Fear, AI, And Uncertainty

Mark 0:00

Fire confidence is down. Down. Fear and uh uncertainty is very high right now. We're all just little piggies at the trough, the trough of AI, just eating the slop.

Trevor 0:10

Add some gasoline to the fire. AKA now may be a time to increase your ad spin.

Mark 0:15

Fear is the mind killer. If you are scared, if you're always operating from fear and like you're trying to hoard, it's pretty hard to grow.

Trevor 0:22

If you're stuck, don't continue to do the same thing over and over and over again. They sold for$39 million when they could have sold for$4 billion at one point in time. Yeah. Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. Uh with me, as always, is my co-host Mark Goldhart. How are you doing this morning? Great. Wonderful. You're just on your phone. What are you looking at over there, bud?

Mark 0:48

Um well, Google is sounding the alarm. They released groundbreaking research that they can use a quantum computer to hack crypto. Interesting. So doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about, but pretty crazy.

Trevor 1:18

Yeah.

Mark 1:19

Um pretty crazy technology guys.

Trevor 1:24

We're in that time of time that uh time of life where we just have no idea what's gonna happen.

Mark 1:32

Just all a simulation, they say.

Trevor 1:34

Yeah, I was on a prediction. I was on a podcast yesterday and somebody asked me, like, where's AI headed? What's happening with technology? And it was like I don't know. You know, I think everybody's like speculating, but now like that was just like my honest answer. Like, I don't know anymore. It could be it could be like doomed. It could be in three months from now that everyone hates AI so much that there becomes this anti-AI movement, and anyone who is associating themselves with it, consumers no longer want to partake.

Mark 2:06

Or they just eat the slop.

Trevor 2:08

Yeah. Or like it takes over the way people fear that it may take over.

Mark 2:13

We're all just little piggies at the trough. Little piggies at the trough of AI, just eating the slop.

Ecom Forecast And Buying Season

Trevor 2:21

All right. Um let's talk about uh let's go so give me more slop. Agenda today is we'll give a quick e-com forecast, what's going on in the e-com. We want to talk about a cool client win because we feel like these things are important for you to potentially relate to your business to just see real life things that we're doing. And then we have uh a tweet that we want to uh read that is going to uh really kick off the basis of this discussion, which is um Which millennial brand lost this week? A big, big millennial brand had a big kick in the nads this week.

Mark 3:05

So more like a long, torturous, painful death that's finally over. Yeah.

Trevor 3:13

Alright. Uh e-comm. Ecom, what's happening in e-comm? It's buying season, t technically, right? It's it's kind of like an interesting scenario right now because we have we call it a wardrobe changing season. Yes.

Mark 3:30

As you enter into the warmer months.

Trevor 3:32

People are buying, yeah, exactly.

Mark 3:34

And well, not just people get in the mood to buy things.

Trevor 3:36

And not just a wardrobe changing season, but it's a like some may call it a personality change. Yes, exactly. Like people just they perk up a little bit. They start buying new things, they open them their wallets, especially understanding that come June they're seasonal depression is dropping.

Mark 3:57

Yeah. Vitamin D is increasing.

Trevor 4:00

Yeah, so um if you are new to the podcast or haven't been listening, you will hear that we oftentimes say chase your conversion rates. So if you are seeing your conversion rates starting to increase or your average order values increasing, chase them. And what we mean by chase them is we mean add some gasoline to the fire, aka. Now may be a time to increase your ad spend.

Mark 4:28

The engine.

Trevor 4:30

Distribution.

Mark 4:32

And technically there's little fires going on in the engine, but Yeah.

Trevor 4:36

Now we also have some gas to the engine. Record high gas prices, which is are painful. Potentially diluting what I just said.

Mark 4:46

And it is. So buyer confidence is down. Down? So fear and sentiment is or fear and uh uncertainty is very high right now.

Trevor 4:58

Yeah.

Mark 5:00

So take what I said with a grain of salt, but also understand that this is like But the the reverse of all that is true. Meaning from a macro standpoint, just be aware. Like there are bigger things than your business in the world. So like there's some there's some bigger things affecting what you do. But I mean, if we pull out of Iran tomorrow, you know, things could just go all gas prices could go down by 50% in like a week. 20 bucks, two bucks.

Trevor 5:30

Yeah, they're$4.20 here in Utah.$4.20. Yeah.$4.20. Which is coming up soon. So that'd be$4.20. Well, yeah, maybe when you listen to this. To those who celebrate. Maybe around$4.20.

Mark 5:48

To those who celebrate. So enjoy. Um partake responsible.

Trevor 5:53

We were in we were in LA and gas prices were seven like oh nine.

Mark 6:01

Yeah, it was pretty nauseating.

Trevor 6:02

Ouchies. Ouchie Wawa.

Mark 6:07

So good luck, Californians. Godspeed. Um, at least we each in the weather.

Trevor 6:14

That's what they say. For only a very small proportion of people who actually live near the beach. Yeah, that's right. My buddy once said, he said the the hard thing about California is like unless you are two blocks from it, it doesn't matter if you are like three blocks or forty minutes, you attend the beach the same amount of time. It's only like once you're like two blocks and in, then you're there every day. But once you hit that like third block, it's like you might as well be in Mission Viejo or And me personally, I'm just scared of the ocean.

Client Win: Offers That Backfire

Mark 6:47

So the ocean's a crazy place. But uh client win. Client win. Hit us. We discovered this week with a client that all of a sudden new customer revenue was way down. Orders were not that far down. CPAs were down in a good way, right? Well, CPAs were yeah, about the same, but orders were down, ROI was way down. A ROI big time. So we dug into the account. What we discovered is sale, like they had some offers going, and the offers were killing them because of the AOV change. Number one, the margin change, number two.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Yes.

Mark 7:31

And number three, it almost devalued the product. Yeah. So if you're running offers and retargeting, or if you're trying to get new customers through offers, be aware of what it does to your actual contribution dollar for those types of purchases.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Yes.

Mark 7:53

Because your your margins can shrink really fast and you don't even realize it's like, oh, revenue's coming in. But in this case, it wasn't even like the revenue shrunk, everything shrunk because the AOV went down so far. So people were coming in and buying lower priced items on sale.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Yes. Yes.

Mark 8:11

So we turned them all off and like I mean like overnight.

Trevor 8:17

Yeah.

Mark 8:18

New customer acquisition went up 4x. Pretty crazy. And revenue.

Trevor 8:22

And sometimes it's not, it's not necessarily that we're saying don't create discounts and offers. That one just wasn't the right offer.

Mark 8:33

Because it was Well, the offer that is working is a BOGO now. Yeah.

Trevor 8:37

The offer that was hurting them was just making their AOV lower.

Mark 8:41

And so when you added their cost per click, they have lower price SKUs that people I mean, it just brought in a different type of person.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Yeah.

Mark 8:48

That you don't want.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yeah.

Mark 8:50

And no one talks about this. There are customers you do not want. Very true. If they happen to come in on the, you know, if you're looking at a normal distribution bell curve, if you happen to have them floating in on the edge, that's fine. But if it becomes your mean, you're in trouble.

Trevor 9:10

I agree. Sorry about this big yawn. Um all right. So let's get into things here.

Mark 9:17

Um pay attention to what your offers are doing and who is it is attracting.

Trevor 9:25

Yeah. Uh agreed. Also, just you know because honey can attract flies.

Mark 9:33

Yeah.

Trevor 9:34

It can.

Mark 9:36

It can.

Trevor 9:38

Um also, if you're watching this, I'm a little self-conscious because right before this uh podcast, I bent over and I ripped a hole in my pants. Right in my crotch. About a three-inch hole right in my crotch.

Mark 9:55

Gained a little weight over the weekend.

Trevor 9:58

I was just filling up our refrigerator, being a good boss, getting drinks for the team.

Mark 10:03

A little too much ice cream, huh?

Trevor 10:06

Ripped. So I'm trying to sit very, if you're watching this, proper. No wide leg spread. Nobody wants that.

Mark 10:17

No desserts this weekend.

Trevor 10:19

I'm not a big dessert guy.

Mark 10:22

That's right, I eat a lot more.

Trevor 10:23

You know me. I'm a boom chick a pop, kettle corn boy, or a Justin's peanut butter cup guy. Those are my two desserts.

Mark 10:34

I eat a lot of ice cream. Ice creams for the week. Just kidding. Two pints a week will keep the doctor away, is what I say.

Trevor 10:43

Two pints a week will really throw me through the loop.

Mark 10:48

It has a number on your skin, but it's worth it.

Trevor 10:54

It's a lot of that's a lot of dairy.

Mark 10:58

It's worth it for the lower cortisol levels. That's what I say. Makes you sleep nice. Yeah, you know, just keeps you down. Just keeps you even keeled.

Allbirds Sold For $39 Million

Trevor 11:09

Alright, let's get into things because we've already No anxiety. Yeah. So just don't look at my crotch, guys. That's all I'm asking. Um, all right. Tweet from Polymarket. All right. This was today at 12.05. Well, what today is a relative term. Today in the recording is the 31st. Yes? Yeah. The 31st of March. And at 12.05 a.m. Polymarket says breaking footwear brand all birds, once valued at over four billion dollars with a B.

Mark 11:49

Billion.

Trevor 11:50

B as in boy has been sold for$39 million. Ouch. That's crazy. And a lot of that is debt. Uh who knows? I'm sure the majority of it is.

Mark 12:12

Want so the big question is. I mean I guess they IPO'd, so there's a good nice payout for the original people, I think, but what happened? Yeah, I mean, so there's a couple, there's a couple things. Did you ever own any all birds? I did. I did, yeah. I own their slippers. Okay. They had some slippers that were great for the house. Nice. Nice memory foam cushiony. I had their shoe. I didn't like it very much. I had like their flimsy.

Trevor 12:41

Yeah, I had the high top shoes that they looked kind of cool at the time. Yeah, look wasn't the issue. It was just they're so flimsy. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So, anyways, so what what happened with Allbirds? It's something that we see. I mean, obviously, we have not seen the numbers. We have no affiliation with Allbirds, so we don't actually know.

Mark 13:06

But the speculation But we do know that they went from a 4 billion to 39. To a 39 billion million.

Trevor 13:15

What is that decrease? That's just madness. Um Yeah, they were the darling. Like they were the Darling D D C brand. Uh one of. That, yeah, one of them that that everyone looked to. And so I mean, I think there's a couple things. The first one is if you go back and look, uh, you know, there's a bunch of comments on on this of people who may have uh a little bit more knowledge, background knowledge of the of this brand. Um the f first thing is when you obviously you have to operate profitably as a business. And I think for the first like five to seven years, that brand was never profitable. Right? Raising insane amounts of money. Crazy amounts. Um and they just were never profitable. And so sometimes um when you don't have a roadmap back to profitability, and you just continue to raise money or do what like like what we were just talking about, like, oh, we're discounting to get new customers, but we're not profitable, but then all of a sudden those are not the right customers, so they don't come back and buy again and again and again, then you can put yourself in a really big hole. On the flip side, you can grow really, really rapidly and then start to see a massive increase in your CAC, your cost to acquire a new customer, and immediately pull back because you feel like you can't afford it, and then you rely really heavily on returning customers, which can then also put you out of business. Now I'm not necessarily saying that's what happened.

Mark 15:12

Yeah, it's hard to know exactly what happened with Alberts, but what one assumption is that it's kind of two things with millennial brands, I think. There's this assumption, I think, and this expectation that everyone should get to$500 million, a billion dollars, two billion dollars. And to do that, I think Sean Frank from Ridge is often saying like there's very few reasons that a consumer brand should ever take on VC money. Yeah, it's almost a doom cycle. Everyone who's done it like has been in big trouble.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah.

Mark 15:51

After all is said and done, the brand doesn't really survive. But and whatever, maybe some people are trying to get a payout, so good for them. But there's that like growth at all costs mentality. Sure. But it's also combined with they get scared to grow once it actually costs money to acquire customers.

Trevor 16:11

Yeah, like once it becomes less easy.

Mark 16:13

Yeah, like the D2C model seemed easy for a lot of people because when it was first emerging, it was cheap, it was easy, like it was free distribution on social channels, it was cheap ads, everything worked. Yeah. And then as time has gone on, it's like, well, just welcome to business. Like what business is hard, advertising is not easy.

Trevor 16:32

What Mark means by free distribution is back in I think that we we looked at this in 2016, I believe it was like 30% of your social media posts that you would post organically reached your audience in 2016. Yep, you're following a lot of people.

Mark 16:49

And back then people actually followed you. Yep.

Trevor 16:52

Much harder to get followers to in 2025 that reach went from 30, I think, percent to one point like two percent.

Mark 17:00

Correct.

Trevor 17:01

Which is probably now under 8% in 2026.

Mark 17:04

So your following is almost never seeing your posts anymore.

Trevor 17:09

Yes. Which means you have no free distributions.

Mark 17:12

And you may ask, well, well then what's the point of followers? And I would say I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. What is the point?

Trevor 17:22

Unless you build a community, n there probably isn't much.

Mark 17:26

Well, and we see that in consumer behavior. People don't care about follower counts anymore. It used to be a badge of honor, it used to be like a legitimizer, it used to be social proof. It's like, I don't know. Just doesn't matter as much.

Trevor 17:40

Well, it's funny, I was I was talking to my wife the other day about this. Yeah, I was talking to my wife the other day about this. I was following, you know, so somebody well, and it's an algorithm thing. It's not even it's not even the fact that people don't want to follow anymore. It's the fact that we don't need to follow anymore, oftentimes. Because if you are creating good content, the algorithm slot machine. The algorithm just pushes puts it in front of your face. Like I was looking at somebody that I was I thought I had been following, and I noticed that there was like a plus symbol by their name when their content I'm like, I have been seeing this person's content for like four years, and I've never followed them.

Mark 18:13

Yeah. That's crazy. So kind of makes you wonder if agency is a myth, you know?

Trevor 18:18

Yeah. But I think I think that do you think?

Mark 18:20

Do you think we have free will? Oh. Free will's an illusion. Have you watched Pluribus? We're all just piggies at the trough. Did you watch Pluribus?

Trevor 18:33

Have you heard of it?

Mark 18:35

No.

Trevor 18:37

It's a very interesting concept around agency. So it's a it's a it's one of the newer Apple TV. It's got the uh uh girl from Better Call Saul. Did you ever watch Better Call Saul? I wouldn't know who that is. It's not breaking bad, but I don't think she's I can't remember if she's in if she's in Breaking Bad. I don't think so.

Mark 19:05

But anyways.

Trevor 19:06

Anyways, it's a show about somebody who's essentially get their agency taken away, and it's like how the world operates now once you don't have agency. Only one person, only a few people have agency and the rest don't.

Mark 19:15

We're all just willingly tapped into the matrix, aren't we?

Why Millennial Brands Stall Out

Trevor 19:17

But let's go back to let's go back to millennial brands, right? I think one of the biggest problems with millennials is we back when we started businesses in like 2012 to let's call it 2020. You just looked to what everyone else was doing. And so we were so conditioned to do what everyone else was doing. And it was okay to do that because it was so hard to start a business back then that there just wasn't the competition. Like the c competition wasn't so rampant.

Mark 19:52

Yeah, and there's also just an argument that the consumer wanted Nordstrom-like brands, you know? Yeah, so you we we looked exactly simple, aesthetic.

Trevor 20:05

But I think the problem is they associated the success they had not with the times, but with what they were doing. Does that make sense? Correct. So like it wasn't like that was a stra a strategy that made them win because they were so aesthetically pleasing, or because they, you know, uh flew to Ireland to to a cool photo shoot, you know, or what whatever they were doing. Um But in reality, what it was was, oh no, no matter what, 30% of your audience is gonna see your stuff for free.

Mark 20:46

It would be like it would be like if you grew up on a lobster boat, and then the price of lobster and everybody just wanted lobster one day, you know?

Trevor 20:56

Right.

Mark 20:57

And it's like everyone was like flying to Maine or whatever wherever you get lobster, and like you're just like a family out there, and you're like, oh. We're good business owners. I've done a great job. When in reality it just was demand. And that's not to diminish. A lot of you guys did great things if you're a millennial brand, but you were in a gold rush. Yeah. So I've Like social, like think about social media. It's not that old. No. Like Instagram was what, 2010?

Trevor 21:26

Yeah, I think so. And then TikTok was I mean, it was like 2018, but really didn't start becoming something until 2020, you know?

Mark 21:35

Like social media is not that new. I mean, it's like not that old. It's not. So we you guys, we all stepped into this social media, but now everyone's there. It's not this new unreaped meadow. It is everyone's here. Like you get so you gotta fight. It's a little bit more of a jungle now. You gotta fight for it.

Trevor 21:56

Yeah. So what happens is you you get caught up in this, like, oh. I was following the playbook that let's say because who was the other DDC Darlings at the time? Casper mattresses.

Mark 22:07

Casper, uh Warby Parker. Parker.

Trevor 22:11

Yeah. Outdoor voices was another one. Which, by the way, all brands that have kind of started to tank.

Mark 22:22

Um can't speak for all of them, but a lot of them have had some issues.

Trevor 22:27

Yeah. And so the the concept of let's do what everyone else is doing, and therefore, because they're successful, we will be successful, just no longer exists anymore. Right? That was the that was the old playbook, and I think a lot of millennial-owned brands, run brands have a hard time breaking through that to say Well, difference is actually a good thing, not a bad thing.

Mark 22:54

But the other part of it is just welcome to business. It's pay to play.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yeah.

Mark 23:00

You know, I think the the brands that seem to continue to exceed expectations are doing things very differently, but they're also going all in on ads. Like they understand that you can only get so much organic distribution to a point, and then you're catching lightning in a bottle at that point. And either you use that lightning to power a factory and and turn it into a system, a predictable system of outcomes, or you just sit around and try to figure out lightning in a bottle again, which is like maybe. Yeah. You know, like comfort. Like what they're doing is crazy. But this was not like a you know, like yes, there was branding, yes, it was all this, but it was like very aggressive marketing and brand marketing approaches. Doing it very differently, like trying things different, going aggressive with product seating, going aggressive with distribution, going aggressive with ads. I mean, they have we checked the ad library.

Trevor 24:02

I mean, it's been a minute, but I'm sure they have over 1,500 active ads. They're not just like throwing one ad out and they're gonna do a billion dollars this year, I heard. A billion dollars. And when I talked to the founder of it 18 months ago, they were at a hundred million.

Mark 24:16

But everything they do was especially at the beginning, was different. Like, yeah, well, and it was and they've evolved very quickly too. Like they've gone from like, hey, we're just like this niche little, it's for anxiety. You know, you know what was funny is they actually to uh a whole movement of like just clothes and style.

Trevor 24:35

Let me let me expand upon what you're saying, because I'm gonna make it sound like I'm disagreeing with you and I'd not. They weren't really oh crotch was open there a little bit. They weren't really doing that much different. Product seeding had existed, advertising had existed, but what they did different was what that they went like, oh, the best companies are sending out three to four hundred seeding three to four hundred units a month. We're gonna seed 10,000 units. Like, we're not just gonna double, but we're gonna almost we're gonna over 10x what everyone else is doing. That's how they went different. They weren't doing anything revolutionary, they just like expanded what the capabilities are. Does that make sense? That's how I think they did things different. So some of these some some sometimes it's not just, oh, I was the first person to join App Levin, and that's different, and that's how I blew up my business. It's not it's not always about that. It's just about like sometimes you just have to go bigger than everyone else. Have you heard the uh Yeah, we call it like outpacing. Yeah.

Mark 25:54

Have you heard of the outpace your problem?

Trevor 25:56

Have you heard of the 40% or it's either the 40% or the 60% rule that Navy SEALs talk about?

Mark 26:04

No.

Trevor 26:04

So what what they train you in their uh buds is that most people think fatigue and failure when they like I can't do anymore, they actually are only hitting 40% of their capacity. And so they train like that's what that's I think buds is like seven weeks. And the whole purpose is to train their mind to be like, you actually have sixty percent more that you can go. And that's how they're trying to weed people out.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Really?

Trevor 26:35

So that's why they keep them up for like seven days straight in the cold water, linking alarms to realize like actually you can handle this.

Mark 26:44

Just to mentally break people.

Trevor 26:45

Yeah, and then they mentally break the people who can't handle it, and then I think it's like an uh 80% failure rate. Like 80% of people who make it into buds don't make it out of buds. Tiger Woods. Yeah, he did do it.

Mark 27:01

Kind of broke him.

Trevor 27:03

Tiger Woods. That man, dude. Can't stand in the headlines. This podcast is brought to you by BFF Creative. BFF Creative is a software that meets services. Any marketing collateral you need, whether that's ads, emails, print designs, or social media, all you have to do is submit in a request, and one of BFF Creative's qualified designers will create a design for you and it'll be completed in two to three days. BFF Creative allows you to submit as many requests and as many revisions as you can with just one monthly fee. And the best part is that it's month to month. No contract, no hidden fees, no nothing. And if you use promo code unstoppable30, you'll get 30% off for your first month on us. Just go to bffcreative.co, pick your plan, and sign up today. But anyways, so the point the point is uh I know we brought up oh uh Alberts. Bummer outcome. The point we're trying to make right now is whether it was they overspent or underspent, or they just didn't adapt and change and and and do things differently. They sold for 39 million when they could have sold for$4 billion at one point in time.

Mark 28:31

Yeah.

Trevor 28:32

We we have a painful who's gonna be a good one.

Mark 28:34

Well, I mean, and well, they did IPO. Yeah. So like they did sell technical. That's right, that's right. So like I'm sure there's a good outcome for a lot of those people, but for a lot of millennial brands that never reached an IPO or never did that route, who are just kind of like stuck in the middle a little bit. 50 to 50 million to 100 million to 500 million.

Trevor 28:56

Five to ten million, you know, whatever that makes it.

Mark 29:01

I just think the the problem we've we've talked about a few of the problems, but ultimately I think it just comes down to that you can't you can't play offense when you're playing defense.

Trevor 29:14

Yeah, that's a really good point.

Mark 29:17

You know, Dune 3, the trailer came out, and look, I know the Benny Jezerid are all evil witches, eugenicist, you know, clan cult, but for those of you who know what Dune is and watch Dune, not that Paul Trades is much better. However, fear is the mind killer. So, like if if you are scared, if you're always operating from fear and like you're trying to hoard, it's pretty hard to grow. Yeah, yeah. Like you like, you you reach it to this plateau, and a lot of times they just start like, ugh, like I gotta protect what I already have. Yeah. And they get into a you know, zero-sum game mindset instead of a growth mindset. Yeah. And then they start, they stop doing new things, they stop doing anything, they stop trying new things. Yeah. And anytime something goes like sort of wrong, they go into like hyper PTSD, like, oh, we can't do that anymore. Yeah, yeah.

Trevor 30:14

Or and not even something Someone said something bad.

Mark 30:16

We gotta stop.

Trevor 30:17

And not even if something goes wrong, but if it doesn't go really, then they're like, oh, that was the that was the wrong thing to do. You know? Yeah. I had this conversation with my wife. You know, my wife is going through, she's doing a an anti-inflammatory diet where you eat you go off of certain things for 30 days, and then you start to add certain things back to see what was it's kind of like the whole 30 diet. Remember the whole 30?

Mark 30:46

Well, I eat ice cream every day, so I don't know what you're talking about.

Trevor 30:49

Anyway, she's two and a half weeks into it. It's 30 days, and she's like, I don't feel any different, you know? And and I was talking to her this morning, I'm like, well, that doesn't mean that it's it's been time long? It's been two and a half weeks. Two and a half weeks.

Mark 31:04

Two and a half weeks.

Trevor 31:05

Yeah, she's I mean, she's over halfway there, but it's like, hey, maybe it takes the full 30 days to feel it.

Mark 31:11

Also, like, you might not feel it at all. It doesn't mean it's not working.

Trevor 31:15

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or and maybe the outcomes are things that might happen three months from now. Correct. You know? And so, yeah, I I think that and and we've we've talked to nine-figure businesses that feel this way, where they think that they can't do a certain thing or say a certain thing, or take a chance. And we've also talked to brands that are in this like million-dollar range who say the same things. Right? So it it it's it that like that fear is not applicable to just like one size of business. Correct. Like it's it's across the board, and it's very consistent that people are feeling like they can't do and say certain things, or that they're just too scared to. Because they're either afraid that something bad will happen or s or something not good, or or like it just won't be good. Even even like though it might not be a bad thing, they're almost afraid to put themselves out there. I don't know if they feel stupid or what it might be.

Mark 32:28

But it's a pretty common Well again, like when when we just think about millennials and the difference between millennials and Gen Z, like the the big gap there is cringe. Like, I just feel like I just like Gen Z doesn't care.

Trevor 32:42

No, yeah, well, I yeah, I think millennials we care a lot about what other people think about us.

Mark 32:47

Yes, there's a little bit more of that. Very much so. Which is ironic. Because we didn't grow up. I don't know, maybe Gen Z is just immune to it. And I think they're just on social all the time. It's just like whatever.

Trevor 32:59

Well, and I think millennials, like we like we're nostalgic too. So we like the old.

Mark 33:05

Yeah, that's true.

Trevor 33:06

I like I don't you don't hear Gen Z talking about nostalgia the way like I made a I made a joke about it.

Mark 33:13

It's because they were born in the post-digital world. Like they just Yeah, you're right. There's nothing to be nostalgic about.

Trevor 33:18

But it's like, you know? It's like I got so jazzed for the new Harry Potter trailer. Harry Potter has been done with for so long. I listened to the same third eye blind eye album at least once a week that I was listening to in sixth grade.

Mark 33:39

Really?

Trevor 33:40

Yeah. I I don't wear skinny jeans anymore. But a lot of us still continue to. So I don't know. Lesson is be different, try new things. If you're stuck, don't continue to do the same thing over and over and over again.

Mark 34:08

Don't be scared.

Trevor 34:09

Yeah. Cancel culture also is not as big of a thing.

Mark 34:16

Well, I wonder if that was part of it. Like cancel culture got so intense that every millennial brand got so worried about every little thing they were saying.

Trevor 34:23

Oh, it was crazy, man. Well, we were on the brand side during that time. Yeah. Cancel culture like really was a mind F.

Mark 34:30

Everyone was examining every little word all the time. Oh, yeah. Whether it was intentional.

Trevor 34:35

That person said this, therefore they're a mega racist. You know, or whatever. Yeah, whatever it might be, you know? Or they don't care. So I think that's you know, and once again, don't go out saying offensive stuff. Like, that's not what we're saying here, but it's okay to draw lines in the sand.

Mark 34:58

But when you're walking on eggshells, it changes who you are. Totally. Yeah. Like it's it's okay to mess up and say sorry and stuff. Like on an individual level. Yeah, for sure. But like brands were walking on eggshells, like Oh, we can't do any anything because Well, and even if you didn't do anything, you were which ultimately might be why none of them took a stance on anything. Yeah. Not political. I'm not talking we're not talking politics here, guys. Yeah. We're just saying a lot of these brands became so vanilla. Well, they felt like they wouldn't even take any position on even if they were like on something that was kind of obvious. Like you're a women's brand in whatever space, it's like they wouldn't even say it's for women.

Trevor 35:43

Yeah, they'd say, like, oh well, we have to now, like, we should be inclusive and create product for men.

Mark 35:48

Yeah.

Trevor 35:49

And it's like, oh, you forgot the core audience. So now the core audience doesn't care about you anymore.

Mark 35:56

Correct.

Trevor 35:56

Yeah. So I the yeah, because there was also a fear of if you don't do something and don't say something, you're also going to get in trouble. Yeah, that this is the eggshell mentality. So I think a lot of people just like you said, we went from the.

Mark 36:09

Yeah, that was pretty that got pretty intense there in like 2000. Yeah. This is who my customer is. 18, 19.

Trevor 36:14

Yeah, this is who my customer is. 20. Now I need to make my customer everyone. And really your customer isn't for everyone. And maybe that was a huge thing with Alberts too, right? That they go into this realm of like, oh, anyone, everyone can buy our shoes.

Mark 36:32

They got to the point where, you know, like if you're that big, let's go. Yeah, it's eventually you need to start. Tam is big, like you don't like Nike, but again, Nike is all about the athlete, you know. Yeah. Nike doesn't do it for everyone. So that's true. So Polo does not make clothes for everybody. No.

Trevor 36:54

Well, I don't have much more to say about that. Sweet. Let's go. Outside of just I'm hungry.

Draw Lines And Define Who It’s Not For

Mark 37:02

Draw lines in the sand. Be different. Define who you are and define who you are serving. Yeah.

Trevor 37:12

Better yet, actually, sometimes a better exercise is define who you're not for. Like sometimes it is hard for people to be like, oh, this is my customer. Because you get in this realm of like, oh, but also this girl could be my customer. So this guy. Start in the exercise of like, okay, we know it's not for 65-year-old people and older. And we know that it's not for anyone who doesn't have a full-time job.

Mark 37:43

And we understand that this is an easier exercise for some products than others. Yeah. You know, like what's the, you know, hex clad. It's kind of obvious who they're for.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Yeah.

Mark 37:53

Like you have to be cooking.

unknown 37:56

Yeah.

Mark 37:57

Like that's who they're going after. They're not going after people who don't cook. Yeah. Gordon Ramsay is there.

Trevor 38:04

Poppy's not going after soda drinkers, right? Poppy's going after the person who's looking for the alternative. Correct. Right?

Mark 38:12

We're trying to convert maybe the diet people.

Trevor 38:14

Yeah, like Liquid Death was not going after just everyone, even though everyone should be drinking water.

Mark 38:21

Yeah, they are offensive. Yeah. A lot of people got mad, have been very offended by some of their campaigns, even though they're all jokes. Like it's not serious. Yeah. So, anyways, that's it. Okay, you've listened to us long enough. Yeah. Let's go.

Trevor 38:36

Rest in peace, all birds.

Mark 38:40

They'll rise like the Phoenix one day.

Listener CTA And Closing

Trevor 38:44

All right. See you guys. We'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. If there's a brand campaign strategy or marketing tactic that you want us to review, please DM me at the TrevorCrump on Instagram or TikTok or at the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. And of course, if you got value from this episode or if you like it whatsoever, please make sure you're subscribing, you're liking, you're following, and for sure go leave us to review to let us know that we're doing a good job. We will see you guys next time.