Episode 98 – What American Marketers Get Wrong w/Emmanuel Probst, Part Two

July 15, 2023

Dr. James Richardson:

Welcome, everybody. Got a special guest this month, Emmanuel Probst. All of the highest ROI examples that I know of come from the early-stage world, last 10 to 15 years. I mean, Dr. Squatch was getting 12X or more return from a three-minute story. It makes me want to ask you, Emmanuel, do you think that the signal overload has caused a necessity to take creative storytelling to another level? Is that actually even the answer? Do marketers have to become better storytellers, I guess is my …

Emmanuel Probst:

It’s a very big part of the answer. You just mentioned Dr. Squatch, here again. The very last thing we, as consumers, needed was yet another brand of soap. However, what Dr. Squatch bringing to the table, it’s a different tone. It’s a different relationship with consumers. It’s appealing to an audience that is almost always overlooked in that segment – 

Dr. James Richardson:

Oh, totally. Yeah.

Emmanuel Probst:

Right? I mean, call it males 18 to 34 for sake of argument. 

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah.

Emmanuel Probst:

That irreverent communication, that playful communication and that purpose behind the product is what drives these consumers, these people to choose Dr. Squatch over 150-plus SKUs that are available at any Target store in this personal beauty category. So that’s yet one more demonstration of a much, much smaller team, a much smaller brand.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah.

Emmanuel Probst:

Anyone at Unilever and Procter & Gamble that dance the market and is-

Dr. James Richardson:

Well, isn’t the problem with American marketers in the grocery stores, that they’re always imagining a woman as the buyer, and that becomes the default audience of every single leading brand? That’s what I noticed working in the food industry, is they were so concerned about making sure that the sales happened, that they did the marketing strategy to make sure that that person buying was activated versus the person consuming.

Emmanuel Probst:

The problem with most American [inaudible 00:02:31] until now, there wasn’t enough diversity of thinking. And my point is in that boardroom, not even in that boardroom, in that brainstorming session …

Dr. James Richardson:

Right.

Emmanuel Probst:

… when we build messaging and communication and value proposition for the brand, we don’t need, we certainly don’t want just a bunch of 15-plus years, so-called senior executives. We need a diversity of talents. We need people 22 years old who graduated three months ago and spend their days on social media. We need people from diverse ethnic, cultural and educational background. We need people with diverse political orientations, and we need people with diverse genders and gender orientations. And it is this diversity and this contribution from those diverse people who the value proposition that is going to help us build brands and products that succeed in the long run.

Dr. James Richardson:

At the very least, that diversity allows you to contemplate alternative audiences that haven’t been thought about in the building.

Emmanuel Probst:

100%.

Dr. James Richardson:

Now, I want to say as a related thing that I encounter, I think sometimes the people who own the business and essentially seeded it, saw an opportunity. It could even be through their own teenage kids and they jumped on it and they have this business, but they’re not actually the consumer. The owners are not the consumer. They have the same problem you’re talking.

Emmanuel Probst:

Well, about listening to your kids, and you’re right, your kids are biased because they live in a marketing type of household. And I see my kids, so little anecdote, James, so my kids are 16 and 14, and they will pick up a brand and word for word, they will say, “Yeah, that’s a brand that feels innovative and helpful [inaudible 00:04:34].”

Or, “Yeah, this is a brand for people like me,” but nobody speaks like this.

Dr. James Richardson:

I know.

Emmanuel Probst:

When normal people go to the store, they don’t look at a toothpaste and think, “Yeah, that toothpaste is going to be innovative and helpful for me and my family.” And in fact, and I can say this now because it was 15 years ago, that MTV is part of the reason why MTV eventually went downhill as I remember, and that’s, yeah, about 16 years ago. MTV will do some audience research among the kids of people working at MTV. Well, number one, those kids are very exposed to MTV, MTV type of content, and certainly, they are biased to the brand. And number two, as a mid-level research executive at MTV, how are you going to argue with the feedback that you received from the 12 years old daughter or son of your CMO. Right?

Dr. James Richardson:

This violates the first question on every survey, “Do you work for blank company?”

Emmanuel Probst:

Yeah. You may choose to answer this question truthfully or not. Yeah.

Dr. James Richardson:

That’s sad that they did that. My God. That’s just so lazy. That’s just so incredibly lazy.

Emmanuel Probst:

Well, and in all fairness to MTV, obviously-

Dr. James Richardson:

Oh, don’t be fair.

Emmanuel Probst:

Listen, it’s by all means linear TV or anything that’s related to TV these days is challenging to say the least. Anderson Cooper gathers-

Dr. James Richardson:

Are you trying to suggest, Emmanuel, that the MTV Beach House party thing, it’s just not pumping like the late ’90s?

Emmanuel Probst:

That’s a very nice way to put it.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Emmanuel Probst:

I thought that was a good way to put it.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah. I think that was their peak.

Emmanuel Probst:

Yeah. Well, but it also shows how a brand can be generational. As such, we spoke about that MTV generation a few years ago, and the bad news is, or the challenge that comes with this is, how do you appeal to the next generation? So sometimes it works in your favor. That’s how Abercrombie & Fitch kind of reinvented itself.

Dr. James Richardson:

Right.

Emmanuel Probst:

And sometimes it works against you. That’s how MTV doesn’t mean much to anyone these days, besides a nostalgia type of t-shirt that young people buy at Urban Outfitters to look nostalgic and retro. How sad.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah, I don’t think my children have seen anything but satirical clips of MTV on YouTube.

Emmanuel Probst:

Which by the way, what you just said is ironic in a cynical way. You just said, “I don’t think my kids have seen anything from MTV on YouTube.” Well, that sums it all up.

Dr. James Richardson:

If it’s not there, then literally it doesn’t exist in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Emmanuel Probst:

Yeah. Just really funny what you said. I will steal this and quote it.

Dr. James Richardson:

Are there human capital talent issues in American marketing? Has there been a shift in who … Is the industry better prepared? Does it have better talent floating around to adapt the way you talk about in your book, or no? Or what’s your take?

Emmanuel Probst:

The talents are there. It’s about the willingness to harness those talents.

Dr. James Richardson:

Mm-hmm.

Emmanuel Probst:

And I wrote this book to empower people to step in, to lean in, to make a difference. And I don’t care if you’ve been in the industry 20 years and you’re a C-level executive, or if you’ve been out of school for six months or for six weeks, you can make a difference. You can make a positive contribution. And I would argue, in fact, that if you’ve been out of school six months, you actually have a better shot at understanding culture and guiding this conversation. And that’s what I show in this book for the more junior, I mean, the expression is a little bit condescending, but for people whom are newer to the industry, how you can step in, how you can impress your boss, how you can impress your associates, how you can impress your clients and make your mark as-

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah, or have more success at your startup.

Emmanuel Probst:

Yeah.

Dr. James Richardson:

I’ve been thinking about Mike Cessario as you’ve been talking because I read a bunch of interviews with him talking about why he left the big agencies. And a couple of the campaigns for Liquid Death had literally been things that were shot down …

Emmanuel Probst:

Right.

Dr. James Richardson:

… while he was being the paid creative director for some other brand, which I find just hilarious.

Emmanuel Probst:

That is also an important part of a book to say, “The people who believe they know, they don’t necessarily know any better,” meaning so you spoke about Liquid Death founder and campaigns created that had been shot down by agencies. There are many examples like this. Star Wars was not exactly a slam dunk. He shopped it around for several years.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah.

Emmanuel Probst:

Another famous example is Harry Potter.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah.

Emmanuel Probst:

So here’s the story. She shopped Harry Potter to, I think, 13 or 14 publishers, all of them shot it down. And Bloomsbury Publishing, the lead editor, ended up telling her, “Okay, listen, I’m going to publish because my 14 years old daughter keeps bugging me about your book and she says it’s good. However, number one, it’s way too long for a children’s book.” That’s what he told her. And he told her, “And also, make sure you have a real job because you’ll never make a dime by that book.” Right? And so this happens all the time, whether it is in advertising, whether it is in publishing, in the arts, and so on and so forth.

And the opposite is true. When Governor Cuomo published his book after COVID to lecture everyone on what to do and how to manage a crisis, his publisher likely believed that it’ll be a worldwide phenomenon. The next great management book, just like we had Good to Great, just like we had Tom Peter’s, that type of books. And so Governor Cuomo at the time, and that was well before all his trouble with women, he received, I believe, a four or 5 million dollar advance for that book, which indicates that the publisher was hoping to sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah, exactly.

Emmanuel Probst:

And I mean, it never took off. They sold 40 or 50,000 copies over the first few weeks. I mean, there’s literally a zero missing with this this book, literally. I mean, this book would have been a success at 4 – 500,000 copies in the first few months.

Dr. James Richardson:

Right.

Emmanuel Probst:

So again, all those anecdotes, I meant them to empower our listeners today and to say, “Do what you think is right. Step in, shout your idea, and stand by your ideas. And eventually you will win and people will listen.”

Dr. James Richardson:

Awesome. Enjoy the rest of your week and month and year.

Emmanuel Probst:

And likewise. And thank you so much to you and to our listeners today. Really appreciate the opportunity of connecting with you.