It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now? 

 You're listening to the latest broadcast news update. Here's Ryan and Riley. 

Ryan Alford [00:00:22] Hey, guys, what's happening?Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. It is Friday, May 7th Twenty twenty-one, wherever you are, however you are, whenever you are. We say hello and welcome to the latest episode. What's up, Riley Clark? 

Riley Clarke [00:00:39] Hey, I’m glad to be back. I was off last week. 

Ryan Alford[00:00:42] Josh and I had to take over. Riley Clarke, our lovely producer and my co-host for the news episodes was out last week and I'm just glad to have you back in the saddle. 

Riley Clarke [00:00:53]  It's good to be back. I love all of our news episodes. They're always great and we always get to catch up on all the things that are happening. And I feel like we get to make this announcement to the ongoing content and everything that is happening. The Radcast is becoming so big and we need to give it to you guys in a much better way. So we have decided to create a newsletter very specifically designed for the Radcast content.  What you need to know, the latest and greatest in marketing, what's going on with our guests, and Ryan's opinions, it's all there. So super excited and you can sign up on The Radcast.com. 

Ryan Alford [00:01:32] Hey, your money goes far round here, i.e. nothing. You pay nothing for this and we give you some decent advice, I think. I've been doing this for 20 years. You take it or leave it. It's free and it's entertaining. Now, in all seriousness, we're putting thought into this, we want it to be something that you want to keep getting once a month. We're not going to overbear your mailbox, but once a month, some recaps are what you can expect, and maybe some takeaways and some data, from either the episodes or guests summarizing different things. I think if you're a marketer or you are a business person or you're someone just in the field wanting to learn more about it. I know we have a wide range of people in various fields. I think this will be a valuable piece that goes along with all the other content that we're building here on the Radcast and remember folks, it's about Radical marketing result 

Riley Clarke [00:02:26]  Can you just say that again? 

Ryan Alford [00:02:27] Radical marketing results. That's what we're delivering. That's what we do at Radical every day. And the Radcast is our way of sharing that opinion, giving back to the business community, and providing a hub of knowledge across all platforms and it's not just ours,  but a lot of heavy hitters that come on the show. Speaking of that, I hope you've enjoyed this week's episode with Jens from Shinesty. That would be party wear. I'm going to call it party wear. I did have this idea in college called Cooler wear, which is when you put dressing around your cooler and you call it cooler wear. Anyway, party wear, we'll talk about that later. When you are an entrepreneur you have all these ideas, most of them kind of shitty, probably. But in all seriousness, Jens was awesome and the brand is awesome and so funny, so irreverent, but they are having fun with their brand, selling their product, and making parties fun again.  I  mean, come on, who doesn't want to go to a party and wear some Hawaiian gear or something? 

Riley Clarke [00:03:34]  There were a lot of really cool things to take away from that episode, but I think one of the biggest things for me was the creative content and that was so important because it gets overlooked. And you've talked about this a lot on the podcast recently with guests,  that that can be overlooked sometimes or the attention is not necessarily there. But he was heavy on entertaining first and building a community and then selling last. 

Ryan Alford [00:04:04] You do that and then it gives you a license to sell and they want to buy from you. I mean that's what people understand and it's not difficult. And look, entertainment and I even thought about this, I saw the post this morning and some of the clips and I'm like some brands are not going to necessarily entertain, but then educate entertainingly.  You're not all going to be Shinesty and sell ball hammocks and I get it, but you can still engage and create and educate and be insightful, enlightening, and surprising in delightful ways. And so they're doing it with a Mack truck honking. They're just running you over with hilariousness and such a great episode. And then we've got some great, already recorded stuff in the tank. So we're getting ahead of it. They are beating down the walls to get it on the Radcast now. I mean, it's just happening. It's happening Riley. They're really calling and beating. I'm kidding. We love and appreciate guest submissions. We've gotten several here recently on the website. So if you're listening and you've got a good story and if it's Radical, we cover it. So we'd like to get your email. So keep sending those in. But I mean, look, one of my absolute who I look up to, if you follow Lochhead on marketing, one of the most popular marketing podcasts, he's a number one podcaster on Apple for businesses and I'm pretty sure Lochhead is right there in the top five if not, he might be number one. Now, I don't follow every ranking, but anyway, amazing and he has written several books. But his total body of work combined with just how fucking smart he is, and every time I think I know this marketing stuff and then I  listen to his wisdom, that just seems to oozes out of him. He talks in a way that I can be recording it. I'm interviewing and, I freakin 'am sitting there, getting motivated through the podcasting. It's validating some of our decisions. I mean, our name is Radical. I've built this agency on the premise of taking chances and going big and all these things that he preaches. And it was validating, but also just stayed the course. So really, great. And look out for that one. And then several other guests, we also had Noah Samms again, will be joining us in New York next Tuesday, next episode. Dude, my brother from another, he's great, I love Noah. We've been collaborating on several things. So Noah Simms, MasterChef finalist, we did an episode with him and talked down a couple of different angles about being real. It's probably that’s the biggest lends, the authenticity, the transparency, and the need for that in today's social media. So that is an enlightening episode with Noah and that's coming out next week. 

Riley Clarke [00:07:25] And then after that, we have an incredible PR lady. She didn't specify that she owned her firm or that she's a firm, but she's a PR guru. I'd call her that for sure, Gloria Chao. And she's been working with some huge people, taught people in a real tangible way how to hack their PR and so that's going to be the bulk of the episode, but it was an incredible conversation. She's very intelligent and she's had a very interesting background being a TV producer, U.S. diplomat and now she's in the PR world, hitting some big hitters. 

Ryan Alford [00:08:07] I enjoyed talking to her, she was easy to talk to.  It flowed well and had some good insights on PR which is so huge these days with all the channels and wanting to have authenticity and authority, it just has to be in the playbook and might be number one, so I'm sure it's getting up there. 

Riley Clarke [00:08:28]  Because of the timeliness of it, you guys will love this episode. 

Ryan Alford [00:08:31] Very, very good. So Christopher Lochhead, one of the legends, Noah Simms, and PR extraordinaire, or at least call her PR extraordinary. 

Riley Clarke [00:08:41] I said guru extraordinaire. 

Ryan Alford [00:08:44] We are not leaving you out  David, if you listen to this podcast, you're our guy, but we like Gloria, she's up in old Brooklyn and we had a good conversation. She's tackling it from a different angle by helping people not just to pitch their stories, but to create their stories. She's coaching PR. So it's really interesting. So, lots of good stuff. Many new episodes, just keep sending in all of those guest submissions. We want to hear from you folks. We want to hear from you at The Radcast.com. Now, here's Riley with the news. 

Here is the Radcast News. 

Riley Clarke [00:09:21] All right, the first topic for today is, YouTube a huge giant of streaming services, and just TV brilliancy, essentially it's changing the game of TV or I should say, changing the game of streaming platforms. They came out with an update and in this huge presentation, they are developing a new way of brand extensions as a way to connect what you're seeing in the video or what you're seeing in the feature you're watching with the branded content by taking you to the brands' website. It is super, super cool, as well as commercial content and more things that they're developing. This, I feel like you've been projecting was going to happen. 

Ryan Alford [00:10:06] And look, TV, in the sense of as I stare at our TV in our studio here, TV as a medium is not dying. Television, the big screen in the living room, it's not dying. You're going to have it for entertainment. It's going to be another screen, though I would argue the smartphone is now the main TV in your home and everyone's pocket, and I will come back to that in a moment. But connected TV connected by bought media, video content has become the new commercial. And so let me explain further, we buy a ton of programmatic and connected TV here at the agency. And  TV is still a behemoth, but the budgets are shifting. I mean, it's a Titanic shift off of digital media and traditional media, like television and radio, that kind of thing. You're seeing this shift in connected TV, YouTube, and other places where you've historically watched TV in a normally linear TV. All of this streaming stuff has taken off. You have this balance and switch of subscribers and different things. So the eyeballs are on those platforms. And so YouTube is the number one channel, not technically connected TV, it's a whole different thing and we don't want to get into that nuance right now, but YouTube is going doubling down on consumers, using their television at home for watching more YouTube content. Yeah, there are already that's already happening naturally, but they're increasing it. And what this ad format is doing is it's creating that Holy Grail because television has never been a direct response medium. You watch it, it's a brand play, but digital has always been great because you can click on something then you can go buy it immediately. That experience within digital TV has always been awareness hitting you. Maybe you'll look it up on your phone or something like that. But now the connection of all that is OK, that's playing, I can hit one button and it sends a URL out to my phone. And so that's been a little bit of a challenge with connected TV as well because these ads play on whatever streaming service you're doing other than Netflix and it plays and it gets that impression. But there's not been this duplicity of sharing that experience anywhere but on the screen and not being able to make a direct call to action but this kind of changes the game. It's the holy grail. You watch it while you're on your phone, you get connected and an easy one-button buy. And this is going to change the game. It's going to be huge. I mean for YouTube and Google, it was up like 43 percent on their ad spending. This is going to see it go even higher. We're talking billions of billions of dollars, but you're just seeing real-time. And we've talked about it through the lens of entertainment, but the way with which we experience media and the ability and the relationship of ads and branding and experience and shopping, it's all in flux right now. You're seeing all kinds of evolutions of these things. It's going to continue to happen. Hopefully, all for the better, it's a better experience because it's going to be relevant. And hopefully, I'm not getting too many pantyhose commercials on my service. I mean, some people like some pantyhoses, I just don't like doing that. I got no use for them. So I'm just saying, let's keep it, relevant people. When we get rid of all these cookies don't start being irrelevant. So that's a whole other story, so don't let me get on that soapbox. But hey, this is a game-changer,  YouTube's growing and if you're not buying on YouTube call us. 

Riley Clarke [00:13:53] We are moving it right along here. So this is something that my generation was a part of. Millennials out here, Bombay Sapphire, came together to bring Bill Nye, the science guy, into a very entertaining format,  and educate on the combination of gin and tonic and the science of it. And essentially the appeal for this is for people, again, this is a campaign that's targeted at millennials, but essentially it's to prove that more people are seeking fact or fiction, especially in social media spaces and on how they're receiving their information. Everything is digital. So if you're going to put something up on digital, it needs to be factual, just plain and simple. So anyway, this is like going in that direction for sure. It's a cool thing that they're doing. And yeah, lots of data here. Go ahead, your thoughts on this. 

Ryan Alford [00:14:56]  I have two thoughts on this; No. One; don't ever let the truth get in the way of a good story. So you know all these facts now, but we've got to have good stories. That's a little bit of a bad joke. But in all seriousness, I got a good story. It's totally, somewhat related. So I'm a freshman at Clemson and,  you're venturing out and starting to drink more, Yes, I was nineteen underage drinking college like every fucking one else, you can admit it, people. And so starting to drink,  in high school we drank some beers, maybe an occasional Everclear party was dumped in the cooler with fruit or something, whatever that was called, PJ, that's right, before your time, I was going to say, A.J., you know, anybody out there shaking their head, they remember some P.J. parties anyway. So you get to school and try to get a little more sophisticated, as, in college, Bombay Sapphire came out about that time. I had never been a liquor guy,  maybe a Coors Light beer drink in high school or whatever, playing sports. It was very rare anyway. So Bombay sapphire comes out in a beautiful blue bottle and it just looks so cool.  And all of my guy friends have become gin and tonic dudes for four years. I had no fewer than 40000 Bombay gin, never even that many. I'd be dead if it was that many. But let's just say it was the drink of choice. We still drank beer, but if we were going somewhere and to show we were so cool and so slick with that Bombay bottle. I have to tell you, I haven't had a gin and tonic since my senior year in college. It ruined it.  It just killed it. I wore it into the ground and submission, and this was not because I got sick on it. I'm not saying I never did. At some point, we all got sick in college. I just wore out the taste and I haven't had one in like 20 something years. Anyway, sidebar. Bill Nye, the Science Guy. This was kind of like coming through. I graduated in the mid-90s and I remember this guy and certainly have seen him in pop culture and other things. He's on different commercials here and there. So I know him. But I think it was kind of passing out of this phase as he was kind of expanding. But it's a really smart play for Bombay. I'm sure millennials especially, this is like right down the path,  square in the bull's eye for them. And there is this whole thing of authenticity and realness that's making, a headway here on social media and otherwise,  with people saying they want to be real. I believe that and I think it's good. It's not that I don't want real but part of me, the bullshit meters this if people want real? Are we doing that for entertainment and escapism or do we want real all the time? 

Riley Clarke [00:17:59] I hear you. So it's interesting you mention that and if you're watching our video,  you will see I have this chart up and essentially it is a chart that we found through this article. But the main reasons why millennials use social media, the first two tied in percentage and they are; to stay up to date with news and current events. The second, again, they tied; to find funny or entertaining content. So it's pretty 50/50 what they're wanting for your point. 

Ryan Alford [00:18:27] Entertainment is not always real and so there is a fine line between real and entertaining and all those things. But I will say further back to the other point, back to YouTube which tied all this into a nice little bow; The smartphone is the TV. That data that Riley just read would have been the exact data from television 10 years ago. Why do you go to the news first and entertainment second? That's the TV. The difference is now you have an interactive device in your hand where you can engage. It's 2.0 people. You've got the inputs and outputs instead of in the old school TV only output from the TV, you couldn't input back into it. So the smartphone is the television and the TV is the radio because you're looking at your phone the whole time. Like literally the ambient noise in the house is the TV, you are barely even looking at the screen unless you're watching a movie.  But it does make you think about some of the creativity that we do sometimes and the importance of sound devices. Theater of the mind, as my creative director likes to say, is when you theater the mind, when you can't see what's on the screen or you're looking at another screen. So another point to think about as you develop content, but do like what Bombay is doing here, and I'm still not going to drink another one. 

Riley Clarke [00:19:49] I always like the weird combination and I realize this is not a very universal thought, but I am a big tequila and ginger ale. 

Ryan Alford [00:19:59] OK, I could do that and I think that sounds pretty good. I like ginger ale anyway, cutting through that gin taste a little bit, but I  don't know if I can ever get over it now and it's not because you just get sick of it or something, but it's that I just wore it out. 

Riley Clarke [00:20:24] It happens to everyone. Everyone has that one thing that it's like never again. Next on our list, we've been talking a lot about Pepsi recently, and there are some really important reasons why. First of all, they have gotten really big into the experiential marketing space. And we've seen that time and again with the game show they're doing,  just different things. I'm kind of losing a little bit of the other ones, but there are a lot of examples there. But this is another cool example of how they're implementing that strategic marketing experimental space and that is with Peps place.  Pepsi is essentially creating a ghost kitchen kind of idea to focus on the beverage first to the beverage combinations and what food will complement that beverage. 

Ryan Alford [00:21:15] I like this play. I'm not going to say it's Coke and drones but I will always say that coffee coke is getting real towards the bottom of the shelf. That Coke coffee is going over there. The land of misfit toys where Coke energy is exactly like I said it was. Call me Coke. I will help you with product development. So maybe it's killing it somewhere and I don't know it. But in my stores, it's making its way over to all those shitty drinks with the land of misfit toys that no one drinks that eventually works itself out as the flavor of Coke Zero or Coke energy left. It's almost gone now that Coke coffee is fading fast. It's selling itself right off the shelves, that's what they're doing anyway. So I  don't think this is a better marketing idea. I like the notion of ordering the drink first. It's kind of cool and it does kind of make sense. It's no different than pairing wine with food. I don't know if I'm thinking about my Pepsi mango and my pizza or not, but hey, it is a similar premise here because that's what I would do. When I go to a restaurant, I order whatever I want and then I pair the food at least somewhat remotely. I'm not that hoity-toity about it, but if I'm having a steak, it's red wine and if I’m having fish, probably I’m getting white wine. That's about as complex as I might get. But there is a decision process there. I don't know what goes with Pepsi mango, but I like the premise here. And it's also playing off, I don't think delivery's going anywhere,  and food ordering and all that, that Jeannie's not going back in the bottle. So there are some good insights here and that's our rationale, Pep's place,  OK, fine. But I like the insight and where it's going. I have no idea if it will do anything or if it is just a PR gimmick. But I do think it's smart to look and there's a Challenger brand. If you're a Challenger brand out there and you're looking up at the behemoth, this is T-Mobile looking up at Verizon fifteen years ago, not saying that's the case anymore, but it was. It's as all the Challenger brands, you've got to find ways to kind of stick your neck out there and get out there. Pepsi has done a good job of that.  I do not know how it's translated to sales. Ultimately, I think they're still dwarfed by Coke sales for the most part. I'm a Coke guy myself. Sorry, Pepsi, but Coke Zero.  I love Coke Zero. It doesn't mean that I like all their marketing gimmicks, but I will say there's good insight here. I like the notion of ordering your drink first. So maybe they can stick with that and see if they get a whole new campaign coming out overall. So we'll see how that plays. I like some Cardi-B and some videos. I'm cool with that. Let's get Cardi-B back on that Pepsi by now. 

Riley Clarke [00:24:07] I know. I love it. Next on our list, kind of in the same line of thought as Pepsi, the Frito-Lay unit is offering a social media contest to win branded, and this is what I wouldn’t want to be branded as I like flaming hot merchandise. So essentially it's a competition between Doritos, spicy chips, which I don't eat and Cheetos flaming hot. So they're competing back and forth for this. But the interesting thing that I'm taking away from this and why that's relevant for us on the Radcast here is because they're tapping into influencer marketing, which we've been talking about heavily in the last couple of episodes. And essentially this is targeted towards Gen-Zs and they recognize that. But I think what's interesting is this data that comes from how many people look at influencers, what they're doing and go, well, they're doing that, OK, I'll do it, too. I mean, it's a no-brainer that people are going to start promoting more of one of these products versus the other. I bet you from the audience they're trying to target Gen-Zs that sales will show. 

Ryan Alford [00:25:36] Yeah, I agree with all that. And the bigger thing that I agree with is that I love me some flaming hot stuff. Let me just say this. So I'm a connoisseur of the flaming hot suite of products, whether it's Doritos, Cheetos, chips, corn chips, whatever it is. I like hot stuff. I know everyone likes food. You talk about food, big deal I like food. So if I was on a deserted island with only one food choice, it would be chips. I'm a chip guy. Like, I try to keep my girlish figure. I try not to eat as many as I used to, but I am a chip guy. And growing up they always say this is spicy,  but they were never that spicy, it had some pepper. Then when this flaming stuff was coming out I had my doubts, I thought it would be like any other spicy chips, but that shit is hot. It is warm to the mouth and for a guy who likes spice, it's a three. And I'm like, all right, give me some water or something, which I enjoy. I like the heat, but I say all that to say I like this play. I think they're all Frito-Lay. So it's two products and hey, who do you like better? You like her. You like her Diet Coke or Coke, who wins here? So it's cool playing off that. And I do think it has this kind of aura and social media with the millennials and other things because everybody knows what I'm talking about. If you're nodding along, if you're eating or ever eaten these chips you know what I'm talking about, and the heat's pretty hot. It has its own discussion point because of how hot it truly is. So you get people talking and then, hey, so who's going to win? I don't know. I would vote for some Cheetos. I like some Cheetos and they are all in the chip family. But I love influencer marketing and we have been talking ad nauseam. I think the important thing here is to go get yourself some flaming hot chips. 

Riley Clarke [00:27:44] That's the takeaway. 

Ryan Alford [00:27:47] Yes. Hey,  we're dropping bombs on here. Thank you, Bradley, I will take your statement here every now and then on marketing, but occasionally you have to tell people to go out and eat a little bit.  It is lunchtime for us and I'm hungry. 

Riley Clarke [00:28:02]  Yes we are getting closer to our lunchtime here. So our last topic and we'll keep this in good fun because it is a cool topic.  Mr. Brilliant, Elon Musk has his company open A.I. and is creating a way to revolutionize the marketing space through artificial intelligence. A lot of people in the marketing space have been anticipating something like this and it is going to revolutionize the space. I think a lot of people are just waiting for the right person to get it in the door. And what better person than Elon Musk? To me, this is brilliant. 

Ryan Alford [00:28:46]   Elon Musk is a super-smart guy. Ironically, depending on when you're watching this, it's Friday, May 7th, and Friday, May 8th. Elon Musk if you listen to this it is going to be on SNL. And so sidebar here; Elon Musk, brilliant guy. He's been driving a lot of the bitcoin increases with dogecoin. And there's a rumor that my Dogecoin investment has increased significantly. I want to thank Elon personally for making it go up. I've made at least 20 grand in the last couple of weeks because you keep talking about it and people keep buying it and it makes mine go up. He's going to be on SNL and I  think they're going to do or say something about Dogecoin again, like somewhere in a skit. And it's been going up all week. And so anyway, brilliant. He's probably quadrupled his money if he bought five billion when he said then he's got like 100 billion. Like the rich get richer.  All right, back to A.I. and marketing. Yeah, they're coming for our jobs, people. In the agencies, they are saying we're going to get replaced by robots. Yes and no. It's going to place more of an onus on strategy. But the cool thing here is finally you're getting AI, that can look right in human nature and the biggest thing here is generally when you've had this A.I. written communication like a blog post or an ad or something like that, it's good for five words and then it gets sideways. And so what this can do, I'm summarizing, but it has all these touchpoints that can feed it data to essentially write a blog humanly. It still needs some editing and proofing but we're getting closer to further democratization of content development. But what it's going to do is put the onus on increased strategy and it's going to be the differentiator for  Agency to Agency. So I feel good about that one because we will strategize people right out of their jobs. I am just kidding. In all seriousness, A.I. is going to change the world. It already is changing the world and as long as they don't blow us up as they did in the Terminators, I'm OK with them writing some copy. And, we'll get our people doing some smart thinking and editing of the robots. 

Riley Clarke [00:31:14] But the thing is, I'm a native digital user. This is what I was born with and it is what I only know. I do remember when my mom and dad had the little tiny brick flip phones and  I remember when you didn't have to put the three zero four before you dialed the rest of the phone number for West Virginia. I remembered the days when for the most part, I only really use technology in school.  I don't think this is ever going to replace a human, because you are still going to have to connect with another human for them to make the decision. People listening to this one hundred years from today, you can't all be dead by then, are saying she was not right. 

Ryan Alford [00:32:12]  Did you ever think a robot would drive your car for you?  Well, now they are. And you don't think that robot is going to tell you what to do? 

Riley Clarke [00:32:20] And it's great because it's optimizing the human experience. And I understand that. And that's all fine and good. But ultimately, the human is who the products do and you can't replace that completely. 

Ryan Alford [00:32:29]  But you can shortcut some of it with the robot. I'm calling them robots A I even if it's just a computer doing it.  It still is software and it is still robotic in some way even just the memory. 

Riley Clarke [00:32:48] It's a collaboration. And this is what I like about it because eventually, I could see somewhere down the road, you have your personal A.I. development tool that helps you and your career. I can see that happening. And I think that would be a cool piece to have just for being resourceful and making the most use of your time. Unfortunately, everything is becoming more demanding of work and things like that, which is good in some ways. But in some ways, it could take away from other parts of things. So I think having this AI component is a cool thing to start seeing being implemented in the marketing space. And we'll be following it here because of what we do. 

Ryan Alford [00:33:28]  It will have an impact for sure. I have not seen any of the writing samples, but from what they say, it's indeterminable from a human writing it. And so they say it can get a little sideways with some of the nuance, depending on how complex the topic is. But it will be interesting to follow and that is the news today. 

Riley Clarke [00:33:52] Yeah. So that's it for us. 

Ryan Alford [00:33:53] You know where to find us. The Radcast.com. At the.rad.cast on Instagram. I'm at Ryan Alford on Instagram and we will see you next time on the Radcast. 

What's up?  It's Ryan Alford here. Thanks so much for listening and I appreciate it. And do us a favor, if you've been enjoying the Radcast and you need to share the word with a friend or anyone else. We appreciate it. And give us a review at Apple or Spotify. Do us a solid and tell more people, also leave us some reviews. And hey, here's the best news of all. If you want to work with me to recommend you to get your business kicking ass and you want Radical or myself involved, you can text me directly at eight six four seven two nine three six eight zero. Don't wait another minute let's get your business going. Eight six four seven two nine thirty-six eighty. 

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