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I'm not jealous of any people on earth, but I think I'm jealous of Craig Clements because not only is he built a successful billion-dollar company with no outside investors, but he has made hit after hit after hit.
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And I asked him to come on the podcast.
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He thought it was just going to be a normal episode, but then when we started talking, I realized that I wanted him to give me a master class.
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And when he's giving it to me, he's giving it to you, which is to teach us the seven ways that he he as a marketer has sold over a billion dollars of products online.
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He calls these the seven human hijacks.
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And he goes through example after example of how great products and things that we take for granted like brushing your teeth or how people eat bacon for breakfast.
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Those weren't things people did back in the day.
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It was guys like him, marketers, that used specific tactics in order to make those a thing.
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And if you're an entrepreneur who's you know wants to be successful, you need to be good at marketing.
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You got to be able to sell your product and it's very rare to be able to sit with somebody like Craig who's actually one of the best to ever do it.
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And ask him, how did you do it?
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I don't I don't I mean I feel lucky he's doing this.
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He doesn't have to tell us these secrets like you know, I think he's at that sweet spot where he's been running his company for 15 years.
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He's been doing this for a long time.
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He's you know, the company is super successful.
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I don't feel like he has to like guard those secrets anymore.
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So I told him to give them to us.
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And I don't know about you, but I've had professors in school.
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I've took marketing classes, but those were not people who have actually been in the game and done it.
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People who have actually created categories, sold hundreds of millions of dollars of single products that a year ago nobody had ever heard of.
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And so Craig tells us a story of how others did it and at the end he tells the story about how he helped create the probiotics category.
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If you've ever had probiotics, you can thank Craig because he was the one who created that category and made it mainstream.
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So enjoy this marketing master class on the seven human hijacks, how marketers have hijacked your brain with Craig Clements. What's up to do to you?
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I have this theory now of guests who come on the podcast, the more their video setup looks like they were either taken hostage or are like you know, in some motel somewhere, the better the guest is.
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We had Balaji on and he was like white wall, nothing in the room and he was just like you know, at the time he didn't have his like video setup like you know, he was not in his home video setup and like the higher your IQ, the worse your video setup and the opposite is true unfortunately for me, which is the more HD and beautiful your video setup, the less interesting things you usually have to say. Yes, yes.
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And the cool thing is you're like the real-life Batman.
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You you you're an ad guy and a copywriter who translated those skills into a billion dollars of sales, which is why when you were coming on this time, we started talking and we kind of realized that you have a master class in you.
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So normally we hang out, we just shoot the [ __ ] about business ideas, but occasionally we just drop a knowledge bomb and the knowledge bomb is what we call a master class, which is just let somebody do their thing for 30 minutes.
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And the cool thing about this is you said you had given a talk internally to your team, to your company to pump them up and it sounded so dope that I just said, "Can you just please do that on the pod?"
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And you you agreed and so my friend, the floor is going to be yours.
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I'm here when you need me.
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I might chime in here and there, but I'm really going to let you cook during this and let Craig Clements do this master class. So take it away.
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So Sean, did you brush your teeth this morning?
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Did you take an elevator or are you wearing sneakers right now? Any any yeses? One of three ain't bad. One of three ain't bad. Bad, okay.
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Well, marketers created all of that.
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Marketers created so much of our daily behavior that people that I tell these stories to don't even want to accept it.
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And you know, it's it's okay though.
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I mean that's that's uh that's the case for everyone. You're not alone.
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So do you know who this guy is on the left here?
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I do not, but he looks very sophisticated. Who is that?
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This is this is a smart [ __ ] This is Sigmund Freud.
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And this gentleman on the right, do you know who that is? I'm guessing you don't. I do not. Okay.
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Well, this guy has changed your life.
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This guy is a man named Edward Bernays.
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He's often called the father of public relations and he is actually Sigmund Freud's nephew.
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So I don't know what exactly kind of kind of shirt you're wearing over there, Sean, or if you put some some style into it, but this guy is has his his hands in so much stuff that he he literally created consumerism.
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So quick example, before Bernays, people would buy clothes you know, unless you were in like the upper classes, people would buy clothes to go to work.
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Um he's the one who got together with a bunch of other people and they were like, "Wait a second, these work clothes, people aren't buying enough of them.
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If people use clothing for expression, then people would buy more clothes."
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And he got the expression uh vibe to go all the way down the line from anyone who could afford clothing to be buying more clothing and then buying more things when they came into season and this and that.
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Now there's people who don't have the means to buy buy buy more clothing than they could they could afford, right?
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Well, let me just get into some of the the examples here and then you'll see that this guy was operating on a level that is is unfathomable.
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So in this presentation, I'm going to share with you what I've discovered studying and creating marketing campaigns that have caused world change and I call them the seven human hijacks because when you use these seven things,
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you are hijacking the limbic system of the brain and a human cannot help themselves but to pay attention and either respond or at least log what you're going to do or say into their brain and maybe they respond the next time. But these seven hijacks, I'm going
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But these seven hijacks, I'm going to share each of them after I share these marketing campaigns and you're going to see how they repeat and not every campaign uses all seven, but um you'll see that some of them are extremely powerful and then when you put them all together, that's when you can really do this type of thing yourself.
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So if you're watching this right now and you're excited about you possibly changing the world forever, this is the recipe. Let's go.
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Okay, one of the most interesting marketing campaigns of all time was created by a guy named Claude Hopkins.
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So Claude Hopkins was approached by a toothpaste company called Pepsodent and they said, "Claude, we want to sell more of our toothpaste."
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And he looked at the lay of the land and he realized there was a problem.
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He said to Pepsodent, he said, "Look, only 5% of people brush their teeth on a daily basis.
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So why are you even in this business that not a lot of people are taking part in?
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Do you believe that, Sean? 1920s.
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95% of the women that you kiss are going to have terrible breath.
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No one brushed their teeth back then.
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And so Claude tells the the founders of Pepsodent, he's like, "Look, if you guys really want to sell some toothpaste, you're going to have to get people brushing their teeth."
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And so he created this masterful ad campaign that built Pepsodent into the the dominating toothpaste brand for for decades. And this is the ad.
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The ad says, "The film that discolors the whitest teeth."
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And then he has you do a demonstration.
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So do this with me, Sean.
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Take the tip of your tongue, put it over the the the fronts.
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Put it over those gold fronts you got under there. Mhm.
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Okay, do you feel that film there on your teeth? Yeah, I kind of do. Kind of do.
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So the ad goes on to say that brushing with Pepsodent is going to remove that film and behind that film is a movie star smile.
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And it's so genius, right?
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Because everybody wants that movie star smile.
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Everybody has that film whether you just brushed your teeth 5 minutes ago or not.
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Then you feel that and you're like, "Oh shoot, I got this film, you know?"
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And then it talks about how Pepsodent is the way to get rid of that film.
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So the result of this ad within a decade, 85% of Americans then brushed their teeth on a daily basis.
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And Pepsodent is still around today.
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Um they ran this ad campaign for I don't know, 50 years, something like that.
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Um and I'll tell you something interesting is about 10 years in, there was other companies trying to compete with Pepsodent and they were using a similar ad campaign, you know, it's very common to steal an ad campaign, but they couldn't get the repeat orders and they did a a focus group and they found out that people loved Pepsodent because it had this like minty flavor that made their mouth tingle after they brushed with it.
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And then the toothpaste companies, the other one started knocking that off.
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And when people felt the tingle, then they would stick with other companies.
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Otherwise, they'd try the other one, they would feel wouldn't feel the tingle and they'd be like, "Oh, it's not actually working, you know?"
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So they'd go right back to Pepsodent.
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So they they owned it for like 10 years and then it got actually competitive cuz then people were not only stealing their ads, they were stealing uh you know, their their secret of the tingle.
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So one of the human hijacks that Claude Hopkins used, one, he sold the dream of the movie star smile.
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And you're going to see this theme reoccurring throughout this presentation.
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Uh second, he created a powerful demonstration that anyone could do, and that's just rubbing your tongue over the the front of your teeth.
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And then the next thing he did is he made it about them.
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He made it about the potential user, and this is a a big thing that uh a lot of companies mess up is they just talk about their own product and, you know, why they're so excited about it, but they don't talk about why it's going to be exciting for the user.
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And Claude did a really great job of that sharing how it's going to give them that movie star smile.
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So like the there's this diagram that I love that's like um I call it the Mario marketing.
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I I don't know who originally created this.
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I saw it from that company Buffer, but I don't I don't know if they created it originally, but it's little Mario, um you know, Mario when he's small, then it's the fire flower, and then when Mario gets the fire flower, he's able to shoot fire balls out of it, you know, out of his hands. He's running around. He's huge.
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He he can shoot fire balls, and basically it says uh don't sell this, the fire flower, which is your product, sell this, which is the customer going from little Mario to being big Mario who can shoot fire balls, right?
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And it's like that's what you want to sell is how the user will be more bad ass, rather than all the features and uh facets about your product. Yes, exactly. So think about benefits. What's the benefit? What's in it for them?
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You know, these people are busy.
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Right now, Sean, I think people see something like 4,000 ads a day.
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And they did a study and it showed that the human brain has the um uh same intelligence span as a goldfish.
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It's like less than you know uh uh the ability of a goldfish to pay attention.
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So how do you grab their attention?
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Well, you have to talk about something that's exciting to them, something that keeps them up at night, or something that they, you know, have a deep dream, hope, and desire for.
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So I want to get back to that demonstration.
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Where did Claude get the idea for this demonstration?
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So 1854 there's a guy named Otis, and Otis gets into the elevator business, and he didn't invent the elevator, but he came up with a a breaking system for the elevator.
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So back then, people were afraid to use elevators because every once in a while, just like today, you hear about a car accident, you'd hear about an elevator accident, where, you know, people get on and the elevator falls down, right?
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So Otis creates this great breaking system.
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First year out, he only sells three elevators.
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The next year out, he sells seven elevators.
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Like no one cares, you know?
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He doesn't doesn't uh have the ability to get the word out.
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And then he meets this guy named P. T. Barnum.
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And so everyone probably now knows uh P. T.
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Barnum, one of the the greatest uh marketing and showman of all time. And P. T.
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Barnum says, this is what we're going to do.
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We're going to go to the Crystal Palace in New York City, which was this big exhibition hall, and we're going to do a grand demonstration.
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So Otis gets up there on this elevator shaft, and he has his assistant get up there with an axe.
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And so he's standing on it they the elevator goes up the shaft just like it normally would in a building, and he's like, cut the cord, Jimmy.
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He was ooh, but he cuts the first cord, the elevator drops like just a little bit, and then there's one more cord hanging, and everyone's looking at and they're like, oh [ __ ] what's he going to do?
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He does This is the cord.
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And then ooh, it cuts the actually the second cord, and the elevator whoosh, only two feet and stops.
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He's like, all safe here, gentlemen, all safe.
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And those were like like famous words that were published in the newspaper, all safe here.
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And it showed that Otis had invented a breaking system for elevators that worked.
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So over the next decade, he sold 2,000 elevators.
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He got all the greatest commissions.
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He did the the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, and even today if you look at your elevator I've found about half of the elevators I get into have this little Otis logo.
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Uh the Otis is is still crushing it.
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zippers, all my zippers say YKK, and all my elevators say Otis.
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That's all those are the only two things I know.
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Yeah, so uh so that's the power of a great demonstration.
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So what did what did Otis do?
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The the powerful demonstration stands in people's minds.
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And he also made it an event, you know?
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So what's great about an event?
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Well one, people are going to show up, and two, it's going to get covered by the newspaper.
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But if you think about it on a on a more primal level, have you ever heard the phrase, Sean, nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd? No, but I like that.
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One of my favorite favorite sayings, and it it just shows that humans cannot resist an event, you know?
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If you're walking down the street, and then you see like a big crowd of people, and something's going on over there, and there's a band or whatever, it's like you got to see what what's going on. It's just just natural.
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And so if you make your advertising an event, then people cannot not pay attention to it.
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And then he also showed unquestionable proof using that demonstration and putting his own body on the elevator.
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He didn't use a dummy, he didn't use a monkey.
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Himself was on that elevator while his assistant was was cutting the cords.
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And so that's the type of unquestionable proof that lead people to go ahead and take take a uh action to buy without questioning it.
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And of course, he made it about them.
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He didn't get up there and show his fancy breaking system or how it worked, you know?
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He addressed the fear in everyone's mind that was about the safety of of getting on an elevator, and he did it with the powerful demonstration.
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So Otis Let me show you uh let me show you something. Hold on. All right. Do you know this brand? Mini Katana.
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Have you seen them, Craig? I have not. All right.
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So I am about to uh YouTube, don't be alarmed.
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This is Inside here is a giant sword.
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And um this company, so this brand, they sell these it's called Mini Katana, but it's actually humongous.
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So they sell these swords.
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Now the problem with selling swords is that Google and Facebook don't let you do it.
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You can't advertise weapons.
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So how does an e-commerce brand work when you can't advertise weapons?
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Well, what they did was they started they hired like 20 YouTubers and TikTokers, and they would have them do what you just described, the powerful demonstration.
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So they would take this they would take this sword, and they would instead of saying, you know, why you need a sword, because most people don't need a sword, let's be honest, uh instead of talking about how long it is, or how sharp it is, or whatever, they would show that the sword could cut through a bullet that was fired at them.
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So this video starts with a guy's holding the sword, and there's a bullet aimed at him, and he's going to try to split it in half.
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And uh and then when he does it, it's a powerful presentation about like how bad ass these swords are.
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And he they all of their marketing, they'll take a steak, they you just see a steak plop down on a cutting board, and then a giant sword cutting through it.
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It was just completely unnecessary, but it is a powerful demonstration.
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Um and you know, I I remember seeing those TED Talks where guys take a glass, and they you know, it's like, here's dirty water.
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Would you drink this water? It's like, no way.
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And then they put it into their filter, and then like with their bottle filter, and then they start to drink it.
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I don't know who it was, Bill Gates or somebody, And sometimes they're throwing the water first, right? For for real. Yeah, exactly.
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They make it disgusting, and then the whole crowd is gasping, and like they could tell you how the filter works, or they could show you that they're willing to drink the water through this filter that was like disgusting water.
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And I still remember that was like 20 years ago.
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I still remember that video because it's just hi- You're right. It hijacked my brain.
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Yeah, the the knife company, they're genius.
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Any knife infomercial will do this, where they'll be taking a knife and cutting a penny, you know, or like effortlessly slicing tomatoes through the the king of this? Was Dr. Oz. Dr. Oz, what did he do? Every episode of the Dr.
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Oz Show is a marketing master class.
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He advertised I'm sleeping on Dr. Oz.
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Yeah, he advertised these nutrients, and I don't know if he had some type of deal with manufacturers or something like that, but he would advertise like um like resveratrol, or like um Garcinia Cambogia berries, which were like weight loss.
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But he wouldn't ever advertise a specific brand.
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He would just talk about Garcinia Cambogia.
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If you look One of the reasons it's hard to advertise supplements online is because Dr.
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Oz would go and talk about Garcinia Cambogia or whatever berry, and then all these scammers would create websites uh selling Garcinia Cambogia on auto ship that you could never get out of, you know?
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You'd sign up for the website, and the company would disappear, but that thing would be docking your credit card for years later, you know? Nobody um whatever. So Dr.
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Oz, one of the ones I remember, is he'd go on there, and he'd say, this is your body, and these balloons on it.
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And then he'd have a like a mannequin with with balloons on it.
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These balloons are the fat cells. Oh, wow.
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Garcinia Cambogia is a miracle berry that works for any body type.
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And then he'd take out a pin.
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He'd be like, this is the berry. Pop pop pop pop pop.
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That's what Garcinia Cambogia does to the fat cells in your body.
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And he praised man, like a billion dollars of Garcinia Cambogia was sold over the next few months.
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Mostly to these scammy auto billing marketers.
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It was it was wild and he did this with like five different berries over time and eventually he got pulled into Congress to testify at all this [ __ ] and like it was wild.
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He rolled with it cuz he was getting all these allegations that he was starting on one episode he goes he gets a camera crew behind him and he goes down to one of the companies that's selling the Garcinia Cambogia and he knocks on the door and he's got the camera behind him.
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The founder comes out he's like hey I didn't give you permission to use my name and likeness to sell your Garcinia Cambogia and like your auto billing customers and this and that you know and he was like pretending that he was the the good guy but I don't know man I
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don't know if like Garcinia was lining his pockets or something before it happened but like dude this was so many berries and for so many years it it it's crazy man it was like billions of dollars of a fraud happened cuz of it cuz of his show. You know you know what I love about this
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You know you know what I love about this is a lot of the audience who listens to this and a lot of the people I know who are entrepreneurial or technical type engineering type people often so rational and logical and like sort of analytical about the way that they want to about the way they see the world.
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And so the idea that hey we're going to do this event with the the axe swinging at the the the rope or you know we're going to blow up these balloons and they'll they'll be like well that's not what the fat cell looks like that's way too big that's not the scale.
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You know like you have to almost you have to use the other part of your brain if you're going to do this.
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You have to make something powerful visual dramatic and those are not skills that typically your kind of operational or technical person is used to flexing and so what I love about this is these examples that give you inspiration to be able to like go use that other part of your brain.
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You know if you look at these we got the hijacks up here right from Otis Elevator.
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All of these apply to what I just said about Dr. Oz.
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The event is that it's a TV show.
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You know so that makes an event already.
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The demonstration the unquestionable proof is him he's a doctor saying that this is going to work for you.
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And then making it about them he said this is the miracle weight loss cure for all body types.
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Like those are almost his exact words.
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And by the way you you know who else does this amazingly well? Elon.
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Elon who's the you know the scientist the hardcore engineer.
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You know what he's brilliant at?
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Just yesterday the news was there's they're getting they're hyping Cybertruck right now and did you did you see that news that came out which was that they unloaded a full magazine of some assault rifle at the door and so there's a bunch of holes in the door like that you could see where the bullet hit the door but didn't go through.
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And so he's driving that car around and leaked that kind of the tweet rumor that hey they tested it this way and he did this at their on stage event too but it [ __ ] up like he tried to take a sledgehammer and show how indestructible this was.
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He swung the sledgehammer and then they like broke through the window and he's like oh [ __ ] that wasn't supposed to happen like this is supposed to be bulletproof but he was trying to do that.
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He was trying to you know PT Barnum uh you know their Cybertruck which is which is really really cool to see. Yeah.
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You know what was another incredible success that I think was complete [ __ ] was the the Power Balance Bracelet. Do you remember those?
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It was like Dude I was thinking about that when you did the the tongue on the teeth that's the first thing I thought of.
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Where people used to say hey hold out your arms Yeah.
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and now watch how easy I go on one foot watch how easily I can tip you over. Right.
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And then you put this bracelet on and now you can't be Yeah. Totally totally. Oh god.
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But yeah I think Power Balance actually got popped for that as they deserved.
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Um But that was that was a a very effective technique even though it was you know unethical in that case. Yeah.
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Okay let's get into some so those are those are the last two are for good right?
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We want people to brush their teeth.
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We want elevators to be safe.
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Uh now let's talk about some evil campaigns.
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So okay 1930s all the the men had come back from the war you know and they gave them free cigarettes so like so many men were hooked on smoking that there was no room for growth so the cigarette companies come to Eddie Bernays Lucky Strike in particular is who who came to him and they're like hey we need more customers.
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He's like well you already got all the men but at that time Sean it was illegal for a woman to smoke in public.
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It was literally [ __ ] illegal.
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And there was like cafes in New York City where you know there's there's stories of like high society women getting asked to leave and then women that could afford it would have like special smoking rooms in their homes that would you know that that really liked it cuz they weren't allowed to do it in public.
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Oh and I should add something too.
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Women didn't really want to smoke most for the most part you know they they weren't really pushing back against it.
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Yes it was illegal but it was also considered unladylike.
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It was a it was a man thing you know.
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So he says to Lucky Strike he's like look you know you got to you got to get the women smoking.
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So what was going on at the time was the women's rights movement you know so women were out in the streets marching about you know wanting the right to vote and and Bernays capitalized on that.
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So the big social event of the day kind of like the Oscars of today was the Easter parade which would go down Fifth Avenue and all the reporters would be standing on the sidelines.
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And so Bernays organized a float.
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And he called up all of the the socialites and debutantes like the Paris Hiltons and Kim Kardashians of the day.
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And he got them all to go on this float.
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And they're cruising down Fifth Avenue the parade's happening you know when they get to the corner where all the reporters were the women they go into their stocking they pull out cigarettes put them in their mouths and light them up.
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So imagine you know Paris and Khloe and all the Kardashians and even all the Jenners on one float.
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They all just start blazing them up right?
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And the reporters are like what is going on here?
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This is this is obscene you know women aren't supposed to do this.
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Bernays and his crew went around to the reporters and they said oh no no no they're not smoking.
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They are declaring their rights with these torches of freedom. Oh wow.
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And so the the newspapers ran with that they're like you know women present torches of freedom to show that they are equal with men and they can smoke too.
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And so turned it into a movement.
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And if you think about smoking to this day if you think about a woman a woman who smokes I think I'm a bit older than you Sean but I think of like Kate Moss and like the you know sexy model smoking.
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Now it might be a gross for a woman to smoke again.
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You know or anyone to smoke.
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I don't really know what the kids these days are thinking.
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But yeah we you know you think of like some like badass badass women and you remember that old movies with Audrey Hepburn you know that famous scene I think it's uh Breakfast at Tiffany's where she's puffing that long cigarette you know.
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So yeah completely changed the world there. That's amazing.
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I had never heard that story but I love that.
27:14
That's like a combination of you got the event you have kind of newsjacking which was jumping on to an existing trend but then also um the the just the copywriting of the word the words there of you know these aren't cigarettes these are torches of freedom that's really really powerful. Yeah the plants.
27:32
If you like that plant strategy Ryan Holiday wrote a great book called Trust Me I'm Lying and he talks about all these phrases that he planted in the heads of these reporters when he was promoting things like Tucker Maxx books and and you know wild stuff back then.
27:49
So there's a new lesson in here.
27:52
A new hijack so to speak and that is help them rebel or feel superior.
27:58
So people have this tendency in them they want to go against the grain.
28:03
They want to show that they are not one of the sheep you know they want to show that they are not going to bow down to the the mainstream pressure or society standards things like that you know.
28:15
And this is a really powerful concept that you're going to see appear throughout some of the the other demonstrations here but that's that's what Bernays allowed them to do is is to rebel and and maybe even feel superior to the rest because they're they're leading the charge. Right. Okay keep going.
28:34
By the way I'm loving this so keep going.
28:36
All right so Bernays had a problem.
28:42
Lucky Strike uh did this big campaign to get women to start smoking and they did start smoking but they didn't smoke Lucky Strikes.
28:50
Because if you remember boop boop boop see the Lucky Strike package there Sean?
28:55
What color is the main color? It's green.
28:59
Well green was a very undesirable color back in those days.
29:02
It was considered an ugly color.
29:04
And so Bernays got all these women smoking but Lucky's like what the [ __ ] Bernays they're not smoking Lucky Strikes.
29:10
So he has to come up with something new.
29:12
So he goes back to his his debutantes and and socialites and as they say here women of prominence and they create the first ever Gala Green Ball at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City.
29:25
And the magazines started following around the Kardashians of the day to see what type of outfits they were going to wear that were styled in green and women started bringing green decor into their homes and it just became a a big thing and the gala happens and the women are photographed in their exotic green outfits and it it became the most fashionable color within 1 year.
29:50
Going from the the ugliest color to the most fashionable color.
29:53
And Lucky Strike without even trying became the number one selling brand of cigarettes for women because they subconsciously wanted that green box. Holy [ __ ] Wow.
30:04
Is one of the hijacks by the way using people of prominence or you didn't you don't include that in the in the hijacks?
30:09
Unquestionable proof that falls under unquestionable proof. It's a great question.
30:16
But yes, when we humans see someone as they just said in the New York Times article, someone of prominence doing something, we automatically assume it's been vetted, we automatically assume it's okay, and we automatically add something in it that makes us want to want to do that.
30:31
Maybe it's from when we were all in tribes and you know, if the chief is doing something, then you do it too.
30:36
Who knows, but that's that's unquestionable proof, you know, and so uh you know, he made an event where this unquestionable proof happened.
30:45
And also, there was this force that that they wanted to rebel against.
30:48
You know, these celebrities are like oh, I'm cool enough where I can wear green and it'll look good, you know?
30:58
You know, I heard this other other thing Sean today. So, uh how old are you?
31:00
Are you public with your age? Yeah, yeah, 35. 35. Okay, I'm 44.
31:04
So, when you think of emojis, what do you think about? When I think of emojis?
31:10
Yeah, like who do you think uses emojis?
31:13
I would have said like teenagers, teens and tweens.
31:15
Uh but I think but then I see people in India like my auntie my aunts and my aunts are crazy about about emojis. Yes.
31:24
I would have thought the same.
31:24
So, my my buddy is a dad of two teenagers.
31:27
He said they will not use emojis because they think emojis are something adults use.
31:35
They do not want to be associated with the adults.
31:37
So, kids these days they don't use emojis, they'll just use like different text characters and things like that.
31:43
So, you've probably seen these little like one to two sorry, two to three character terms that they use like TBH or like you know, it stands for to be honest or FR which means like for real.
31:54
You know, they use those type of things to separate themselves from the adults.
31:59
You know, people want to push back.
32:01
It's a it's a natural human instinct.
32:03
Yeah, when when Snapchat came out and was getting really popular, one of the things that I remember in Silicon Valley all the like product genius blogger guys were like yeah, it's you know, what the what Snapchat should do is make it easier to use cuz look at this like at the time like you know, to use those face filters, you had to like there was no button on the screen.
32:21
You had to just hold down on your face for 3 seconds like a magic trick like a secret door that you didn't know that nobody else knew about or even just in signing up.
32:29
There was like all these like funky ways to do it.
32:32
And um and then the people I think one of the guys at Snapchat came out was like, "Look, it's intentional.
32:37
We want you know, you know, you baby proof medicine.
32:41
We're we're boomer proofing this app.
32:43
Like the way that this is going to be really popular amongst young people is that we don't make it easy for older people to get in and figure out how this whole thing works.
32:49
And we want to make it easy for one friend to tell another the secret on how to do something so that they feel like they're in on it with with them and then it's like a word of mouth virality of how do you do that?" Exactly.
33:01
It's like once your parents and your grandma got on Facebook, it wasn't cool anymore. You know? Right.
33:06
And then everyone went to Instagram.
33:08
And now, you know, Uncle Bob's on Instagram and it's just like losing losing the hype, you know, so everyone goes to TikTok, right?
33:14
And we'll see if something comes next, you know, I think the the moms are well, moms are definitely a big group on TikTok now.
33:20
Um I don't know if like I don't know, are you on TikTok? I'm I'm not.
33:25
I I have like a strong I got to admit.
33:29
I love TikTok even though, you know, it's my Lucky Strike.
33:30
I know I know I probably shouldn't be be smoking that TikTok every night, but I do.
33:33
Well, you know, TikTok is crack. It is digital crack.
33:37
Very well designed digital crack.
33:41
So, don't blame yourself.
33:42
People say that, but like when I think when they say that, they mean avoid it and I'm like, "Wait, crack like isn't crack supposed to be like the greatest experience when people do it?"
33:49
And I then I open up TikTok and I start swiping.
33:51
Yeah, well, you know, actually speaking of drugs, funny enough, there's another rebellion I'm seeing in in my community against alcohol right now. Mhm.
33:59
And and I remember in my 20s it was all about the alcohol.
34:03
You know, if you should didn't show up if you show up a party empty-handed, you know, it's like not cool.
34:06
I've gone to parties now with a bottle and they'll be like, "Oh, this is a non-alcoholic party.
34:13
Can you go put that back in your car?"
34:16
It's like this this pushback, you know?
34:19
Um well, I hope you brought some ketamine. Yeah, exactly. Okay.
34:26
Uh last campaign I'm going to share with you about Eddie Bernays is the Great American Breakfast.
34:34
So, early in the you know, 19th century 20th century, breakfast was like some coffee and and maybe a roll or some oatmeal or something like that, right?
34:45
No one actually had like a actual hearty breakfast.
34:49
And Beech-Nut Bacon comes to Bernays and they're like, "Hey, we want to sell more bacon."
34:55
He's like, "Well, people are eating bacon usually for dinner, sometimes for lunch.
35:01
There's another meal here we can take advantage of."
35:04
So, Bernays goes to his his on-staff doctor.
35:10
Or actually no, it was it was it was Beech-Nut's on-staff doctor.
35:14
And he says, "Hey doc, would you agree that a hearty breakfast containing bacon would be the best way to start your day?"
35:22
And the doctor is like, "Oh, of course I agree with you.
35:25
Do you think some of your doctor friends would agree?"
35:27
So, he has him write 5,000 letters to doctors across the nation saying, "Hey, I always think bacon is the healthiest breakfast and people should be eating a heartier breakfast. Do you agree?"
35:37
4,500 doctors wrote back and they're like, "Yes, I agree.
35:41
That makes perfect sense."
35:43
They didn't turn this into an ad campaign.
35:44
But what they did do is they shared that result with all of the newspapers.
35:49
And so, newspapers started publishing headlines, "Doctors agree, a hearty breakfast containing bacon is the best way to store energy to last throughout your work day."
36:04
And but that's how people started eating eating bacon for breakfast and you know, all the all the bacon companies started going crazy cuz it became a breakfast thing. Wow.
36:15
So, what are we doing here?
36:15
There's we're selling the dream, you know, of a of a breakfast that's going to give you more energy to get throughout your day.
36:21
You know, so that's making it about them as well.
36:23
The unquestionable proof, 4,500 doctors can't be wrong, right?
36:30
And then there's even a little bit of um feeling superior here because if your buddy is over there eating a roll, you're like, "Hey Sean, got something to tell you about that roll, man.
36:41
It's not as hearty as this here bacon." You know?
36:45
So, taps into all these these same psychological hijacks.
36:48
You keep seeing them over and over.
36:52
Okay, so let's take a step back now a couple decades to the 1910s. Orange juice.
36:58
Now, I grew up in the '80s and my mom had us drink orange juice every day for vitamin C.
37:03
Was this a thing Sean when when you were a kid? Totally. Totally.
37:07
Orange juice is when I was a kid, orange juice is good for you.
37:11
It's vitamin C which is you know, good for your immunity.
37:13
This is what I was told and uh drank a lot of sugar because of that.
37:19
Yeah, so orange juice actually has the same amount of sugar as a Coca-Cola.
37:20
So, orange juice you know, it's it's glucose or something.
37:26
I don't know, maybe it's a different kind of sugar, but it ain't good for you.
37:28
So, this was all the the result of a marketing man named Albert Lasker who was probably the the man responsible for more consumer change in the early 1900s than anyone.
37:40
Claude Hopkins, Pepsodent, Claude actually worked with Albert.
37:44
He was his top copywriter.
37:47
And prior to Claude coming on board, Albert was contacted by the California Growers Association and they're like, "Al Albert, we got so many oranges here in California, we're going to cut down trees because they overproduce and then we need to get rid of them and it brings the bugs and all that stuff, you know, how can we sell more oranges?"
38:04
And he looked at the lay of the land and all these orange growers were competing against each other trying to say like we have the best orange we have the best orange or whatever.
38:12
He goes, "Okay, first of all, you guys are all teaming up."
38:16
And so, he teamed them all up together and he put them under one brand name and he called it Sunkist, which I think is a a pretty genius name. Yes.
38:23
And then as he's he's meeting with them, he he notices that what the the growers would do for their kids as a as a as a special treat is they'd take that orange and they'd squeeze it into a cup and they'd give their kids little little shots of the juice.
38:37
He's like, "Ah, wait a second.
38:40
How many oranges did it take to make that juice?"
38:42
And they're like, "Oh, you know, three or four or whatever."
38:46
So, he thought, "What if we could make that mainstream?"
38:48
Cuz the juice tasted really good.
38:51
And so, he had a uh engineer invent this device that you could you know, cheap plastic device that you can put an orange on.
39:01
And then he created this campaign talking about how oranges have all these vitamins in them and you know, will help you get more of your nutrients from food tying orange juice to meals.
39:13
So, you think about oh well, I I want to get the nutrients from this food, so I'm going to drink orange juice with it.
39:18
And then he had this campaign where you buy a box of oranges and you send in your your proof of purchase and they send you this juicer thing.
39:23
So, it was like you get something for free and created orange juice.
39:27
And so, what is he doing?
39:30
He's selling the dream of getting them more nutrients from your food.
39:32
The unquestionable proof, you know, if you if you go to actually read that ad, there was like, you know, doctors recommend and and things like that.
39:38
Um he made it about them because it's showing them that they can get some benefit here.
39:45
And then here's a new eye jack that's appearing for the first time.
39:49
Um, actually maybe I mean I guess it would apply to toothpaste, but uh change daily behavior.
39:56
If you can change someone's daily behavior, you can create something big.
40:02
So, two modern examples of this, bulletproof coffee.
40:05
Are you familiar with bulletproof coffee?
40:06
Uh, I'm just familiar with it from the surface level, but yeah, tell me tell me what it is.
40:11
what Do you know what it is?
40:11
Uh, it's like the butter coffee or the oil coffee, MCT oil coffee, isn't that what it is?
40:15
So, you walk into any Starbucks in the country, they don't serve bulletproof coffee, but they know what it is.
40:20
Everyone knows what it is.
40:23
And the genius that that Dave Asprey had was he changed the behavior of these uh of people that were already doing something.
40:33
He kind of like he like intercepted their coffee.
40:36
to your coffee rather than a new new behavior.
40:38
So, so now he's he's changing the existing behavior.
40:41
Yes, changing the existing behavior.
40:45
And so, there's a there's a book called The Miracle Morning and it talk uh talks about the power of journaling every day.
40:52
So, you buy this book called The Miracle Morning and then you do this specific journal every day, right?
40:57
Long after you read the book.
40:59
And I met the author of that, Hal Elrod, and he told me something that that stuck with me.
41:03
I thought it was fascinating.
41:06
He said, "When was the last time you recommended a book?"
41:08
And I was like, "Well, I was just read this book on Genghis Khan, you know, I've been telling all my friends about it or whatever."
41:14
He's like, "When were you telling them about it?"
41:16
I was like, "Well, I was telling them about it when I was reading it."
41:18
He said, "Okay, well, most people recommend books during the the time they're reading that book.
41:24
And then they go and they read the next book."
41:26
Right now I'm reading Elon's biography, it's great.
41:27
That's why I just told you about that, Sean.
41:28
I'm literally in the middle of it.
41:30
You know, I can't tell you what book I read last month or last year.
41:35
People talk about the things they're doing now.
41:36
So, if you change their daily behavior like Hal did with getting people to journal in the morning, they they talk about it all the time.
41:44
So, that book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies or maybe even millions by now um cuz this is 10 years ago he told me this because people are doing this behavior every day and so they're talking about it every day.
41:55
Like, "Oh, what'd you do today?"
41:56
"Oh, I just did my morning uh miracle journaling." Like, "Oh, what's that?"
41:59
You know, so long after the book is through.
42:01
So, if you change daily behavior, it has a a viral effect that is uh untouchable by anything else. Love that.
42:09
Okay, so let's get to some more modern examples.
42:11
The 1970s, Sean, do you know who this guy is?
42:17
Um, no, some some runner. I don't know who it is.
42:19
Okay, so this this guy is before our time, but uh gentleman's name is Steve Prefontaine.
42:26
And Prefontaine was uh best comparison I can think of is like the the Michael Phelps of his time, you know, no one was really thinking about swimming until Michael Phelps came around.
42:37
He was such a dominant athlete from the USA, you know, so everyone wanted to get behind him.
42:42
So, Prefontaine was that guy for running and Prefontaine had all these great quotes like Muhammad Ali Ali.
42:46
He's like, you know, "Yeah, someone can beat me, but if you're going to beat me, you're going to have to bleed, you know."
42:51
And he's like, "If you don't If you don't run until you're until you feel like you're going to you're going to die, you're not honoring your gift, you know."
42:59
So, he had all these great quotes.
43:00
He was a great media figure.
43:00
He won every college record from like 500 m up to 2,000 m.
43:07
Prefontaine was the man and Nike was just coming up.
43:09
It actually just started like making their going from being a distributor to making their own shoe.
43:14
And fortunately, Prefontaine was in Oregon, so were they.
43:17
And they got him to to wear their shoes.
43:21
And it was a a big thing because the unquestionable proof now.
43:25
You've got Prefontaine, the top runner in the country, wearing Nike shoes.
43:33
Um, tragically, Prefontaine passed in a car accident before he could go and and honor his Olympic glory.
43:40
But before he did that, he really put Nike on the map because, you know, running was his thing.
43:46
Running, what's the one accessory that you need? Shoes.
43:48
And so, this was such a big deal um that it actually changed the entire industry.
43:56
So, so prior to Prefontaine, Prefontaine was around in like the '70s, right?
44:01
Um, if you read Phil Knight's book, he talks about if you went jogging in like the '40s, '50s, or '60s, people were like throwing bottles at you from your car cuz they're they're just like mad.
44:14
They're like, "What is this idiot doing?
44:15
You know, he's in the road or whatever."
44:18
And it was just like really hated upon.
44:22
And Prefontaine comes along and running actually becomes cool again.
44:25
And so, Nike got to ride that that tailwind.
44:30
And then what also happened is is back then people were wearing shoes that were like uh you know, kind of like the loafer or work shoe or or whatever, like pretty basic shoes.
44:41
And people wanted to rebel against that, rebel against the shoes that their dad was wearing.
44:48
And so, they started wearing these athletic shoes, these running shoes as a part of their daily attire to make a statement that like, "I'm rebelling and I'm superior."
44:58
And it changed the entire shoe market.
45:00
Now athletic shoes are probably the best-selling shoe.
45:05
And only a tiny percent of them are worn for athletic activities.
45:10
And that all started in the in the '70s with with Prefontaine.
45:12
And then of course, Nike had the amazing campaign with Jordan, which was more unquestionable proof, you know, making them feel superior cuz they got the best basketball shoe and selling the dream that they're going to be able to to fly like Mike.
45:24
So, that was a a world-changing campaign that not a lot of people think about when they put on their kicks every morning, you know.
45:30
You know one of those that's I feel like is happening right now on a small way.
45:33
Um, so you remember like, I don't know, 10 years ago or something like that, those Vibram five-finger shoes were like getting popular. Do you remember those? Yeah.
45:43
So, like you would see one and you'd be like, "What is this person wearing a foot glove?
45:46
Like, what is this thing?"
45:47
And then they would immediately go into the spiel about why this is better for you and like how they do whatever.
45:50
And I think this is like I I've seen this a lot now.
45:54
There's um there's a popular YouTuber or or Instagram guy called knees over toes guy.
45:58
And he's basically like it's like a rebellion.
46:00
He's like, "Have any of you ever been told when you're working out like don't let your knee go over your toe when you're squatting cuz it's bad form?" He's like, "Bullshit.
46:08
Like um I had all these knee surgeries.
46:10
Nobody could tell me how to fix it.
46:12
I fixed it myself because I started training that way specifically."
46:16
So, it's like a rebellion against the fitness industry.
46:17
Then he's like, "A rebellion against Nike cuz now Nike's the big bad like the incumbent.
46:20
And so, he's like uh Nike shoes, those are like wearing high heels.
46:27
Um, you know you know, you shouldn't have uh these like huge heeled shoes.
46:31
You should have low drop uh flat shoes basically.
46:35
And so, he came out with his own shoe, but also there's just like a bunch of these brands now that are kind of like uh flat, more like you're walking barefoot uh barefoot shoes, like you're walking on on the ground.
46:44
And it's funny that like now Nike is the big kind of status quo that they want to rebel against and point out how why why you shouldn't be wearing Nike shoes because of this other reason.
46:55
Doctor 5,000 doctors agree that the Nike uh you know, cushion is actually bad for you.
47:00
So, yeah, so uh you know, big one was a MacBook launched this ad that was called 1984 and it aired during the Super Bowl.
47:09
And it it uh was a big rebellion against IBM.
47:13
Everyone was using these IBMs and MacBook came out and they're like, "We're the new thing, you know."
47:16
And I think they got the idea from this Volkswagen ad right here.
47:18
So, Volkswagen when they came out, I think it was uh in the '60s, all those cars were huge, you know, if you think of like the '60s uh '70s Chevys, you know, these huge cars that you couldn't couldn't do a parking spot and had all this extra stuff on them that you didn't need.
47:33
They came out with this Think Small campaign that absolutely crushed it and it was like the the hipster statement at the time was to to drive a a VW bug, you know, and made it one of the best-selling cars.
47:49
Um, there's another ad that just came out from someone who's a master of this and that's Trump.
47:56
So, this is another video that that I would suggest you play if you can cuz it's really fascinating and they show Hillary talking about how the Trump people have have to be deprogrammed. Have you seen this ad?
48:08
It just came out like 2 days ago. No, I haven't seen it. So, what what is it?
48:14
With Trump taking a commanding lead and Bidenomics hurting American families, genius Hillary Clinton has come up with a way for Biden to win.
48:23
There needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members.
48:27
Formal deprogramming of the cult members.
48:30
Deprogramming deprogramming of the cult members. A brilliant plan.
48:38
And here's what that would look like. Pay attention.
48:42
Joe Biden will defeat him.
48:52
Biden has done an amazing job. Amazing job.
48:57
But there's one small problem.
48:57
The basket of deplorables.
49:04
Working Americans aren't idiots.
49:07
And they know who's on their side.
49:10
To American workers watching their take-home pay shrink and watching inflation destroy their family and their lives, to all of you, I have your back. I'm Donald J.
49:26
Trump and I approve this message. Wow. That's so well done.
49:33
I mean, love him or hate him, the the man is a master marketer and he just rallies his base to to rebel against you know the the in incumbents what's the word the Yeah the elites the kind of the the status quo yeah Do you think like in this case do you think Trump has input on any of that or this is just they hire some ad agency that does these things?
49:59
Like is he the master marketer or he's hiring master marketers?
50:02
I mean he he he makes the sound bites you know that sound bite I think was live from a speech that they plugged that at least it looks like it was and you know a lot of times these speech writers they think about that so there's a famous um speech Obama did yes we can do you remember that speech?
50:23
remember that speech? Yep yep of course that was a huge one But when that when the speech writer first presented Obama with yes we can Obama didn't like it he didn't want to give that speech he thought it was too basic he's like I don't want to repeat the same thing over
50:37
and over you know the the audience deserves something more intelligent and they had to convince him to to do this yes we can speech and present it as a rally cry and finally he's like okay fine you know he goes out and gives a speech and that sound bite man I think it was will.i.am turn that into that music i.
50:55
am turn that into that music video that went crazy you know Right it's just a really powerful sound bite and and I find that the best politicians end up speaking in sound bites Yeah what what what makes Trump so effective at what he's doing?
51:13
The blogger Scott Adams if anybody wants to get a good deeper on this the blogger Scott Adams who created Dilbert he when Trump was running in 2016 and nobody thought he would win Scott Adams was one of the first people I saw that came out and was like oh not only can he win he will win in a landslide which is what exactly is which is what happened and he
51:32
explained he goes Trump has verbal kill shots you know he has these phrases that he'll say about opponents where he'll be like low energy Jeb Bush and then you can never look at Jeb again and see anything but low energy and Jeb's so offended by it that he feeds energy into that like he you know he starts to be flustered by it and then he starts to try to up his
51:54
energy and then Trump will pat him on the head be like well at least you're trying now Jeb yeah that's good you're trying to pick up your energy I like that and he would just destroy candidates with like you know crooked Hillary you know he would just brand people in a one shot kill with with these phrases and even the one you that video you just showed the kind of I have
52:13
your back like you know he he's very very good at just repeating simple messages and and branding himself one way and and positioning himself against the others the other way All right so the 80s here's a a force for good so did you know Sean the phrase have one for the road do you know where that came from? No but now that I think about it it's
52:39
No but now that I think about it it's kind of a [ __ ] up phrase huh?
52:43
So I would think that the the worst use of that phrase would be go and have one and then go drive it it actually meant take a beer in your car and drink it while you're driving away from wherever you're going right so drunk driving was out of control and a can campaign was created friends don't let friends drive drunk
53:08
and it had three things to do drive your friend home have your friend sleep over or call a cab you know and this cut drunk driving in half it it it was something like a 40 to 50% drunk driving decrease when this started going around That's like Craig if I say the phrase this is your brain on drugs what do you think of? Yeah you think of that fried egg a
53:29
Yeah you think of that fried egg a powerful demonstration right?
53:30
powerful demonstration right? An egg hitting a frying pan sizzling like that was how long ago that was like had to been I was a kid like I was that was 20 plus years ago and it still has hijacked my brain where if I if I see an egg I think about drugs or if I hear this is your brain on drugs I hear the egg right like that that is so powerful how that worked These powerful demonstrations are unforgettable you'll never look at a
53:55
sword and not think about the sword slicing through the bullet there's something about it that that really sticks in in the human mind maybe it's a way we are taught how to learn you know I have a I have a daughter now and she's learning physics not the way I think of physics that is not something I thought but you know you have kids too you see how they learn the way blocks fit together and gravity and all of this you know teaches you a lot
54:19
about how the human brain learns and if you think about what these demonstrations are they're they're really physics demonstrations So it's like that's how we've been learning since age zero you know and and Right we need that foundational physics
54:35
to survive and you really notice it in babies like they need to know that if they're crawling and there's something here that it's going to hurt if they hit it like it's so basic but the kids don't know that they actually
54:47
have to learn that you know and you think about I always was like why don't we remember anything before we're 5 years old and I think it's because the brain is optimizing to learn physics I think that physics are just so important that you just like we don't need memory right now physics are like the fundamentals man if you don't know physics you're going to [ __ ] die like just you know walking down the street right? So it's all physics you
55:08
street right? So it's all physics you know I think these are like new physics lessons that that we find really fascinating Um you know what else people are really interested in is these uh they call them ASMR videos Oh 100% the soothing things that are
55:24
happening We did this as an ad for my e-com brand so I was watching TikToks and there's these TikToks that are these soothing ASMR things the ones that I was watching were like a bottle there's a bottle filled with sands or mar sand or marble
55:38
marbles so I think it's marbles and they would they would roll the glass bottle down a set of cement stairs so you hear like the clink rolling like a glass bottle rolling sound and you hear the clink as it hits the stair and then by
55:49
the second or third stair it cracks and then you hear marbles bouncing like in synchronicity like down the stairs and for some reason these these videos always have like 10 million 10 million views on them just because they're like oddly satisfying to watch and people
56:03
just love that combination of the visual plus the sound and so we took that and we remixed that with our product basically we we we've integrated it in with our product so that the video starts with that rolling thing and then
56:14
we just sort of hijack the video and show our product upon the smash and way more people watch that than if we just start with our product even though it's a complete bait and switch That's interesting yeah I mean if you go up to someone on the street and be like
56:27
hey do you love physics do you want to study physics like no but that's actually not the truth humans love physics we all love physics we're obsessed with physics and it starts at age zero very interesting So yeah so this this ad
56:40
to prevent drunk driving did the you know all these these same things and it worked So okay so here's a a modern story so 2010 when we were we're starting Golden Hippo my brother comes to me and he says hey have you you heard of probiotics and and
57:00
I hadn't and I was like what are those and he says well you know you got all these bacteria in you and I was like okay what do you mean he's like you know your microbiome I'm like what's that you know he goes on to tell me that you know you
57:13
take these probiotics which are good beneficial bacteria supposed to do something right so I take them and I started having a lot more regular poops I don't know who what I was eating before but they started working I was like why why is this affecting me I'm a
57:27
pretty healthy guy I'm in pretty good shape this is this is actually helping me out and I started looking into it and I realized that all of these foods I was eating that I thought were healthy cuz they said low fat or whatever on them
57:42
had sugars or artificial sweeteners or things like that pumped into them from the food companies and they were on the name on the labels under different names so you don't know what they are you know like sucralose or um Right you know agave nectar things like
58:00
that you know like you you would It could say zero sugars on the label but the ingredients could have these like substitutes Yeah Yeah but it's got agave it's got corn syrup it's got like you know natural fruit juices you know all
58:13
those things are sugars and so I started digging into this and there was some shady stuff man there was some some experiments done where like like you know the sugar companies would would pay a farmer to uh you know food is very expensive for
58:30
livestock and and farmers always dreamed that they could give their livestock sugar instead of food and they they'd be able to use that as a nutrient so they could stop this big food expense like they do that they try it and the cows would all
58:43
die you know and then they tried it okay well let's take the food and let's add sugar and see what happens and then the cows would still die you know and then they bury the studies right and the the artificial sweetener things were even worse so there was a company G.D. D.
59:00
Searle that invented artificial sweetener called aspartame is now known as NutraSweet what a lot of people don't know is when they he came up with this artificial sweetener they knew it'd be a a billion dollar product because the sweetener market had already been built out they started testing it on lab animals and
59:15
that lab animals were growing tumors and the scientists got popped the first time ever that the government filed criminal charges against a food company for falsifying studies cuz the scientists were cutting the tumors out of the animals and sewing them back up and saying oh no tumors here and they got caught doing that. Wow. And so I found out about all this Wow.
59:34
And so I found out about all this and I was just like completely mystified.
59:39
mystified. And so I wrote this presentation about this and I talked about probiotics and how a way to combat the artificial sweeteners and and sugars that are being pumped into your foods that it'd be impossible for you to
59:55
discover them all, you know, is to add good bacteria because those um you know that the bad bacteria growth that that happens because of all this consumption that makes the bad bacteria get really frothy um need to be offset by good bacteria. And so I put this video together and
1:00:11
And so I put this video together and it went absolutely bananas.
1:00:14
So it was seen by probably you know 100 million people.
1:00:20
It's hard to track but the last we checked it was over 100 million and this is in a period of about 4 months.
1:00:28
Joe Rogan tweeted it out and someone wrote there like hey Joe, do you realize this is a actually an advertisement for a probiotic?
1:00:38
And he wrote back oh yeah, you know, I didn't see that till the end.
1:00:39
I I tweeted it out before I I got to the end of the video but you should still watch it or something like that, you know.
1:00:46
Um and it it created the biggest probiotic brand in the world at the time.
1:00:52
And it was because of this educational component showing people that the your food supply is messed up and you have something called a microbiome that's getting affected by your food supply.
1:01:07
And one way to aid that is with with probiotics.
1:01:13
And so if you look at the Google Trends which we didn't have in the 20s, you know, I'm sure if we could do this for Google for the 20s it'd like get like you know cigarettes, right?
1:01:21
You see like a big spike after the Easter Day parade, right?
1:01:24
Or VW bug you see the big spike after the the think small campaign. Well, we have this now.
1:01:33
So if you look at probiotics, you know, probiotics were gaining some steam here and here's where um our ad comes online is Keybiotics was our brand.
1:01:40
So look at the general spike in probiotics.
1:01:45
Okay, so what what happened there?
1:01:45
Well, you can see basically the day we get kicked off of Google.
1:01:51
And it goes down and you see the trend line goes down too.
1:01:56
Um but then you see it it goes back up again.
1:02:00
And you know, this is where we lost our next probiotic brand, Perfect Biotics.
1:02:05
Uh you know, did did okay.
1:02:05
It wasn't the the huge banger success that that Keybiotics was. But fear not. Met a guy named Dr.
1:02:16
Gundry in 2016 we launched a brand with him.
1:02:20
And look at look at these spike lines.
1:02:23
Look at the probiotic spike lines compared with with the term Gundry.
1:02:28
And the reason we were and there were some days when the the campaigns would be running really strong, you know, where the the video's running running a lot that's where the the searches would go crazy. And that was because Dr.
1:02:40
Gundry is out there with with our educational presentations talking about the microbiome and talking about probiotics and prebiotics and really just educating the world on this stuff.
1:02:54
And you know, we didn't bring probiotics to America or or anything like that but I like to think we were probably a company that taught more people than anyone about the microbiome and now you know, the probiotic trends you know, keeps keeps going and I think it just keeps going up into the right if you give you find the the current data, you know, and by now the market has changed.
1:03:14
You know, I talked about I did a Twitter thread a way back where I talked about the three stages of product market.
1:03:21
So there's clueless which is when you need to create the the the marketing wave because your your market knows nothing about the the product, right?
1:03:31
So back then when I started no one knew anything about probiotics.
1:03:34
So if I just said like hey, here's probiotics, try them out, no one would have cared.
1:03:38
But I started with something they did care about was it was like hey, is your digestion messed up?
1:03:45
Are you having irregularity at the bathroom?
1:03:47
Well, here's the reason why.
1:03:50
And then the next stage of the market is is curious where someone's probably heard the term probiotics. And and you can jump in.
1:03:56
And so all my ads in 2013 2014 were starting with digestive health.
1:04:05
I had an ad in 2018 I believe it was.
1:04:09
And the headline was doctor says throw your probiotics in the trash.
1:04:14
And enough people knew about probiotics by then they were like oh, that's wait wait.
1:04:17
I heard these are good for you, you know. Right.
1:04:19
And then you click on it and then it goes on to talk about how most probiotics don't have enough strains and potency.
1:04:23
And also, you know, prebiotics are important and this and that, you know.
1:04:27
So that's just knowing the market where it was and and where you need to jump in.
1:04:31
And then the next level of the market is is saturation.
1:04:36
And that's kind of where the probiotics market is now.
1:04:37
I'm not launching new probiotics.
1:04:40
You know, I every time I go to conference someone comes up to me they're like hey, I'm launching a probiotic. I'm like good luck.
1:04:46
You know, it's it's pretty commoditized by now.
1:04:47
But there's still some that have have broken through with with strong campaigns. Amazing.
1:04:52
And so see these are the seven hijacks. I'll read them out here.
1:04:53
So number one, make it about them.
1:04:56
So that's make it about the customer and the benefits that they're going to get.
1:05:00
Number two, make it an event.
1:05:00
That's the um you know, nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.
1:05:05
Um then number three is a powerful demonstration.
1:05:08
So that's the PT Barnum, that's the elevator with the axe, that's the sword cutting through the bullet, that's the drinking dirty water.
1:05:17
Um show unquestionable proof.
1:05:17
So that's using experts like doctors or influencers plus um you know, like you said, he was willing to be in the elevator while the thing was cut.
1:05:29
You know, that's a demonstration of proof.
1:05:32
Five, change a daily behavior and I think this was change an existing daily behavior.
1:05:35
Um is that right or is it change any daily behavior?
1:05:39
I mean it could it could be either, you know. Okay.
1:05:41
So and so this is like bulletproof getting you to add something into your coffee, something you're already doing or like breakfast having a hearty breakfast as the start of your day versus you know, just a coffee and in a bread roll.
1:05:53
Yeah, so we hijacked daily hijacked to the daily behavior.
1:05:59
And what we did with probiotics is we changed the daily behavior.
1:06:02
We encouraged them to take something every day.
1:06:07
So then six is sell the dream.
1:06:07
That's the the movie star smile that's underneath that film.
1:06:11
If only you would start brushing your teeth or this is Craig pooping regularly cuz he now takes you know, probiotics prebiotics.
1:06:18
That's the dream and then number seven is help them um be a rebel or feel superior.
1:06:24
And so that's you know, be able to to stick a middle finger to the man, whoever the man is, whether it's Nike or it's you know, women not having equal rights or whatever.
1:06:36
Give them the tools and the badge to to feel like they're superior and in a rebellion, a part of a rebellion. That's right. Amazing. Well said.
1:06:45
You're you're uh I'm a good student. Yeah.
1:06:51
Well, this is I mean the stuff that's in here is I guess like this is rare in two ways.
1:06:55
Number one, I took marketing classes in college.
1:06:58
And I had marketing professors.
1:06:58
None of my marketing professors have ever done what you did.
1:07:01
They never created a category.
1:07:02
They never did a billion dollars in sales.
1:07:04
They never sat there and crafted you know, even this presentation.
1:07:08
When we talked three days ago it was going to be like marketing throughout the decades.
1:07:13
And you were like no, that's not going to be the title.
1:07:14
I got to think of something good.
1:07:16
You come back with seven seven human hijacks.
1:07:17
How marketers have hijacked your brain.
1:07:20
And I'm like oh god, just seeing you go from two days ago with no title or a shitty working title to like a really strong title is seeing somebody in action.
1:07:28
You know, hearing you what you did with the probiotic market.
1:07:32
So number one, the opportunity to have a teacher who's actually a master of the game is so rare.
1:07:39
So obviously I'm sitting up in my seat. I'm paying attention.
1:07:40
Number two, any one of these like I'm thinking as you were talking my brain was like having almost a hard time listening cuz I'm firing ideas for any of my companies on like oh, a powerful demonstration.
1:07:52
How could we show this in a way that's exaggerated and would would would almost be kind of shocking or add drama to what we're doing versus just saying the feature or saying it's good.
1:08:03
Like now how could we like do do a powerful demonstration that would give people unquestionable proof, right?
1:08:09
So I couldn't even like stop my brain from moving while I'm doing this.
1:08:13
Now that's I don't know, that's the entrepreneur in me but I think there's a lot of people who are listening that are like that that like if you paid attention to this even one of these hijacks could like literally like change the trajectory of your company.
1:08:23
So anyways, I appreciate you putting this together.
1:08:28
This is kind of this is amazing to me.
1:08:28
I don't know how other people are going to feel about this but like as as the only student in the room right now I was you know, I'm pumped about this. This is this is great.
1:08:39
I appreciate the kind words and you know, if they as they say if you can change the life of just one person, right?
1:08:44
Then your job is complete.
1:08:44
So I'll take All right, well you did it.
1:08:48
This has been a master class for sure.
1:08:50
So thanks for thanks everyone for watching. That's the pod.