July 23, 2024 • 34 mins
At this historic moment in American electoral politics, Marisa and Steven put a brand new lens on the two major political parties, and U.S. politicians. In this very timely conversation, they are joined by Congressman Jeff Jackson (NC), who shot to national prominence in the most unexpected of ways: after entering office last year and finding the actual experience of serving in the House so different than what he imagined, he wanted to simply share that. The result? His videos - which he makes himself - have made him the most popular Congressperson on TikTok.
Is it possible that a political “brand” built on authenticity vs. outrage can actually prevail in the U.S. today? And what does a sitting U.S. Congressman actually think about AI for campaign speeches, political advertising, and the Supreme Court? Amidst all the noise, this is a perspective guaranteed to be refreshing.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hiatt's Marissa.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hey, it's Stephen.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
We thought this episode deserved a little bit of late
breaking context because when we recorded it, and we have
a very special guest in the middle of the episode,
who is someone really at the center and frankly the
cutting edge of being a modern American political brand, it
was before the news broke just as we're recording this.
(00:23):
Now that President Biden is drawing from the race, and
this is really unprecedented moment in American history, So we
thought a little contextualization made some sense.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
This is a time where we really do believe that
brands matter more than ever, and we've always kind of
started this conversation looking at all these situations through this
business lens, you know, looking at brands, the business of brands.
But now more than ever, I think brands really matter
in terms of what they stand for where we are
in American history, And you know, Serai MRSA, when you
(00:57):
think about what people are looking for, you know, you
talk a lot about trust, you talk a lot about authenticity.
I feel like these are the things that people are
going to be really looking for. And so hopefully this
conversation is somewhat helpful and we continue to have real
talk around what is happening with brand New.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Enjoy the episode, let us know what you think. Hello,
and thanks for joining us on Brand New from the
iHeart Podcast Network and Brand New Labs. I'm Marissa Thalberg.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And I'm Stephen Wolf bet Ada. What's brand new? Marissa?
Where are you?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Hi?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
There?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I'm back in Charlotte after being in Miami for a
couple of days for work, which was great. Where are you,
my friend?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I'm back in LA. It's been a little bit of
a whirlwind summer so far, but it's really good to
be home back in Yeah, So what's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I love traveling, but it is good to be home.
And I think when I travel, I appreciate getting home,
especially with all the travels of flying in a summer
of weather and tech outages and all that other good stuff.
It's like, when you make it home, it's a victory,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Look the struggle is real. It's a victory when you
get home. But I think what people probably don't appreciate
is I'm probably more of a homebody than most people realize.
And I just love being at home. But again, when
I'm out, I'm all out, and you know, I give
one hundred percent. Oh, yes you are, But what else
is going on?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
I do think that's a surprise. Well, here's what I
was thinking about, and it's an appropriate setup for where
we're going this week. You know, one thing we've generally
avoided talking about here, and probably with good reason, is politics.
That's not what we're about, and there's plenty of other
podcasts for that, But with the wildest election cycle in
(02:47):
American history happening in front of us, it feels remiss
for us to not at least put our own, distinctly
brand new lens on it, because this is this is
our lives, this is culture and certainly implications for brands,
business and all of us. So I think we're going
we're going to go there this time. What do you think?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You know? I don't think it's a bad thing. Politics
has obviously permeated every aspect of our lives, and I
think when people say, you know, oh, I'm not political
or I'm not interested in politics, I think that is
it's just not accurate. I mean, whether you are engaged
or whether you are not engaged, I think you are
making a political statement, and whether we want to admit
(03:28):
it or not, it is so consuming from so many
different aspects. And you know, whether you are a woman,
whether a person of color, whether you are a white man,
whether you are a gay man, like, whatever it is,
it's going to impact you. And so I think that
we don't have to get into the politics of things,
and this is not necessarily a place to vent that.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
But we're personal partisan, right, that's not what we're going
to do.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
It's not about partisan. But I think everything that we
look at is through this business of brands, right, And
I think just understanding the transformation that we are witnessing
before or I of these political parties, blue is now
read what is red is now blue? Cats and dogs
living together. I mean, it's just madness what you're seeing.
And I think you know what we thought were brands.
(04:12):
I mean, you know, this is not your grandfather's or
grandmother's Republican party, and frankly, it's not your grandmother or
grandfather's Democratic party. And so I just think the evolution
of these brands in these parties in general is just
really interesting. As well as the personal brands of the
politicians themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Well, that's definitely a big thing that we're going to
get into today. I'll tell you as a marketer, since
we do want to keep those through the lens of
the business of brands this year, like every you start
looking ahead to if you're placing paid media, and you
obviously now have a media company's lens on this, it's
very stressful to think about what the cost of media
(04:50):
is going to be in especially the fourth quarter of
the year, third and fourth quarter if you're that back
half of the year, because so much political advertising that
all up. So just having the space and of course
the media marketplace is no longer just about network media,
so it's a little different than it used to be.
But that's an implication. I think the harder implication now,
(05:11):
and we're seeing brands step in it right and left
still is brands that want a culture surf and you know,
politics is part of culture and take a point of
view when it's not innate to who they are. And
I mean, if blue is red and red is blue
and everything's controversial or can be controversial, it is a
(05:34):
minefield for brands to comment on it to as I said,
sort of surf on the culture parts of politics. Unless
you really know what you're doing, it's a minefield. Do
you think I do.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I mean, you know, when you just zoom out and
again understanding the role that media plays in politics, it's
it's really interesting. I mean, just to think about the
media spend, I take a wild guess. You know, what
do you think the spend on political media is?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Well, I don't think I know the answer.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Obviously it's going to be in the billions, but it
was forecasting that it's going to be over twelve and
a half billion dollars just for this year twenty twenty four,
just total US political ad spend, which is up you know,
projected thirty plus percent from the twenty twenty presidential election.
So you know, just the amount of money that you
need to get a message across. And obviously there's so
(06:24):
much clutter and no one really cares. It's so difficult
to break through. But when you really think about, you
know the fact that the Republican Party, you know kind
of really was all behind Trump, and you know, they
really did not spend a lot. They were really waiting
until kind of after the convention, and really, you know,
to your point, focused on Q four and a lot
(06:44):
of the spend that was coming in maybe was coming
from the Democratic side. So just even understanding, you know,
the way that people are investing their media dollars, and
obviously everything has to go social and so digital first.
That's where just kind of all marketers are, but also
politicians are. They want to kind of go where the
audience is. So just understanding the role that politicians and
brands that are politically active, they're really focusing on all
(07:07):
the same kind of media tactics that a great brand
is also using.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
That media is obviously not just about the national election,
so much of it gets eaten up by regional, state,
local elections and we get anundated right, I mean, I
thought I sometimes feel like, oh, the best part about
November sixth, they're depending when it falls.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Is like.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
If I am watching any media where I'm not skipping
the ads whole other topic. I know't to the political ads,
but it's.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But just fascinating to see the kind of ads that
you'll see on a local basis, you know, in a
place like Charlotte versus where I am in LA. You know,
it really is interesting from a media strategy. I just,
for the life of me, I just can't understand how
the volume of ads that we are going to get
in Q four. It's just going to be this NonStop
and again, I think people are of it. So it's
so hard to cut through the clutter. And when you
(08:02):
think about people trying to really find their authentic voice,
really trying to you know, have something novel to say
or just not you know, kind of the rage machine.
You know, everything has to be outraged all the time.
I feel like we've really stumbled upon some of that
is really unique in delivering an interesting message.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Well look, here's the context, which is you mentioned before
about the brands of politicians pulling back. I mean we've
now known for years. My friend Richard Edelman, CEO of
the largest PR agency in the world. I mean he's
he's had this Edelman trust barometer measuring trust, and this
(08:40):
insight is now not a new one, that American trust
in politicians has gotten so low, and I think it
keeps dropping further. That's why we're actually perversely turning to
businesses CEOs more than where our sources of traditional trust
would be in civic and governmental leaders. Those should be
(09:00):
the people you look to to trust, or you know,
news anchors not so much anymore. So it becomes brands
and businesses. So there is just an astounding sad but
merited perhaps lack of trust and politicians. And there is
this one member of Congress, frankly who set himself apart.
He's a fascinating case study in building an actually authentic
(09:23):
brand and using social media with this just incredible adeptness,
something we rarely associate with politicians today.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So who is this guy? Who is he?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Well, his name is Jeff Jackson. He happens to be
the congressional representative for my district in Charlotte, North Carolina.
But even as a freshman in the House, his completely unique,
very refreshing approach just catapulted him to become the most
followed member of Congress on TikTok, with a national fan
base including I think many of our friends Steven definitely
(09:53):
friends of mine in New York who couldn't believe I've
actually had him over to our own home. But you know,
given that he was to have a wife named.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Marissa, plus how convenient, I mean, how perfect, Like he
obviously has great taste, She's going to marry Marissa and
then name one of his kids Avery, it was inevitable
that we had to know each other.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
So when we come back, we are going to have
the House's Jeff Jackson in our House.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And we're back in honor to have the United States
representative for North Carolina's fourteenth Congressional district since twenty twenty three,
Congressman Jeff Jackson.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Welcome, Jeff, thank you for having me now.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Before being elected to Congress, he was an accomplished assistant
at district attorney and state senator. He is in the
twentieth year of military service, having enlisted after the attacks
of September eleventh, trained at Fort Bragg, and he served
in Afghanistan, and he continues to serve today as a
major in the Army National Guard. And as he entered
Congress in twenty twenty three, his completely personal approach to
(10:55):
sharing his experience and then breaking down what happens in
the halls of the Capitol and beyond. You're a massive
following from well beyond his district, and we're going to
talk a lot about that. An outspoken advocate for reforming
our redistricting process, he has been subject to some pretty
extreme gerrymandering himself, and it's thus now campaigned to be
North Carolina's next Attorney general. So Jeff, thank you for
(11:17):
being with us. I'm brand new.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Thank you. Good to see you both.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Jeff. It's so good to have you. And I was
sharing with everyone with some funny family connections, but most
of all, we're here today to talk about what's been
remarkable about you and your brand in a pretty interesting
environment that is US politics. So let's get right into it.
(11:41):
And I feel like, look, understandably, we're living in an
era of cynicism about politicians and politics in general. And
then you arrive on the scene as a new member
of Congress and you started filming tiktoks, just yourself, talking
directly to the camera, sharing what it felt like, what
surprised you. I mean, I was rivet personally. And since
(12:02):
then you've become this unique source of information for people.
So was this the plan, Jeff? Was it calculated to
just happen and it caught on and evolved? Tell us
about that whole process.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
The day that I was elected to Congress, all this
cool stuff starts happening, all this onboarding machinery that I've
never seen before because it's sort of out of eye.
It all kicks in, like the security situation for your
family changes, and they get in touch and they say
here's how your wife and your family's life will be different.
I just thought it was super cool and fascinating. I
(12:36):
was personally just kind of amazed. And so I sat
on my kitchen table and I put a camera up
on the other side, and I said, hey, I'm Jeff.
You don't know me. I was just elected to Congress,
and here's what that's like. And I posted it to
eight different social media platforms, basically all of them, and
it took off. So we said, all right, once a week,
I'll do a video where I just say here's the
most interesting thing that just happened to me as a
(12:58):
member of Congress. I thought it would be the best
way to communicate with my constituents, which was always basically
the goal, right provide a way to be transparent and
keep your constituents updated on what you were doing. I
had no notion that it would be of interest to
people beyond my constituents. But it's been a joy. It's
been wonderful. It's been a really fun part and a
rewarding part of my time in Congress. But to your question,
(13:22):
basically a total accident. If I had been planning for
something like this to happen, it would have failed. It
sort of had to be an accident.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, maybe the fact that it wasn't calculated. When people
are trying to be authentic, it's not authentic. Yours is
really coming from you. And just really quickly, what is
your process? Like do you do it all yourself?
Speaker 4 (13:43):
I do it myself. About Thursday ish, I start trying
to come up with what was the most interesting thing.
Usually that's pretty easy, because like, we'll vote to fire
the Speaker of the House for the first time in history,
you know, or we'll expel George Santos interesting or we won't.
We'll vote to Expeljor Santos and that vote will fail.
(14:04):
Usually it's pretty easy. Sometimes it's a slow week or
we're just not in Congress that week, and my staff
and I will have to have a conversation about, like,
what do you think, you know, the most interesting thing
that happened, And then I start working on a script.
Takes me a few hours to do a script. And
then when we've got that right that, I sit in
front of my camera and it takes me a while
to just go straight to camera until I think that
(14:25):
I've got a decent amount of material. And then I
go on Adobe, I go to my next room with
my office, hire my computer, and I use Adobe Premiere
to edit and editing takes a long time, but it's fun.
I've come to really enjoy it. I've had to watch
a ton of YouTube videos about how to how to
do lighting and sound. I don't know anything about this,
(14:46):
and if you scroll all the way down, my early
video is terrible lighting, terrible sound. But I watched a
ton of YouTube videos and like I sort of figured
it out, you know, or.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
So he sounds like a creator, Well, he is a creator.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
That's the thing, right When we talk about creators, they
get followings because they're actually creating content that matters. And
I have a feeling people will be as blown away
as I was when I first learned that you're sitting
US congressman and you're watching YouTube videos to figure out
how to make this content better of yourself. This isn't
like this remote team that's doing it and just really quickly.
(15:18):
I mean, I think there's something interesting for business people
listening to this to consider about what that means for brands.
I'm not totally sure what it is, but what's your take?
What would you say about that?
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Well, other members of Congress. They ask me, They're like, hey,
what kind of camera do you use? And I tell them,
and I also say, just so you know, that's not
going to be enough to be successful. You're going to
have to learn some new skills. And frankly, to your point,
lots of people in Congress are very comfortable with delegating
to their staff, and this is certainly the type of
thing that you would usually delegate. But I tell them
(15:51):
you should. To be successful, you're going to have to
learn how to do a lot of this stuff yourself,
because this type of help for members of Congress doesn't
really exist yet. I think it probably will at some
point in the next few years. But if you want
to do it, well, I tell them, we're gonna have
to sink some hours into doing it poorly and climbing
a learning curve.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
But that's part of your brand, honestly, Jeff. And again,
it's great to meet you. I've obviously been following you.
I learned a lot about you from Marissa, but then
I just started to follow you on social and just
very impressed with the level of authenticity. And it seems
not just with TikTok it obviously goes well beyond that,
the way you connect with people going to the door.
You know, you were just on the road, you were
telling us, you know, So I'm just very curious you
(16:31):
were seeing people, you know, in a very real way.
And I'm curious, you know, where everything in media and
especially in politics today feels so performative. It almost feels
like we've you know, kind of made everything with politics
and media the WWE version, right, Like it all feels
very fake. But I'm curious, do you think that the
(16:53):
way that the media is portraying the way Americans thinking feel,
does that reflect what you were seeing when you're actually
door to door, when you're actually meeting with people. Is
there a disconnect between, you know, kind of what you're
seeing in America versus the way the media is portraying it.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
It's a really good question. And the first thing I
say anytime I'm speaking to a group of people is
I take them through like a day in my life
as a member of Congress and explain how it's totally
different than what they're broadcast because it's mainly about your
work on your committees, or at least it has been
for me. I'm on two committees Armed Services and science.
They're pretty bipartisan. There's not a lot of the WWE
(17:31):
happening every once in a while, like we'll have our moments,
but ninety five percent of my day is committees and
subcommittees and sort of chopping wood and doing normal productive work.
And I try to just take them through that and say,
you would feel completely differently about Congress if you'd seen
what I've seen over the last year. You would still
have your frustrations, but please know what you are broadcast
(17:54):
is designed to outrage you. There's a whole profit motive here,
and we're all familiar with that, but being on this
side of it and seeing how that operates and seeing
how addicted people have become to anger, they feel like
if they're not angry about politics, they're not being good citizens.
They've come to equate feeling angry with doing politics. And
(18:17):
what I really hope we can get away from, hopefully
after this election, is politics just being defined negatively, because
that becomes self reinforcing. We really want to be able
to define politics or associate politics with some positive traits
like at least decency and integrity and really basic nonpartisan
stuff like that. I think that's sort of the project
(18:39):
for politics over the next five years is inserting some
positive associations with it. Is the media going to be
especially helpful with that? Probably not, But if we have
more people in elected office who can communicate directly with people,
I think that could help be redefining how people perceive
politics in the daily life of an elective face.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Does politics now mean entertainment for people? Because if that
is kind of the outrage and it becomes kind of
this reality show that is just on constant you repeat,
and they want that entertainment, they want to see the outrage.
I mean, you know, this is something where I don't know,
you can't get away from it. Almost it's must watch TV, right.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
You're right about that. It has become dangerously associated with entertainment. However,
I don't see a world going forward in which that's
not a piece of it, simply because of how fractured
our attention spans have become. It used to be you
didn't have that many things to do with your attention,
back when there were three channels and a halfful of newspapers,
and so you could sort of force people to eat
more vegetables. When it comes to policy, discussions. Now you
(19:45):
don't have the luxury of doing that. You can still
have a policy discussion with people, but you have to
make it a little bit. I don't think of it
in terms of being entertaining, but I think of it
in terms of compelling. If it's not compelling, if it
doesn't feel timely and relevant to them, then they're going
to scroll, They're not going to watch. These have too
many options now, so we can move away from WWE,
(20:07):
but we're not going to move away from having that
information be compelling. It has to be See.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I think what I look at you with hope for,
genuinely speaking, is to Steven's point, you've got the outrageous
loud voices, and you've really called that out and even
talked about the disconnect between how they behave behind closed
doors versus the performance the outrage Olympics. But then you
(20:33):
also have the media, of which we are, apart very
culpable in terms of playing to the extremes. And we
can break down the whole history of media news and
all that, but it has almost felt inevitable and or unfixable.
And then you come along, and I'm not just saying
this to flatter you, you are like the most popular collected
(20:57):
official on TikTok and you're taking a different and approach.
Does does that provide some hope that all isn't lost
in terms of more positive, calmer, honest voices prevailing and
taking us away from this because it's a little scary
what we've become in that regard.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
I know it feels scary right now. And anxiety levels
are really high. Yeah, And everywhere I go I can
feel people's anxiety, and so I always start by saying, hey,
I know anxiety levels are really high. By the time
we're done talking, whatever group I'm in front of, I say,
you're going to feel a little bit better, not one
hundred percent better, but a little bit better. And a
(21:37):
piece of it is exactly what you just said. You
are going to see better elected officials. You are going
to see more transparency. There's just too high an incentive
for them not to try and do this, and do
it at a very high level. It's not all going
to come online at once. There's obviously a generational gap
(21:58):
when it comes to you know, folks serving an elected office,
but there are a bunch of young people who were
elected with me or a little bit before me, who
aren't on your radar yet, who are going to be
and who are going to use this method. I think
it's going to be great. It's something good that's going
to happen for our country that I think is inevitable
and coming up pretty quick.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I love that. I cannot help but being optimistic about
the future of America, and you know, looking at it
as glass half full. But we are at this really
interesting moment where we're seeing almost before our eyes, the
rebranding of these two major political parties. Do you feel
like this is an accurate description, like things that you
know used to be related to one party are now
(22:40):
being applied to the other party. And then also just
inevitably is going to be a rebranding of America around
the world. You know, a lot of us just came
back from you know, major international conferences and just the
perception of America, you know, the shadow it's cast very
very large across the rest of the world, impacting culture
in so many different areas of business, technology. But do
(23:02):
you think that we are seeing the rebranding of these
parties and also of America.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, particularly that it's happening
before our very eyes. I mean, you know, we saw
a political convention, national political convention this week that really
was trying to rebrand itself to the point with WWE,
to the point of bringing in the hulk, you know,
the Hulks.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I think that was an unintentional but purposeful analogy.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Steven and I thought it was brilliant and maybe one
of the most intentional efforts we've ever seen to try
and rebrand in a very specific way. And lots of
folks had criticism for it because you know, it feels
like debates, where I thought, as a symbolic message, very
very effective. I think a lot of this rebranding and
(23:48):
the fluidity in politics is downstream of technology and the
decentralization the opening up of communication has produced a lot
of those changes. The next round of rebranding is probably
to be around artificial intelligence, and none of us has
any idea what that's going to look like, because that's
going to involve second, third and fourth order consequences the
(24:08):
same way the Internet created. We're on like third order
consequence political consequence from the Internet. But yes, that's not
going to change, and my goodness, what a time to live.
I felt for a long time that I could predict
basically what the political fault lines were going to look
like two or three years out. None of us can
do that anymore. It's really hard to tell which coalitions
(24:28):
are going to be still intact two or three years
from now. It's become very difficult to predict.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Well.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
We barely do an episode where AI doesn't come up.
So it's profoundly interesting to think about the implications at
a political level. Exciting, as you said, what a time
to live, intimidating, but also thank you for giving us
a little bit of a hopeful spin. And I think
it's important for us to get fresh voices like that
(24:56):
because that kind of brand needs to cut through the
noise my opinion of American politics. So thank you. And
when we come back, we're going to ask Congressman Jackson
Jeff to indulge us in a quick round of cooler cringe.
We'll be right back. Okay, we're back, and we're ready
(25:19):
to play a quick round of cooler cringe before Jeff
goes back to fighting for justice and the future of
democracy and all that really important stuff. So anyway, cooler cringe,
Are you ready? Jeff?
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Right?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Cool or cringe? Since you brought it up, I'm going
to go there AI generated political speeches pool or cringe.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Cringe, and I've tried. I've used open AI or CHATGBT
and tried, hey, can it help me out with the speech.
I've even given it like a first draft of something
I was going to say, and say, can you improve it?
And it just can't. It will be able to at
some point, I don't know, two three, four years from that,
but at its current level of sophistication, is not really
(26:00):
a value add for me in terms of communication.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Interesting, Why is that? Did it not feel authentic enough
to your voice?
Speaker 4 (26:07):
It did not feel authentic enough. It felt like B
plus and I'm looking for A plus.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Really interesting.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Probably twelve months time, you know, we should revisit that
because the pace that is accelerating, it's it's as crazy.
I'm curious to have cool or cringe age limits on
serving in public office.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
I think it's cool, and there are states that have it.
North Carolina has it for our judges, and it's always
been considered a good feature. If anybody wanted to get
rid of it, now everybody would oppose that. So yeah, no,
I think it's a I think it's a good idea.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
This one feels very much in the spirit of what
we've been talking about. Cool or cringe as we head
into the intensities and of political advertising, negative political ads
cooler cringe.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Oh, or even positive. Public lads are super print. Yeah,
and they treat the public so poorly. They're so insulting with.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
How thank you for saying that.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yes, absurdly inauthentic they are, and we're all about to
be subjected to like ten billion of them. Yeah, everywhere
we go for the next one hundred sum odd days.
I really just express my deep sympathy to everybody listening,
because if you're listening to the show, you care about marketing,
and it's just you're going to see the worst of
(27:25):
marketing for the next hundred some odd days. Every once
in a while, there's an exception and you see a
political ad that actually makes you feel something real, where
there's a moment of truth in that political ad. And
those are great, but ninety nine percent of these they're
drafted by consultants who just they're doing a ton of
campaigns and you're just another campaign to them. Right, They've
(27:47):
got a formula and it's sort of worked a little
bit in the past, so they're going to apply their
formula to you. It's rough.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Well, I'll tell you, as a marketer, I've never worked
on political advertising per se, and I feel like I
would be chomping at the bit of that because it's
so obvious to me that there's white space to do
it differently and actually break through, so.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Much potential to the upside.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
All right, core cringe Today's Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Hmmm, yeah, pretty cringe.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I feel like maybe underselling.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
It, maybe underselling it. Someone sent my office when I
first got in there, like a twenty five dollars gift
certificate to Dunkin Donuts, I think, and we sent it
back because those are the rules. The Supreme Court has
no ethics rules, and the amount of money that one
member in particular has taken in the form of gifts
(28:44):
absurd and clearly undermining everybody's confidence. And that doesn't have
anything to do with ideology left versus right. We should
all as Americans, we should all want ethics controls in place.
I do way they shouldn't have to be. I think
the Supreme Court doesn't have those because they've always held
themselves to such a high standard. They've said, we would
never be tempted to engage in that type of behavior,
(29:06):
and then queerly one guy just takes every single temptation
known to man. Yeah, we should have some ethics rules
in place for these folks, because apparently they're necessary.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Ethics. Cool, ethics are cool, it turns out, surprise E
thinks a cool.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Well, that's awesome. Jeff, Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Thank you for being a voice of that, and we
really appreciate it. We know how busy your life is,
and as you said, what a time in American politics.
We will be sitting back and watching, but keep fighting
the good fight. And thanks for also teaching I hope
your fellow politicians I think you have and maybe some
(29:46):
others in the rest of America, including the business world,
how to be a truly authentic brand. So, Jeff, thanks
for joining us.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
It was a lot of ful Thank you for your service.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Jeff, take care of y'all, And now it's time for
what's on your mind? Marisa? We got this week.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, so we've got a fun question this week from
Ross who is obviously listening to our last episode, which
we love. And the question is this, since you were
talking about football. He said football, So you should be happy, Steven,
appreciate that. What's a great example of a quote assist
in marketing? Love it all?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
You go first, Steven, what do you think This is.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
A cool question, just because when you think about the
role of marketing, I always view it as the connective
tissue inside of a company. And you know, when you
think of all the different roles you know that are
either internal or external, it could be certainly all the
internal functions, whether it's product, whether it's technology, whether it's hr, legal, finance,
(30:45):
and all the external roles, whether it's sales, business development,
you know, kind of customer service, anything that is really
touching a customer, a client, anything that has to do
with you know, the external world. I really view marketers
as the tissue between that, and so in the roles
that I've been in where I always thought that marketing
was enabling sales or enabling product, I really view that
(31:10):
as you know, probably the best assists. I mean, one
of the roles that I think is the hardest role
to really hire for at technology companies in particular, is
product marketing, and I think that is one of the
coolest ways of doing an assists, because a really great
product marketer is just worth their weight in gold. Anyone
listening in product marketing shout out to you because you
have one of the hardest roles, because you really need
(31:31):
to have one foot externally. Where you're working in the field.
You are talking to you know, clients, you are actually
gathering you know, really important feedback on the product, you
know what works, what doesn't work, product development ideas bugs.
But then you're really working internally in a very collaborative
way with the product team. That is really you know,
working very close to with engineers and trying to develop
(31:53):
the product and make it better and you know, kind
of get all the kinks out. So they have one
foot internally one foot externally. But frankly, I think that
is what a CMO does when they're working with the
C suite. I mean, I think you could probably speak
even better to that, right and Marsa, given all.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Your roles, I think that's a really interesting answer. It's
not what occurred to me first. So I love that
that's where you went. And it's funny. As I was
hearing you talk, I was thinking you were going in
almost the flip direction. But it works both ways that
I thought what you were going to say is all
those other functions like legal, finance, art are the assists
(32:30):
to marketing. So it works both ways and kind of
a nice framing, honestly, because we have talked a lot
over the course of our series of the very true
difficulty of being a CMO and feeling a little lonely
in the C suite and feeling misunderstood. So it's kind
of nice to get back to this idea that when
(32:50):
it all does work really well, everything we do is
an assist of course to the business, but all those
functions are assistants and enablers, So I like that a lot.
I'll just tell you where my head went as how
to answer the question. Is a good example of an assist,
I think is brand partnerships and collaborations one of my
favorite things, and the way I think of that as
(33:11):
an assist is you're leveraging the equity and audience and
actual service or product of something else that's maybe unexpected
but creates a cool, concentric circle of opportunity that you
couldn't get just talking about, you know, your brand yourself,
And this has definitely been something that I've practiced in
(33:34):
my own career, and some of my favorite examples have
come out of that, whether it's Taco Bell in Forever
twenty one or Taco Bell and Lyft or Lows in
New York Fashion Week, and they're really cool collabs. And
I think sometimes you know, those feel like more expected
now because a lot of people have figured it out.
There's a good way to do an assist. But when
they're really good, they create a sum that's greater than
(33:58):
its parts. And to me, that's the excitement thing of
unlocking that possibility. So thinking of that ross as a
cool way of creating an assist, I don't know, that's
I kind of like thinking about it that way. That's
go football.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
All about the assist, right, because I believe in being,
you know, a servant leader, and I think that marketers
are the ultimate servant leaders because they're trying to help
everyone raise you know, the tide for all boats. So
with that, please follow us at the Brand New podcast
wherever you listen to your podcast so you never miss
an episode. Also connect with us on all the socials,
send us all of your questions and you know, all
(34:35):
the feedback to ideas at Brandashnew dot com and Marissa
I want to close us out.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
That's as good of a close as any. Thanks for
joining us, and please join us again next time for
what's brand new.
Hiatt's Marissa.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hey, it's Stephen.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
We thought this episode deserved a little bit of late
breaking context because when we recorded it, and we have
a very special guest in the middle of the episode,
who is someone really at the center and frankly the
cutting edge of being a modern American political brand, it
was before the news broke just as we're recording this.
(00:23):
Now that President Biden is drawing from the race, and
this is really unprecedented moment in American history, So we
thought a little contextualization made some sense.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
This is a time where we really do believe that
brands matter more than ever, and we've always kind of
started this conversation looking at all these situations through this
business lens, you know, looking at brands, the business of brands.
But now more than ever, I think brands really matter
in terms of what they stand for where we are
in American history, And you know, Serai MRSA, when you
(00:57):
think about what people are looking for, you know, you
talk a lot about trust, you talk a lot about authenticity.
I feel like these are the things that people are
going to be really looking for. And so hopefully this
conversation is somewhat helpful and we continue to have real
talk around what is happening with brand New.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Enjoy the episode, let us know what you think. Hello,
and thanks for joining us on Brand New from the
iHeart Podcast Network and Brand New Labs. I'm Marissa Thalberg.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And I'm Stephen Wolf bet Ada. What's brand new? Marissa?
Where are you?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Hi?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
There?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I'm back in Charlotte after being in Miami for a
couple of days for work, which was great. Where are you,
my friend?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I'm back in LA. It's been a little bit of
a whirlwind summer so far, but it's really good to
be home back in Yeah, So what's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I love traveling, but it is good to be home.
And I think when I travel, I appreciate getting home,
especially with all the travels of flying in a summer
of weather and tech outages and all that other good stuff.
It's like, when you make it home, it's a victory,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Look the struggle is real. It's a victory when you
get home. But I think what people probably don't appreciate
is I'm probably more of a homebody than most people realize.
And I just love being at home. But again, when
I'm out, I'm all out, and you know, I give
one hundred percent. Oh, yes you are, But what else
is going on?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
I do think that's a surprise. Well, here's what I
was thinking about, and it's an appropriate setup for where
we're going this week. You know, one thing we've generally
avoided talking about here, and probably with good reason, is politics.
That's not what we're about, and there's plenty of other
podcasts for that, But with the wildest election cycle in
(02:47):
American history happening in front of us, it feels remiss
for us to not at least put our own, distinctly
brand new lens on it, because this is this is
our lives, this is culture and certainly implications for brands,
business and all of us. So I think we're going
we're going to go there this time. What do you think?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You know? I don't think it's a bad thing. Politics
has obviously permeated every aspect of our lives, and I
think when people say, you know, oh, I'm not political
or I'm not interested in politics, I think that is
it's just not accurate. I mean, whether you are engaged
or whether you are not engaged, I think you are
making a political statement, and whether we want to admit
(03:28):
it or not, it is so consuming from so many
different aspects. And you know, whether you are a woman,
whether a person of color, whether you are a white man,
whether you are a gay man, like, whatever it is,
it's going to impact you. And so I think that
we don't have to get into the politics of things,
and this is not necessarily a place to vent that.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
But we're personal partisan, right, that's not what we're going
to do.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
It's not about partisan. But I think everything that we
look at is through this business of brands, right, And
I think just understanding the transformation that we are witnessing
before or I of these political parties, blue is now
read what is red is now blue? Cats and dogs
living together. I mean, it's just madness what you're seeing.
And I think you know what we thought were brands.
(04:12):
I mean, you know, this is not your grandfather's or
grandmother's Republican party, and frankly, it's not your grandmother or
grandfather's Democratic party. And so I just think the evolution
of these brands in these parties in general is just
really interesting. As well as the personal brands of the
politicians themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Well, that's definitely a big thing that we're going to
get into today. I'll tell you as a marketer, since
we do want to keep those through the lens of
the business of brands this year, like every you start
looking ahead to if you're placing paid media, and you
obviously now have a media company's lens on this, it's
very stressful to think about what the cost of media
(04:50):
is going to be in especially the fourth quarter of
the year, third and fourth quarter if you're that back
half of the year, because so much political advertising that
all up. So just having the space and of course
the media marketplace is no longer just about network media,
so it's a little different than it used to be.
But that's an implication. I think the harder implication now,
(05:11):
and we're seeing brands step in it right and left
still is brands that want a culture surf and you know,
politics is part of culture and take a point of
view when it's not innate to who they are. And
I mean, if blue is red and red is blue
and everything's controversial or can be controversial, it is a
(05:34):
minefield for brands to comment on it to as I said,
sort of surf on the culture parts of politics. Unless
you really know what you're doing, it's a minefield. Do
you think I do.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I mean, you know, when you just zoom out and
again understanding the role that media plays in politics, it's
it's really interesting. I mean, just to think about the
media spend, I take a wild guess. You know, what
do you think the spend on political media is?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Well, I don't think I know the answer.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Obviously it's going to be in the billions, but it
was forecasting that it's going to be over twelve and
a half billion dollars just for this year twenty twenty four,
just total US political ad spend, which is up you know,
projected thirty plus percent from the twenty twenty presidential election.
So you know, just the amount of money that you
need to get a message across. And obviously there's so
(06:24):
much clutter and no one really cares. It's so difficult
to break through. But when you really think about, you
know the fact that the Republican Party, you know kind
of really was all behind Trump, and you know, they
really did not spend a lot. They were really waiting
until kind of after the convention, and really, you know,
to your point, focused on Q four and a lot
(06:44):
of the spend that was coming in maybe was coming
from the Democratic side. So just even understanding, you know,
the way that people are investing their media dollars, and
obviously everything has to go social and so digital first.
That's where just kind of all marketers are, but also
politicians are. They want to kind of go where the
audience is. So just understanding the role that politicians and
brands that are politically active, they're really focusing on all
(07:07):
the same kind of media tactics that a great brand
is also using.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
That media is obviously not just about the national election,
so much of it gets eaten up by regional, state,
local elections and we get anundated right, I mean, I
thought I sometimes feel like, oh, the best part about
November sixth, they're depending when it falls.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Is like.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
If I am watching any media where I'm not skipping
the ads whole other topic. I know't to the political ads,
but it's.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But just fascinating to see the kind of ads that
you'll see on a local basis, you know, in a
place like Charlotte versus where I am in LA. You know,
it really is interesting from a media strategy. I just,
for the life of me, I just can't understand how
the volume of ads that we are going to get
in Q four. It's just going to be this NonStop
and again, I think people are of it. So it's
so hard to cut through the clutter. And when you
(08:02):
think about people trying to really find their authentic voice,
really trying to you know, have something novel to say
or just not you know, kind of the rage machine.
You know, everything has to be outraged all the time.
I feel like we've really stumbled upon some of that
is really unique in delivering an interesting message.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Well look, here's the context, which is you mentioned before
about the brands of politicians pulling back. I mean we've
now known for years. My friend Richard Edelman, CEO of
the largest PR agency in the world. I mean he's
he's had this Edelman trust barometer measuring trust, and this
(08:40):
insight is now not a new one, that American trust
in politicians has gotten so low, and I think it
keeps dropping further. That's why we're actually perversely turning to
businesses CEOs more than where our sources of traditional trust
would be in civic and governmental leaders. Those should be
(09:00):
the people you look to to trust, or you know,
news anchors not so much anymore. So it becomes brands
and businesses. So there is just an astounding sad but
merited perhaps lack of trust and politicians. And there is
this one member of Congress, frankly who set himself apart.
He's a fascinating case study in building an actually authentic
(09:23):
brand and using social media with this just incredible adeptness,
something we rarely associate with politicians today.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So who is this guy? Who is he?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Well, his name is Jeff Jackson. He happens to be
the congressional representative for my district in Charlotte, North Carolina.
But even as a freshman in the House, his completely unique,
very refreshing approach just catapulted him to become the most
followed member of Congress on TikTok, with a national fan
base including I think many of our friends Steven definitely
(09:53):
friends of mine in New York who couldn't believe I've
actually had him over to our own home. But you know,
given that he was to have a wife named.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Marissa, plus how convenient, I mean, how perfect, Like he
obviously has great taste, She's going to marry Marissa and
then name one of his kids Avery, it was inevitable
that we had to know each other.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
So when we come back, we are going to have
the House's Jeff Jackson in our House.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And we're back in honor to have the United States
representative for North Carolina's fourteenth Congressional district since twenty twenty three,
Congressman Jeff Jackson.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Welcome, Jeff, thank you for having me now.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Before being elected to Congress, he was an accomplished assistant
at district attorney and state senator. He is in the
twentieth year of military service, having enlisted after the attacks
of September eleventh, trained at Fort Bragg, and he served
in Afghanistan, and he continues to serve today as a
major in the Army National Guard. And as he entered
Congress in twenty twenty three, his completely personal approach to
(10:55):
sharing his experience and then breaking down what happens in
the halls of the Capitol and beyond. You're a massive
following from well beyond his district, and we're going to
talk a lot about that. An outspoken advocate for reforming
our redistricting process, he has been subject to some pretty
extreme gerrymandering himself, and it's thus now campaigned to be
North Carolina's next Attorney general. So Jeff, thank you for
(11:17):
being with us. I'm brand new.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Thank you. Good to see you both.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Jeff. It's so good to have you. And I was
sharing with everyone with some funny family connections, but most
of all, we're here today to talk about what's been
remarkable about you and your brand in a pretty interesting
environment that is US politics. So let's get right into it.
(11:41):
And I feel like, look, understandably, we're living in an
era of cynicism about politicians and politics in general. And
then you arrive on the scene as a new member
of Congress and you started filming tiktoks, just yourself, talking
directly to the camera, sharing what it felt like, what
surprised you. I mean, I was rivet personally. And since
(12:02):
then you've become this unique source of information for people.
So was this the plan, Jeff? Was it calculated to
just happen and it caught on and evolved? Tell us
about that whole process.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
The day that I was elected to Congress, all this
cool stuff starts happening, all this onboarding machinery that I've
never seen before because it's sort of out of eye.
It all kicks in, like the security situation for your
family changes, and they get in touch and they say
here's how your wife and your family's life will be different.
I just thought it was super cool and fascinating. I
(12:36):
was personally just kind of amazed. And so I sat
on my kitchen table and I put a camera up
on the other side, and I said, hey, I'm Jeff.
You don't know me. I was just elected to Congress,
and here's what that's like. And I posted it to
eight different social media platforms, basically all of them, and
it took off. So we said, all right, once a week,
I'll do a video where I just say here's the
most interesting thing that just happened to me as a
(12:58):
member of Congress. I thought it would be the best
way to communicate with my constituents, which was always basically
the goal, right provide a way to be transparent and
keep your constituents updated on what you were doing. I
had no notion that it would be of interest to
people beyond my constituents. But it's been a joy. It's
been wonderful. It's been a really fun part and a
rewarding part of my time in Congress. But to your question,
(13:22):
basically a total accident. If I had been planning for
something like this to happen, it would have failed. It
sort of had to be an accident.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, maybe the fact that it wasn't calculated. When people
are trying to be authentic, it's not authentic. Yours is
really coming from you. And just really quickly, what is
your process? Like do you do it all yourself?
Speaker 4 (13:43):
I do it myself. About Thursday ish, I start trying
to come up with what was the most interesting thing.
Usually that's pretty easy, because like, we'll vote to fire
the Speaker of the House for the first time in history,
you know, or we'll expel George Santos interesting or we won't.
We'll vote to Expeljor Santos and that vote will fail.
(14:04):
Usually it's pretty easy. Sometimes it's a slow week or
we're just not in Congress that week, and my staff
and I will have to have a conversation about, like,
what do you think, you know, the most interesting thing
that happened, And then I start working on a script.
Takes me a few hours to do a script. And
then when we've got that right that, I sit in
front of my camera and it takes me a while
to just go straight to camera until I think that
(14:25):
I've got a decent amount of material. And then I
go on Adobe, I go to my next room with
my office, hire my computer, and I use Adobe Premiere
to edit and editing takes a long time, but it's fun.
I've come to really enjoy it. I've had to watch
a ton of YouTube videos about how to how to
do lighting and sound. I don't know anything about this,
(14:46):
and if you scroll all the way down, my early
video is terrible lighting, terrible sound. But I watched a
ton of YouTube videos and like I sort of figured
it out, you know, or.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
So he sounds like a creator, Well, he is a creator.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
That's the thing, right When we talk about creators, they
get followings because they're actually creating content that matters. And
I have a feeling people will be as blown away
as I was when I first learned that you're sitting
US congressman and you're watching YouTube videos to figure out
how to make this content better of yourself. This isn't
like this remote team that's doing it and just really quickly.
(15:18):
I mean, I think there's something interesting for business people
listening to this to consider about what that means for brands.
I'm not totally sure what it is, but what's your take?
What would you say about that?
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Well, other members of Congress. They ask me, They're like, hey,
what kind of camera do you use? And I tell them,
and I also say, just so you know, that's not
going to be enough to be successful. You're going to
have to learn some new skills. And frankly, to your point,
lots of people in Congress are very comfortable with delegating
to their staff, and this is certainly the type of
thing that you would usually delegate. But I tell them
(15:51):
you should. To be successful, you're going to have to
learn how to do a lot of this stuff yourself,
because this type of help for members of Congress doesn't
really exist yet. I think it probably will at some
point in the next few years. But if you want
to do it, well, I tell them, we're gonna have
to sink some hours into doing it poorly and climbing
a learning curve.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
But that's part of your brand, honestly, Jeff. And again,
it's great to meet you. I've obviously been following you.
I learned a lot about you from Marissa, but then
I just started to follow you on social and just
very impressed with the level of authenticity. And it seems
not just with TikTok it obviously goes well beyond that,
the way you connect with people going to the door.
You know, you were just on the road, you were
telling us, you know, So I'm just very curious you
(16:31):
were seeing people, you know, in a very real way.
And I'm curious, you know, where everything in media and
especially in politics today feels so performative. It almost feels
like we've you know, kind of made everything with politics
and media the WWE version, right, Like it all feels
very fake. But I'm curious, do you think that the
(16:53):
way that the media is portraying the way Americans thinking feel,
does that reflect what you were seeing when you're actually
door to door, when you're actually meeting with people. Is
there a disconnect between, you know, kind of what you're
seeing in America versus the way the media is portraying it.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
It's a really good question. And the first thing I
say anytime I'm speaking to a group of people is
I take them through like a day in my life
as a member of Congress and explain how it's totally
different than what they're broadcast because it's mainly about your
work on your committees, or at least it has been
for me. I'm on two committees Armed Services and science.
They're pretty bipartisan. There's not a lot of the WWE
(17:31):
happening every once in a while, like we'll have our moments,
but ninety five percent of my day is committees and
subcommittees and sort of chopping wood and doing normal productive work.
And I try to just take them through that and say,
you would feel completely differently about Congress if you'd seen
what I've seen over the last year. You would still
have your frustrations, but please know what you are broadcast
(17:54):
is designed to outrage you. There's a whole profit motive here,
and we're all familiar with that, but being on this
side of it and seeing how that operates and seeing
how addicted people have become to anger, they feel like
if they're not angry about politics, they're not being good citizens.
They've come to equate feeling angry with doing politics. And
(18:17):
what I really hope we can get away from, hopefully
after this election, is politics just being defined negatively, because
that becomes self reinforcing. We really want to be able
to define politics or associate politics with some positive traits
like at least decency and integrity and really basic nonpartisan
stuff like that. I think that's sort of the project
(18:39):
for politics over the next five years is inserting some
positive associations with it. Is the media going to be
especially helpful with that? Probably not, But if we have
more people in elected office who can communicate directly with people,
I think that could help be redefining how people perceive
politics in the daily life of an elective face.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Does politics now mean entertainment for people? Because if that
is kind of the outrage and it becomes kind of
this reality show that is just on constant you repeat,
and they want that entertainment, they want to see the outrage.
I mean, you know, this is something where I don't know,
you can't get away from it. Almost it's must watch TV, right.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
You're right about that. It has become dangerously associated with entertainment. However,
I don't see a world going forward in which that's
not a piece of it, simply because of how fractured
our attention spans have become. It used to be you
didn't have that many things to do with your attention,
back when there were three channels and a halfful of newspapers,
and so you could sort of force people to eat
more vegetables. When it comes to policy, discussions. Now you
(19:45):
don't have the luxury of doing that. You can still
have a policy discussion with people, but you have to
make it a little bit. I don't think of it
in terms of being entertaining, but I think of it
in terms of compelling. If it's not compelling, if it
doesn't feel timely and relevant to them, then they're going
to scroll, They're not going to watch. These have too
many options now, so we can move away from WWE,
(20:07):
but we're not going to move away from having that
information be compelling. It has to be See.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I think what I look at you with hope for,
genuinely speaking, is to Steven's point, you've got the outrageous
loud voices, and you've really called that out and even
talked about the disconnect between how they behave behind closed
doors versus the performance the outrage Olympics. But then you
(20:33):
also have the media, of which we are, apart very
culpable in terms of playing to the extremes. And we
can break down the whole history of media news and
all that, but it has almost felt inevitable and or unfixable.
And then you come along, and I'm not just saying
this to flatter you, you are like the most popular collected
(20:57):
official on TikTok and you're taking a different and approach.
Does does that provide some hope that all isn't lost
in terms of more positive, calmer, honest voices prevailing and
taking us away from this because it's a little scary
what we've become in that regard.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
I know it feels scary right now. And anxiety levels
are really high. Yeah, And everywhere I go I can
feel people's anxiety, and so I always start by saying, hey,
I know anxiety levels are really high. By the time
we're done talking, whatever group I'm in front of, I say,
you're going to feel a little bit better, not one
hundred percent better, but a little bit better. And a
(21:37):
piece of it is exactly what you just said. You
are going to see better elected officials. You are going
to see more transparency. There's just too high an incentive
for them not to try and do this, and do
it at a very high level. It's not all going
to come online at once. There's obviously a generational gap
(21:58):
when it comes to you know, folks serving an elected office,
but there are a bunch of young people who were
elected with me or a little bit before me, who
aren't on your radar yet, who are going to be
and who are going to use this method. I think
it's going to be great. It's something good that's going
to happen for our country that I think is inevitable
and coming up pretty quick.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I love that. I cannot help but being optimistic about
the future of America, and you know, looking at it
as glass half full. But we are at this really
interesting moment where we're seeing almost before our eyes, the
rebranding of these two major political parties. Do you feel
like this is an accurate description, like things that you
know used to be related to one party are now
(22:40):
being applied to the other party. And then also just
inevitably is going to be a rebranding of America around
the world. You know, a lot of us just came
back from you know, major international conferences and just the
perception of America, you know, the shadow it's cast very
very large across the rest of the world, impacting culture
in so many different areas of business, technology. But do
(23:02):
you think that we are seeing the rebranding of these
parties and also of America.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, particularly that it's happening
before our very eyes. I mean, you know, we saw
a political convention, national political convention this week that really
was trying to rebrand itself to the point with WWE,
to the point of bringing in the hulk, you know,
the Hulks.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I think that was an unintentional but purposeful analogy.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Steven and I thought it was brilliant and maybe one
of the most intentional efforts we've ever seen to try
and rebrand in a very specific way. And lots of
folks had criticism for it because you know, it feels
like debates, where I thought, as a symbolic message, very
very effective. I think a lot of this rebranding and
(23:48):
the fluidity in politics is downstream of technology and the
decentralization the opening up of communication has produced a lot
of those changes. The next round of rebranding is probably
to be around artificial intelligence, and none of us has
any idea what that's going to look like, because that's
going to involve second, third and fourth order consequences the
(24:08):
same way the Internet created. We're on like third order
consequence political consequence from the Internet. But yes, that's not
going to change, and my goodness, what a time to live.
I felt for a long time that I could predict
basically what the political fault lines were going to look
like two or three years out. None of us can
do that anymore. It's really hard to tell which coalitions
(24:28):
are going to be still intact two or three years
from now. It's become very difficult to predict.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Well.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
We barely do an episode where AI doesn't come up.
So it's profoundly interesting to think about the implications at
a political level. Exciting, as you said, what a time
to live, intimidating, but also thank you for giving us
a little bit of a hopeful spin. And I think
it's important for us to get fresh voices like that
(24:56):
because that kind of brand needs to cut through the
noise my opinion of American politics. So thank you. And
when we come back, we're going to ask Congressman Jackson
Jeff to indulge us in a quick round of cooler cringe.
We'll be right back. Okay, we're back, and we're ready
(25:19):
to play a quick round of cooler cringe before Jeff
goes back to fighting for justice and the future of
democracy and all that really important stuff. So anyway, cooler cringe,
Are you ready? Jeff?
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Right?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Cool or cringe? Since you brought it up, I'm going
to go there AI generated political speeches pool or cringe.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Cringe, and I've tried. I've used open AI or CHATGBT
and tried, hey, can it help me out with the speech.
I've even given it like a first draft of something
I was going to say, and say, can you improve it?
And it just can't. It will be able to at
some point, I don't know, two three, four years from that,
but at its current level of sophistication, is not really
(26:00):
a value add for me in terms of communication.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Interesting, Why is that? Did it not feel authentic enough
to your voice?
Speaker 4 (26:07):
It did not feel authentic enough. It felt like B
plus and I'm looking for A plus.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Really interesting.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Probably twelve months time, you know, we should revisit that
because the pace that is accelerating, it's it's as crazy.
I'm curious to have cool or cringe age limits on
serving in public office.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
I think it's cool, and there are states that have it.
North Carolina has it for our judges, and it's always
been considered a good feature. If anybody wanted to get
rid of it, now everybody would oppose that. So yeah, no,
I think it's a I think it's a good idea.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
This one feels very much in the spirit of what
we've been talking about. Cool or cringe as we head
into the intensities and of political advertising, negative political ads
cooler cringe.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Oh, or even positive. Public lads are super print. Yeah,
and they treat the public so poorly. They're so insulting with.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
How thank you for saying that.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yes, absurdly inauthentic they are, and we're all about to
be subjected to like ten billion of them. Yeah, everywhere
we go for the next one hundred sum odd days.
I really just express my deep sympathy to everybody listening,
because if you're listening to the show, you care about marketing,
and it's just you're going to see the worst of
(27:25):
marketing for the next hundred some odd days. Every once
in a while, there's an exception and you see a
political ad that actually makes you feel something real, where
there's a moment of truth in that political ad. And
those are great, but ninety nine percent of these they're
drafted by consultants who just they're doing a ton of
campaigns and you're just another campaign to them. Right, They've
(27:47):
got a formula and it's sort of worked a little
bit in the past, so they're going to apply their
formula to you. It's rough.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Well, I'll tell you, as a marketer, I've never worked
on political advertising per se, and I feel like I
would be chomping at the bit of that because it's
so obvious to me that there's white space to do
it differently and actually break through, so.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Much potential to the upside.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
All right, core cringe Today's Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Hmmm, yeah, pretty cringe.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I feel like maybe underselling.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
It, maybe underselling it. Someone sent my office when I
first got in there, like a twenty five dollars gift
certificate to Dunkin Donuts, I think, and we sent it
back because those are the rules. The Supreme Court has
no ethics rules, and the amount of money that one
member in particular has taken in the form of gifts
(28:44):
absurd and clearly undermining everybody's confidence. And that doesn't have
anything to do with ideology left versus right. We should
all as Americans, we should all want ethics controls in place.
I do way they shouldn't have to be. I think
the Supreme Court doesn't have those because they've always held
themselves to such a high standard. They've said, we would
never be tempted to engage in that type of behavior,
(29:06):
and then queerly one guy just takes every single temptation
known to man. Yeah, we should have some ethics rules
in place for these folks, because apparently they're necessary.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Ethics. Cool, ethics are cool, it turns out, surprise E
thinks a cool.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Well, that's awesome. Jeff, Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Thank you for being a voice of that, and we
really appreciate it. We know how busy your life is,
and as you said, what a time in American politics.
We will be sitting back and watching, but keep fighting
the good fight. And thanks for also teaching I hope
your fellow politicians I think you have and maybe some
(29:46):
others in the rest of America, including the business world,
how to be a truly authentic brand. So, Jeff, thanks
for joining us.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
It was a lot of ful Thank you for your service.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Jeff, take care of y'all, And now it's time for
what's on your mind? Marisa? We got this week.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, so we've got a fun question this week from
Ross who is obviously listening to our last episode, which
we love. And the question is this, since you were
talking about football. He said football, So you should be happy, Steven,
appreciate that. What's a great example of a quote assist
in marketing? Love it all?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
You go first, Steven, what do you think This is.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
A cool question, just because when you think about the
role of marketing, I always view it as the connective
tissue inside of a company. And you know, when you
think of all the different roles you know that are
either internal or external, it could be certainly all the
internal functions, whether it's product, whether it's technology, whether it's hr, legal, finance,
(30:45):
and all the external roles, whether it's sales, business development,
you know, kind of customer service, anything that is really
touching a customer, a client, anything that has to do
with you know, the external world. I really view marketers
as the tissue between that, and so in the roles
that I've been in where I always thought that marketing
was enabling sales or enabling product, I really view that
(31:10):
as you know, probably the best assists. I mean, one
of the roles that I think is the hardest role
to really hire for at technology companies in particular, is
product marketing, and I think that is one of the
coolest ways of doing an assists, because a really great
product marketer is just worth their weight in gold. Anyone
listening in product marketing shout out to you because you
have one of the hardest roles, because you really need
(31:31):
to have one foot externally. Where you're working in the field.
You are talking to you know, clients, you are actually
gathering you know, really important feedback on the product, you
know what works, what doesn't work, product development ideas bugs.
But then you're really working internally in a very collaborative
way with the product team. That is really you know,
working very close to with engineers and trying to develop
(31:53):
the product and make it better and you know, kind
of get all the kinks out. So they have one
foot internally one foot externally. But frankly, I think that
is what a CMO does when they're working with the
C suite. I mean, I think you could probably speak
even better to that, right and Marsa, given all.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Your roles, I think that's a really interesting answer. It's
not what occurred to me first. So I love that
that's where you went. And it's funny. As I was
hearing you talk, I was thinking you were going in
almost the flip direction. But it works both ways that
I thought what you were going to say is all
those other functions like legal, finance, art are the assists
(32:30):
to marketing. So it works both ways and kind of
a nice framing, honestly, because we have talked a lot
over the course of our series of the very true
difficulty of being a CMO and feeling a little lonely
in the C suite and feeling misunderstood. So it's kind
of nice to get back to this idea that when
(32:50):
it all does work really well, everything we do is
an assist of course to the business, but all those
functions are assistants and enablers, So I like that a lot.
I'll just tell you where my head went as how
to answer the question. Is a good example of an assist,
I think is brand partnerships and collaborations one of my
favorite things, and the way I think of that as
(33:11):
an assist is you're leveraging the equity and audience and
actual service or product of something else that's maybe unexpected
but creates a cool, concentric circle of opportunity that you
couldn't get just talking about, you know, your brand yourself,
And this has definitely been something that I've practiced in
(33:34):
my own career, and some of my favorite examples have
come out of that, whether it's Taco Bell in Forever
twenty one or Taco Bell and Lyft or Lows in
New York Fashion Week, and they're really cool collabs. And
I think sometimes you know, those feel like more expected
now because a lot of people have figured it out.
There's a good way to do an assist. But when
they're really good, they create a sum that's greater than
(33:58):
its parts. And to me, that's the excitement thing of
unlocking that possibility. So thinking of that ross as a
cool way of creating an assist, I don't know, that's
I kind of like thinking about it that way. That's
go football.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
All about the assist, right, because I believe in being,
you know, a servant leader, and I think that marketers
are the ultimate servant leaders because they're trying to help
everyone raise you know, the tide for all boats. So
with that, please follow us at the Brand New podcast
wherever you listen to your podcast so you never miss
an episode. Also connect with us on all the socials,
send us all of your questions and you know, all
(34:35):
the feedback to ideas at Brandashnew dot com and Marissa
I want to close us out.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
That's as good of a close as any. Thanks for
joining us, and please join us again next time for
what's brand new.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.