right, Well, we put
again that the dollars and put a dollar. It was
that easy. We wouldn't need every agencies. No, we need
(25:40):
avertyping agencies because we go, okay, well you need to
communicate to millions of human being and they're all very different.
They do have a comment that they're human. M h.
You to work with Matt, Okay, we need will resonate
because it's very hard to act and do customization. People
are realize that. But all the research of the tests,
(26:02):
the academic tests we try personalization, the results of miserable.
So it's much better to place at bit on great
creativity that resonates with lots of people, with a little
bit of sophisticated mass marketing. I mean, obviously if someone
speaks Spanish by than English, then you talk to him.
It's been but what we wanted, mass scale without creativity
(26:24):
appreciate actually did that. We we set what do you
call it the crap track. Yes, I was there in
that room for that spanship brilliant. We're wasting all our
money creating all this different content and so we had
little money left that actually by media actually make sure
anyone heard it or so. Yeah, that's true, It's very true.
(26:47):
What do you think about in this world where everyone's
talking about privacy, you know, a world where we've become
so dependent on targeting and now with the Kingbridge Analytica
and all of the maybe abuse of targeting that's happened,
it's people are going to be pivoting back to mass marketing.
But also because they're targeting never worked. You know some
(27:09):
reports Nico human is very good work in this area,
you know, buying on programmatic platforms and showing that you know,
you could do a targe of saying men, and you
reached men about half the time, and half it's only
reached women. You know. I mean, we absolutely thought we
could do this and we couldn't. But most of the
time we don't need to target geographic right, Geographic is
hugely important because I do not have physical availability. It's
(27:33):
a very pat and so I would want to be
able to buy media on geographic basis. Yes, that's a
really important tipling thing. Where people live really matters to
their lives. Ducan lots re search shows that you know,
where people live affects what they do online. And then
some categories have end debased, you know, like I'm selling
women's clothing, so I want to the women or some
(27:55):
have some age. But after that it all gets quite trivial. Really,
we don't need anything much more than that. You think
consumers are easier dis way than we think. We don't
need to get seven hundred data points. I've seen literally
target lists from you know, digital campaigns where there's you know,
fifty sixty different criteria people are buying one impression that
(28:18):
is a mistaken belief. It's in shoudive belief that if
we get more datas My bit of predictions the forecasting
side of just just shape their heads and go Now
you wan't now you want a preid simple models out
before the most complex. Uh. How do you feel about
loyalty programs? Same problem, talking to too few people too often.
(28:42):
It might be a multi programs. Yeah, we now know
why they don't do a lot. You can detect the
dot lifting nualty. But it's rather disappointing. And the reason
it disappointing isn't because why do you join that department's
stools dualty program? Because I shot there regularly, right, And
if you don't, you don't even hear about the little
(29:02):
very true, that's the recruits are getting glass. And then
there's also the incentive effect if you don't buy, then
you go on up to get many points. So they're
very extensive or lower reach. And the low quality media
it's like Facebook friends. You know, I'm going to build
up a big thing of people who liked on Facebook.
(29:25):
That is low quality media because you're just talking to
the same people. I don't know that. It's so funny,
it's so true. I'm not a big loyalty club person,
but you have a certain retail story shop at all
the time so I accruit points. It's usually the first
story I go to, and I shopped there quite often,
and every time when they go, oh, you get fifty
dollars off this, and I'm like, amazing, but I was
(29:47):
going to buy this anyway. And country like, you've got
a lot of people living in the rule though you know,
there's only one guest station. I'm going to buck them anyway,
the one into down. That's so true. Yeah, no, it's interesting.
We've been talking a lot lately about rural America, you know,
smaller towns where you know, obviously because we have reached Americans,
(30:09):
we're reaching rural, suburban, urban, all of the flavors of
this nation. And I think so many marketers, you know,
you see campaign after campaign after campaign we want to
buy the top twenty markets, top twenty markets again, most expensive,
top twenty markets. You know, there's so many consumers out there.
You've never exposed your message too, if you just went
a little bit broader. I've done some diagnostics and brands
(30:31):
launches that have failed. One of the reasons it's the
people in the country you never reached, never even got
your message once. Wow. And usually it's the sales can
has done a great job, and you know they've got
it into Walmart or something. It's there, it's ready to
be bought. Sword on ship because you only top twenty markets. Well,
(30:55):
that's interesting to memory structures that you talked a lot about.
Can you explain the theory about memory structures. Consumers are
fairly naturally loyal. They don't really care that much about brands.
They keep going about to the same restaurants, the same stores,
the same brands on shelf. And this is what is brandiquity.
You have mental and physical availability, but you need to
(31:18):
have this to overlap. And you know a lot of
times it isn't overlapping, and that a lot of people
who are coming into the store just do not see
you because there's pins of thousands of items in the
store and they zoom in on the few that they
know and then they get out of the store. You
get a terrible return on the physical availability, whether that's
(31:39):
on a website or in a physical store, you get
a terrible return on because you went in their heads. Likewise,
there's no point being in people's heads. They don't know
where do I get this thing from? Nic As the
scot Line, the world's biggest search engine is between people's ears.
I spent so much time trying to figure out how
to do audio creative well. And we always say that
(32:02):
the world's best production machine is between your ears. So
you know, by saying Grand Canyon with jello, you're picturing
what color jello. It's amazing how we can fill in
the pictures and be even you know, targeted with audio creative. Right.
You know, I could say did you have lunch today?
Was it good? Do you even remember it? Yeah? Right,
(32:26):
And all of a sudden, I have you thinking about
your lunch. Whereas you know, back like in Microsoft, I
would have to make four spots for year for Xbox
for thirty one countries. And that living room didn't look
like anyone's living room because I was trying to bash
up you know, Southeast Asia and Europe, and no one
had that living room. But if I said picture yourself
(32:46):
in your living room, I'm relevant right there with everyone.
The impultance of having audio distinctive assets, even if you
are using video, the fact is you've got to expect
fleeting exposures. People will not be at tension to all that,
and there's something you can do about that. And you
shouldn't worry. You should just be cognisive of all that.
So I need this tv AD to work in audio
(33:08):
as well as as individual Yeah, I know, particularly people
multitasks too. I think a lot of brands have gotten
more sophisticated in understanding how important audio is because it's
tastes in your head and then like you said, there
it is on the shelf. Oh yeah, I don't even
know why I am picking that up, but it's in
my head. To stop paying more attention to jingles again, Yes,
you know we Yeah, we used to do some jingle hacks,
(33:30):
would get musicians in with marketers and actually work on
collaborating real time, and some amazing campaigns came out of that.
Because a lot of household you know brands, we know
what they are, We just need to remember to buy them.
Remember they're available. I cannot end a Math and Magic
interview if I didn't ask you to shout out your
favorite mathematician. Who's your favorite numbers person? That would be
(33:55):
Gerald Goodhart, who which with us as a cheer about
advisable Frank Emeritus Professor Honor Doctorate from the University of
Southstralia and colleague with Andrew and why do I say
Gerald because Gerald described himself as a reformed statistician than
he would always right, what's the simplest way of showing
(34:15):
this very key, not what where did the data come from?
I really understanding the data stable before subjecting it to
any sort of complex he could cut through the bullshit
very well. There's a danger when people learn statistics like
Gerald did, they just get enamored by their it's like
their machinery and yeah, the slice, and they totally lose
(34:38):
picture of the real world. So, you know, with someone
who needs statistics the Cambridge but became a silist rather
than someone who played being a statistician, that's what we
need more of. Definitely being true to the science of marketing.
How about the other side of the table, who's your
favorite creative? Who's your favorite MAGICI ship on the other
(35:01):
side of the mouth and magic coin. George Felix, who
was at Proper and Campbell gets responsible for the old
Spice revival fantastic magic and totally fitted in with you know,
the scientific laws that was really word and did it
when he went to Knowing a Chicken. He was part
of the team that finally brought back the Colonel l back.
(35:24):
I think there was a time where yeah, turn Chicken
changed its name at KFC because because the mont pun't
worried about that weird fried. This is a classic example
of marketing team just in their own little bubble, right, simnicate.
Everyone knows it's fried. Everyone knows it's fried chicken. That's
why they lost on you when you're wiping the grease
off your hands. That's why it's good. Yeah, might go, oh,
(35:48):
you know this old white guy from the South, that's
not really so good to go, Well, don't think about that.
It's a distinctive asset. It's branded. As I always point out,
no one stops to think, why does the bigger chant
a spot of shame? Also, nobody cares bringing the king back.
(36:10):
That was also genius. Yeah, that's totally in line with
the signs. And that's wonderful, gradual and right ready to
do it. So true, it's so true. We need more
bravery definitely the creative side of the equation. Well, this
has been amazing. I think marketers out there are ready
to learn a little math, a little magic, and your
(36:30):
book Our Brands Grow has just been really the bible
for so many marketers. Who are succeeding, and it's amazing
the advice you have from marketers holds up so well,
so so well today. So here are a few things
I've picked up from Gail's conversation with Byron. One, A
data driven approach can fuel creativity, not killing. Byron uses
(36:54):
the example of architectural design. Math and magic must come
together to create buildings that are beautifu full and structurally sound.
Stay rooted in data and facts, and your creative ideas
can flourish. Two. In an era of targeted advertisements, mass
marketing still works. While targeting can be a powerful tool,
(37:14):
over targeting can cause missed opportunities. Byron's research still finds
that reaching more people brings in more customers. Three numbers
don't lie. As marketers, it can be tempting to create
the campaigns we want to hear, but the data shows
that our preferences might not reflect the mass audience. Byron
(37:35):
reminds us that we need to cast aside our biases
and stick to the messages that have proven success or
Conventional wisdom often hides the truth. When we buy in
the group thing without examining the proof, we often miss
the right idea I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening. That's
(37:55):
it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to
Math and Magic, a production of Radio. The show is
hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Susan Ward for
booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no small feed,
Marissa Brown for pulling research, our editors Derek Clements, Mary
Dow and Ryan Murdoch, our producer Morgan Levoy, our executive
producer Nikki Etor, and of course Gayle Roel, Eric Angel Noel,
(38:17):
and everyone who helped bring this show to your ears.
Until next time,
Host
Bob Pittman
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