October 6, 2020 • 39 mins
Adlandia returns on it’s new home on the iHeartPodcast Network with special guest Malcolm Gladwell.
Laura and Alexa are back on the mic to share their plans for the future of the show including new feature segments & partnerships. Plus an interview with Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times bestselling author, co-founder of Pushkin Industries, and podcast host of Revisionist History and Broken Record, on what makes great storytelling and even better ads. Malcolm shares some of his favorite ads and his thoughts on the immediacy of and connections built within podcasting. Learn why loyalty is a conversation and novelty is a monologue. Plus, an all new #KillBuyDIY.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
What's up. I'm Laura and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome back
at Landia. It's been too long. We have missed you
so much. It's been more than a year. Alexa. The
last time we were on the mic was early March.
Last time we had mics in front of our faces.
We're in Brooklyn with Panoply, and now we are over
(00:32):
at I Heart Radio with our friends, our new producer Ryan.
He's amazing, he's in the fam. It's just great to
be back, you know. Over the last year, of course,
Laura and I talk all the time, talk about what's
happening in the industry, talk about what's happening in business,
talk about what's happening in the world. And I think
(00:53):
we felt like it was really important to come back.
And you know, now more than ever, bring the outside in.
And I think what's really important is this mindset in
the way that we kind of push to pull, right,
we pushed to pull from the outside. I love them.
So we're gonna push at Landia to pull in new voices,
(01:17):
new faces, new thoughts. Speaking of new friends, um little
sneak peek. Lisa Sherman from the Ad Council is going
to be on the show later in the season. UM.
When we were on the show and recording with Lisa,
we had a great idea kind of off mike with
her to do something to really highlight what the industry
(01:39):
can be doing kind of constantly, to be thinking about
um purpose, giving back, nonprofit. And so we created kind
of this special segment that we're going to be featuring
on the show called good Landia. And we'll be talking
a little bit later in the show about the good
Landia segment. UM for the month of October, we will
be focused on getting out the vote. We're also going
(02:00):
to be chatting later in the season with Ian Schaefer,
co founder and CEO of Kindred, talking about the intersection
of purpose and profit. And we have a big partnership
that we're announcing that brings you more of at Landia
off the mic um available every day. You can go
and register now to our new digital zine with our
partners at new Stand at www dot new stand dot
(02:23):
com backslash new Landia. So new Landia is going to
be a curation of content from contributors around the industry.
Go check that out. Register It is free to join.
So excited about it. And maybe there'll be some merch drops.
Maybe I think we're all in on the merch drops done,
and we'd like to take a minute to thank our
partners over at Yield Move for helping us bring back
(02:44):
the show. We'll be chatting with the old Move over
the course of the next few episodes, talking about making
attention actionable, something Alexa and I have talked about at
length on the show, so we're excited to dig back
in with them in a four part mini series coming
too soon, thanks again to our launch partner, You'll know
yourm But that said, we have a big interview to
get to. We have a really special first episode and
(03:05):
we were really excited about it. Malcolm Gladwell. It was
an amazing conversation and I think you know what was
really for me. There are a couple of great points
of clarity when he starts to talk about and you
guys will hear it when he starts to talk about
storytelling in such a simple way with no pretense. For me,
I've got to underscore the no pretense because I feel
(03:28):
like right now, you know, as marketers, as advertisers, we
need to do the best work and just be focused
on the best work with no pretense, none of the
pomp and circumstance, because that a lot of that's been
stripped away. I couldn't agree more. I think is a
(03:48):
real important reminder for brand marketers who are writing briefs
and sitting in the rooms making decisions about what narratives
get put out into the world. So I'm excited for
everyone to hear this amazing first interview with Malcolm Gladwell.
(04:14):
Welcome back at Lantia. We are so excited to welcome
Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times best selling author of books
including The Tipping Point, Blank Outliers, David and Goliath, and Moore,
including most recently Talking to Strangers. Go pick that up.
It's available now. Writer for The New Yorker, recognized as
one of Times one hundred most Influential People, podcast hosts
(04:36):
of revisionist History and one of my personal favorites Broken Record,
and also co founder of Pushkin Industries. Malcolm, Welcome to Atlantia.
Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Malcolm. We, you know,
are huge fans of revisionist history and we love that.
You know, revisionist history is about the kind of story
(04:57):
that was not told or the true behind a person
that wasn't recognized, and you're amazing kind of pulling these
stories and these characters out of history and retelling a story.
What's the most unlikely kind of storyteller that you admire
most in the pastor present? Unlikely? Who's the unrecognized storyteller
(05:24):
that you point to in your head. That's a really
good idea good question. Well, I suppose in your definition
of unlikely. I read a lot of thrillers, spy stories,
those kinds of things, and I tend to think that
if you want to learn how to tell a story,
that's the way, that's where to look. And so, you know,
(05:47):
I've read every Jack Reacher novel. I have read every
Stephen Hunter novel. I have read every John Lacarey novel.
When I was a kid, I read every Christie novel.
When I was even younger, I read every I think
I read every Hardy Boys book. You know. I I've
always thought that that the principles of good storytelling our
(06:09):
universal and people in the world of fiction are probably
a step ahead of those of us in the world
of nonfiction, and that's what we ought to you know,
there's just questions about a lot of it is about pacing.
You know, storytelling is fundamentally I think a question of pacing,
that things have to come at the right moment um,
and you if you rush it, it doesn't work, and
(06:32):
if you are too slow, it doesn't work. And that's
what not That's what novelists think about endlessly, and I
don't know whether we in the nonfiction world pay enough
attention to that particular problem. Can we go a step
further and talk about storytelling in the advertising world. I
know a fun fact, Malcolm, that I learned about you
(06:52):
recently is that, um, you wanted to start out of
school a career in advertising, and so there must have
been and something about storytelling through the lens of advertising
and marketing that intrigued you. How would you take what
you just shared and apply that a step further to
storytelling as it applies to brands. Well, the reason I
(07:14):
was obsessed and I remained obsessed with advertising, and I
did you quite right. Coming out of college, what I
really wanted to do was go and work for an
ad agency. I applied to I think sixteen agencies and
got sixteen rejections. So that's why I went into journalism,
Because I couldn't get a job with my first love.
But what I admired was the economy of advertising. The
(07:35):
idea that you can tell a story in a thirty
second television commercial is to me so fantastic and unbelievable,
and my I've often I always think people who do
those ads are the the greatest of all storytellers. You
know that famous line of Mark Twain's I wrote you
a long letter because I didn't have time to write
(07:56):
you a short one, and his point being it's harder
to tell a story briefly then at length, is so true.
And the idea that there are television commercials that for
thirty seconds long, where you you feel like you have
entered into someone's experience and you feel like a story
has been told from beginning to end in thirty seconds,
it's just unbelievable to me. I mean, I don't think
(08:19):
I could do it, which is why I'm in such
of it. From time to time, I call up if
I see an that I really love. On more than
one occasion, I have tracked down the person responsible for
it just to talk to them. Can you tell us
about a time when you did that? Yeah, there was
one very memorable one, there was a Heineken ad where
there were a bunch of people, young people in the
(08:41):
back of a taxi cab and the taxi driver, who's
this crusty old guy is is playing up. I think
it's a bell deev Devot song. They all start singing along.
It's this lovely moment because it's I think it's a
guy and two girls and they're clearly coming home from
that out of the town and they're just a little
bit tipsy, and they start singing along to that song.
(09:03):
And then the taxi driver joins in and he's like
a seventy year old, angry looking guy, and it's just
so lovely, Like everything about it is perfect. And I
call it the guy I was gonna do something. I
never ended up writing about it, but I just wanted
to talk to the guy who did it, just just
say like, I'm sorry, that's genius, Like everything about it.
(09:25):
I just had him tell me how that aad came
about and how it was filmed, and I feel like
we started a new show where I think we just
started a new show. Malcolm can critique ads and or
find out the origin story of them if anybody's interested
in making that show called pushkin there's a Google Chrome
ad too that I never did I talk to the
(09:47):
guy who did it, or did I talk to someone
who knew the guy did it. I once on um
abbot Kinney in Venice ran into somebody who said hello.
It turns out he worked for an emergency and we
started talking king about our favorite ads, and I started
talking about that Google Chrome ad where the father. If
you're not crying fifteen seconds into this one, you have
(10:10):
no heart. It's unbelieval. It's the she's gone to college
and she's emailing with her dad and there you don't
realize until halfway in that that her dad is all
she has left. Mom has just died. And there they're
they're wondering about how they they're missing the mom and wondering.
And as the dad is typing about the mother and
(10:32):
telling you the mother's dad, he all you see is
his key strokes, and his key strokes slowed down, and
it's just like at that moment, it's just it is
gut wrenching. Do you cry, ads? Do you correct? Oh?
My god, yeah, I totally cry. Why, I mean, of
course that's I cry. You remember the legendary Hallmark ads. Yeah,
(10:53):
I mean I was in tears. So the power of
storytelling is obviously something that you've created, but it also
clearly reason rates with you. One of the things that
we are curious to talk about is as you're such
a successful podcast host who has a massed an audience.
I think you're something at three million downloads per episode
of Revisionist History, you know, thinking Malcolm about what it
(11:13):
takes to create or build an audience of that size,
but then also integrate brands into the conversation in such
a way where you don't skip a beat and that
your audience is looking for the ads and or connects,
you know, sort of the message. Perhaps, How do you
think about integrating ads? I know you had some that
(11:34):
you've wanted to make over the years that never came
to fruition, one of which you shared around zip Recruiter
and and the st Bernard. Can you talk to our
audience about how they should think about engaging with you
as a podcast host and more importantly, connecting with your
audience in a meaningful way. Yeah, well, my I think
of my audience as as having a shared sensibility, not
(11:58):
a shared demographic, and so I sort of know I
have an intuitive sense about why they're listening and why
they're reading my book, which is they I think they
share the same kind of curiosity I have and the
same sense of mischief. I don't take things that seriously,
(12:23):
I mean every now and again, But I'm also I
don't take myself, you know, insane these here. I mean,
there's a kind of I don't know. There's a certain
there's a certain personality to revisionist history that um and
I think that the people who listen are people who
don't necessarily agree with me, with people who just have
that and appreciation for that personality. It's really my dad's personality.
(12:47):
My father was someone who took like three things really seriously, mathematics, gardening,
and the Bible and nothing else. Everything else was up
for grabs. He could be convinced, he could joke about it,
he could make fun of himself. I mean, outside of
those three realms, it just was Everything for him was
(13:08):
a speculative exercise in in enjoyment and curiosity. And and
I sort of in the same way, have a couple
of things that I'm passionate about, but the rest and
I think people listen will share that, And so we're
interested in. I think of ideas as things that are
not just informative and interesting, but fun. I think it
(13:31):
should be as fun to explore an idea as it
is to watch a movie or listen to an incredible song,
or go for an amazing walk, or whatever your choice
of pleasure is. So when I you know, when I
do an ad. I love to write my own ads
because I'm a frustrated copywriter, um and the best ones
(13:53):
are the ones where I just bring that sensibility. So
Malcolm tell us a story about the same Bernard. Oh
you had the same Bernard. Zippercruiter Red had a had
a product they wanted to promote, which was a reverse.
Instead of employers looking for employees, it was going to
be a potential employees would lose use ciprocruiter to look
for employers. And so I found this true story about
(14:14):
a family like in the wilds of Minnesota who had
a pet Saint Bernard, and the Saint Bernard got lost
and they had to go out looking for the St. Bernard,
which of course is you know. St. Bernard's historically are
the ones who looked for people lost in the snow,
and they're Saint Bernard got lost in the snow. So
it was the perfect So the whole thing was about
this Saint Bernard who got lost, and it was it
(14:35):
was this complicated hilarious, I thought, hilarious, perhaps not in
real life allegory for what Zippercruiter was trying to do
with their But then sadly they decided they didn't want
to promote that, and so this is one of this
is this loss. This is like one of those you know,
in Soviet Russia, they would always be these legendary manuscripts
that never saw the lot of day. This is this
(14:56):
is the legendary laws Zippercruiter at I think you're more
of a creative director than you know, because every creative
director experience is that pretty much every day with clients,
cutting room floor, cutting room floor. I want to do
if I ever did an AD show, I want to
I just want to play all those the ones that
(15:18):
never made it, I think are the fun ones. I
want to hear all the ones that I just think
that that would be hilarious. You've talked a lot about
your voice, and there's been a lot of you know,
folks who have written about your voice as a writer
as a storyteller. Was there a time when you realize
you had galvanized your own voice and that perspective. Was
(15:39):
there like a specific moment that you realized or was
it over time? I mean the first time I ever
it was starting the podcast. It was you know, uh,
doing the podcast was the first time when I really
had to use my voice, right, like literally, yes, literally
(16:00):
use my voice. And so, and I realized I have
a different spoken sensibility, slightly difference so than written sensibility.
At least my running tends to be a lot more straightforward.
There's still some playfulness there, but it's not as in person.
In speech, I'm more playful than I am in writing.
(16:20):
And so it was not until I formally was required
to use my voice and tell stories this way that
I began to realize, oh, you know, this is actually
assided myself that I really like and think is fun
and that people will respond to. What's it done for
your storytelling? I mean, you've talked about this a bit,
(16:41):
but if you feel like more expressive in audio in voice,
has it changed the way you tell the stories? The
thing about podcast is you don't have to you can
meander a little bit in a way you can in print.
And it's that's really that's that suits me because I
am a man and I there's tons of asides that
(17:05):
I want to go on, Like in one of the
podcasts episodes is coming up in season five with this
little moment, I'm talking about his painting, and this is
a particular van go that, in its long history, was
once owned by the heiress to the Kmart fortune who
lived in Detroit. And what's hilarious about her life is
that she was briefly for a year married to a
(17:26):
Swedish baron and she convinces him to move from London
to Detroit, and the marriage lasts six months and he's
out of there. Of course, it's Detroit in the fifties.
What Swedish baron from London is gonna want, it's gonna
survive and move to Detroit. So it's like that kind
of thing. If you're writing about it, do you put
(17:46):
that in? Sort of hard because it's that story, That
little digression requires a certain tone of voice, right, But
in a podcast, of course you put it in because
it's hilarious. So it's like, it's just there's so much
more playfulness inherently in and that's the thing about the
ads to the ads are just it's just so much fun.
It's just there's so much you can do if you
(18:08):
put your mind to it in that space when you
when you incorporate ads into a podcast. I was blown
away by the subtle yet impactful insight you shared at
a dinner not that long ago, Malcolm, when you talked
audio book sales surpassing print. I got stuck on it
and I'm still stuck on it because I think there's
something that's so true how you can develop a relationship
(18:31):
through spoken word versus written but also just a sign
of the times and how people are choosing to consume content,
and so much that I believe you're going to be
the first author to hit a million audiobook sales. Is
that accurate? I don't know what in the first I
don't know how many Michelle Obama is sold, but I
don't I don't imagine there are a ton of others. Yes,
approaching a million audio book sales and that surpassing print
(18:53):
for the first time was a sort of thing to
think about as I'm sure now you're thinking about format
and so much that you share that you don't know
that you might ever write a book again. So what
is that signal to you in in terms of the
way people want to engage and they want to learn
and interact with hosts and all the other things that
it might point to. Well, it's I mean, I should
(19:14):
say that I don't think books are dead. Far from it.
This is first of all an indication of just my
shifting interests that I like this way of storytelling. I
like working with groups. It's much more of a team
exercise to do something in audio. I like how emotional
audio is. That's what those are the kinds of stories
(19:37):
I want to tell these days. I like how you
know they will come on point when brands like Pushkin
will clearly we're going to be selling our audiobooks directly
at some point, there'll be no intermediary. I love that
the book business has, for obvious reasons, has all kinds
of intermediary steps. You need printers and distribute tars and
(20:00):
trucks and bookstores and you know, on and on and
on and on. I love the idea of finishing something
on a Monday and sending it out to my audience
on a Tuesday. That's kind of great. And boy am
I grateful in the middle of this pandemic that my
audiobook is more popular than my physical book because people
aren't going to bookstores right now, you know, they can
(20:20):
sload it online. But you know, there's something there's just
something really powerful about the immediacy of this particular experience
and that appeals to me a lot at the moment
as a storyteller. At the end, I believe it was
season one of Revisionist History. Alex and I went to
see you do a live reading at the Apple Store
in soho Um and I just remember the two of
(20:43):
us sitting at the back watching. It was like being
at a at a concert standing room only, and you know,
everyone was leaning forward and couldn't wait to ask questions
At the end, how do you think about sort of
that two way relationship that podcasting might allow you to have.
Is it any different than when you would be doing
the book tour? Do you find more in between moments
(21:05):
to engage during a season and especially during the time
of COVID, How how are you engaging with your audience
or and how do you imagine you were moving forward? Well,
it's a much more intimate relationship with the audience um
the minute they can hear your voice. So if you
think about this to backtrack fro a moment um, the
people who have the most intimate relationship with their audiences
(21:29):
are people who are on television, so actors sometimes, although
the actor thing is weird because the person is often
relating to the actor, to a character and not when
I think, you know, when I meet Jennifer Anderson, I'm
not thinking about Jennifer Andison. I'm thinking about our character
and friends. Right, So there's a real intimacy when you
(21:51):
hear someone in a in a consistent context um and
they become a part of your the kind of the
furnace sure of your life. You it's not a it
becomes there's a there's a you know you almost This
is we know that weird thing where if you if
you were to run into someone like that, you're not
(22:12):
sure whether to call them by their first or last name,
because they seem like they're now with an author, you
don't have that if you're writing a book, people don't
think of you as a friend. They don't feel like
they know you. They you know, there's you're sort of abstract.
Podcasting is much closer to the first model. And so
you know, you people who come up to me now
(22:36):
because of my podcasts, they're approaching me not as a
celebrity but as a friend. That's a really interesting that's different. Um,
it's no, you never hear Mr glaud bow which I
would hear in the book Days it's Mr Gladbow O,
could you sign my book? Now? It's like Malcolm, it's
(22:58):
like and the way they approach she was totally different.
It's like the distance is gone. It's like not in
a not just way, it's actually lovely. It's like there's
no it's just like a they feel like they've been
having a conversation with me and they want to continue
the conversation. And that's powerful stuff. That's amazing, right, That's
that's the gold standard that you know when you're if
(23:19):
you're interested in building. I really have a sense now
that I am actively building an audience. There's a community
of people out there who are waiting for the next episode.
And who are you know who just kind of to
use a sixties expression, who like dig what's big revisions history? Right,
(23:39):
It's like that's kind of great, like that we were
doing some research before this and book sales for some
of your earlier books, like The Tipping Point reached two
million book sales worldwide. It's interesting to think about each
episode reaches three million and sort of carrying that audience
along as you know it you're going into You said
(24:01):
season five, just how incredible it is to build that
audience over time. And you've used this phrase in the
previous conversation of the idea of having loyalty over novelty,
which I think we're going to put on a T
shirt because it's we love that. It's something that we
would talk to brands and media companies about all the time,
which was stopped going for the kind of lowest common denominator.
(24:25):
Make it valuable to write, make it valuable to someone.
In the minute you do that, you start to differentiate yourself.
I think, especially right now, the world is kind of
grappling with that, like how do they proceed, especially kind
of post COVID, what is meaningful? How do we kind
of proceed to be ourselves? Which is a kind of
interesting question. I don't know if you have thought, Yeah,
(24:47):
this loyalty novelty thing has a number of different interesting dimensions, um,
but one is that loyalty is a conversation and novelty
is a monologue. WHOA wha did you just hear what
Malcolm said, Ryan, let's rewind that we got to hear
it again. Loyalty is a conversation and novelty as a monologue.
(25:16):
And so and then he applies both to people like
me and also to brands that if you want loyalty,
you have to have find a way to to have
a conversation with those who you are. So to give
you an example, we we just got them as an advertiser.
Actually because I'm such so in love with the brand.
I'm a runner and there's this new sportswear brand called
(25:38):
track Smith, which is like the cool running brand and
the stuff is really really I mean I'm wearing I
wear it like all the time I met the guy
who found the company. I mean, I'm I'm in the
tank for this cumpy. I'll be honest, as there are
a lot of runners, I know. It's just beautiful stuff
made for runners, by runners, and you. The reason it
(26:00):
can that brand connects to me is I feel like
it's a conversation, not a literal conversation, but I feel
like they're when I look at the way the stuff
they're putting out changes over time. It's almost as if
they're like responding to what runners like me want that
there are you know, it's people like me making stuff
(26:21):
for people like me. I don't know, So that's that
strikes me. That's that's loyalty and action, you know. I
My suspicion is I'll be wearing that brand ten years
from now. I really do believe that. But if the
brands were thinking the way you're talking about things and
giving themselves license to actually grow and not just grow
(26:41):
the bottom line, but grow the relationship in a meaningful way,
I think we would see very different, very different work,
very different products. Steven and Goliath hit me in a
very different way. And one of the things that you said, um,
I actually think it's in your promo for Masterclass, was
why did you lose? Right? Because they've become so big
(27:02):
and so powerful that they actually lose the ability to see,
and that Goliath literally and physically lost his ability to see.
We're in this really interesting era if I take that
into the media world, in the consumer world, um, where
the ad dollars are dominated by a couple of players, right,
(27:26):
and they're sitting on rings of data and analytics about us,
about our behaviors, about everything right, how we live, where
we live, all that stuff. But does that really actually
help them in the long run. There's something that's a
bigger question here, um that if they want to have
this discourse, if they want to have that relationship, you know,
(27:49):
do they get to the place where they're too big
to see even though they've got all of the information
to see. What do you think about that? What's the
future with where all this consolidation is making the goliath?
I think this a lot with I'm a car nut.
I spend huge amounts of every day on car websites,
(28:11):
and the stereotypical obvious example of this is General Motors
and Generals is an interesting It's interesting in a number
of ways because as a car fanatic, I am aware
of the fact, as are all car fonetics, that General
Motors makes really good cars and has now for the
last ten fifteen years at least four or five of
(28:32):
their cars are world class automnbills, which is for a
car manufacturer, given the constraints they're under with their legacy
cos with there is really high and I just think,
how on earth can a company that probably spends what
to three billion dollars a year on advertising, So that's
over the last ten years thirty billion dollars in communicating
(28:54):
with the largely the American public has been unable to
communicate the fact that they make really good cars. There
has to be there must be many explanations for that,
but one is that it's just it must be just
something about side. I mean, there's something about I mean,
I look at their advertising. I don't I don't want
to step on anyone's does, but there's nothing particularly compelling
(29:17):
about it. It certainly doesn't communicate the idea that they
make really good cars, um, you know, which is kind
of shocking, Like, you know, I really obviously example, forgive
me what I riff on this. You know, the Chevy
um Bolt previously the volt is A is one of
the best electric cars in the world and has been
(29:39):
for I mean, it is a gold standard e V.
How is it that nobody knows that fact. How is
it that nobody knows that dollar for dollar, the Corvette
right now is probably the greatest sports car made in
the world, or that the Chevy SS is a car
that every single car nut in America would die to
own a Chevy s S if they could find one,
(30:00):
or you know, I could go on like I don't,
I just don't. Just baffles me totally. Do you think
it's because we when you look at like an advertising
brief and I'm curious to think about, like are their
book briefs? Right? Like when you go and you think
about telling a story, right and you come up with
an idea for what that's going to be. Do you
start with what the objective is and how many books
(30:21):
you need to sell and what you hope the output
is on the other side of that narrative, or do
you go into writing a story or a book or
or creating an episode of revisionist history because there's a
conversation you want to have with people connection you're trying
to make. That's where the disconnect I think between because
I've heard you say this, Malcolm, and we've said it
(30:43):
many times on this show. People don't hate ads, they
hate bad ads, and and does that all begin further
upstream in the brief or you're more focused on the
transactional outcome than the relationship with the people who are transacting. Yeah, No,
I think I think you have mean you would know
way better than me. But um, you're the But I
(31:03):
think you're right. There's some there is some kind of
fundamental there's something I don't know what the what the
institutional processes that is causing this gulf between the audience
and the product. Um, but you're right, they're not. We
don't we When I sit down and do an episode,
I write a book or do an episode of vision History,
(31:23):
I don't start with my expectations of how many UM
downloads we're gonna shift, right, It's not even it didn't
even occur to me. I I just think about what's
an interesting story to tell, and I have faith that
if I tell it in a compelling way, people will
gravitate towards it. Um. I don't even know what the
(31:44):
downloads are. I mean, I care less. It's not my
it's not my problem, you know. My problem is to
tell great stories. Jacob Weisberg, your business partner, want me
to say three million downloads per episode US? But but
can we can we stick on that for a second.
How do you know when you've landed on a book
ready idea? Mm hmm. If you had tried to figure
(32:08):
out ahead of time, you never would do it. Um
and that's those are the hair raising ones, because you know,
you commit a lot of time and investment in something
without knowing whether it's going to pan out. And um uh,
you know I did this. In this upcoming season, we
have a four part series on this Air Force general
(32:31):
called Curtis LeMay. It was originally one one episode, then
it became two, then it became three, then it became four. Um.
And just because I got into it and realized, oh,
there's another side to this and oh wait a minute,
I don't think about this guy the same way now
that I did a month ago. Um. I was constantly
updating and revising and adding to my understanding. And that
(32:53):
turned out Now that's the heart of the of the
of the of the of the season. That was not
something I could have in January A. I would have
said something completely different. Um. And that's that's curiosity, just
being an agnostic to where the story takes you. So, Malcolm,
(33:13):
what is your kill? By d I Y? What would
you kill in the world? What would you purchase a chore?
And what would you do yourself? Anything? Anything? Anything? Anything?
So what would I would you get rid of if
you could strike from existing on the earth? What would
it be, Oh god, so many things. Um, golf I
(33:38):
get rid of, so that all golf courses could be
converted to running. Um, of course they're perfect for running.
Um think that's what. Okay, I'll kill golf. What's the
next one? Which what would I acquire by? What would
you buy? What I would buy would be, um, probably
a car of some kind. Um, I think I would buy.
(34:02):
I would love to own a I mean you mean anything,
anything unlimited. Oh, then I would buy a BMW Z eight,
which is a no longer hasn't been you know, the
last one was made I think in probably two thousand seven,
one of the world's most gorgeous sports cars. Um, they're new,
(34:26):
like they're a hundred and fifty grand, so a little
rich to my taste at the moment. But um, if
this game is writing me is giving me a blank
check getting getting Z eight And then the last one
is yourself. Yeah, so what would you create? Make nothing
you've done before? Well, I'd like to. I can't do it,
(34:48):
but if I were not a journalist, I would Another
one of the things I would have always loved to
be with was a developer. I would like to build
something like a house My brother is a very handy.
If my d I I would be I would ship
my brother down to where I am and we would
(35:09):
build the loveliest little, you know, small gorgeous cottage um
which would serve as at whatever office, guest room, recording studio, whatever,
recording studio, whatever. But that's what I would I would
build something really small and really beautiful, tucked into the woods. Malcolm,
(35:30):
Thank you. This was amazing fun. Yes, so much. You're
welcome back anytime. If people want to get in touch
with you to do host reads, how can they get
in touch with you? They should get in touch with
head a Faint. Go to the pushkin dot fm website
and email our director of marketing, head a Faint and
(35:50):
she will line it all up. Malcolm, thank you so
much for joining us. Thank guys, Bye bye. What a
first episode? Did we just drop the mic? Here? Was
that the whole season? In one take? I'm joining Malcolm
Glad while Agency r Us and we just talked about
that mic drop in the middle of the conversation. That
is definitely going on some merch. Yeah, it's definitely going
(36:13):
on some merch. Loyalty is a conversation. Novelty is a monologue.
I think that's probably one of the things that the
industry needs to think about the most. When we're chasing
right the cheap and chasing something that's cute and chasing
something that's just an eyeball. Everyone wants to have this
(36:34):
deep relationship with their customer. Everyone wants to actually make
their brand means something. No one wants to have a
brand that is fair weather, that is shallow. Everyone wants
to build something, So we actually have to go build it.
We actually have to go put the energy into it. Well,
when you think about starting with the outcomes before we
(36:57):
even get to the thing we're talking about, we already
know what we wanted to do, before we even have
an idea. Yeah, I love he actually talks about this.
He said, I don't know what is happening in the
industry or in the institutional process that there's a golf
between the audience and the product and we're actually creating
it because that golf actually doesn't exist. So when we're
(37:20):
in our process of briefing to your point, we're actually
going for the KPI and the outcome and that instead
of the relationship, right, and and by that you've already
failed the reality of what he said is like, I
don't think about three million plus downloads per episode before
(37:42):
I think about the idea. I'm not even thinking about
it at all. A great idea, a great story will deliver.
But it's the truth because at the end of the day,
making good and being able to discern what good is,
that's kind of all it's about. And speaking of good,
(38:03):
I think it's time for good Landia. Good landy uh So,
in our first ever good Landia, we wanted to partner
with the AD Council. It's really highlight and support initiatives
that are moving our industry and society forward. So for
this month of October, we're gonna be totally focused on voting.
Make sure you have a plan to vote. So, speaking
(38:24):
of having a plan, the AD Council developed a campaign
in partnership with Viacom CBS called Vote for Your Life.
It makes it easy for potential voters to register to
vote and make a plan to vote early. If you
want to vote by mail or if you prefer to
drop your ballot off in person at a local dropbox
or county election office, time is running out. The election
(38:45):
is just weeks away November three, so request a ballot
in time to be counted. Don't wait, go to vote
for your life dot com and make sure you vote.
This is a message from good Landia. So what an episode,
(39:06):
first episode, so many new people to thank at I
heart first and foremost want to thank our producer new
on the Mike with us, Ryan Marts. Thank you so much. Ryan.
Why don't you give them a little hello with that
velvety voice, Little Hello, little perfect Bryan Martz on the Mike,
(39:27):
Laura hit it with the list of all of our
friends and family I heart who have been so good
to us and helped us get back on air. Big
thank you to Bob Conal, Carter, Andy, Eric Gayle Val,
Michael Jen We appreciate you. Thank you so much for
this opportunity. And speaking of family, to the at Landia family.
We are so happy to be back. Thank you for
all the love, all the messages, all the when are
(39:50):
you coming back? We are back, So tell your friends,
tell your family. We'll see you in two weeks.
What's up. I'm Laura and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome back
at Landia. It's been too long. We have missed you
so much. It's been more than a year. Alexa. The
last time we were on the mic was early March.
Last time we had mics in front of our faces.
We're in Brooklyn with Panoply, and now we are over
(00:32):
at I Heart Radio with our friends, our new producer Ryan.
He's amazing, he's in the fam. It's just great to
be back, you know. Over the last year, of course,
Laura and I talk all the time, talk about what's
happening in the industry, talk about what's happening in business,
talk about what's happening in the world. And I think
(00:53):
we felt like it was really important to come back.
And you know, now more than ever, bring the outside in.
And I think what's really important is this mindset in
the way that we kind of push to pull, right,
we pushed to pull from the outside. I love them.
So we're gonna push at Landia to pull in new voices,
(01:17):
new faces, new thoughts. Speaking of new friends, um little
sneak peek. Lisa Sherman from the Ad Council is going
to be on the show later in the season. UM.
When we were on the show and recording with Lisa,
we had a great idea kind of off mike with
her to do something to really highlight what the industry
(01:39):
can be doing kind of constantly, to be thinking about
um purpose, giving back, nonprofit. And so we created kind
of this special segment that we're going to be featuring
on the show called good Landia. And we'll be talking
a little bit later in the show about the good
Landia segment. UM for the month of October, we will
be focused on getting out the vote. We're also going
(02:00):
to be chatting later in the season with Ian Schaefer,
co founder and CEO of Kindred, talking about the intersection
of purpose and profit. And we have a big partnership
that we're announcing that brings you more of at Landia
off the mic um available every day. You can go
and register now to our new digital zine with our
partners at new Stand at www dot new stand dot
(02:23):
com backslash new Landia. So new Landia is going to
be a curation of content from contributors around the industry.
Go check that out. Register It is free to join.
So excited about it. And maybe there'll be some merch drops.
Maybe I think we're all in on the merch drops done,
and we'd like to take a minute to thank our
partners over at Yield Move for helping us bring back
(02:44):
the show. We'll be chatting with the old Move over
the course of the next few episodes, talking about making
attention actionable, something Alexa and I have talked about at
length on the show, so we're excited to dig back
in with them in a four part mini series coming
too soon, thanks again to our launch partner, You'll know
yourm But that said, we have a big interview to
get to. We have a really special first episode and
(03:05):
we were really excited about it. Malcolm Gladwell. It was
an amazing conversation and I think you know what was
really for me. There are a couple of great points
of clarity when he starts to talk about and you
guys will hear it when he starts to talk about
storytelling in such a simple way with no pretense. For me,
I've got to underscore the no pretense because I feel
(03:28):
like right now, you know, as marketers, as advertisers, we
need to do the best work and just be focused
on the best work with no pretense, none of the
pomp and circumstance, because that a lot of that's been
stripped away. I couldn't agree more. I think is a
(03:48):
real important reminder for brand marketers who are writing briefs
and sitting in the rooms making decisions about what narratives
get put out into the world. So I'm excited for
everyone to hear this amazing first interview with Malcolm Gladwell.
(04:14):
Welcome back at Lantia. We are so excited to welcome
Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times best selling author of books
including The Tipping Point, Blank Outliers, David and Goliath, and Moore,
including most recently Talking to Strangers. Go pick that up.
It's available now. Writer for The New Yorker, recognized as
one of Times one hundred most Influential People, podcast hosts
(04:36):
of revisionist History and one of my personal favorites Broken Record,
and also co founder of Pushkin Industries. Malcolm, Welcome to Atlantia.
Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Malcolm. We, you know,
are huge fans of revisionist history and we love that.
You know, revisionist history is about the kind of story
(04:57):
that was not told or the true behind a person
that wasn't recognized, and you're amazing kind of pulling these
stories and these characters out of history and retelling a story.
What's the most unlikely kind of storyteller that you admire
most in the pastor present? Unlikely? Who's the unrecognized storyteller
(05:24):
that you point to in your head. That's a really
good idea good question. Well, I suppose in your definition
of unlikely. I read a lot of thrillers, spy stories,
those kinds of things, and I tend to think that
if you want to learn how to tell a story,
that's the way, that's where to look. And so, you know,
(05:47):
I've read every Jack Reacher novel. I have read every
Stephen Hunter novel. I have read every John Lacarey novel.
When I was a kid, I read every Christie novel.
When I was even younger, I read every I think
I read every Hardy Boys book. You know. I I've
always thought that that the principles of good storytelling our
(06:09):
universal and people in the world of fiction are probably
a step ahead of those of us in the world
of nonfiction, and that's what we ought to you know,
there's just questions about a lot of it is about pacing.
You know, storytelling is fundamentally I think a question of pacing,
that things have to come at the right moment um,
and you if you rush it, it doesn't work, and
(06:32):
if you are too slow, it doesn't work. And that's
what not That's what novelists think about endlessly, and I
don't know whether we in the nonfiction world pay enough
attention to that particular problem. Can we go a step
further and talk about storytelling in the advertising world. I
know a fun fact, Malcolm, that I learned about you
(06:52):
recently is that, um, you wanted to start out of
school a career in advertising, and so there must have
been and something about storytelling through the lens of advertising
and marketing that intrigued you. How would you take what
you just shared and apply that a step further to
storytelling as it applies to brands. Well, the reason I
(07:14):
was obsessed and I remained obsessed with advertising, and I
did you quite right. Coming out of college, what I
really wanted to do was go and work for an
ad agency. I applied to I think sixteen agencies and
got sixteen rejections. So that's why I went into journalism,
Because I couldn't get a job with my first love.
But what I admired was the economy of advertising. The
(07:35):
idea that you can tell a story in a thirty
second television commercial is to me so fantastic and unbelievable,
and my I've often I always think people who do
those ads are the the greatest of all storytellers. You
know that famous line of Mark Twain's I wrote you
a long letter because I didn't have time to write
(07:56):
you a short one, and his point being it's harder
to tell a story briefly then at length, is so true.
And the idea that there are television commercials that for
thirty seconds long, where you you feel like you have
entered into someone's experience and you feel like a story
has been told from beginning to end in thirty seconds,
it's just unbelievable to me. I mean, I don't think
(08:19):
I could do it, which is why I'm in such
of it. From time to time, I call up if
I see an that I really love. On more than
one occasion, I have tracked down the person responsible for
it just to talk to them. Can you tell us
about a time when you did that? Yeah, there was
one very memorable one, there was a Heineken ad where
there were a bunch of people, young people in the
(08:41):
back of a taxi cab and the taxi driver, who's
this crusty old guy is is playing up. I think
it's a bell deev Devot song. They all start singing along.
It's this lovely moment because it's I think it's a
guy and two girls and they're clearly coming home from
that out of the town and they're just a little
bit tipsy, and they start singing along to that song.
(09:03):
And then the taxi driver joins in and he's like
a seventy year old, angry looking guy, and it's just
so lovely, Like everything about it is perfect. And I
call it the guy I was gonna do something. I
never ended up writing about it, but I just wanted
to talk to the guy who did it, just just
say like, I'm sorry, that's genius, Like everything about it.
(09:25):
I just had him tell me how that aad came
about and how it was filmed, and I feel like
we started a new show where I think we just
started a new show. Malcolm can critique ads and or
find out the origin story of them if anybody's interested
in making that show called pushkin there's a Google Chrome
ad too that I never did I talk to the
(09:47):
guy who did it, or did I talk to someone
who knew the guy did it. I once on um
abbot Kinney in Venice ran into somebody who said hello.
It turns out he worked for an emergency and we
started talking king about our favorite ads, and I started
talking about that Google Chrome ad where the father. If
you're not crying fifteen seconds into this one, you have
(10:10):
no heart. It's unbelieval. It's the she's gone to college
and she's emailing with her dad and there you don't
realize until halfway in that that her dad is all
she has left. Mom has just died. And there they're
they're wondering about how they they're missing the mom and wondering.
And as the dad is typing about the mother and
(10:32):
telling you the mother's dad, he all you see is
his key strokes, and his key strokes slowed down, and
it's just like at that moment, it's just it is
gut wrenching. Do you cry, ads? Do you correct? Oh?
My god, yeah, I totally cry. Why, I mean, of
course that's I cry. You remember the legendary Hallmark ads. Yeah,
(10:53):
I mean I was in tears. So the power of
storytelling is obviously something that you've created, but it also
clearly reason rates with you. One of the things that
we are curious to talk about is as you're such
a successful podcast host who has a massed an audience.
I think you're something at three million downloads per episode
of Revisionist History, you know, thinking Malcolm about what it
(11:13):
takes to create or build an audience of that size,
but then also integrate brands into the conversation in such
a way where you don't skip a beat and that
your audience is looking for the ads and or connects,
you know, sort of the message. Perhaps, How do you
think about integrating ads? I know you had some that
(11:34):
you've wanted to make over the years that never came
to fruition, one of which you shared around zip Recruiter
and and the st Bernard. Can you talk to our
audience about how they should think about engaging with you
as a podcast host and more importantly, connecting with your
audience in a meaningful way. Yeah, well, my I think
of my audience as as having a shared sensibility, not
(11:58):
a shared demographic, and so I sort of know I
have an intuitive sense about why they're listening and why
they're reading my book, which is they I think they
share the same kind of curiosity I have and the
same sense of mischief. I don't take things that seriously,
(12:23):
I mean every now and again, But I'm also I
don't take myself, you know, insane these here. I mean,
there's a kind of I don't know. There's a certain
there's a certain personality to revisionist history that um and
I think that the people who listen are people who
don't necessarily agree with me, with people who just have
that and appreciation for that personality. It's really my dad's personality.
(12:47):
My father was someone who took like three things really seriously, mathematics, gardening,
and the Bible and nothing else. Everything else was up
for grabs. He could be convinced, he could joke about it,
he could make fun of himself. I mean, outside of
those three realms, it just was Everything for him was
(13:08):
a speculative exercise in in enjoyment and curiosity. And and
I sort of in the same way, have a couple
of things that I'm passionate about, but the rest and
I think people listen will share that, And so we're
interested in. I think of ideas as things that are
not just informative and interesting, but fun. I think it
(13:31):
should be as fun to explore an idea as it
is to watch a movie or listen to an incredible song,
or go for an amazing walk, or whatever your choice
of pleasure is. So when I you know, when I
do an ad. I love to write my own ads
because I'm a frustrated copywriter, um and the best ones
(13:53):
are the ones where I just bring that sensibility. So
Malcolm tell us a story about the same Bernard. Oh
you had the same Bernard. Zippercruiter Red had a had
a product they wanted to promote, which was a reverse.
Instead of employers looking for employees, it was going to
be a potential employees would lose use ciprocruiter to look
for employers. And so I found this true story about
(14:14):
a family like in the wilds of Minnesota who had
a pet Saint Bernard, and the Saint Bernard got lost
and they had to go out looking for the St. Bernard,
which of course is you know. St. Bernard's historically are
the ones who looked for people lost in the snow,
and they're Saint Bernard got lost in the snow. So
it was the perfect So the whole thing was about
this Saint Bernard who got lost, and it was it
(14:35):
was this complicated hilarious, I thought, hilarious, perhaps not in
real life allegory for what Zippercruiter was trying to do
with their But then sadly they decided they didn't want
to promote that, and so this is one of this
is this loss. This is like one of those you know,
in Soviet Russia, they would always be these legendary manuscripts
that never saw the lot of day. This is this
(14:56):
is the legendary laws Zippercruiter at I think you're more
of a creative director than you know, because every creative
director experience is that pretty much every day with clients,
cutting room floor, cutting room floor. I want to do
if I ever did an AD show, I want to
I just want to play all those the ones that
(15:18):
never made it, I think are the fun ones. I
want to hear all the ones that I just think
that that would be hilarious. You've talked a lot about
your voice, and there's been a lot of you know,
folks who have written about your voice as a writer
as a storyteller. Was there a time when you realize
you had galvanized your own voice and that perspective. Was
(15:39):
there like a specific moment that you realized or was
it over time? I mean the first time I ever
it was starting the podcast. It was you know, uh,
doing the podcast was the first time when I really
had to use my voice, right, like literally, yes, literally
(16:00):
use my voice. And so, and I realized I have
a different spoken sensibility, slightly difference so than written sensibility.
At least my running tends to be a lot more straightforward.
There's still some playfulness there, but it's not as in person.
In speech, I'm more playful than I am in writing.
(16:20):
And so it was not until I formally was required
to use my voice and tell stories this way that
I began to realize, oh, you know, this is actually
assided myself that I really like and think is fun
and that people will respond to. What's it done for
your storytelling? I mean, you've talked about this a bit,
(16:41):
but if you feel like more expressive in audio in voice,
has it changed the way you tell the stories? The
thing about podcast is you don't have to you can
meander a little bit in a way you can in print.
And it's that's really that's that suits me because I
am a man and I there's tons of asides that
(17:05):
I want to go on, Like in one of the
podcasts episodes is coming up in season five with this
little moment, I'm talking about his painting, and this is
a particular van go that, in its long history, was
once owned by the heiress to the Kmart fortune who
lived in Detroit. And what's hilarious about her life is
that she was briefly for a year married to a
(17:26):
Swedish baron and she convinces him to move from London
to Detroit, and the marriage lasts six months and he's
out of there. Of course, it's Detroit in the fifties.
What Swedish baron from London is gonna want, it's gonna
survive and move to Detroit. So it's like that kind
of thing. If you're writing about it, do you put
(17:46):
that in? Sort of hard because it's that story, That
little digression requires a certain tone of voice, right, But
in a podcast, of course you put it in because
it's hilarious. So it's like, it's just there's so much
more playfulness inherently in and that's the thing about the
ads to the ads are just it's just so much fun.
It's just there's so much you can do if you
(18:08):
put your mind to it in that space when you
when you incorporate ads into a podcast. I was blown
away by the subtle yet impactful insight you shared at
a dinner not that long ago, Malcolm, when you talked
audio book sales surpassing print. I got stuck on it
and I'm still stuck on it because I think there's
something that's so true how you can develop a relationship
(18:31):
through spoken word versus written but also just a sign
of the times and how people are choosing to consume content,
and so much that I believe you're going to be
the first author to hit a million audiobook sales. Is
that accurate? I don't know what in the first I
don't know how many Michelle Obama is sold, but I
don't I don't imagine there are a ton of others. Yes,
approaching a million audio book sales and that surpassing print
(18:53):
for the first time was a sort of thing to
think about as I'm sure now you're thinking about format
and so much that you share that you don't know
that you might ever write a book again. So what
is that signal to you in in terms of the
way people want to engage and they want to learn
and interact with hosts and all the other things that
it might point to. Well, it's I mean, I should
(19:14):
say that I don't think books are dead. Far from it.
This is first of all an indication of just my
shifting interests that I like this way of storytelling. I
like working with groups. It's much more of a team
exercise to do something in audio. I like how emotional
audio is. That's what those are the kinds of stories
(19:37):
I want to tell these days. I like how you
know they will come on point when brands like Pushkin
will clearly we're going to be selling our audiobooks directly
at some point, there'll be no intermediary. I love that
the book business has, for obvious reasons, has all kinds
of intermediary steps. You need printers and distribute tars and
(20:00):
trucks and bookstores and you know, on and on and
on and on. I love the idea of finishing something
on a Monday and sending it out to my audience
on a Tuesday. That's kind of great. And boy am
I grateful in the middle of this pandemic that my
audiobook is more popular than my physical book because people
aren't going to bookstores right now, you know, they can
(20:20):
sload it online. But you know, there's something there's just
something really powerful about the immediacy of this particular experience
and that appeals to me a lot at the moment
as a storyteller. At the end, I believe it was
season one of Revisionist History. Alex and I went to
see you do a live reading at the Apple Store
in soho Um and I just remember the two of
(20:43):
us sitting at the back watching. It was like being
at a at a concert standing room only, and you know,
everyone was leaning forward and couldn't wait to ask questions
At the end, how do you think about sort of
that two way relationship that podcasting might allow you to have.
Is it any different than when you would be doing
the book tour? Do you find more in between moments
(21:05):
to engage during a season and especially during the time
of COVID, How how are you engaging with your audience
or and how do you imagine you were moving forward? Well,
it's a much more intimate relationship with the audience um
the minute they can hear your voice. So if you
think about this to backtrack fro a moment um, the
people who have the most intimate relationship with their audiences
(21:29):
are people who are on television, so actors sometimes, although
the actor thing is weird because the person is often
relating to the actor, to a character and not when
I think, you know, when I meet Jennifer Anderson, I'm
not thinking about Jennifer Andison. I'm thinking about our character
and friends. Right, So there's a real intimacy when you
(21:51):
hear someone in a in a consistent context um and
they become a part of your the kind of the
furnace sure of your life. You it's not a it
becomes there's a there's a you know you almost This
is we know that weird thing where if you if
you were to run into someone like that, you're not
(22:12):
sure whether to call them by their first or last name,
because they seem like they're now with an author, you
don't have that if you're writing a book, people don't
think of you as a friend. They don't feel like
they know you. They you know, there's you're sort of abstract.
Podcasting is much closer to the first model. And so
you know, you people who come up to me now
(22:36):
because of my podcasts, they're approaching me not as a
celebrity but as a friend. That's a really interesting that's different. Um,
it's no, you never hear Mr glaud bow which I
would hear in the book Days it's Mr Gladbow O,
could you sign my book? Now? It's like Malcolm, it's
(22:58):
like and the way they approach she was totally different.
It's like the distance is gone. It's like not in
a not just way, it's actually lovely. It's like there's
no it's just like a they feel like they've been
having a conversation with me and they want to continue
the conversation. And that's powerful stuff. That's amazing, right, That's
that's the gold standard that you know when you're if
(23:19):
you're interested in building. I really have a sense now
that I am actively building an audience. There's a community
of people out there who are waiting for the next episode.
And who are you know who just kind of to
use a sixties expression, who like dig what's big revisions history? Right,
(23:39):
It's like that's kind of great, like that we were
doing some research before this and book sales for some
of your earlier books, like The Tipping Point reached two
million book sales worldwide. It's interesting to think about each
episode reaches three million and sort of carrying that audience
along as you know it you're going into You said
(24:01):
season five, just how incredible it is to build that
audience over time. And you've used this phrase in the
previous conversation of the idea of having loyalty over novelty,
which I think we're going to put on a T
shirt because it's we love that. It's something that we
would talk to brands and media companies about all the time,
which was stopped going for the kind of lowest common denominator.
(24:25):
Make it valuable to write, make it valuable to someone.
In the minute you do that, you start to differentiate yourself.
I think, especially right now, the world is kind of
grappling with that, like how do they proceed, especially kind
of post COVID, what is meaningful? How do we kind
of proceed to be ourselves? Which is a kind of
interesting question. I don't know if you have thought, Yeah,
(24:47):
this loyalty novelty thing has a number of different interesting dimensions, um,
but one is that loyalty is a conversation and novelty
is a monologue. WHOA wha did you just hear what
Malcolm said, Ryan, let's rewind that we got to hear
it again. Loyalty is a conversation and novelty as a monologue.
(25:16):
And so and then he applies both to people like
me and also to brands that if you want loyalty,
you have to have find a way to to have
a conversation with those who you are. So to give
you an example, we we just got them as an advertiser.
Actually because I'm such so in love with the brand.
I'm a runner and there's this new sportswear brand called
(25:38):
track Smith, which is like the cool running brand and
the stuff is really really I mean I'm wearing I
wear it like all the time I met the guy
who found the company. I mean, I'm I'm in the
tank for this cumpy. I'll be honest, as there are
a lot of runners, I know. It's just beautiful stuff
made for runners, by runners, and you. The reason it
(26:00):
can that brand connects to me is I feel like
it's a conversation, not a literal conversation, but I feel
like they're when I look at the way the stuff
they're putting out changes over time. It's almost as if
they're like responding to what runners like me want that
there are you know, it's people like me making stuff
(26:21):
for people like me. I don't know, So that's that
strikes me. That's that's loyalty and action, you know. I
My suspicion is I'll be wearing that brand ten years
from now. I really do believe that. But if the
brands were thinking the way you're talking about things and
giving themselves license to actually grow and not just grow
(26:41):
the bottom line, but grow the relationship in a meaningful way,
I think we would see very different, very different work,
very different products. Steven and Goliath hit me in a
very different way. And one of the things that you said, um,
I actually think it's in your promo for Masterclass, was
why did you lose? Right? Because they've become so big
(27:02):
and so powerful that they actually lose the ability to see,
and that Goliath literally and physically lost his ability to see.
We're in this really interesting era if I take that
into the media world, in the consumer world, um, where
the ad dollars are dominated by a couple of players, right,
(27:26):
and they're sitting on rings of data and analytics about us,
about our behaviors, about everything right, how we live, where
we live, all that stuff. But does that really actually
help them in the long run. There's something that's a
bigger question here, um that if they want to have
this discourse, if they want to have that relationship, you know,
(27:49):
do they get to the place where they're too big
to see even though they've got all of the information
to see. What do you think about that? What's the
future with where all this consolidation is making the goliath?
I think this a lot with I'm a car nut.
I spend huge amounts of every day on car websites,
(28:11):
and the stereotypical obvious example of this is General Motors
and Generals is an interesting It's interesting in a number
of ways because as a car fanatic, I am aware
of the fact, as are all car fonetics, that General
Motors makes really good cars and has now for the
last ten fifteen years at least four or five of
(28:32):
their cars are world class automnbills, which is for a
car manufacturer, given the constraints they're under with their legacy
cos with there is really high and I just think,
how on earth can a company that probably spends what
to three billion dollars a year on advertising, So that's
over the last ten years thirty billion dollars in communicating
(28:54):
with the largely the American public has been unable to
communicate the fact that they make really good cars. There
has to be there must be many explanations for that,
but one is that it's just it must be just
something about side. I mean, there's something about I mean,
I look at their advertising. I don't I don't want
to step on anyone's does, but there's nothing particularly compelling
(29:17):
about it. It certainly doesn't communicate the idea that they
make really good cars, um, you know, which is kind
of shocking, Like, you know, I really obviously example, forgive
me what I riff on this. You know, the Chevy
um Bolt previously the volt is A is one of
the best electric cars in the world and has been
(29:39):
for I mean, it is a gold standard e V.
How is it that nobody knows that fact. How is
it that nobody knows that dollar for dollar, the Corvette
right now is probably the greatest sports car made in
the world, or that the Chevy SS is a car
that every single car nut in America would die to
own a Chevy s S if they could find one,
(30:00):
or you know, I could go on like I don't,
I just don't. Just baffles me totally. Do you think
it's because we when you look at like an advertising
brief and I'm curious to think about, like are their
book briefs? Right? Like when you go and you think
about telling a story, right and you come up with
an idea for what that's going to be. Do you
start with what the objective is and how many books
(30:21):
you need to sell and what you hope the output
is on the other side of that narrative, or do
you go into writing a story or a book or
or creating an episode of revisionist history because there's a
conversation you want to have with people connection you're trying
to make. That's where the disconnect I think between because
I've heard you say this, Malcolm, and we've said it
(30:43):
many times on this show. People don't hate ads, they
hate bad ads, and and does that all begin further
upstream in the brief or you're more focused on the
transactional outcome than the relationship with the people who are transacting. Yeah, No,
I think I think you have mean you would know
way better than me. But um, you're the But I
(31:03):
think you're right. There's some there is some kind of
fundamental there's something I don't know what the what the
institutional processes that is causing this gulf between the audience
and the product. Um, but you're right, they're not. We
don't we When I sit down and do an episode,
I write a book or do an episode of vision History,
(31:23):
I don't start with my expectations of how many UM
downloads we're gonna shift, right, It's not even it didn't
even occur to me. I I just think about what's
an interesting story to tell, and I have faith that
if I tell it in a compelling way, people will
gravitate towards it. Um. I don't even know what the
(31:44):
downloads are. I mean, I care less. It's not my
it's not my problem, you know. My problem is to
tell great stories. Jacob Weisberg, your business partner, want me
to say three million downloads per episode US? But but
can we can we stick on that for a second.
How do you know when you've landed on a book
ready idea? Mm hmm. If you had tried to figure
(32:08):
out ahead of time, you never would do it. Um
and that's those are the hair raising ones, because you know,
you commit a lot of time and investment in something
without knowing whether it's going to pan out. And um uh,
you know I did this. In this upcoming season, we
have a four part series on this Air Force general
(32:31):
called Curtis LeMay. It was originally one one episode, then
it became two, then it became three, then it became four. Um.
And just because I got into it and realized, oh,
there's another side to this and oh wait a minute,
I don't think about this guy the same way now
that I did a month ago. Um. I was constantly
updating and revising and adding to my understanding. And that
(32:53):
turned out Now that's the heart of the of the
of the of the of the season. That was not
something I could have in January A. I would have
said something completely different. Um. And that's that's curiosity, just
being an agnostic to where the story takes you. So, Malcolm,
(33:13):
what is your kill? By d I Y? What would
you kill in the world? What would you purchase a chore?
And what would you do yourself? Anything? Anything? Anything? Anything?
So what would I would you get rid of if
you could strike from existing on the earth? What would
it be, Oh god, so many things. Um, golf I
(33:38):
get rid of, so that all golf courses could be
converted to running. Um, of course they're perfect for running.
Um think that's what. Okay, I'll kill golf. What's the
next one? Which what would I acquire by? What would
you buy? What I would buy would be, um, probably
a car of some kind. Um, I think I would buy.
(34:02):
I would love to own a I mean you mean anything,
anything unlimited. Oh, then I would buy a BMW Z eight,
which is a no longer hasn't been you know, the
last one was made I think in probably two thousand seven,
one of the world's most gorgeous sports cars. Um, they're new,
(34:26):
like they're a hundred and fifty grand, so a little
rich to my taste at the moment. But um, if
this game is writing me is giving me a blank
check getting getting Z eight And then the last one
is yourself. Yeah, so what would you create? Make nothing
you've done before? Well, I'd like to. I can't do it,
(34:48):
but if I were not a journalist, I would Another
one of the things I would have always loved to
be with was a developer. I would like to build
something like a house My brother is a very handy.
If my d I I would be I would ship
my brother down to where I am and we would
(35:09):
build the loveliest little, you know, small gorgeous cottage um
which would serve as at whatever office, guest room, recording studio, whatever,
recording studio, whatever. But that's what I would I would
build something really small and really beautiful, tucked into the woods. Malcolm,
(35:30):
Thank you. This was amazing fun. Yes, so much. You're
welcome back anytime. If people want to get in touch
with you to do host reads, how can they get
in touch with you? They should get in touch with
head a Faint. Go to the pushkin dot fm website
and email our director of marketing, head a Faint and
(35:50):
she will line it all up. Malcolm, thank you so
much for joining us. Thank guys, Bye bye. What a
first episode? Did we just drop the mic? Here? Was
that the whole season? In one take? I'm joining Malcolm
Glad while Agency r Us and we just talked about
that mic drop in the middle of the conversation. That
is definitely going on some merch. Yeah, it's definitely going
(36:13):
on some merch. Loyalty is a conversation. Novelty is a monologue.
I think that's probably one of the things that the
industry needs to think about the most. When we're chasing
right the cheap and chasing something that's cute and chasing
something that's just an eyeball. Everyone wants to have this
(36:34):
deep relationship with their customer. Everyone wants to actually make
their brand means something. No one wants to have a
brand that is fair weather, that is shallow. Everyone wants
to build something, So we actually have to go build it.
We actually have to go put the energy into it. Well,
when you think about starting with the outcomes before we
(36:57):
even get to the thing we're talking about, we already
know what we wanted to do, before we even have
an idea. Yeah, I love he actually talks about this.
He said, I don't know what is happening in the
industry or in the institutional process that there's a golf
between the audience and the product and we're actually creating
it because that golf actually doesn't exist. So when we're
(37:20):
in our process of briefing to your point, we're actually
going for the KPI and the outcome and that instead
of the relationship, right, and and by that you've already
failed the reality of what he said is like, I
don't think about three million plus downloads per episode before
(37:42):
I think about the idea. I'm not even thinking about
it at all. A great idea, a great story will deliver.
But it's the truth because at the end of the day,
making good and being able to discern what good is,
that's kind of all it's about. And speaking of good,
(38:03):
I think it's time for good Landia. Good landy uh So,
in our first ever good Landia, we wanted to partner
with the AD Council. It's really highlight and support initiatives
that are moving our industry and society forward. So for
this month of October, we're gonna be totally focused on voting.
Make sure you have a plan to vote. So, speaking
(38:24):
of having a plan, the AD Council developed a campaign
in partnership with Viacom CBS called Vote for Your Life.
It makes it easy for potential voters to register to
vote and make a plan to vote early. If you
want to vote by mail or if you prefer to
drop your ballot off in person at a local dropbox
or county election office, time is running out. The election
(38:45):
is just weeks away November three, so request a ballot
in time to be counted. Don't wait, go to vote
for your life dot com and make sure you vote.
This is a message from good Landia. So what an episode,
(39:06):
first episode, so many new people to thank at I
heart first and foremost want to thank our producer new
on the Mike with us, Ryan Marts. Thank you so much. Ryan.
Why don't you give them a little hello with that
velvety voice, Little Hello, little perfect Bryan Martz on the Mike,
(39:27):
Laura hit it with the list of all of our
friends and family I heart who have been so good
to us and helped us get back on air. Big
thank you to Bob Conal, Carter, Andy, Eric Gayle Val,
Michael Jen We appreciate you. Thank you so much for
this opportunity. And speaking of family, to the at Landia family.
We are so happy to be back. Thank you for
all the love, all the messages, all the when are
(39:50):
you coming back? We are back, So tell your friends,
tell your family. We'll see you in two weeks.
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