February 18, 2025 • 33 mins
Marisa and Steven are back! With big (brand) new professional chapters underway, the co-hosts catch up on their respective journeys over the past few weeks: Marisa in the midst of a big corporate merger and Steven back as an entrepreneur in the dynamic AI landscape. With those developments as a backdrop, get caught up with them on what professionals - including boards - should be doing now about AI, and why the role of brands, and human creativity in building them, has never been more important.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
We're back, and thanks for coming back to join us
on brand New from the iHeart Podcast Network and Brand
New Labs. I'm Marissa Fahlberg.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Stephen wolf Pata, and it is just so great
to be back because there's been so much going on, Marissa,
and it is you know, presence Day weekend. I'm actually
up in Mammoth and trying to help my kids learn
how to ski because I definitely did not learn how
to ski when I was growing up. It's really not
(00:35):
a top Latino thing. I'm more of a beach guy.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
But I'm impressed that even when you're skiing, you're still
in soccer gear. I mean, you are on brand. My
brand new friend.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Arsall had a huge win yesterday, so it's you know,
getting down to the matulations end of the title race.
You know, the Premier League goes up until you know,
kind of end of May, so we're in kind of
now crunch time, and of course the team is riddled
with injuries and you know we had to pull you know,
rab it out of a hat and we won yesterday.
So again, trying to teach my kids this idea of
(01:08):
grit and to never give up and to keep on
going finding a way, And I feel like, you know,
that's just a great life lesson, not just for our kids,
you know, for us, but for companies, because you've got
to find a way and it's only getting more difficult,
more challenging this environment. But here we are, it's cold,
it's fun.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Boy, oh boy, that is the greatest lesson we can
teach our kids. I feel like I've tried to instill
that with my girls too, whether you've listened to Angela Duckworth,
or you've read all the books, or just the social
science that says the number one predictor of success is
not your educational background, your socioeconomic status, it's your grit
and your resilience. I always think about that because we've
(01:49):
been doing this for a while, and we've had many
chapters in our lives and our careers, haven't we both,
And resilience is such a big part of it. And
sometimes part of resilience, I think is also allowing yourself
the grace of a little break. So we allowed ourselves
the grace of a little few weeks break because we've
both been really ensconced in big new chapters of our
(02:10):
career and getting them kind of respectively off the ground.
So I'm happy we're back about lots to talk about.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
As you said, well, speaking of grit, I feel like
you have wrote a great piece about trying things on,
and you now in your kind of new role. There's
been a lot of change going on where you are,
So why do you just kind of bring our listeners
up to speed. I'm like, what's been going on?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Well, I did try it on, and then I did
put a ring on it, if you will, but in
a little bit of a different way. And I was
aware that this was how things were unfolding, but it's
definitely more than what I first did in a consulting
CMO capacity. So we came back from the new year
right into the new year introducing a new company that
(02:55):
was a merger of jcpenny and a collection of brands
formerly Spark Group that consists of Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer,
Lucky Brand, Aeropostylea Nautica. So those five brands, along with
j C. Penny are now Catalyst brands.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's so exciting it is.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I said yes to being the chief customer marketing officer
over the portfolio, and so you know this is I
guess It's one of the great lessons also in jobs
and careers, is it's never exactly what you think it's
going to be. It morphs, and part of I think
the adventure of it all is to allow yourself to
ride the ride and try to embrace it with optimism
(03:36):
and positivity. But it's also hard. I mean, it's hard
to integrate a company really quickly, so that is, of
course not what I originally imagined would be the hard part.
It's a different kind of hard part. But that, to
me is part of the resilience, the grit, the curiosity.
As I said in that blog post or LinkedIn post,
(03:58):
curiosity and courage. So well, now I practice what I
preach curiosity and courage to make good decisions, and.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
You're doing it. But I love the fact that your
title is actually chief Customer and marketing officer. Yeah, and
you know, we spoke about this, and I could not
feel more strongly about marketers almost getting out of the
marketing lane and elevating themselves to really be the voice
of the customer. Tell us a little bit about like
why did you kind of have customer in your title?
(04:28):
Why was that important?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Well, I've always thought that my job is to bring
whether you say customer consumer is a little bit of
potato potato semantics, but I've always felt that that is
in a sense your role, and in retail you think
about the different I mean, of course, everyone should be
thinking about the customer, right, if you're doing this right,
you're all thinking about the customer. But you know, your
(04:50):
head of stores is thinking about the store and the
associates to work in the store, and your head of
merchandising is thinking about product. And to be the voice
of the customer at the table I think is very
important and very meaningful. It also means really thinking, in
this modern age of data, how you're thinking about customer
(05:12):
data and what to do with it. You know, there's
so much in our worlds that's both right brain and
left brain, and for sure it's an exercise in using
both sides to figure out, both quantitatively but also creatively
how to bring these brands into either renewed or even
greater sense of saliency and relevance. And what I do
(05:35):
love about retail is it's just such a part of
the pun intended fabric of American culture. And thank you,
not bad for a weekend recording, but it is it's
part of the fabric of that and I like that.
I've always loved the role of brands and culture and
thinking about that. So lots of new material for us
(05:58):
as we think about brand new and looking at things
through the lens of brands, but of course with also
an increasing lens with technology and data and all that,
which is actually an unintended good segue to what you've
been building over the past few weeks and months and beyond.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's such a exciting time, it's also such a scary time.
I don't think people appreciate just how important this moment is.
This is literally our Netscape Navigator moment back in nineteen
ninety four and ninety five, really the birth of the internet,
the modern init that we know of today, and it's
(06:36):
going to be bigger than the Internet. And when you
understand that this is not growing in a linear fashion,
it's exponential and just the need of people needing to
understand how to get AI ready. And I say this
out of you know, kind of excitement, just as a
technologist and someone that's obviously been in the space for
a long time, but also as a business person and
(06:58):
they know lots of friends and different roles and companies
and categories, and I just I see a real upheaval
happening over the next twelve to twenty four months. And
so this is the moment where you have an opportunity
to kind of go on the offense to make sure
that you have a seat at the table. And whereas
you're building your business and it's obviously a much bigger company,
(07:19):
I'm totally back to going from zero to one and
building alpha and it's actually been really exciting. And we've
really kind of narrowed, you know, kind of our focus
and you know, really distilling what it is our value proposition,
and so it's really focused on boards and it's been
really exciting. And we're going to do our first board
forum next month in New York and really trying to
(07:39):
bring together boards and you know c suites, you know,
by natural extension, but really connecting them to the new
technology landscape of you know, there's over a thousand plus
you know, new AI dative companies and none of these
boards are really AI ready. So as we kind of
get this off the ground, I think we'll see lots
of interesting insights. And again, the business of brands, how
are brand's going to be relevant in this AI era.
(08:01):
I know everyone's tired of playing the AI drinking game,
but like it is real, it's not going away.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I mean, I do think it is funny. In the
course of you and I even hosting this podcast, we've
been through a few different cycles of corporate consulting and
we're probably both now back in our more respectively more
natural habitats, which is kind of interesting, but it also
allows us to each bring I think an important perspective
(08:28):
to the table in terms of the real world when
you're hustling day in and day out in a corporate
environment as an operator running a business, and how consuming
the day to day of that can be. That is
you and I talk about often. It's really at times
hard to have also the capacity to pull out and
(08:49):
say I'm going to learn the whole landscape. And so
the role that entrepreneurs I love getting to call you
that again, like you are playing, is helping people like
me and my colleagues understand how to cut to the
chase of it more quickly, more expediently, because it's it's impossible,
it's impossible to be in an operating role and also
(09:13):
know everything that's going on in this, as you said,
exponentially changing world. And we don't only want to be
talking about AI, right, and we don't only want to
be talking about that on brand new, but it's sort
of unavoidable just to talk about how the world is
changing and what that means for how we bring brands
(09:35):
to life, but beyond that, how we what it means
for company culture, what it means for careers, all the
things that we care about. It does make sense that
with your focus that that becomes even more of our
lens too, because we're all going to learn. So I'm
going to learn something continuing to talk about it with you,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I also feel people have always, you know, kind of
conflated what really is the role of technology, and it's
always going to be a means to an end. And
I think people that focus on you know, AI or
you know digital or whatever it is as the ending
of itself, that's where they lose the thread. It has
to be used for something. This is, whether people like
(10:19):
it or not, it's going to impact every element of business,
of a brand, of employees, of society. And think about
what happened in the past couple of weeks with China
coming out with Deep Seek, right, you know, to see
that model released and to see the mayhem. Literally in
one day, Marissa in video lost five hundred billion dollars
(10:39):
in value, dropping twenty percent, and that was the largest
you know, kind of market drop in history.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
In history.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
No one knew what the hell that they were freaking
out about. This was in kind of you know, the
AI circles, you know, in the valley, like everyone knew
about what they were doing. And they actually had a
pre release of the model in December, and so folks
that were informed and tuned in they understood that. But
there's this kind of mass hysteria that's happening. And again
there was a real breakthrough, an innovation. It wasn't made
(11:07):
for five million dollars, that's just bullshit. But you know,
kind of understanding, how do you kind of cut through
all this noise and really focus on signal? I think
that's going to be the interesting moment. And Sam Altman
just came out with an interview that he was in
Japan and doing some product releases and he said that
his coding agent, you know, just the capability and chat ept,
they are now the fiftieth best programmer you know coder
(11:31):
in the world and by the end of the year,
chet GPT will be the number one coder in the world.
So just trying to wrap your head around that, Like
coding as we know, you.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Can't wrap my head around that. What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That means that a job as being a coder, as
a programmer, that's done, and then understanding what other tasks
can actually be automated, what other roles are actually going
to get really disintermediated. But again, all these new roles
are going to happen, and so again it's just really
exciting time. And I think you're going to see new
brands actually be created, new brands that really don't need
(12:06):
a lot of staff, support, infrastructure because you could do
things so quickly now and you're going to have an
army of agents eventually helping you do all this stuff.
So again, really exciting time. Let's you know, kind of
figure out like where do we kind of navigate this conversation.
But if there's anything that we could do for our
audience and our listeners, it's really hopefully trying to help
(12:26):
them find signal in all the noise.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
It feels like to me we're still very much in
experimentation mode in the collective sense. I'm not talking about
the you know, really aggressively out there technology led companies,
but I mean when you think of general consumer products
and retail and the main sectors that we think about
with brands, and then you see the people that there's
(12:49):
a little bit that reminds me of a couple of
years ago with the metaverse. And I don't think it's
like that in any other way except this one, which
is that well and we all kind of felt the
pressure is chasing a little bit of the headlines like
the completely AI generated TV commercials that we're seeing right now.
So when you look now from your lens of really advising,
(13:12):
I'm curious, who do you think you've seen as building
really actually the best business cases at a brand level
for using it well. And who is Not that there's
anything wrong with experimentation, but it might be more about
just trying to put some points on the board in
our industry without necessarily transforming how they work. I'm curious
(13:35):
about that. As a marketing leader, it's hard to wrap
your head around in all these phases like what is essential,
what's experimentation, what's non essential?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, I think one I would actually view as a
business leader because again, given that you are doing customer
as well as marketing, and you sit on boards and
you know, you just have a real grasp for the
business and overseeing P and L responsibilities. I feel like
that is what I think is so critical for anyone
(14:06):
that is in some type of forward looking external sales
and marketing function. It's really just understanding the business and
financial elements of your role and how that contributes. Because
everything is going to get a questioned and I feel
like some of the best examples if you really think
about I put out my predictions in the beginning of
the year, and this is certainly going to be the
(14:28):
year of the agent, right, Like it's not going to
be immediate, it's going to take time. But when you
have every big tech player, whether it's Microsoft, whether it's Google,
whether it's Meta, whether it's Amazon, everyone is going to
be coming out with their agents. You know, salesforce obviously
with Agent for us, right, they're like literally rebranding, putting
all the effort behind that. So agents are going to
(14:50):
be pervasive and every consumer is going to have a
personal agent. Not tomorrow, it's not ready for prime time,
but all the reasoning models that you're seeing. The reason
why it's such a big deal is because now you
have the ability to kind of have a step by
step recipe and that could be maybe for five steps,
that could be for fifty steps, that could be for
a million steps. And that is what's going to enable
(15:11):
an agent to kind of go from just a text
prompt to text to action and now it's going to
do things for you, right, And so everyone has like
the simple use cases of oh, it's gonna you know,
order me, you know, food on door dash right, or
it's gonna you know, kind of you know, help me
program something or schedule something. It's going to make my
life more convenient. But from a business lens, one of
(15:33):
the really smart AI native companies is coming called Sierra AI.
It's co founded by the former CEOs of Salesforce, actually
Brett Taylor, and he is just, you know, phenomenal. He
was the guy that helped create Google Maps, and he
was the former CTO of Facebook and you know, he's brilliant.
But his idea of conversational AI, they're using agents because
(15:54):
an agent is going to be more important than your app,
and it's going to be more important than your website.
And so there's you know, some really interesting use cases
that you know he has.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Where does your agent live? Then if not on your website.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It's going to be digital, right, it's going to be
able to kind of have it interface with all different
you know kind of touch points, but specifically they have
been public with you know a few examples and one
of them is so nos And so think about you know,
I always try to bring things, you know to kind
of like your your mom or your dad, or your
grandpa or your grandma. Like someone that is calling you
(16:27):
I think you.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Just called me your grid. I'm okay, I own it.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Someone doesn't know how to like, you know, how do
I get the Wi Fi? You know? Like, so think
of you know, kind of all that customer service. Now
it's very expensive for you to take a call for sure,
right and you know part of the limits. I mean,
I challenge anyone listening go try to find like a
customer service telephone number, right, Like they're hidden for a
(16:54):
reason because it's very expensive to have someone answering that
customer service call. But now you could have an agent,
and the agent could answer any of those questions because
through where we are with AI, they've mastered human language.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I think agents are the new offshoring. How's that it's.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Even bigger than that because think about the second and
third order effects. What is this going to do for
the whole offshoring industry? You know, whole industries in India
and you know Costa Rica where they've actually offshored a
lot of customer support, Like that is going to be
absolutely disrupted. But for Sierra to now you have their
agent for Sonos and now Sonas could answer any question
(17:34):
that could go into any specific product, do it in
any language, in real time, and you could talk to
that agent for as long as you want. What if
you're a true audio file and you want to go
into all the specs and all the bells and whistles
of the new speaker and the subwarfferre and this and that, Like,
it's very interesting to see what this can open up,
especially for a brand. And now this becomes what your
(17:55):
new first touch point. These are your new brand ambassadors.
So you have to think of what is the personality
of your agent. That's a new job mersa right well
new old.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
So this is where I think our respective natural majors
in the business world come through. One of the things
I've found interesting, maybe I admit it comforting heartening, is
that a lot of the thought leadership that I've been
reading is that the part that actually isn't getting very
(18:28):
quickly disintermediated by all this is creativity and telling the
human intuition, the human judgment, and that actually that's going
to matter more when you see the prognosticator saying what
jobs are going away, what jobs are staying, and so
to me, that's a really interesting argument for why brands
(18:48):
are going to matter more than ever. And I'm not
certainly the first or only person who's offering that point
of view. It's interesting to see a lot of people,
even people coming out of the world of technology, who
are saying, actually, this is going to be an era
where brands and the relationship you have with them and
how they're codified and how they surprise you and delight
(19:09):
you're going to matter because everything else will be even
more homogenized because of our shared access to technology. What
do you think of that? I find that interesting and
as I said, maybe a little comforting too. I don't
want our human talents to dissipate. We don't want it
all outsourced to technology or to agents.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I think that's right. I do think that it is
going to put a premium on the human touch. It's
going to put a premium on things that are going
to be in real life. I mean I have a
whole yeah, you know, kind of predictions thing that you know,
I'm in the middle of writing, but that everything is
going to be so transactional, it's going to be so automated,
(19:53):
and you're going to have if we have the convenience
economy today, yeah, right, where everything you know, Instacart, Amazon,
whatever's to your door for you to kind of get
out of bed and go see someone like that's a
high hurdle, right yeah, but if you actually find ways
to convene and bring people together, that's going to be
a big deal. And so things that are going to
(20:13):
be in real life, I think things that are going
to be with that human touch, with creativity like those
are things that are going to be very very important.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Well, so again we're sort of bringing it around and
through our different worlds right now. I mean, I think
about having joined a company with some legacy, great legacy
retail brands, many of which you often find in them.
All we've been hearing for years, Oh the mall. You
know it's not true. The mall is actually anything but
did The reality is there are some malls in the
(20:43):
country that are doing better than they've ever done, and
some malls that aren't doing so well. The reality is
also and this I think is all connected and trends.
Young people are rediscovering it or discovering it, I should say,
because why they want to have a real world experience.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Friends.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I want to go do something. They want to touch things,
they want to taste things, they want to see things
with their own eyes. I want to try things on.
And this is not me being the voice of anti technology,
because you know that's never been my situation. I've always
been I'd like to think digitally progressive leader. But I
think the art of how this all progresses is finding
(21:21):
ways to keep the humanity parts even more special. That's
where to your point, the premium on it like to
make experiences matter more, to make real human creativity interaction
matter more, and then get rid of the lower value
stuff even more than we've done before.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
That's right, yeah, yeah, like all the drudgery and all
the kind of busy work and to be honest, like
you will need you know, an incredible copywriter or someone
that really understands your brand voice. You know, the challenge
is you might not need you know, that whole team
where it's like ninety percent of your staff or you know,
whatever the number is. Like, I feel like those are
(22:00):
going to be the challenges, right, Like how people are
going to be doing so much more with so much less.
I think that is where you know, I'm trying to
get the word out for everyone that listens. How do
you go on the offense? How do you make sure
that you are ail ready? How do you actually use
these tools and make sure that you have a seat
because you know, when the music stops, you're just going
to need, you know, fewer people to do all this
(22:20):
stuff because you're going to be so augmented. You're going
to have so much firepower. I mean literally, when you
have the access to something like deep research, which you know,
opening eye kind of let that out. You literally now
have a McKinsey consultant at your disposal in real time.
What do you think that's going to do the consulting industry, right?
(22:40):
I mean, you have all this power at your fingertips.
I just urge everyone listening learn how to use these
tools now.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Well, as you can tell, we are setting up what
our go forward themes are going to be in the
end and the yang of our conversations. When we come back,
we're going to play cooler cringe with each other to
be right back.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
And we're back with our favorite segment, cool or Cringe,
And Marissa, you and I are going to play this
because there's been a lot going on and so I
am so curious cool or cringe. Marissa's ending eight million
bucks for a thirty second spot on the Super Bowl?
Is that still a thing? Is that still cool?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yes? Well, here's the thing. This is one of those
sometimes when we play this game with our guests and
they're say, both, this is definitely going to be it depends.
It could be cool or it could be cringe. And
here's my point of view. It is so hard now
to scale an audience. This super Bowl that just passed
was the highest rated super Bowl in history. That's remarkable
(23:50):
considering we just don't have moments anymore where everyone is
having a shared viewing experience. And that is why the
network that has it and charge so much for it,
because it's just so rare. Now. It's not like typical
primetime TV and you have a scaled audience, and you
would buy primetime it was expensive. That's not a thing anymore.
(24:10):
Live sports is kind of it.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
For the kids listening Primetime used to be a thing.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
It was it was at naive when you watched those
primetime hours. But yeah, you actually had to turn on
TV and watch when the TV told you to watch.
So anyway, the thing is, I actually think for that reason,
it is commanding that kind of expense, and if you
have a moment, if you have a story, if you
(24:36):
have something that reaching a national audience and benefiting from
that collective attention can work. It really can pay dividends.
So I'm not going with the cringe answer. I'm going
with a cringe answer only if it becomes gratuitous. I've
been a Super Bowl advertiser before it becomes so preoccupying.
(24:56):
The risk is you start taking your eye off of
the rest of the busines because you're so nervous about
how you're going to show up in the industry and
on TV, and you know, and everyone's watching and judging,
and it becomes a very meta like experience of the
sport of the of the ads as opposed to like,
is this actually going to have the commercial results that
(25:19):
it's intended to have. So for me, it's a real
cool Crazily enough, I wish it didn't cost that much.
If you've got the case for it, what do you think?
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Look, I think it's cringey to spend that amount of
money in this day and age.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
A lot.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I just feel, you know, and again I understand that
there is the audience all the points that you just made. Yeah,
I really do feel that you have to have a
very strong business plan, like to really realize any type
of ROI on that, and I feel like a lot
of folks flail. I mean they don't know how to
use it. And I think there's a way to kind
(25:55):
of either crash the super Bowl. I mean, now all
the ads are actually out, you know, in advance, and
so really viewing this as an event platform, Well that's
the thing.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
It's so much more than that moment, and the ads
are shown beforehand and they're but.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
The smart businesses use it as a platform versus just
the ad, and so I think that that is case.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I think that's critical. All right, Well, let's take something
next for cooler cringe that has been part of our
culture for as of this weekend, I'm astonishing fifty years.
So this is the fiftieth anniversary of Sarient Live, Cooler Cringe.
In terms of what that represents today.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I have mixed emotions about. I think cool that something
has been going on for that long. So definitely kudos
to them because it's hard to be relevant and just
think about the alumni and the roster and everything. It's
an incredible track record. I just think myself as a consumer,
I don't think i've watched SNL live, you know kind
(26:55):
of appointment TV probably in a decade. I just watched
the highlights on YouTube, and what do I watch. I
watched the opening monologue and I watched weekend Update, and
that's pretty much it. Maybe there's a funny segment.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I have a skit that starts.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Exactly, but I don't watch it. And you know, there's
like some breakout stars. I love Marcell Ernandez, who is
you know, half Dominican, half Cuban, and he's just so funny.
I think he's, you know, great talent, and you know,
obviously there's classics on there, but I would say it's
cool to reach that milestone. Yeah, I think it's cringe
(27:33):
in the sense of they really have gone multi platform,
and I just don't think anyone's watching it the way
that they would probably want it to watch, because people
are just watching the clips, the highlights.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I don't know. I'm going to give this one just
a cool I don't see a whole lot of cringe
in it. I think it's just remarkable Lauren Michael's vision.
I mean that it's continued all this time. I've read books,
some fictionalize, some more truly nonfiction about just the making
up each episode is just it's such a ritual almost
(28:06):
and what it takes to become a cast member. Sort
of think it's nice to just have these things that
can find endurance and culture when so much of culture
is so rapid fire and constantly changing. But yeah, of course,
like the way we consume it, it's different. I think
that's okay. It's still iconic, it's still sarient live and
(28:26):
it still makes us laugh. Something kind of amazing about
that right now.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Tie in to the Super Bowl. It is something that
kind of brings people together, like people are going to
calm and they'll see that audience. Yeah, all right, cool cringe,
something that's kind of right up your plane. The emergence
of fashion week of vibes versus microtrens. And we've been
hearing a lot about vibes lately, but you know, to
(28:51):
see vibes now creep its way into fashion week. Cool
cringe person, we did?
Speaker 1 (28:55):
We heard about this when we are friend John Gorizma,
who heads the Harris Poll, talking about this at the
Forbes CMO conference, that it's become about we should have
hidden vibesuld. That's a good one. Write that down. I
think it's interesting. So this idea of fashion also as
obviously a key part of culture, thinking about vibes versus
(29:19):
micro trends. What does that really mean? Not totally sure,
but I think what it means is bringing in this
like how something makes you feel, how it's supposed to
make you feel, and having it be something that isn't
so specific to a particular item or idea, but just
a more general like it's giving me a vibe, and
(29:42):
that's the vibe I want to have. I don't know,
I kind of like it. I'm going to give it
a coolish, coolish how about you?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I mean, I don't know what the fuck that means,
to be honest, I mean vie. I mean, is it
like you know, warm and fuzzy. I mean, I wear
or Madrid jersey. I'm getting a good vibe. Is that
what it means?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
You have a one soccer vibe? That's it? All right,
last one and we got to go to one near
and dear your heart. But this is one that is
I think a cooler cringe in work culture. Right now,
all right's using chat rept or your favorite LLM or
at work. All right, cooler cringe. Let's go, let's go,
(30:28):
let's do it.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I think it's obviously cool, and I think anyone that's
not using it is just being left behind. But you know,
you and I both know so many friends that are
at you know, companies big and small, and for whatever reason,
like the company doesn't allow them to use it, or
you know what, we're not going to pay for a subscription.
You have to do it on your own. I mean,
I think that's batshit crazy. I think it's so cool
(30:51):
when you start to use these tools and it makes
your job better, smarter, you're actually you know, kind of
getting real value. I mean, how can you? I mean,
the equivalent is back when the internet first started. Hey,
I'm not going to use email. Yeah, right, Like that's
not cool. Like I just feel like you cannot stop
the wave of technology. And for anyone that's not using
this at work, you're just being left behind. You're just saying, hey,
(31:13):
I'm a dinosaur.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I'll put a tiny little cringe on top of your cool,
which is if you're using it without your own human judgment,
and if you're using it as a replacement right now
versus an aide to getting your work done. As a thought.
I find it a great thought partner, But it's my
judgment on top of that, my ability to use it
and say nope, nope, that's not right. Oh I think
(31:37):
that's a good idea, that's how And I know you
can talk for hours about how much smarter it's going
to keep getting as a result.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
No, no, but that's a very important point, and I'm glad
you bring it up. Absolutely, this is not having it
do your homework.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
You have to use this as a tool. You have
to obviously still edit. It's not going to give you
perfect answers. But I've just seen so much you know,
kind of fear interpretation of saying, oh, I actually use
this to write my presentation or you know, I know
people doing this in the boardroom, like, oh, I actually
use Claude or Chatchypt or perplexity or whatever to help
you know, write my board deck. You should, but you
(32:12):
have to understand, like are you making sure it's safe.
You're not giving me a private, you know, sensitive information.
Obviously there are ways to kind of put all those
switches off, but absolutely you need to use your brain
and good judgment. But it is a tool to make
you smarter for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Well, on that note, I think we've gotten ourselves back
going my friend, and we didn't even need Chatchypt to
do it. We did it all by ourselves. So friends,
thanks for joining us again. That's it for now. We
hope you'll join us again next time. And if you
like what you're hearing, don't forget to subscribe so you
never miss an episode. Also, we didn't do it this time,
(32:45):
but we really do love to answer your questions. So
if you have something on your mind that you'd like
us to discuss, just tell us by emailing us at
ideas at brand Dashnew dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Awesome, Well, join us next time and we'll see you.
I'm brand New
We're back, and thanks for coming back to join us
on brand New from the iHeart Podcast Network and Brand
New Labs. I'm Marissa Fahlberg.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Stephen wolf Pata, and it is just so great
to be back because there's been so much going on, Marissa,
and it is you know, presence Day weekend. I'm actually
up in Mammoth and trying to help my kids learn
how to ski because I definitely did not learn how
to ski when I was growing up. It's really not
(00:35):
a top Latino thing. I'm more of a beach guy.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
But I'm impressed that even when you're skiing, you're still
in soccer gear. I mean, you are on brand. My
brand new friend.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Arsall had a huge win yesterday, so it's you know,
getting down to the matulations end of the title race.
You know, the Premier League goes up until you know,
kind of end of May, so we're in kind of
now crunch time, and of course the team is riddled
with injuries and you know we had to pull you know,
rab it out of a hat and we won yesterday.
So again, trying to teach my kids this idea of
(01:08):
grit and to never give up and to keep on
going finding a way, And I feel like, you know,
that's just a great life lesson, not just for our kids,
you know, for us, but for companies, because you've got
to find a way and it's only getting more difficult,
more challenging this environment. But here we are, it's cold,
it's fun.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Boy, oh boy, that is the greatest lesson we can
teach our kids. I feel like I've tried to instill
that with my girls too, whether you've listened to Angela Duckworth,
or you've read all the books, or just the social
science that says the number one predictor of success is
not your educational background, your socioeconomic status, it's your grit
and your resilience. I always think about that because we've
(01:49):
been doing this for a while, and we've had many
chapters in our lives and our careers, haven't we both,
And resilience is such a big part of it. And
sometimes part of resilience, I think is also allowing yourself
the grace of a little break. So we allowed ourselves
the grace of a little few weeks break because we've
both been really ensconced in big new chapters of our
(02:10):
career and getting them kind of respectively off the ground.
So I'm happy we're back about lots to talk about.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
As you said, well, speaking of grit, I feel like
you have wrote a great piece about trying things on,
and you now in your kind of new role. There's
been a lot of change going on where you are,
So why do you just kind of bring our listeners
up to speed. I'm like, what's been going on?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Well, I did try it on, and then I did
put a ring on it, if you will, but in
a little bit of a different way. And I was
aware that this was how things were unfolding, but it's
definitely more than what I first did in a consulting
CMO capacity. So we came back from the new year
right into the new year introducing a new company that
(02:55):
was a merger of jcpenny and a collection of brands
formerly Spark Group that consists of Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer,
Lucky Brand, Aeropostylea Nautica. So those five brands, along with
j C. Penny are now Catalyst brands.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's so exciting it is.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I said yes to being the chief customer marketing officer
over the portfolio, and so you know this is I
guess It's one of the great lessons also in jobs
and careers, is it's never exactly what you think it's
going to be. It morphs, and part of I think
the adventure of it all is to allow yourself to
ride the ride and try to embrace it with optimism
(03:36):
and positivity. But it's also hard. I mean, it's hard
to integrate a company really quickly, so that is, of
course not what I originally imagined would be the hard part.
It's a different kind of hard part. But that, to
me is part of the resilience, the grit, the curiosity.
As I said in that blog post or LinkedIn post,
(03:58):
curiosity and courage. So well, now I practice what I
preach curiosity and courage to make good decisions, and.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
You're doing it. But I love the fact that your
title is actually chief Customer and marketing officer. Yeah, and
you know, we spoke about this, and I could not
feel more strongly about marketers almost getting out of the
marketing lane and elevating themselves to really be the voice
of the customer. Tell us a little bit about like
why did you kind of have customer in your title?
(04:28):
Why was that important?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Well, I've always thought that my job is to bring
whether you say customer consumer is a little bit of
potato potato semantics, but I've always felt that that is
in a sense your role, and in retail you think
about the different I mean, of course, everyone should be
thinking about the customer, right, if you're doing this right,
you're all thinking about the customer. But you know, your
(04:50):
head of stores is thinking about the store and the
associates to work in the store, and your head of
merchandising is thinking about product. And to be the voice
of the customer at the table I think is very
important and very meaningful. It also means really thinking, in
this modern age of data, how you're thinking about customer
(05:12):
data and what to do with it. You know, there's
so much in our worlds that's both right brain and
left brain, and for sure it's an exercise in using
both sides to figure out, both quantitatively but also creatively
how to bring these brands into either renewed or even
greater sense of saliency and relevance. And what I do
(05:35):
love about retail is it's just such a part of
the pun intended fabric of American culture. And thank you,
not bad for a weekend recording, but it is it's
part of the fabric of that and I like that.
I've always loved the role of brands and culture and
thinking about that. So lots of new material for us
(05:58):
as we think about brand new and looking at things
through the lens of brands, but of course with also
an increasing lens with technology and data and all that,
which is actually an unintended good segue to what you've
been building over the past few weeks and months and beyond.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's such a exciting time, it's also such a scary time.
I don't think people appreciate just how important this moment is.
This is literally our Netscape Navigator moment back in nineteen
ninety four and ninety five, really the birth of the internet,
the modern init that we know of today, and it's
(06:36):
going to be bigger than the Internet. And when you
understand that this is not growing in a linear fashion,
it's exponential and just the need of people needing to
understand how to get AI ready. And I say this
out of you know, kind of excitement, just as a
technologist and someone that's obviously been in the space for
a long time, but also as a business person and
(06:58):
they know lots of friends and different roles and companies
and categories, and I just I see a real upheaval
happening over the next twelve to twenty four months. And
so this is the moment where you have an opportunity
to kind of go on the offense to make sure
that you have a seat at the table. And whereas
you're building your business and it's obviously a much bigger company,
(07:19):
I'm totally back to going from zero to one and
building alpha and it's actually been really exciting. And we've
really kind of narrowed, you know, kind of our focus
and you know, really distilling what it is our value proposition,
and so it's really focused on boards and it's been
really exciting. And we're going to do our first board
forum next month in New York and really trying to
(07:39):
bring together boards and you know c suites, you know,
by natural extension, but really connecting them to the new
technology landscape of you know, there's over a thousand plus
you know, new AI dative companies and none of these
boards are really AI ready. So as we kind of
get this off the ground, I think we'll see lots
of interesting insights. And again, the business of brands, how
are brand's going to be relevant in this AI era.
(08:01):
I know everyone's tired of playing the AI drinking game,
but like it is real, it's not going away.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I mean, I do think it is funny. In the
course of you and I even hosting this podcast, we've
been through a few different cycles of corporate consulting and
we're probably both now back in our more respectively more
natural habitats, which is kind of interesting, but it also
allows us to each bring I think an important perspective
(08:28):
to the table in terms of the real world when
you're hustling day in and day out in a corporate
environment as an operator running a business, and how consuming
the day to day of that can be. That is
you and I talk about often. It's really at times
hard to have also the capacity to pull out and
(08:49):
say I'm going to learn the whole landscape. And so
the role that entrepreneurs I love getting to call you
that again, like you are playing, is helping people like
me and my colleagues understand how to cut to the
chase of it more quickly, more expediently, because it's it's impossible,
it's impossible to be in an operating role and also
(09:13):
know everything that's going on in this, as you said,
exponentially changing world. And we don't only want to be
talking about AI, right, and we don't only want to
be talking about that on brand new, but it's sort
of unavoidable just to talk about how the world is
changing and what that means for how we bring brands
(09:35):
to life, but beyond that, how we what it means
for company culture, what it means for careers, all the
things that we care about. It does make sense that
with your focus that that becomes even more of our
lens too, because we're all going to learn. So I'm
going to learn something continuing to talk about it with you,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I also feel people have always, you know, kind of
conflated what really is the role of technology, and it's
always going to be a means to an end. And
I think people that focus on you know, AI or
you know digital or whatever it is as the ending
of itself, that's where they lose the thread. It has
to be used for something. This is, whether people like
(10:19):
it or not, it's going to impact every element of business,
of a brand, of employees, of society. And think about
what happened in the past couple of weeks with China
coming out with Deep Seek, right, you know, to see
that model released and to see the mayhem. Literally in
one day, Marissa in video lost five hundred billion dollars
(10:39):
in value, dropping twenty percent, and that was the largest
you know, kind of market drop in history.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
In history.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
No one knew what the hell that they were freaking
out about. This was in kind of you know, the
AI circles, you know, in the valley, like everyone knew
about what they were doing. And they actually had a
pre release of the model in December, and so folks
that were informed and tuned in they understood that. But
there's this kind of mass hysteria that's happening. And again
there was a real breakthrough, an innovation. It wasn't made
(11:07):
for five million dollars, that's just bullshit. But you know,
kind of understanding, how do you kind of cut through
all this noise and really focus on signal? I think
that's going to be the interesting moment. And Sam Altman
just came out with an interview that he was in
Japan and doing some product releases and he said that
his coding agent, you know, just the capability and chat ept,
they are now the fiftieth best programmer you know coder
(11:31):
in the world and by the end of the year,
chet GPT will be the number one coder in the world.
So just trying to wrap your head around that, Like
coding as we know, you.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Can't wrap my head around that. What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That means that a job as being a coder, as
a programmer, that's done, and then understanding what other tasks
can actually be automated, what other roles are actually going
to get really disintermediated. But again, all these new roles
are going to happen, and so again it's just really
exciting time. And I think you're going to see new
brands actually be created, new brands that really don't need
(12:06):
a lot of staff, support, infrastructure because you could do
things so quickly now and you're going to have an
army of agents eventually helping you do all this stuff.
So again, really exciting time. Let's you know, kind of
figure out like where do we kind of navigate this conversation.
But if there's anything that we could do for our
audience and our listeners, it's really hopefully trying to help
(12:26):
them find signal in all the noise.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
It feels like to me we're still very much in
experimentation mode in the collective sense. I'm not talking about
the you know, really aggressively out there technology led companies,
but I mean when you think of general consumer products
and retail and the main sectors that we think about
with brands, and then you see the people that there's
(12:49):
a little bit that reminds me of a couple of
years ago with the metaverse. And I don't think it's
like that in any other way except this one, which
is that well and we all kind of felt the
pressure is chasing a little bit of the headlines like
the completely AI generated TV commercials that we're seeing right now.
So when you look now from your lens of really advising,
(13:12):
I'm curious, who do you think you've seen as building
really actually the best business cases at a brand level
for using it well. And who is Not that there's
anything wrong with experimentation, but it might be more about
just trying to put some points on the board in
our industry without necessarily transforming how they work. I'm curious
(13:35):
about that. As a marketing leader, it's hard to wrap
your head around in all these phases like what is essential,
what's experimentation, what's non essential?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, I think one I would actually view as a
business leader because again, given that you are doing customer
as well as marketing, and you sit on boards and
you know, you just have a real grasp for the
business and overseeing P and L responsibilities. I feel like
that is what I think is so critical for anyone
(14:06):
that is in some type of forward looking external sales
and marketing function. It's really just understanding the business and
financial elements of your role and how that contributes. Because
everything is going to get a questioned and I feel
like some of the best examples if you really think
about I put out my predictions in the beginning of
the year, and this is certainly going to be the
(14:28):
year of the agent, right, Like it's not going to
be immediate, it's going to take time. But when you
have every big tech player, whether it's Microsoft, whether it's Google,
whether it's Meta, whether it's Amazon, everyone is going to
be coming out with their agents. You know, salesforce obviously
with Agent for us, right, they're like literally rebranding, putting
all the effort behind that. So agents are going to
(14:50):
be pervasive and every consumer is going to have a
personal agent. Not tomorrow, it's not ready for prime time,
but all the reasoning models that you're seeing. The reason
why it's such a big deal is because now you
have the ability to kind of have a step by
step recipe and that could be maybe for five steps,
that could be for fifty steps, that could be for
a million steps. And that is what's going to enable
(15:11):
an agent to kind of go from just a text
prompt to text to action and now it's going to
do things for you, right, And so everyone has like
the simple use cases of oh, it's gonna you know,
order me, you know, food on door dash right, or
it's gonna you know, kind of you know, help me
program something or schedule something. It's going to make my
life more convenient. But from a business lens, one of
(15:33):
the really smart AI native companies is coming called Sierra AI.
It's co founded by the former CEOs of Salesforce, actually
Brett Taylor, and he is just, you know, phenomenal. He
was the guy that helped create Google Maps, and he
was the former CTO of Facebook and you know, he's brilliant.
But his idea of conversational AI, they're using agents because
(15:54):
an agent is going to be more important than your app,
and it's going to be more important than your website.
And so there's you know, some really interesting use cases
that you know he has.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Where does your agent live? Then if not on your website.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It's going to be digital, right, it's going to be
able to kind of have it interface with all different
you know kind of touch points, but specifically they have
been public with you know a few examples and one
of them is so nos And so think about you know,
I always try to bring things, you know to kind
of like your your mom or your dad, or your
grandpa or your grandma. Like someone that is calling you
(16:27):
I think you.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Just called me your grid. I'm okay, I own it.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Someone doesn't know how to like, you know, how do
I get the Wi Fi? You know? Like, so think
of you know, kind of all that customer service. Now
it's very expensive for you to take a call for sure,
right and you know part of the limits. I mean,
I challenge anyone listening go try to find like a
customer service telephone number, right, Like they're hidden for a
(16:54):
reason because it's very expensive to have someone answering that
customer service call. But now you could have an agent,
and the agent could answer any of those questions because
through where we are with AI, they've mastered human language.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I think agents are the new offshoring. How's that it's.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Even bigger than that because think about the second and
third order effects. What is this going to do for
the whole offshoring industry? You know, whole industries in India
and you know Costa Rica where they've actually offshored a
lot of customer support, Like that is going to be
absolutely disrupted. But for Sierra to now you have their
agent for Sonos and now Sonas could answer any question
(17:34):
that could go into any specific product, do it in
any language, in real time, and you could talk to
that agent for as long as you want. What if
you're a true audio file and you want to go
into all the specs and all the bells and whistles
of the new speaker and the subwarfferre and this and that, Like,
it's very interesting to see what this can open up,
especially for a brand. And now this becomes what your
(17:55):
new first touch point. These are your new brand ambassadors.
So you have to think of what is the personality
of your agent. That's a new job mersa right well
new old.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
So this is where I think our respective natural majors
in the business world come through. One of the things
I've found interesting, maybe I admit it comforting heartening, is
that a lot of the thought leadership that I've been
reading is that the part that actually isn't getting very
(18:28):
quickly disintermediated by all this is creativity and telling the
human intuition, the human judgment, and that actually that's going
to matter more when you see the prognosticator saying what
jobs are going away, what jobs are staying, and so
to me, that's a really interesting argument for why brands
(18:48):
are going to matter more than ever. And I'm not
certainly the first or only person who's offering that point
of view. It's interesting to see a lot of people,
even people coming out of the world of technology, who
are saying, actually, this is going to be an era
where brands and the relationship you have with them and
how they're codified and how they surprise you and delight
(19:09):
you're going to matter because everything else will be even
more homogenized because of our shared access to technology. What
do you think of that? I find that interesting and
as I said, maybe a little comforting too. I don't
want our human talents to dissipate. We don't want it
all outsourced to technology or to agents.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I think that's right. I do think that it is
going to put a premium on the human touch. It's
going to put a premium on things that are going
to be in real life. I mean I have a
whole yeah, you know, kind of predictions thing that you know,
I'm in the middle of writing, but that everything is
going to be so transactional, it's going to be so automated,
(19:53):
and you're going to have if we have the convenience
economy today, yeah, right, where everything you know, Instacart, Amazon,
whatever's to your door for you to kind of get
out of bed and go see someone like that's a
high hurdle, right yeah, but if you actually find ways
to convene and bring people together, that's going to be
a big deal. And so things that are going to
(20:13):
be in real life, I think things that are going
to be with that human touch, with creativity like those
are things that are going to be very very important.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Well, so again we're sort of bringing it around and
through our different worlds right now. I mean, I think
about having joined a company with some legacy, great legacy
retail brands, many of which you often find in them.
All we've been hearing for years, Oh the mall. You
know it's not true. The mall is actually anything but
did The reality is there are some malls in the
(20:43):
country that are doing better than they've ever done, and
some malls that aren't doing so well. The reality is
also and this I think is all connected and trends.
Young people are rediscovering it or discovering it, I should say,
because why they want to have a real world experience.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Friends.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I want to go do something. They want to touch things,
they want to taste things, they want to see things
with their own eyes. I want to try things on.
And this is not me being the voice of anti technology,
because you know that's never been my situation. I've always
been I'd like to think digitally progressive leader. But I
think the art of how this all progresses is finding
(21:21):
ways to keep the humanity parts even more special. That's
where to your point, the premium on it like to
make experiences matter more, to make real human creativity interaction
matter more, and then get rid of the lower value
stuff even more than we've done before.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
That's right, yeah, yeah, like all the drudgery and all
the kind of busy work and to be honest, like
you will need you know, an incredible copywriter or someone
that really understands your brand voice. You know, the challenge
is you might not need you know, that whole team
where it's like ninety percent of your staff or you know,
whatever the number is. Like, I feel like those are
(22:00):
going to be the challenges, right, Like how people are
going to be doing so much more with so much less.
I think that is where you know, I'm trying to
get the word out for everyone that listens. How do
you go on the offense? How do you make sure
that you are ail ready? How do you actually use
these tools and make sure that you have a seat
because you know, when the music stops, you're just going
to need, you know, fewer people to do all this
(22:20):
stuff because you're going to be so augmented. You're going
to have so much firepower. I mean literally, when you
have the access to something like deep research, which you know,
opening eye kind of let that out. You literally now
have a McKinsey consultant at your disposal in real time.
What do you think that's going to do the consulting industry, right?
(22:40):
I mean, you have all this power at your fingertips.
I just urge everyone listening learn how to use these
tools now.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Well, as you can tell, we are setting up what
our go forward themes are going to be in the
end and the yang of our conversations. When we come back,
we're going to play cooler cringe with each other to
be right back.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
And we're back with our favorite segment, cool or Cringe,
And Marissa, you and I are going to play this
because there's been a lot going on and so I
am so curious cool or cringe. Marissa's ending eight million
bucks for a thirty second spot on the Super Bowl?
Is that still a thing? Is that still cool?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yes? Well, here's the thing. This is one of those
sometimes when we play this game with our guests and
they're say, both, this is definitely going to be it depends.
It could be cool or it could be cringe. And
here's my point of view. It is so hard now
to scale an audience. This super Bowl that just passed
was the highest rated super Bowl in history. That's remarkable
(23:50):
considering we just don't have moments anymore where everyone is
having a shared viewing experience. And that is why the
network that has it and charge so much for it,
because it's just so rare. Now. It's not like typical
primetime TV and you have a scaled audience, and you
would buy primetime it was expensive. That's not a thing anymore.
(24:10):
Live sports is kind of it.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
For the kids listening Primetime used to be a thing.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
It was it was at naive when you watched those
primetime hours. But yeah, you actually had to turn on
TV and watch when the TV told you to watch.
So anyway, the thing is, I actually think for that reason,
it is commanding that kind of expense, and if you
have a moment, if you have a story, if you
(24:36):
have something that reaching a national audience and benefiting from
that collective attention can work. It really can pay dividends.
So I'm not going with the cringe answer. I'm going
with a cringe answer only if it becomes gratuitous. I've
been a Super Bowl advertiser before it becomes so preoccupying.
(24:56):
The risk is you start taking your eye off of
the rest of the busines because you're so nervous about
how you're going to show up in the industry and
on TV, and you know, and everyone's watching and judging,
and it becomes a very meta like experience of the
sport of the of the ads as opposed to like,
is this actually going to have the commercial results that
(25:19):
it's intended to have. So for me, it's a real
cool Crazily enough, I wish it didn't cost that much.
If you've got the case for it, what do you think?
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Look, I think it's cringey to spend that amount of
money in this day and age.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
A lot.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I just feel, you know, and again I understand that
there is the audience all the points that you just made. Yeah,
I really do feel that you have to have a
very strong business plan, like to really realize any type
of ROI on that, and I feel like a lot
of folks flail. I mean they don't know how to
use it. And I think there's a way to kind
(25:55):
of either crash the super Bowl. I mean, now all
the ads are actually out, you know, in advance, and
so really viewing this as an event platform, Well that's
the thing.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
It's so much more than that moment, and the ads
are shown beforehand and they're but.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
The smart businesses use it as a platform versus just
the ad, and so I think that that is case.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I think that's critical. All right, Well, let's take something
next for cooler cringe that has been part of our
culture for as of this weekend, I'm astonishing fifty years.
So this is the fiftieth anniversary of Sarient Live, Cooler Cringe.
In terms of what that represents today.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I have mixed emotions about. I think cool that something
has been going on for that long. So definitely kudos
to them because it's hard to be relevant and just
think about the alumni and the roster and everything. It's
an incredible track record. I just think myself as a consumer,
I don't think i've watched SNL live, you know kind
(26:55):
of appointment TV probably in a decade. I just watched
the highlights on YouTube, and what do I watch. I
watched the opening monologue and I watched weekend Update, and
that's pretty much it. Maybe there's a funny segment.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I have a skit that starts.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Exactly, but I don't watch it. And you know, there's
like some breakout stars. I love Marcell Ernandez, who is
you know, half Dominican, half Cuban, and he's just so funny.
I think he's, you know, great talent, and you know,
obviously there's classics on there, but I would say it's
cool to reach that milestone. Yeah, I think it's cringe
(27:33):
in the sense of they really have gone multi platform,
and I just don't think anyone's watching it the way
that they would probably want it to watch, because people
are just watching the clips, the highlights.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I don't know. I'm going to give this one just
a cool I don't see a whole lot of cringe
in it. I think it's just remarkable Lauren Michael's vision.
I mean that it's continued all this time. I've read books,
some fictionalize, some more truly nonfiction about just the making
up each episode is just it's such a ritual almost
(28:06):
and what it takes to become a cast member. Sort
of think it's nice to just have these things that
can find endurance and culture when so much of culture
is so rapid fire and constantly changing. But yeah, of course,
like the way we consume it, it's different. I think
that's okay. It's still iconic, it's still sarient live and
(28:26):
it still makes us laugh. Something kind of amazing about
that right now.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Tie in to the Super Bowl. It is something that
kind of brings people together, like people are going to
calm and they'll see that audience. Yeah, all right, cool cringe,
something that's kind of right up your plane. The emergence
of fashion week of vibes versus microtrens. And we've been
hearing a lot about vibes lately, but you know, to
(28:51):
see vibes now creep its way into fashion week. Cool
cringe person, we did?
Speaker 1 (28:55):
We heard about this when we are friend John Gorizma,
who heads the Harris Poll, talking about this at the
Forbes CMO conference, that it's become about we should have
hidden vibesuld. That's a good one. Write that down. I
think it's interesting. So this idea of fashion also as
obviously a key part of culture, thinking about vibes versus
(29:19):
micro trends. What does that really mean? Not totally sure,
but I think what it means is bringing in this
like how something makes you feel, how it's supposed to
make you feel, and having it be something that isn't
so specific to a particular item or idea, but just
a more general like it's giving me a vibe, and
(29:42):
that's the vibe I want to have. I don't know,
I kind of like it. I'm going to give it
a coolish, coolish how about you?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I mean, I don't know what the fuck that means,
to be honest, I mean vie. I mean, is it
like you know, warm and fuzzy. I mean, I wear
or Madrid jersey. I'm getting a good vibe. Is that
what it means?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
You have a one soccer vibe? That's it? All right,
last one and we got to go to one near
and dear your heart. But this is one that is
I think a cooler cringe in work culture. Right now,
all right's using chat rept or your favorite LLM or
at work. All right, cooler cringe. Let's go, let's go,
(30:28):
let's do it.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I think it's obviously cool, and I think anyone that's
not using it is just being left behind. But you know,
you and I both know so many friends that are
at you know, companies big and small, and for whatever reason,
like the company doesn't allow them to use it, or
you know what, we're not going to pay for a subscription.
You have to do it on your own. I mean,
I think that's batshit crazy. I think it's so cool
(30:51):
when you start to use these tools and it makes
your job better, smarter, you're actually you know, kind of
getting real value. I mean, how can you? I mean,
the equivalent is back when the internet first started. Hey,
I'm not going to use email. Yeah, right, Like that's
not cool. Like I just feel like you cannot stop
the wave of technology. And for anyone that's not using
this at work, you're just being left behind. You're just saying, hey,
(31:13):
I'm a dinosaur.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I'll put a tiny little cringe on top of your cool,
which is if you're using it without your own human judgment,
and if you're using it as a replacement right now
versus an aide to getting your work done. As a thought.
I find it a great thought partner, But it's my
judgment on top of that, my ability to use it
and say nope, nope, that's not right. Oh I think
(31:37):
that's a good idea, that's how And I know you
can talk for hours about how much smarter it's going
to keep getting as a result.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
No, no, but that's a very important point, and I'm glad
you bring it up. Absolutely, this is not having it
do your homework.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
You have to use this as a tool. You have
to obviously still edit. It's not going to give you
perfect answers. But I've just seen so much you know,
kind of fear interpretation of saying, oh, I actually use
this to write my presentation or you know, I know
people doing this in the boardroom, like, oh, I actually
use Claude or Chatchypt or perplexity or whatever to help
you know, write my board deck. You should, but you
(32:12):
have to understand, like are you making sure it's safe.
You're not giving me a private, you know, sensitive information.
Obviously there are ways to kind of put all those
switches off, but absolutely you need to use your brain
and good judgment. But it is a tool to make
you smarter for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Well, on that note, I think we've gotten ourselves back
going my friend, and we didn't even need Chatchypt to
do it. We did it all by ourselves. So friends,
thanks for joining us again. That's it for now. We
hope you'll join us again next time. And if you
like what you're hearing, don't forget to subscribe so you
never miss an episode. Also, we didn't do it this time,
(32:45):
but we really do love to answer your questions. So
if you have something on your mind that you'd like
us to discuss, just tell us by emailing us at
ideas at brand Dashnew dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Awesome, Well, join us next time and we'll see you.
I'm brand New
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