March 7, 2025 • 48 mins
We explore the evolution of branding from its historical origins as physical marks on livestock to its modern incarnation as a multi-sensory identity system that shapes our choices and perceptions.
• Branding began as physical marks farmers used to identify livestock and show quality to potential buyers
• Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew, transformed branding by applying propaganda techniques to consumer psychology
• Childhood brand experiences with companies like Nintendo, Nike, and McDonald's created lasting emotional connections
• Hip-hop culture dramatically influenced brand marketing by incorporating brands into music, videos, and fashion
• The sensory aspects of branding include not just logos but sounds, feelings, and associations
• Communities and peer influence remain powerful drivers of brand awareness and adoption
• Brands function as storytelling vehicles that help consumers make quick decisions without overthinking
• Artists recognized their marketing power and began creating their own brands like Sean John and Rocawear
This episode is part of a three-part series on branding, so tune in for our next episodes where we'll dive deeper into rebranding and other aspects of brand evolution.
Thanks for tuning in to The Ad Bros Podcast! If you enjoyed the episode, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share it with your crew.
Catch us next time for more insights and creativity, right here on The Ad Bros Podcast, powered by Kaffeine Media Network. See you soon!
Theme Music by Yirayah Garcia
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time, I'm out oftime.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm out of time.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time so I just wantto let the audience know this.
This pod, and probably the nexttwo, is going to be a series of
uh, three episodes, so pleasemake sure to check out the next
episode and the one to follow.
But yeah, it's all aboutbranding.
(00:49):
We're going to, you know, likeRIP Kobe Bean Bryant, but we're
going to go back to the basics.
We're going to explain branding, what a brand is, as my brother
AD said.
We're going to explain whatmarketing is and we're going to
talk about the history of it.
We're also going to talk aboutsome good rebranding moments in
(01:13):
advertising, some bad ones.
I have a few.
But yeah, I just wanted to seteverybody up to make sure they
check out the next few episodes,you know.
So there's going to be moreinformation, as you know, as we
go on we here, right?
We just kind of you know we'redoing our thing.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Is is the new recording of the day.
We're here to talk about brandsbefore.
I think we get into that.
Let's you know.
Let's just briefly introduceourselves again just to the
audience.
Who's first time listening and,um, I think how we can start
this off.
Man, let's just talk, just whoyou are, you know, give me your
name and maybe just saysomething around like a person
or brand that kind of representsyou.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
And it could be a brand, it could be a product, it
could be whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I'm going to start.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
It's your boy.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Tony Stallion, you want the backstory to that name?
Listen to ad bros, episode one,starting at 30 seconds.
It's fully explained there.
I think a brand that I I kindof closely align with, I'll say
apple.
Um, and the reason I'll sayapple is because I feel like
(02:19):
they have for me I know there'sandroid people out there, but
for me apple has like a niceecosystem and I like how a lot
of their um designs arebeautiful but a little bit
minimal.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Love their stores so yeah, I'm gonna go with apple
I'm sure that people will saythat's elitist, but that's cool.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
This your boy ad representing atl by way of
decatur all the way fromBrooklyn.
I would say that my brand or Iguess more or less product I
would say that would be isprobably a screwdriver.
I'm going to say a reason why Ascrewdriver is a tool.
Any screwdriver can be a Searsscrewdriver, it can be Craftman,
(02:58):
it can be for home people, itdoesn't matter, it works.
You can use it for multiplethings.
You can use it to buildsomething.
You can use it to buildsomething.
You can probably use it forsome crime.
I don't think you should use itfor that, but nonetheless, a
screwdriver is like amulti-purpose tool that more or
less kind of feels like a Swissknife without being a knife, but
(03:18):
kind of has jagged edges too.
But yeah, I would be that I'mnot going to really just say the
brand you should have wentfirst, because now I want to
change mine it's cool stand
Speaker 4 (03:28):
on it.
Are you done?
Yeah, I'm done.
It's your boy.
Easy Rose, brownsville's finest, I think.
A brand that represents me, Iwould say, is BMW.
It's just performance, luxury,simple as that, that's one of my
brands later on in the pot.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I'm going to talk about BMW.
It's just performance, luxury,simple as that, straight to the
point.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
That's one of my brands later on in the pot I'm
going to talk about.
I like that man At Rose.
I was going to be smooth withit, you got the performance, the
overall aesthetic of the brand.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
The ultimate driving machine.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
There you go, have it in my way.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Start out as airplanes engines and turn into
a car.
I dig that.
You're all about performance.
It makes sense to you as amedia guy.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Yeah, I mean, even from a media perspective, we
have to make sure we're alignedto whether it's KPIs, and then
we are measured.
Our performance through mediais measured against those KPIs.
So whenever we're going backand having conversations with
clients, they are looking to seeif we are who we say we are and
(04:31):
we're doing what we say we'redoing.
Are we optimizing, are wereaching out to partners and
getting things done?
But we do it in a very elegantand having conversations in an
eloquent way.
So for this luxury, there yougo.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Well, I want to take the time to actually kind of set
this conversation, I know forthe next couple of conversations
and pause.
We want to really bring thisidea of the brand to the
forefront, right, because youknow, we've got everybody
nowadays saying that I'm a brand, or brands are reinventing
themselves, or brands are eitheractually being phased out like
they're disappearing right, wecan't even talk about that.
Brands are reinventingthemselves or brands are either
(05:06):
actually being phased out likedisappearing Right, we can even
talk about that.
But I do think the idea of whata brand is, I think we should
kind of like take a step back,maybe talk about the historical
aspect of what brand is, how itchanged over a period of time
and what does it reallyrepresent today.
(05:28):
Maybe, after we should alsorevisit.
Once you kind of go throughbranding, maybe we should
revisit the thing and see areyou still a screwdriver?
Are you still bmw?
Oh no, I'm still a christian.
Okay, I can.
I can believe that brands areonly representative of people in
terms of how they identify, andyou can always you know,
identify with multiple brands,right, and that's the beauty of
branding.
And, um, if you think about whata brand really started from,
well, I think a lot of peoplereally don't know.
Right, like you know, let'sjust, let's just take a step
(05:51):
back.
A lot of people think brandsare, just, you know, companies
with nice, beautiful logos andjingles and you know some kind
of look and feel and great kindof commercials, and, yes, brands
are all of that, of that.
Right, but the term brandingstarted like physical branding,
the actual physical nature ofputting a mark on something to
identify it as something thatstarted from farming, farm
(06:12):
animals, right?
So it's funny, like you know,you take like computing, that
started from somebody quilting,essentially, right.
So this idea of taking threadsin and out of a loop and
creating, like, some kind oflike garment, that created
binary code.
That code turned into what wenow know as computing.
So that literally started froma craftsperson kind of quilting
or creating a garment.
Branding, as we know, likeagain started from farmers.
(06:34):
You know, these guys would havea ton of livestock and they
would want to identify thelivestock from being either
stolen by them or, if it wasstolen, like hey, that's my cow
or sheep or whatever.
It also allowed the farmer toshow potential buyers the
quality of what they wereselling, right, so that
literally again started fromfarming.
(06:55):
Right, this idea of like earlycivilization I think you
mentioned 2000 BC or somethinglike that and that's like the
historical start of it.
It evolves to this guy by thename of Edward Bernays.
That's the nephew of SigmundFreud and he took branding and
made it a little bit more modernby inventing what we call
propaganda.
Propaganda was more or lessused to get people to sign up
(07:19):
for the army during World War Iand a lot of other conflicts
back then.
But his uses of it too allowedthis idea of taking a brand and
using it to empower people'sthinking.
Specifically at the time heused it to empower women to
smoke, because it was illegalfor women to smoke back in the
early 1900s.
Yes, so he came up with thiskind of cool campaign that
really spoke to like this thingin women, like hey, by you, you
(07:43):
smoking.
It says that you're this and ifyou think about that approach
to a brand, that literally begatmodern day advertising.
So that's that's kind of likethe historical, like you know.
You know like a quick second orso, of how branding actually
got started and where, how itevolved and it goes right into
modern day times.
But what is a brand today?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
to be fair all this can be found on google but, you
hear, you hear listening
Speaker 3 (08:09):
to us, so we're gonna .
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So we're gonna, we're gonna take you through the
motion.
I had to go back to universitytime and think and do some some
research and looking up online.
But just in a simple way, a, abrand, is just, you know, a
company's identity.
It's kind of like their story,the story of that company, their
identity, who they are.
(08:31):
They kind of use it as a way todifferentiate from competitors.
Nowadays, as you mentioned, adis used to sell products, but I
think you know, if you look atit in a broad spectrum, brand
could kind of be anything.
It could be you, it could be acountry, it could be a team,
sports team.
I think the goal really of abrand is really just to kind of
(08:55):
company or your thing just kindof stick in the minds of the
people and, and you know, whenyou do that, you want to be
easily identified.
You feel me and we'll get intothe weeds of things.
But that's where you kind ofget into logos, brand logos,
colors, like you said, jingles,mnemonics, mnemonics, ooh, damn,
(09:18):
that's going deep.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
That's a good one Big work, but yeah, that's a good
one.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And then Tone, that's a good one big work, um, but
yeah that's, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And then a tone too, it's copy tone music, yeah it's
a lot um.
Psychodemographics, there's a,there's a lot um.
I mean, that's when you getinto copyright because you can't
just steal.
Well, you can steal anotherbrand's brand, but you know that
leads to legal issues or and orjust the audience not feeling
you, which which I'll get intolater on.
A couple of brands.
But yeah, I think I don't knowif you have any.
(09:49):
I was going to jump intobranding Cause I know like
people kind of mix and match by.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
You know, if you want to speak, I mean, I think, just
to touch on brands andappreciate that you know to,
before springboarded intobrandings.
I feel like brands are anexpectation that comes with a
company or an entity'suniqueness and set values, right
, like I think for a brand towork, like there must be a
(10:13):
covenant and a set of a beliefsystem within between, whether
if it's the product or the brandand its audience and its
consumers.
Brands give people choices andpossibilities across categories.
I'm just kind of taking itoutside of what we do, but let's
say, if it's a dating market,right, we might have a woman who
(10:36):
might be in the market for aman, right, but from that
perspective she could be lookingfor a man.
But she can narrow it down froma personality type, right.
Does she want an alpha man?
Does she want a beta man?
Does she want a omega?
Omega, uh, you know, I mean,like, does she want a delta?
Right, these are differentcategory types that the same
(10:58):
concept.
Brands like kind of tappinginto, um, those options and
those choices, right, but fromI'll just, you know, I'll
continue to, you know you know Iwas listening to another
interview where someone said thealpha beta shit is not real.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Might be brand, it might be marketing, it's not
real in the wild the way, theway.
Well, there's not that type ofpodcast but the way other
podcasts talk about that shit.
But anyway, um, no, I think.
I think what you said is it um,kind of leads to my next point
of, like you know, branding.
Branding is super importantjust because that's kind of what
gets your, your target audience, interested in you.
(11:37):
It's like what sells you knowyou to them and it's, like I
said earlier, it kind of makesyou memorable.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
But is it selling or is it more about top of mind?
Because what sellers do isthey're always selling.
Well, you're always selling.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
It's essentially campaigning, you're campaigning
yourself.
You're campaigning a product andyou know, just to jump back to
your point, right and I thinkthat's a lot of is how we think,
right, because you know youbrought up a really good point
as it relates like Alpha, delta,Sigma, like is that even a real
thing?
And at the end of the dayyou're just a man, right, but
(12:15):
you know they call it, it'sidentified as like a social
sexual hierarchy, right, so nowit's different categories, it's
different layers, Right.
So now you can kind of sellthat and it's a way for people
to kind of categorize you andput you into a specific box and
people can say, oh, I like that,I don't like that.
And I feel like that's a thatkind of builds on from a brand's
perspective.
(12:35):
Like you know, you have choicesI want a soft drink, I could go
Coca-Cola, I could go Pepsi,you know, and so on and so forth
.
So I think it all kind of tiesback to each other.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You actually just brought something.
I'm not going to get super deepon it, but you, Paul.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
You know how to do Paul's bro, we're growing as
fuck.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I'm not going to get too much into it.
But you brought up a good pointabout being top of mind,
because I think you know we makeso many decisions in a day that
, like the importance ofbranding and kind of having a
brand helps us every day,because it helps us make a quick
(13:16):
decision without overthinkingit.
Like I mean, I'm not going toshout them out cause they're not
sponsoring but we all have thesame water bottle here but we
all came from different housesand and places, but we all had
the same water brand.
You know, um, we all like brandslike um.
I'll shout them out because Ilove polo, ralph lauren, and
it's just like.
(13:36):
You know, you could have pickedup any sweater, but but for you
to, for you to easily identifylike yo, this is what I want to
hear.
I mean I, even thoughtremremaine left, but I have a
bunch of hats at home, but Idecided to pick my Supreme hat
on.
So it's just like brands helpyou ease.
Like when I was getting dressedthis morning.
It helped me easily.
(13:56):
I mean that in colors, but ithelped me easily identify like
yo.
I want to wear that, I want tolook like that, I want to feel
like that.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
And that's because I believe brands is storytelling
in the form of turnkey signals,right?
So the goal is to drive aconnection and evoke an emotion,
and that's the, you know,that's the foundation of a brand
.
To draw a connection, drive anemotion we were talking about
(14:25):
earlier is to be a part of theconversation as well, as you
know, remain top of mind toeventually deliver a call to
action.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Right, I mean it's funny because you just brought
up something about the waterbottle, right, I mean, water is
water, but is it Because waterfrom a bodega is one thing it
calls one thing?
Water from from, I guess anairport is going to cause
something different.
Water at a, I guess a socialclub or some kind of you know
cool event is going to causepremium right.
(14:57):
So as you look at brand, brandalso can be broken down to like
location, access and even justideal of premium, even though it
all tastes the same.
What is water?
Right?
Depending on how it's filtered,depending depending on who's
selling it, but at the end ofthe day, it's still H2O.
Yo quick question how long youbeen in New York.
I've been in New York 17.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
17 years Mm-hmm.
Okay, because the way you saidwater sounded very New York.
Oh really I was just going tosay about water.
Like New Yorkers say, we saywant some water, some coffee.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
But anyway, you got your New York accent.
That's because I feel likepeople from New York.
We drop the R.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, a lot of things Ada.
Anyway, that's the New Yorksegment for this pod.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
We can move on Credentialing people.
But yeah man, I do think youknow this idea that brand is not
just one thing or another, butit does plays out depending on
where you're consuming thatbrand.
Too right, but let's move on tolike the next thing.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Oh, real quick before we move into the next thing.
Just because I know it's theword marketing is used
interchangeably with branding,but just wanted to say marketing
is really just the tactics youuse, like once you have your
brand, once you know what yourstrategy is in terms of what you
want to do, once you know whoyour audience is, then marketing
is just the tactics Like allright, how am I going to get
(16:16):
these people to listen to me?
Or how am I going to get thesepeople to come to my site?
The list is podcast, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, I mean marketing is, like you said is,
the means of getting things out.
Pr is the conversation aroundit.
Right, right, right, you knowbranding is basically the
principles and the storytelling.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And all three of those things.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You know more or less work, well, as like a system
that basically engages theaudience.
And hey, it's funny, we'retalking about this and you know
I'm like a design historicalnerd, motherfucker.
Right, I'm one of the firstindividuals who actually took
all three of those differentthings we just talked about and
wrote it into like a consumerengagement was pt barnum, the
circus dude?
Hey, right, pt barnum wouldcome to town.
He'd have some pr to say, hey,the circus coming.
(17:00):
And he had pr talking about thecircus is coming.
Marketing would actually get theword out and the advertising of
all the different things thatyou can check out at the circus,
whereas the you know 400-poundman or the bearded woman and
these weird people was thestorytelling.
So PT Barnum which is funny, wetalked a lot about that in
(17:21):
school was one of the firstmasters of like all three of
those things at one time.
He took branding, marketing andpr and used that to promote the
circus.
I think today's world maybehe'll be um advertised genius,
or may he get me too for allthese weird things he had in the
circus.
Who?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
knows right, but that's a lot.
He might be running a politicalcampaign he might be running
the country right now.
Who knows circus?
Who?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
knows.
But I think the next thing wecan talk about right, we're
saying brands that are kind ofclose to our heart, but what are
some brands that you guys canremember from your childhood
that invokes a sense ofnostalgia and that kind of
engaged you a little bit?
I know, for me personally, someof the things I remember from
my childhood was like Nintendo,it was Sega, it was McDonald's,
(18:09):
it was definitely adidas,because nike didn't really get
really big until jordan brand,and I think my first iteration
of nike really getting likesuper big in the neighborhood
was like we call them the dopeman nikes.
You know, more and more peoplecall them court, they really
call the cortez nikes.
In the south we call the dopeman.
The dope man right los angeles.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I know it's big after cortez, yeah, but we call them
the Dope man Nikes.
You know, the Dope man rightLos Angeles.
I know it's big after Cortez,yeah but we call them Dope man
Nikes.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
But they got big in like the late 80s but prior to
that it was mostly Adidas.
I mean even Run DMC had myAdidas right.
So those are some of the brandsI can remember.
Can remember that kind ofdefine your whole childhood.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I'll say for myself as a kid I played a lot of
sports, so I was trying to tapin with whatever sports that I
was into, mostly basketball atthe time and football.
I tried to tap into watchinggames, going to games if I could
, but around the games,surrounding the games, there was
marketing and advertising.
(19:12):
So I would say more so likePepsi, what they used to do with
Shaq, shaq Attack.
And then I would also say likeNike, like Deion Sanders was
like a huge in you know, for mychildhood.
So it's like early 90s, yeah,right, you know, for, for my
childhood, it's like we're early90s, yeah, so, um, I would say
that as well as um, you know,jordan was always around.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
He was always like, yeah, I was gonna say, like I
don't really have a lot of um.
Well, I can't think of a lot ofbrands when I was a kid, but, I
was gonna say nike, jordan, Ithink, is probably like the
biggest brand that I canremember.
I know you said like I didn'tgrow up in the era where Adidas
was popping Like.
When I grew up it was only Nike, yeah, and I wore Nike.
(19:55):
I don't think I wore.
I maybe wore a Fila once ortwice, but like I wore Nike,
probably until I let me think Idon't think I got a got a
different shoe brand untilcollege.
Let me think I don't think I gota different shoe brand until
college.
So I wore Nike from a kid tillat least 18 before I stepped out
the box and tried a new shoe.
And it wasn't even about brandloyalty, it was just like I,
(20:18):
just like Nike.
I just like the design Thoughtit was simple.
No shade to Adidas.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I know that's how they used to be, but I will
sayike, in new york I feel likeit got really popular with the
uptowns, right, and this is likeyou know.
I mean I was about, but goinginto the 90s.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
But in the 90s I think there was um boom and just
color vibrancy and you know wewas rocking the bo jacksons.
I mean the bo jacksons, I meanI remember when up well, I know
Uptown's were probably alwaysAir Force Ones were always.
I remember, I remember for mewhen, when, when I started
seeing it more I want to saylike eighth grade, and I was
(20:58):
like, oh, these are, these arenice, simple, nice blah blah.
But yeah, for me uh, I would sayit just kind of started with
just the vibrant sneakers.
Like there's a bunch that Iprobably don't know the actual
names for, but if I saw them Icould be like yo.
I remember that when I was akid.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
But yeah, and then you know, and I feel like we're
still kind of building on sportsright, Like with a lot of those
brands.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And that's how I come in to like what am I full what?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
are some Damn.
This is going to sound like aNew York pod, but I would say
Nike and the Yankees Look atthis guy, the New York Yankees,
you Jay-Z or some shit, but NewYork Yankees was a brand.
I remember going to my firstbaseball game.
It was a Mets game.
Then I went to the.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yankee game and you just felt a different energy.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
But Jay said he didn't want me to have popular.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
He can say what he want.
I think he can back that up.
But what you?
Speaker 4 (21:51):
were saying no, I was saying kind of diving back into
sports, right, like still goingon that journey.
As a kid I'm watching sports.
Like it kind of branched offinto um drinks like gatorade was
was big back then it's like,you know, like mike, right, I
want to be.
I want to be like mike, likethat's a gatorade commercial.
Yeah um, also still too uh with.
(22:13):
Uh, you know, bo knows bo, uh,bo jackson right.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Um, I think you didn't mention bo jackson yeah,
that's what it's like bo was ina commercial.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah um, also too, I think,
larry johnson, grandmama, ohyeah, converse and it's funny
how you say that because, like,just just because I feel like
the 90s there was a lot ofsports and entertainment was all
intertwined, because all, likeI wasn't I didn't really get
into sports until I got older,but all, but I still remember
all that because a lot of thatwas infused in shows like family
(22:46):
matters, um, fresh princewayne's brothers, and that's
what I was watching.
So like, even in what, eventhough I wasn't, I mean like I
knew about, like jordan and thebulls, but like, even though I
wasn't always watching sports,like I knew about a lot of that
because what was in familymatters, um, and some of the
stuff they talked about,especially, you know, show
taking place in chicago, um, andthen, yeah, like wayne brothers
(23:08):
, jane fox show, that wasprobably a little bit more early
2000s, but all that was infusedin it.
So like the fashion and allthat, and I was like, oh snap,
so so, like I'm just saying thatto say like same page, same
vibe yeah, I mean, it had afootprint right and it was like
this character that keptreoccurring.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
So you had anthony hardaway.
With the penny hardaway, youhad little penny chris rock um
the doll.
I don't know if you rememberthat it was just it was like one
of those things.
It was like you know it'spopular.
I guess they did marketresearch and saying like, oh,
this thing is working, so let'sbring it back and let's try to
reinvent it every time how wouldyou guys guys introduced to
those brands?
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Because you know commercials did one thing,
friends obviously was anotherthing.
You know magazines were a bigthing back then, right, and
obviously there was no social,no internet as we know it in
terms of the public domain, buthow were you guys introduced to
it?
I know for me, like even theMaxell tapes as an example for
me, they get introduced to thatbecause everybody was recording
(24:07):
things off the radio, on a, on aboom box back in the day.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
So that was a big brand with my youth and my
growing up, I think, in New York, rose, you could, you could,
you could check me on this ifI'm wrong.
But to me, I think the funnelof being exposed to brands comes
from two environments.
I would say what you'reengaging in TV where, where you
(24:32):
hang out, like for me, um, Iwould see a lot of stuff on
Coliseum block, queens, and thenwhen I went to high school
downtown Brooklyn, I'll besquare.
Yeah, yeah, I'll be square.
That's how I learned about redmonkey jeans.
You heard like if you know youknow I'll be square.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
That's how I learned about red monkey jeans.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
You heard Like if you know, you know, red monkey
jeans, red monkey yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
It was like the first it was.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It was uh, it was the , not I want to say the first,
but it was the.
The first jeans I rememberbeing like $300, $500 jeans, I
think they were.
Avizel was probably first Japan, that I can remember, yeah.
And then, yeah, red Monkey Wascrazy.
But yeah, I want to say itcomes from that Because, like
(25:13):
I'll see, you know you, You're alittle young, sometimes you
don't have, you may or may notbe working and you see Cats
Downtown Brooklyn or ColiseumBlocking like Damn, that's fly.
And then you, you know, theygot all the stores, you got
Moe's.
Shouts to Moe's.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Moe's is gone.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I know, no, not Moe.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Dale's, oh, not Moe Dale's, right.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's a sneaker store called Moe's, Is that right?
I think there's still one onQueens Boulevard, but I know
there used to be one in Coliseum, but Coliseum closed down.
I repeated them.
Yeah, it's just like you like.
To me, downtown Brooklyn waslike the Mecca because you got
the sneaker stores.
You know, that's why I firstlearned about Prada's, the
(25:53):
American Cup sneaker.
That's when you see people, yousee the, you know the gold shop
, see people with the fronts,you see chains.
It's like all that is just likesoaking in your mind.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
And then you like, most of the brands you're
talking about are things thatare more like give like a public
visual persona of a person,like how you style yourself,
right.
Yeah, that was pretty important.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, but I think, to answer it, just to bring it
full circle, to answer yourquestion, that's when you say,
that's where I'm firstintroduced.
Ok, being outside Right, wellbeing in the home and seeing it
on TV, and then, I guess, beingable to touch it in a sneaker
store or in a jewelry store andsee it in person, you're like,
oh, I can get this what's someof your early electronic brands?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I mean because you know the brand that became
Sonata Electronics was like that.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
No shout out to Super Nintendo.
First of all, shout out toNintendo.
That was the first one.
No, but which?
Because you know electronicbrands yeah, like.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
But you're saying nintendo.
But which nintendo?
It was nes for me, but I'm surewhen you was a kid it was like
a certain nintendo, like the 64,nah it was the first nintendo.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You had an nes.
I got an older brother he'syour age, so so well, he ain't
want to give us the nintendo,but he gave.
He gave it to me, and me and myin my middle brother, and then
we got the super Nintendo.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
So you guys were blowing in the cars to make sure
they were okay.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
And then and then yeah, I'm from the old school
Then PlayStation.
I remember yo speaking ofBrandon that that's music that
sound, yeah, m never did sega.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Sega didn't last that long it lasted it was cool, but
it was good in the 80s it wasgood.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
In the 80s dreamcast it was good in the 80s, kind of
went into the 90s, a little bitinto the 2000s, but it got
acquired.
You know like the whole catalognow is owned by nintendo now
yeah and then the last one.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I'll say you know, rosé, I'll let you jump in um
game boy.
I think that was big, like itwas bulky, and yeah, that was
under nintendo was bulky, thatwas under Nintendo Game Boy and
Game Boy Color.
But now that I think about it,game Boys are probably prepping
us kids for being on phones.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
You know what I'm saying?
They like a phone, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I mean basically, it's damn near the size of an
Android or a tablet.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I think for me it was the To go back to the original
question, my introduction, a lotof it very similar to Tony
being in the house andcommercials, but then also just
being outside on my block Backthen just seeing those
reoccurring logos, reoccurringbrands, worn by whether, if it's
(28:27):
older people like Fila, filawas a huge.
It was a huge brand back in theday, especially the Fila
headbands.
If you had a Fila headband, Iwanted one so bad I couldn't get
.
I couldn't get my mom to get meone.
She didn't know where to getone.
But like the older dudes on myblock, they will be, you know,
on a 10 speed and wearing Filaheadbands.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
So it's like that you know I was very, very fly back
in the 80s.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Very fly.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
I think it was a certain kindof cat world.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Feel like going into the 90s, right yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, so it was that.
Then it was also to still on myblock.
I think it was like theinfusion of everyone, that sense
of a community where everyoneknew each other.
We traded, so we talked aboutgames.
Right, I remember trading videogames with people Like all right
, you know, you hold it for aweek, then give it back, I'll
(29:16):
hold your game.
We just swap games, right.
And I think it was just thatsense of community.
I'm from Brownsville, right, sopolo was heavy in Brownsville,
right.
I mean not as much anymore.
I think with the newergeneration I mean not as much
anymore.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I think with the newer generation?
Speaker 4 (29:32):
they don't really, I think they call them polo unk
wear.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
No, they call it unk wear, that's disrespectful.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
It's cool because I would rather have polo and unk
wear versus wearing Crocs,bonnets and hoodies outside.
So I mean if we want to Talk tothem.
But yeah, in closing I wouldjust say, like the infusion
infusion is like on my block.
Going to school and just seeingthese reoccurring whether if
it's products or brands andhearing kids talk about it and
you know, it kind of gave me aninterest, like all right, what's
(29:57):
going on with that?
What's that about?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
so essentially you're saying that brands even then
and now this idea of uh it kindof getting circulated still word
of mouth, right, right, acouple of influences kind of
checked it out or we call theminfluences now, but it was like
dudes in the back Back then wasthe most popular ones on your
block or your neighborhood.
They don't want to startrocking the brands first and
then everybody's kind of followstill word of mouth, almost kind
(30:21):
of like some would sayguerrilla Right, like hey, you
know, this is not like usdirectly target this group, but
a few people on the blockstarted rocking it, then
everybody started rocking it,then everybody started rocking
it.
Now whole nother demographicswearing a brand or rocking
whatever brand.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
That was never really targeted in the first place,
right, and then, and then nowI'm that I'm older, I'm thinking
like, was this on purpose?
Like did they get it fromanother block or did these older
cats get it from their school?
And like how did this thingbecome?
How did it start?
I mean, I think a lot of part,a lot of it too, is like music
videos.
Um, I was in, I was very, veryyoung, but my dad used to watch
(30:58):
video music box because wedidn't have cable, right, and
that introduction with ralphmcdaniel's and, um, these, these
music videos, these rappers,nice and smooth.
Um, gangstar, I'm like, I'mreal, I'm a little kid knowing
Big Daddy Kane songs, and youspoke about the gold, tony, I'm
seeing the gold.
So that kind of cultivated meand also, too, trying to be
(31:22):
original too, because back then,although we could wear the same
brands, we couldn't do it thesame way.
We had to come a little bitdifferent.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah, you got to freak it a little bit.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Your own I don't want to sayswag, but your own spin on it.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I mean, just like you know, obviously New York is
synonymous with wearing Timbs,right, but I saw my brothers and
they're like 10 years olderthan me wearing Timberlands not
the work boot in the 80s.
They was wearing Timberlands,not the work boot.
In the 80s.
They were wearing Timberlandmoccasins, right, like the
Tobagos and the other, like youknow, moccasin style of
Timberlands.
I don't think we did that, no,no, new York never did that.
But Timberlands was somethingthat was a little bit more
(32:01):
middle America, right, and a lotof people wore not the work
boots, they wore the otherTimberlands, again, like the
moccasins or the camping shoesor something like that.
And that's the shit my brotherwore.
It was kind of preppy dudes,right.
That was like wearing the prepstyle back then was huge in the
80s and I saw it as a young dudewearing it then wearing it, and
I think obviously New York madeTimberlands actually more
(32:22):
popular because it wasn't aknown brand in the hood anywhere
, right.
And then you know, you guyswearing the work boots, the
butters or whatever, um, thatreally made the brand super
strong in a non-intentional way.
Again, right, here's again alot of these brands getting our
wave.
We're making it popular bymaking it cool in the hood.
(32:42):
And then that turns into likethings you see in videos and
things you're seeing on filmright, with certain movies, and
then now you're starting to seeit where everybody around the
globe is wearing that type ofgear.
Right, because of what we did,actually.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I was going to take one step back.
I actually skipped something.
I think for me the brandingstarted because actually I'm
going back to Green Acres Mall.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Back to.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Queens yeah, back to Queens Now I'm reminiscing Toys,
toys r us.
I want to say the brand hadactually started probably with
um, you know, saturday morningcartoons and seeing the toys
right, and like I, I want to sayit, probably it.
It kind of starts, I think,brands and stuff and your early
introduction to brand startswith your parents like, like
(33:29):
this stuff that my parents didor gave to me when you were a
kid.
Because you don't have anybuying power, you're probably
not shopping like you're not.
Like kids today are on tabletsand they know how to uh go
online and shop and search.
I didn't, I didn't have, youknow, I didn't have that.
It's only when, when my, whenmy pops would take me and my
brother to toys russ and then Igot to browse and see what's out
(33:52):
there, right, but uh, or like Iknew, or you see the commercial
and you'd be like, oh shit,like um, this toy is coming out.
So that that, just to add towhat I said earlier, is kind of
like my first, firstintroduction so it's probably
family.
So it start with family and thenyou go out and you like, oh,
like.
Then then you get to the agewhere you start to develop your
(34:13):
own sense of self, really, andthen you start figuring out like
who am I and like what brand?
Like you said in the beginningof the pod, what brands align
with who I?
How do I want to present myself, what brands align with who I
am?
What all, what all when peoplesee me Because, like we said
earlier in the pod, you, youonly have, we only have so much
time to think about stuff in aday you want to be able to see
(34:36):
somebody and be like oh, I knowwhat their brand is because I
could see how they dress or howthey're carrying themselves, or
what drink they order, what foodthey order, and it's like you
just need these things.
I forget what it is.
I know it's like apsychological thing that helps
us.
Uh, so we're not overthinkingeverything.
But yeah, it started with, with, with family, then evolved,
(34:56):
then, like I said, I had anolder brother.
He's 13 years older.
Similar what you were saying,rose.
You know he started putting meon oh yeah, I go in his room
when he not home and then he has, like you know, a johnny blaze
like a fantastic four posterI'll never forget.
It's like he had it and thatkind of introduced me into
(35:16):
marvel and comics and I startedgetting into that.
Then, like he he was, he washeavy into james brown, so he
had the record, so I would.
I started listening like jamesbrown.
I was like who's this guy?
And he was big and he's why andthis is why red man's always
one of my top rappers, cause hewas in the Redman's I was like
what is he talking about?
So I go listen to Redman and heput me on tribe, you know.
(35:40):
So it starts with parents andthen if you have an older
sibling or older cousin or unclewas like yo, let me, let me put
you on to this, and then that's, and so it starts, yeah, kind
of guerrilla, it's like you know.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
I want to.
I just want to circle back alittle bit.
I don't think you give yourselfenough credit, because you said
that when you were a kid youdidn't have any buying power,
but you still had influence.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Yeah, that's bigger, that's better than buying power
sometimes.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
You had the influence because it was your request.
You had the influence to haveyour parents actually make that
um call to action and buysomething all right.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
So so don't, don't, don't get, don't take away your
influence, tony well, I guesswhat I was trying to say is I
didn't have no bread.
Well, I had the cake, you know.
I mean I look at money.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I look at the idea of my older siblings right like,
yeah, I got my parents.
But I do think the influencepart of roseanne saying is is
very valid, because while myparents had the buying power,
the real influence came from mysiblings right, especially my
oldest brother, who I would haveto credit as like the guy could
dress very well, him and mysister, anthony, and they're the
(36:47):
ones who basically will allowme to go buy the gear I want
because they were dressing melike them Right, but he was the
oldest and I feel like he waskind of influential in terms of
like the latest music, sometimesthe latest gear Right.
Then the twins came along and Iwas into like the things that
they was into is from like youknow style and like.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I like what you said Right, because you know we're
all talking about it positively.
I like what you said becauseyou know we're all talking about
it positively, but, like, whenI think about it, it's like it's
such a blessing to have anolder sibling or cousin who has
style, who you could be, like yo, let me take this from his
closet and that's how you startbuilding your own.
So, like I feel bad, no offense.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
I feel bad for people who don't have that person in
their life who's like yo let meput you on this but it don't
necessarily have to come fromyour family.
Don't feel bad for me, bro, butit don't have to come from
family, Because sometimes youthinfluence a lot.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
I didn't know that was you, my bad dog.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
But the youth will influence a lot of times hands
down.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I'm the best dressed person out of my close circle
growing up because of havingolder, no, just because I am.
I'm just that guy, I just knowI do I just know how to put
stuff together like like that'sit, I'm for sure in that
category, like amongst uhgrowing up and like my friends
exactly I was always bestdressed junior high school, high
(38:10):
school like it's it's.
I wasn't.
I'll say I wasn't always bestdressed, but I always learn and
build and but it's a matter oflike taste.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
Yeah, right, because there's people who just want to
fall in line and just sayinglike, okay, I don't really have
an identity, but I want to.
I'm not brave enough to thinkoutside of the box and think
creatively and put shit together, right, right, I think that's a
talent.
We can just take a step backand say you know what?
I'm going to take a little risk.
Yeah, I'm going to trysomething.
I'm going to take a little riskbut at the same time I'm going
(38:41):
to whether if I'm coordinatingcolors or whether if I'm going
to, you know, make sure I'madapting to the seasons, make
sure I'm adapting to the seasons.
I'm going to come out with thisfit and this is going to be a
representation of me.
So I just want to circle back alittle bit, because I know AD
had called out the TimberlandMoccasins and I feel like what
we had in New York at the timewas the 40 Below Timbs, yeah,
(39:02):
and then Wu-Tang with the Clarks, right.
So those are like big movementsas it relates to fashion.
But I will say, to kind of landmy plane a little bit with this
topic, hip hop.
Seeing the popularity in hip hop, I think a lot of brands
(39:24):
started to see like, okay, howdo we get involved in this?
How do we sign up?
How do we get involved in this?
How do we sign up?
How do we sign up, how do weget involved in this and promote
our brands?
Because I remember one of thefirst rappers to promote Tommy
Hilfiger for me was Grand Puba,grand Puba, right, grand Puba.
And I remember he had a rhymeabout.
(39:45):
You know, if Tommy, don't sendme my check like it's over, it's
out.
And he was one of the firstones.
I wouldn't say he wasn't thefirst with Polo, but he kind of
popularized a lot of brands,cool brands I actually have two
questions off of that.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
One do you think hip hop nowadays still has that same
influence?
And two, wanted to point out,see, that that was also kind of
the problem in the 90s, which iskind of what we do now with
social media right is, we'lljust, we'll just put, we'll
promote some shit, put it on,then it blows up, and then we
(40:19):
like yo, and then we'll go backand say yo, they owe it, owe me
a check well, I mean, I thinkit's a good question.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
Um wait, what was your first question?
Uh?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
do you think hip hop still has that influence?
Yeah I think hip hop still hasthe influence, absolutely like.
Speaker 4 (40:34):
It's the most influential genre of music.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Like I do think the artists are a little bit more
intentional now, like they'regonna talk about some of the
song, some kind of way they'regonna leverage that right.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
But and I was just about to get to the point in
which the second question thatyou had I feel like a lot of
artists saw that.
And then that's when you sawthe pivot to Sean John Rockaware
Like a lot of artists andentertainers started to say,
like you know what, let me putmy own brand out at a even what
(41:06):
is it?
50 Cent G-Unit, g-unit, yeah,fat Farm, right.
So I think that, to your pointpoint, it kind of got stale and
it's like you know, these checksain't adding up as it relates
to my influence.
You know I could just do thisshit myself.
I disagree.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Your first point I don't think.
I don't think, uh, I think thethe marketing nowadays I'm 50,
50 in the sense of I think themarketing nowadays is so obvious
that I think and I could bespeaking from a privileged point
because I work in advertising,so like I see it but to me it's
just so obvious that I don't.
(41:42):
When I see Shaq and Akia, I'mlike no, you're not driving Akia
, but that wasn't my first point.
No, no, I was.
Oh, I was just saying myhip-hop, no, no, oh well, I was
just saying entertainment,hip-hop.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
But I'm saying like I don't think you asked me, if
hip-hop has the influence, stillhas the influence.
I'm saying it absolutely does.
I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
I actually think it's 50-50.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Well, that's what I was trying to say, I and say I
feel like I'm biased becausewhen I see it, I kind of see,
because you know, you saw the,because I grew up.
Well, we all grew up.
We grew up in a time when thehypnotic was bam.
I didn't mean to hit the table.
But bam, right in the video,the nouveau.
So I'm saying like you kind ofsee, like oh it's obvious, the
(42:25):
Kavassier like talking aboutliquor brands, the Ace.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Shout out to mean well, look at the recent
superbowl.
I mean you can't.
That was undeniable hip-hopsuperbowl, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
But what did he?
What did he um you?
Speaker 3 (42:38):
don't have to sell anything, but apple sponsored.
That okay.
Okay, apple sponsor used to bepelsy, maybe maybe uh, wide leg
jeans.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
I was gonna say like, was it flare jeans like he um,
yeah, I think it's flare.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I don't know if it's flare or bell bottom yeah I
don't like his shoes.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
I could write but.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
But but now, people, when I understand, you didn't
see him, but people saw allright, from what I understand,
like those same jeans, likepeople went out and bought them.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
They did okay, yeah so it's like I think, don't get
me wrong, the jacket was fine ifI could find it's a black
designer.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
I gotta go back and research, but it was a black
designer, a black lady, whodesigned that jacket.
Jacket was fine.
But I think our last segment,to just kind of close out the
episode, I want to play a littlegame here, right?
So we talked about, like,influence, we talked about
branding, talked abouthistorical aspect of it.
Rose brought up this idea ofthe mnemonic, right, and I want
to play a game with you guys.
So I'm going to play somejingles.
(43:32):
I want to see if you guys canname that brand Because, again,
brand is not just what you see,it's also what you hear, it's
also what you feel, can we playthem legally?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, well, you can do that.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Oh, are we just going to say fuck it?
I'm going to say fuck it, wewant Alright ready.
Okay, sounds familiar.
Coca-cola Got one.
What you think?
I have no idea and the answeris Coca-Cola, alright, cool.
(44:07):
Alright, let's move on to thenext one, hbo.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Oh, I didn't know.
We was trying to rush to do itit's a game, but you know you're
not going to win a fair
Speaker 3 (44:23):
there's no perimeter sounds familiar HP, okay, intel,
oh, intel okay, that's a hardone mmm, I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Windows MasterCard okay, mcdonald's damn Okay
McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Yeah, it sounds like McDonald's, it's McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Oh wait.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Before we move on.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
I got.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Not pneumonics.
Well, actually the name of thebrand is in the song.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
I got a couple jingles Maybe New York.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
These might be a little too New York.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I mean, you know, I mean, yeah, the name is in that.
I think it's just Barnes nowand then Salino.
Yeah, he died in an accident.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
RIP Salino man, I got two more.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Well, I'm not going to play this whole, thing.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
But JG Wetwood.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Oh, yeah, yeah, now, alright, this one, this one I
think Rosé would probably, Idon't know if you know this one
oh, it's that time of year.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
All Hook ShopRite, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
The Ken man.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
So speaking of before we wrap up, speaking of when
you were talking about back inthe day, I remember this
commercial when I was a kidShopRite commercial.
It was probably local.
I think ShopRite is more of alocal supermarket.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
I think it's very specific.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
I remember hearing it in my grandparents' crib in
Harlem in Queens.
I know in it in mygrandparents' crib in Harlem in
Queens.
So yeah, those are my three.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
I know in Atlanta we had this thing.
You Got it All at South DeKalbMall, like, you know, that was a
jingle, right, Like it was.
Like the inherent nature of thebrand was in the song itself,
right, and you know, you got thesongs, that was jingles.
Then you got like these audiologos, right, but again brands
(46:35):
actually had tone, that sound,that song.
You gotta bring jingles back.
Yeah, right, and it's funny,since everybody now saying that
they're a brand, it's kind ofinteresting because those aspect
of branding is almost kind oflike have disappeared.
Right, you don't hear jinglesas much because more and more
people listen to podcasts.
They don't really listen toradio, right, you don't hear
jingles as much because more andmore people listen to podcasts.
They don't really listen toradio.
Right, you don't hear that thesound of a brand as much because
(46:55):
a lot of people just don't lookat tv.
Yeah, right, so if you're nottalking about brands being like
that and it has sound like, whatdoes that mean today?
I don't know.
Um, this segment don't have tobe that long, but I will say
that I think if people reallywant to get into branding, they
should be thinking aboutbranding a little bit more
holistic.
It's not just a look, it's notjust a tone, but what does it
(47:16):
sound like, what does it feellike, what does it taste like,
what is it?
Speaker 4 (47:18):
yeah, the five senses yeah, yeah, I mean just talking
about like mnemonics again.
I mean I'm thinking about espn,espn, like it's they just keep.
I think they've kind ofsimplified it right.
They've kind of removed theidea of jingles and, you know,
paying someone to actually singit, and like all those legal
(47:39):
yeah, I think it, I think it, Ithink it's come to that.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Yeah right, like the legal jingles guys got paid.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yeah, man who did all the stuff for mario?
Speaker 4 (47:46):
got paid all the legal entities, that's like,
involved in it.
They said, like you know, let'sjust remove it and let's just
have a sound that probably lastsfor three seconds, yeah because
it's usually in perpetuityuntil they change their brand.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
But we will get into changing your brand rebranding
in the next episode.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Yeah, and I think that ends this pretty well, man,
I think this is a great time tohave Rosé sign us off.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
Yes, sir, yes sir, Ad Bros another great episode.
As we all know, there's no softtalk when it comes to telling
the truth.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Yeah, and that's our brand.
Thank you very much, peoplePeace.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Thanks for tuning in to the Ad Bros podcast.
If you enjoyed the episode,don't forget to like, subscribe
and share with your crew.
Catch us next time for moreinsights and creativity, only on
the Ad Bros Podcast, powered byCaffeine Media Network.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time, I'm out oftime.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm out of time.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time so I just wantto let the audience know this.
This pod, and probably the nexttwo, is going to be a series of
uh, three episodes, so pleasemake sure to check out the next
episode and the one to follow.
But yeah, it's all aboutbranding.
(00:49):
We're going to, you know, likeRIP Kobe Bean Bryant, but we're
going to go back to the basics.
We're going to explain branding, what a brand is, as my brother
AD said.
We're going to explain whatmarketing is and we're going to
talk about the history of it.
We're also going to talk aboutsome good rebranding moments in
(01:13):
advertising, some bad ones.
I have a few.
But yeah, I just wanted to seteverybody up to make sure they
check out the next few episodes,you know.
So there's going to be moreinformation, as you know, as we
go on we here, right?
We just kind of you know we'redoing our thing.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Is is the new recording of the day.
We're here to talk about brandsbefore.
I think we get into that.
Let's you know.
Let's just briefly introduceourselves again just to the
audience.
Who's first time listening and,um, I think how we can start
this off.
Man, let's just talk, just whoyou are, you know, give me your
name and maybe just saysomething around like a person
or brand that kind of representsyou.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
And it could be a brand, it could be a product, it
could be whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I'm going to start.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
It's your boy.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Tony Stallion, you want the backstory to that name?
Listen to ad bros, episode one,starting at 30 seconds.
It's fully explained there.
I think a brand that I I kindof closely align with, I'll say
apple.
Um, and the reason I'll sayapple is because I feel like
(02:19):
they have for me I know there'sandroid people out there, but
for me apple has like a niceecosystem and I like how a lot
of their um designs arebeautiful but a little bit
minimal.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Love their stores so yeah, I'm gonna go with apple
I'm sure that people will saythat's elitist, but that's cool.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
This your boy ad representing atl by way of
decatur all the way fromBrooklyn.
I would say that my brand or Iguess more or less product I
would say that would be isprobably a screwdriver.
I'm going to say a reason why Ascrewdriver is a tool.
Any screwdriver can be a Searsscrewdriver, it can be Craftman,
(02:58):
it can be for home people, itdoesn't matter, it works.
You can use it for multiplethings.
You can use it to buildsomething.
You can use it to buildsomething.
You can probably use it forsome crime.
I don't think you should use itfor that, but nonetheless, a
screwdriver is like amulti-purpose tool that more or
less kind of feels like a Swissknife without being a knife, but
(03:18):
kind of has jagged edges too.
But yeah, I would be that I'mnot going to really just say the
brand you should have wentfirst, because now I want to
change mine it's cool stand
Speaker 4 (03:28):
on it.
Are you done?
Yeah, I'm done.
It's your boy.
Easy Rose, brownsville's finest, I think.
A brand that represents me, Iwould say, is BMW.
It's just performance, luxury,simple as that, that's one of my
brands later on in the pot.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I'm going to talk about BMW.
It's just performance, luxury,simple as that, straight to the
point.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
That's one of my brands later on in the pot I'm
going to talk about.
I like that man At Rose.
I was going to be smooth withit, you got the performance, the
overall aesthetic of the brand.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
The ultimate driving machine.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
There you go, have it in my way.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Start out as airplanes engines and turn into
a car.
I dig that.
You're all about performance.
It makes sense to you as amedia guy.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Yeah, I mean, even from a media perspective, we
have to make sure we're alignedto whether it's KPIs, and then
we are measured.
Our performance through mediais measured against those KPIs.
So whenever we're going backand having conversations with
clients, they are looking to seeif we are who we say we are and
(04:31):
we're doing what we say we'redoing.
Are we optimizing, are wereaching out to partners and
getting things done?
But we do it in a very elegantand having conversations in an
eloquent way.
So for this luxury, there yougo.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Well, I want to take the time to actually kind of set
this conversation, I know forthe next couple of conversations
and pause.
We want to really bring thisidea of the brand to the
forefront, right, because youknow, we've got everybody
nowadays saying that I'm a brand, or brands are reinventing
themselves, or brands are eitheractually being phased out like
they're disappearing right, wecan't even talk about that.
Brands are reinventingthemselves or brands are either
(05:06):
actually being phased out likedisappearing Right, we can even
talk about that.
But I do think the idea of whata brand is, I think we should
kind of like take a step back,maybe talk about the historical
aspect of what brand is, how itchanged over a period of time
and what does it reallyrepresent today.
(05:28):
Maybe, after we should alsorevisit.
Once you kind of go throughbranding, maybe we should
revisit the thing and see areyou still a screwdriver?
Are you still bmw?
Oh no, I'm still a christian.
Okay, I can.
I can believe that brands areonly representative of people in
terms of how they identify, andyou can always you know,
identify with multiple brands,right, and that's the beauty of
branding.
And, um, if you think about whata brand really started from,
well, I think a lot of peoplereally don't know.
Right, like you know, let'sjust, let's just take a step
(05:51):
back.
A lot of people think brandsare, just, you know, companies
with nice, beautiful logos andjingles and you know some kind
of look and feel and great kindof commercials, and, yes, brands
are all of that, of that.
Right, but the term brandingstarted like physical branding,
the actual physical nature ofputting a mark on something to
identify it as something thatstarted from farming, farm
(06:12):
animals, right?
So it's funny, like you know,you take like computing, that
started from somebody quilting,essentially, right.
So this idea of taking threadsin and out of a loop and
creating, like, some kind oflike garment, that created
binary code.
That code turned into what wenow know as computing.
So that literally started froma craftsperson kind of quilting
or creating a garment.
Branding, as we know, likeagain started from farmers.
(06:34):
You know, these guys would havea ton of livestock and they
would want to identify thelivestock from being either
stolen by them or, if it wasstolen, like hey, that's my cow
or sheep or whatever.
It also allowed the farmer toshow potential buyers the
quality of what they wereselling, right, so that
literally again started fromfarming.
(06:55):
Right, this idea of like earlycivilization I think you
mentioned 2000 BC or somethinglike that and that's like the
historical start of it.
It evolves to this guy by thename of Edward Bernays.
That's the nephew of SigmundFreud and he took branding and
made it a little bit more modernby inventing what we call
propaganda.
Propaganda was more or lessused to get people to sign up
(07:19):
for the army during World War Iand a lot of other conflicts
back then.
But his uses of it too allowedthis idea of taking a brand and
using it to empower people'sthinking.
Specifically at the time heused it to empower women to
smoke, because it was illegalfor women to smoke back in the
early 1900s.
Yes, so he came up with thiskind of cool campaign that
really spoke to like this thingin women, like hey, by you, you
(07:43):
smoking.
It says that you're this and ifyou think about that approach
to a brand, that literally begatmodern day advertising.
So that's that's kind of likethe historical, like you know.
You know like a quick second orso, of how branding actually
got started and where, how itevolved and it goes right into
modern day times.
But what is a brand today?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
to be fair all this can be found on google but, you
hear, you hear listening
Speaker 3 (08:09):
to us, so we're gonna .
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So we're gonna, we're gonna take you through the
motion.
I had to go back to universitytime and think and do some some
research and looking up online.
But just in a simple way, a, abrand, is just, you know, a
company's identity.
It's kind of like their story,the story of that company, their
identity, who they are.
(08:31):
They kind of use it as a way todifferentiate from competitors.
Nowadays, as you mentioned, adis used to sell products, but I
think you know, if you look atit in a broad spectrum, brand
could kind of be anything.
It could be you, it could be acountry, it could be a team,
sports team.
I think the goal really of abrand is really just to kind of
(08:55):
company or your thing just kindof stick in the minds of the
people and, and you know, whenyou do that, you want to be
easily identified.
You feel me and we'll get intothe weeds of things.
But that's where you kind ofget into logos, brand logos,
colors, like you said, jingles,mnemonics, mnemonics, ooh, damn,
(09:18):
that's going deep.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
That's a good one Big work, but yeah, that's a good
one.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And then Tone, that's a good one big work, um, but
yeah that's, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And then a tone too, it's copy tone music, yeah it's
a lot um.
Psychodemographics, there's a,there's a lot um.
I mean, that's when you getinto copyright because you can't
just steal.
Well, you can steal anotherbrand's brand, but you know that
leads to legal issues or and orjust the audience not feeling
you, which which I'll get intolater on.
A couple of brands.
But yeah, I think I don't knowif you have any.
(09:49):
I was going to jump intobranding Cause I know like
people kind of mix and match by.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
You know, if you want to speak, I mean, I think, just
to touch on brands andappreciate that you know to,
before springboarded intobrandings.
I feel like brands are anexpectation that comes with a
company or an entity'suniqueness and set values, right
, like I think for a brand towork, like there must be a
(10:13):
covenant and a set of a beliefsystem within between, whether
if it's the product or the brandand its audience and its
consumers.
Brands give people choices andpossibilities across categories.
I'm just kind of taking itoutside of what we do, but let's
say, if it's a dating market,right, we might have a woman who
(10:36):
might be in the market for aman, right, but from that
perspective she could be lookingfor a man.
But she can narrow it down froma personality type, right.
Does she want an alpha man?
Does she want a beta man?
Does she want a omega?
Omega, uh, you know, I mean,like, does she want a delta?
Right, these are differentcategory types that the same
(10:58):
concept.
Brands like kind of tappinginto, um, those options and
those choices, right, but fromI'll just, you know, I'll
continue to, you know you know Iwas listening to another
interview where someone said thealpha beta shit is not real.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Might be brand, it might be marketing, it's not
real in the wild the way, theway.
Well, there's not that type ofpodcast but the way other
podcasts talk about that shit.
But anyway, um, no, I think.
I think what you said is it um,kind of leads to my next point
of, like you know, branding.
Branding is super importantjust because that's kind of what
gets your, your target audience, interested in you.
(11:37):
It's like what sells you knowyou to them and it's, like I
said earlier, it kind of makesyou memorable.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
But is it selling or is it more about top of mind?
Because what sellers do isthey're always selling.
Well, you're always selling.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
It's essentially campaigning, you're campaigning
yourself.
You're campaigning a product andyou know, just to jump back to
your point, right and I thinkthat's a lot of is how we think,
right, because you know youbrought up a really good point
as it relates like Alpha, delta,Sigma, like is that even a real
thing?
And at the end of the dayyou're just a man, right, but
(12:15):
you know they call it, it'sidentified as like a social
sexual hierarchy, right, so nowit's different categories, it's
different layers, Right.
So now you can kind of sellthat and it's a way for people
to kind of categorize you andput you into a specific box and
people can say, oh, I like that,I don't like that.
And I feel like that's a thatkind of builds on from a brand's
perspective.
(12:35):
Like you know, you have choicesI want a soft drink, I could go
Coca-Cola, I could go Pepsi,you know, and so on and so forth
.
So I think it all kind of tiesback to each other.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You actually just brought something.
I'm not going to get super deepon it, but you, Paul.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
You know how to do Paul's bro, we're growing as
fuck.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I'm not going to get too much into it.
But you brought up a good pointabout being top of mind,
because I think you know we makeso many decisions in a day that
, like the importance ofbranding and kind of having a
brand helps us every day,because it helps us make a quick
(13:16):
decision without overthinkingit.
Like I mean, I'm not going toshout them out cause they're not
sponsoring but we all have thesame water bottle here but we
all came from different housesand and places, but we all had
the same water brand.
You know, um, we all like brandslike um.
I'll shout them out because Ilove polo, ralph lauren, and
it's just like.
(13:36):
You know, you could have pickedup any sweater, but but for you
to, for you to easily identifylike yo, this is what I want to
hear.
I mean I, even thoughtremremaine left, but I have a
bunch of hats at home, but Idecided to pick my Supreme hat
on.
So it's just like brands helpyou ease.
Like when I was getting dressedthis morning.
It helped me easily.
(13:56):
I mean that in colors, but ithelped me easily identify like
yo.
I want to wear that, I want tolook like that, I want to feel
like that.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
And that's because I believe brands is storytelling
in the form of turnkey signals,right?
So the goal is to drive aconnection and evoke an emotion,
and that's the, you know,that's the foundation of a brand
.
To draw a connection, drive anemotion we were talking about
(14:25):
earlier is to be a part of theconversation as well, as you
know, remain top of mind toeventually deliver a call to
action.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Right, I mean it's funny because you just brought
up something about the waterbottle, right, I mean, water is
water, but is it Because waterfrom a bodega is one thing it
calls one thing?
Water from from, I guess anairport is going to cause
something different.
Water at a, I guess a socialclub or some kind of you know
cool event is going to causepremium right.
(14:57):
So as you look at brand, brandalso can be broken down to like
location, access and even justideal of premium, even though it
all tastes the same.
What is water?
Right?
Depending on how it's filtered,depending depending on who's
selling it, but at the end ofthe day, it's still H2O.
Yo quick question how long youbeen in New York.
I've been in New York 17.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
17 years Mm-hmm.
Okay, because the way you saidwater sounded very New York.
Oh really I was just going tosay about water.
Like New Yorkers say, we saywant some water, some coffee.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
But anyway, you got your New York accent.
That's because I feel likepeople from New York.
We drop the R.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, a lot of things Ada.
Anyway, that's the New Yorksegment for this pod.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
We can move on Credentialing people.
But yeah man, I do think youknow this idea that brand is not
just one thing or another, butit does plays out depending on
where you're consuming thatbrand.
Too right, but let's move on tolike the next thing.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Oh, real quick before we move into the next thing.
Just because I know it's theword marketing is used
interchangeably with branding,but just wanted to say marketing
is really just the tactics youuse, like once you have your
brand, once you know what yourstrategy is in terms of what you
want to do, once you know whoyour audience is, then marketing
is just the tactics Like allright, how am I going to get
(16:16):
these people to listen to me?
Or how am I going to get thesepeople to come to my site?
The list is podcast, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, I mean marketing is, like you said is,
the means of getting things out.
Pr is the conversation aroundit.
Right, right, right, you knowbranding is basically the
principles and the storytelling.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And all three of those things.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You know more or less work, well, as like a system
that basically engages theaudience.
And hey, it's funny, we'retalking about this and you know
I'm like a design historicalnerd, motherfucker.
Right, I'm one of the firstindividuals who actually took
all three of those differentthings we just talked about and
wrote it into like a consumerengagement was pt barnum, the
circus dude?
Hey, right, pt barnum wouldcome to town.
He'd have some pr to say, hey,the circus coming.
(17:00):
And he had pr talking about thecircus is coming.
Marketing would actually get theword out and the advertising of
all the different things thatyou can check out at the circus,
whereas the you know 400-poundman or the bearded woman and
these weird people was thestorytelling.
So PT Barnum which is funny, wetalked a lot about that in
(17:21):
school was one of the firstmasters of like all three of
those things at one time.
He took branding, marketing andpr and used that to promote the
circus.
I think today's world maybehe'll be um advertised genius,
or may he get me too for allthese weird things he had in the
circus.
Who?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
knows right, but that's a lot.
He might be running a politicalcampaign he might be running
the country right now.
Who knows circus?
Who?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
knows.
But I think the next thing wecan talk about right, we're
saying brands that are kind ofclose to our heart, but what are
some brands that you guys canremember from your childhood
that invokes a sense ofnostalgia and that kind of
engaged you a little bit?
I know, for me personally, someof the things I remember from
my childhood was like Nintendo,it was Sega, it was McDonald's,
(18:09):
it was definitely adidas,because nike didn't really get
really big until jordan brand,and I think my first iteration
of nike really getting likesuper big in the neighborhood
was like we call them the dopeman nikes.
You know, more and more peoplecall them court, they really
call the cortez nikes.
In the south we call the dopeman.
The dope man right los angeles.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I know it's big after cortez, yeah, but we call them
the Dope man Nikes.
You know, the Dope man rightLos Angeles.
I know it's big after Cortez,yeah but we call them Dope man
Nikes.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
But they got big in like the late 80s but prior to
that it was mostly Adidas.
I mean even Run DMC had myAdidas right.
So those are some of the brandsI can remember.
Can remember that kind ofdefine your whole childhood.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I'll say for myself as a kid I played a lot of
sports, so I was trying to tapin with whatever sports that I
was into, mostly basketball atthe time and football.
I tried to tap into watchinggames, going to games if I could
, but around the games,surrounding the games, there was
marketing and advertising.
(19:12):
So I would say more so likePepsi, what they used to do with
Shaq, shaq Attack.
And then I would also say likeNike, like Deion Sanders was
like a huge in you know, for mychildhood.
So it's like early 90s, yeah,right, you know, for, for my
childhood, it's like we're early90s, yeah, so, um, I would say
that as well as um, you know,jordan was always around.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
He was always like, yeah, I was gonna say, like I
don't really have a lot of um.
Well, I can't think of a lot ofbrands when I was a kid, but, I
was gonna say nike, jordan, Ithink, is probably like the
biggest brand that I canremember.
I know you said like I didn'tgrow up in the era where Adidas
was popping Like.
When I grew up it was only Nike, yeah, and I wore Nike.
(19:55):
I don't think I wore.
I maybe wore a Fila once ortwice, but like I wore Nike,
probably until I let me think Idon't think I got a got a
different shoe brand untilcollege.
Let me think I don't think I gota different shoe brand until
college.
So I wore Nike from a kid tillat least 18 before I stepped out
the box and tried a new shoe.
And it wasn't even about brandloyalty, it was just like I,
(20:18):
just like Nike.
I just like the design Thoughtit was simple.
No shade to Adidas.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I know that's how they used to be, but I will
sayike, in new york I feel likeit got really popular with the
uptowns, right, and this is likeyou know.
I mean I was about, but goinginto the 90s.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
But in the 90s I think there was um boom and just
color vibrancy and you know wewas rocking the bo jacksons.
I mean the bo jacksons, I meanI remember when up well, I know
Uptown's were probably alwaysAir Force Ones were always.
I remember, I remember for mewhen, when, when I started
seeing it more I want to saylike eighth grade, and I was
(20:58):
like, oh, these are, these arenice, simple, nice blah blah.
But yeah, for me uh, I would sayit just kind of started with
just the vibrant sneakers.
Like there's a bunch that Iprobably don't know the actual
names for, but if I saw them Icould be like yo.
I remember that when I was akid.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
But yeah, and then you know, and I feel like we're
still kind of building on sportsright, Like with a lot of those
brands.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And that's how I come in to like what am I full what?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
are some Damn.
This is going to sound like aNew York pod, but I would say
Nike and the Yankees Look atthis guy, the New York Yankees,
you Jay-Z or some shit, but NewYork Yankees was a brand.
I remember going to my firstbaseball game.
It was a Mets game.
Then I went to the.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yankee game and you just felt a different energy.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
But Jay said he didn't want me to have popular.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
He can say what he want.
I think he can back that up.
But what you?
Speaker 4 (21:51):
were saying no, I was saying kind of diving back into
sports, right, like still goingon that journey.
As a kid I'm watching sports.
Like it kind of branched offinto um drinks like gatorade was
was big back then it's like,you know, like mike, right, I
want to be.
I want to be like mike, likethat's a gatorade commercial.
Yeah um, also still too uh with.
(22:13):
Uh, you know, bo knows bo, uh,bo jackson right.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Um, I think you didn't mention bo jackson yeah,
that's what it's like bo was ina commercial.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah um, also too, I think,
larry johnson, grandmama, ohyeah, converse and it's funny
how you say that because, like,just just because I feel like
the 90s there was a lot ofsports and entertainment was all
intertwined, because all, likeI wasn't I didn't really get
into sports until I got older,but all, but I still remember
all that because a lot of thatwas infused in shows like family
(22:46):
matters, um, fresh princewayne's brothers, and that's
what I was watching.
So like, even in what, eventhough I wasn't, I mean like I
knew about, like jordan and thebulls, but like, even though I
wasn't always watching sports,like I knew about a lot of that
because what was in familymatters, um, and some of the
stuff they talked about,especially, you know, show
taking place in chicago, um, andthen, yeah, like wayne brothers
(23:08):
, jane fox show, that wasprobably a little bit more early
2000s, but all that was infusedin it.
So like the fashion and allthat, and I was like, oh snap,
so so, like I'm just saying thatto say like same page, same
vibe yeah, I mean, it had afootprint right and it was like
this character that keptreoccurring.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
So you had anthony hardaway.
With the penny hardaway, youhad little penny chris rock um
the doll.
I don't know if you rememberthat it was just it was like one
of those things.
It was like you know it'spopular.
I guess they did marketresearch and saying like, oh,
this thing is working, so let'sbring it back and let's try to
reinvent it every time how wouldyou guys guys introduced to
those brands?
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Because you know commercials did one thing,
friends obviously was anotherthing.
You know magazines were a bigthing back then, right, and
obviously there was no social,no internet as we know it in
terms of the public domain, buthow were you guys introduced to
it?
I know for me, like even theMaxell tapes as an example for
me, they get introduced to thatbecause everybody was recording
(24:07):
things off the radio, on a, on aboom box back in the day.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
So that was a big brand with my youth and my
growing up, I think, in New York, rose, you could, you could,
you could check me on this ifI'm wrong.
But to me, I think the funnelof being exposed to brands comes
from two environments.
I would say what you'reengaging in TV where, where you
(24:32):
hang out, like for me, um, Iwould see a lot of stuff on
Coliseum block, queens, and thenwhen I went to high school
downtown Brooklyn, I'll besquare.
Yeah, yeah, I'll be square.
That's how I learned about redmonkey jeans.
You heard like if you know youknow I'll be square.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
That's how I learned about red monkey jeans.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
You heard Like if you know, you know, red monkey
jeans, red monkey yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
It was like the first it was.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It was uh, it was the , not I want to say the first,
but it was the.
The first jeans I rememberbeing like $300, $500 jeans, I
think they were.
Avizel was probably first Japan, that I can remember, yeah.
And then, yeah, red Monkey Wascrazy.
But yeah, I want to say itcomes from that Because, like
(25:13):
I'll see, you know you, You're alittle young, sometimes you
don't have, you may or may notbe working and you see Cats
Downtown Brooklyn or ColiseumBlocking like Damn, that's fly.
And then you, you know, theygot all the stores, you got
Moe's.
Shouts to Moe's.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Moe's is gone.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I know, no, not Moe.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Dale's, oh, not Moe Dale's, right.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's a sneaker store called Moe's, Is that right?
I think there's still one onQueens Boulevard, but I know
there used to be one in Coliseum, but Coliseum closed down.
I repeated them.
Yeah, it's just like you like.
To me, downtown Brooklyn waslike the Mecca because you got
the sneaker stores.
You know, that's why I firstlearned about Prada's, the
(25:53):
American Cup sneaker.
That's when you see people, yousee the, you know the gold shop
, see people with the fronts,you see chains.
It's like all that is just likesoaking in your mind.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
And then you like, most of the brands you're
talking about are things thatare more like give like a public
visual persona of a person,like how you style yourself,
right.
Yeah, that was pretty important.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, but I think, to answer it, just to bring it
full circle, to answer yourquestion, that's when you say,
that's where I'm firstintroduced.
Ok, being outside Right, wellbeing in the home and seeing it
on TV, and then, I guess, beingable to touch it in a sneaker
store or in a jewelry store andsee it in person, you're like,
oh, I can get this what's someof your early electronic brands?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I mean because you know the brand that became
Sonata Electronics was like that.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
No shout out to Super Nintendo.
First of all, shout out toNintendo.
That was the first one.
No, but which?
Because you know electronicbrands yeah, like.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
But you're saying nintendo.
But which nintendo?
It was nes for me, but I'm surewhen you was a kid it was like
a certain nintendo, like the 64,nah it was the first nintendo.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You had an nes.
I got an older brother he'syour age, so so well, he ain't
want to give us the nintendo,but he gave.
He gave it to me, and me and myin my middle brother, and then
we got the super Nintendo.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
So you guys were blowing in the cars to make sure
they were okay.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
And then and then yeah, I'm from the old school
Then PlayStation.
I remember yo speaking ofBrandon that that's music that
sound, yeah, m never did sega.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Sega didn't last that long it lasted it was cool, but
it was good in the 80s it wasgood.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
In the 80s dreamcast it was good in the 80s, kind of
went into the 90s, a little bitinto the 2000s, but it got
acquired.
You know like the whole catalognow is owned by nintendo now
yeah and then the last one.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I'll say you know, rosé, I'll let you jump in um
game boy.
I think that was big, like itwas bulky, and yeah, that was
under nintendo was bulky, thatwas under Nintendo Game Boy and
Game Boy Color.
But now that I think about it,game Boys are probably prepping
us kids for being on phones.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
You know what I'm saying?
They like a phone, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I mean basically, it's damn near the size of an
Android or a tablet.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I think for me it was the To go back to the original
question, my introduction, a lotof it very similar to Tony
being in the house andcommercials, but then also just
being outside on my block Backthen just seeing those
reoccurring logos, reoccurringbrands, worn by whether, if it's
(28:27):
older people like Fila, filawas a huge.
It was a huge brand back in theday, especially the Fila
headbands.
If you had a Fila headband, Iwanted one so bad I couldn't get
.
I couldn't get my mom to get meone.
She didn't know where to getone.
But like the older dudes on myblock, they will be, you know,
on a 10 speed and wearing Filaheadbands.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
So it's like that you know I was very, very fly back
in the 80s.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Very fly.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
I think it was a certain kindof cat world.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Feel like going into the 90s, right yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, so it was that.
Then it was also to still on myblock.
I think it was like theinfusion of everyone, that sense
of a community where everyoneknew each other.
We traded, so we talked aboutgames.
Right, I remember trading videogames with people Like all right
, you know, you hold it for aweek, then give it back, I'll
(29:16):
hold your game.
We just swap games, right.
And I think it was just thatsense of community.
I'm from Brownsville, right, sopolo was heavy in Brownsville,
right.
I mean not as much anymore.
I think with the newergeneration I mean not as much
anymore.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I think with the newer generation?
Speaker 4 (29:32):
they don't really, I think they call them polo unk
wear.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
No, they call it unk wear, that's disrespectful.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
It's cool because I would rather have polo and unk
wear versus wearing Crocs,bonnets and hoodies outside.
So I mean if we want to Talk tothem.
But yeah, in closing I wouldjust say, like the infusion
infusion is like on my block.
Going to school and just seeingthese reoccurring whether if
it's products or brands andhearing kids talk about it and
you know, it kind of gave me aninterest, like all right, what's
(29:57):
going on with that?
What's that about?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
so essentially you're saying that brands even then
and now this idea of uh it kindof getting circulated still word
of mouth, right, right, acouple of influences kind of
checked it out or we call theminfluences now, but it was like
dudes in the back Back then wasthe most popular ones on your
block or your neighborhood.
They don't want to startrocking the brands first and
then everybody's kind of followstill word of mouth, almost kind
(30:21):
of like some would sayguerrilla Right, like hey, you
know, this is not like usdirectly target this group, but
a few people on the blockstarted rocking it, then
everybody started rocking it,then everybody started rocking
it.
Now whole nother demographicswearing a brand or rocking
whatever brand.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
That was never really targeted in the first place,
right, and then, and then nowI'm that I'm older, I'm thinking
like, was this on purpose?
Like did they get it fromanother block or did these older
cats get it from their school?
And like how did this thingbecome?
How did it start?
I mean, I think a lot of part,a lot of it too, is like music
videos.
Um, I was in, I was very, veryyoung, but my dad used to watch
(30:58):
video music box because wedidn't have cable, right, and
that introduction with ralphmcdaniel's and, um, these, these
music videos, these rappers,nice and smooth.
Um, gangstar, I'm like, I'mreal, I'm a little kid knowing
Big Daddy Kane songs, and youspoke about the gold, tony, I'm
seeing the gold.
So that kind of cultivated meand also, too, trying to be
(31:22):
original too, because back then,although we could wear the same
brands, we couldn't do it thesame way.
We had to come a little bitdifferent.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah, you got to freak it a little bit.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Your own I don't want to sayswag, but your own spin on it.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I mean, just like you know, obviously New York is
synonymous with wearing Timbs,right, but I saw my brothers and
they're like 10 years olderthan me wearing Timberlands not
the work boot in the 80s.
They was wearing Timberlands,not the work boot.
In the 80s.
They were wearing Timberlandmoccasins, right, like the
Tobagos and the other, like youknow, moccasin style of
Timberlands.
I don't think we did that, no,no, new York never did that.
But Timberlands was somethingthat was a little bit more
(32:01):
middle America, right, and a lotof people wore not the work
boots, they wore the otherTimberlands, again, like the
moccasins or the camping shoesor something like that.
And that's the shit my brotherwore.
It was kind of preppy dudes,right.
That was like wearing the prepstyle back then was huge in the
80s and I saw it as a young dudewearing it then wearing it, and
I think obviously New York madeTimberlands actually more
(32:22):
popular because it wasn't aknown brand in the hood anywhere
, right.
And then you know, you guyswearing the work boots, the
butters or whatever, um, thatreally made the brand super
strong in a non-intentional way.
Again, right, here's again alot of these brands getting our
wave.
We're making it popular bymaking it cool in the hood.
(32:42):
And then that turns into likethings you see in videos and
things you're seeing on filmright, with certain movies, and
then now you're starting to seeit where everybody around the
globe is wearing that type ofgear.
Right, because of what we did,actually.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I was going to take one step back.
I actually skipped something.
I think for me the brandingstarted because actually I'm
going back to Green Acres Mall.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Back to.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Queens yeah, back to Queens Now I'm reminiscing Toys,
toys r us.
I want to say the brand hadactually started probably with
um, you know, saturday morningcartoons and seeing the toys
right, and like I, I want to sayit, probably it.
It kind of starts, I think,brands and stuff and your early
introduction to brand startswith your parents like, like
(33:29):
this stuff that my parents didor gave to me when you were a
kid.
Because you don't have anybuying power, you're probably
not shopping like you're not.
Like kids today are on tabletsand they know how to uh go
online and shop and search.
I didn't, I didn't have, youknow, I didn't have that.
It's only when, when my, whenmy pops would take me and my
brother to toys russ and then Igot to browse and see what's out
(33:52):
there, right, but uh, or like Iknew, or you see the commercial
and you'd be like, oh shit,like um, this toy is coming out.
So that that, just to add towhat I said earlier, is kind of
like my first, firstintroduction so it's probably
family.
So it start with family and thenyou go out and you like, oh,
like.
Then then you get to the agewhere you start to develop your
(34:13):
own sense of self, really, andthen you start figuring out like
who am I and like what brand?
Like you said in the beginningof the pod, what brands align
with who I?
How do I want to present myself, what brands align with who I
am?
What all, what all when peoplesee me Because, like we said
earlier in the pod, you, youonly have, we only have so much
time to think about stuff in aday you want to be able to see
(34:36):
somebody and be like oh, I knowwhat their brand is because I
could see how they dress or howthey're carrying themselves, or
what drink they order, what foodthey order, and it's like you
just need these things.
I forget what it is.
I know it's like apsychological thing that helps
us.
Uh, so we're not overthinkingeverything.
But yeah, it started with, with, with family, then evolved,
(34:56):
then, like I said, I had anolder brother.
He's 13 years older.
Similar what you were saying,rose.
You know he started putting meon oh yeah, I go in his room
when he not home and then he has, like you know, a johnny blaze
like a fantastic four posterI'll never forget.
It's like he had it and thatkind of introduced me into
(35:16):
marvel and comics and I startedgetting into that.
Then, like he he was, he washeavy into james brown, so he
had the record, so I would.
I started listening like jamesbrown.
I was like who's this guy?
And he was big and he's why andthis is why red man's always
one of my top rappers, cause hewas in the Redman's I was like
what is he talking about?
So I go listen to Redman and heput me on tribe, you know.
(35:40):
So it starts with parents andthen if you have an older
sibling or older cousin or unclewas like yo, let me, let me put
you on to this, and then that's, and so it starts, yeah, kind
of guerrilla, it's like you know.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
I want to.
I just want to circle back alittle bit.
I don't think you give yourselfenough credit, because you said
that when you were a kid youdidn't have any buying power,
but you still had influence.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Yeah, that's bigger, that's better than buying power
sometimes.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
You had the influence because it was your request.
You had the influence to haveyour parents actually make that
um call to action and buysomething all right.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
So so don't, don't, don't get, don't take away your
influence, tony well, I guesswhat I was trying to say is I
didn't have no bread.
Well, I had the cake, you know.
I mean I look at money.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I look at the idea of my older siblings right like,
yeah, I got my parents.
But I do think the influencepart of roseanne saying is is
very valid, because while myparents had the buying power,
the real influence came from mysiblings right, especially my
oldest brother, who I would haveto credit as like the guy could
dress very well, him and mysister, anthony, and they're the
(36:47):
ones who basically will allowme to go buy the gear I want
because they were dressing melike them Right, but he was the
oldest and I feel like he waskind of influential in terms of
like the latest music, sometimesthe latest gear Right.
Then the twins came along and Iwas into like the things that
they was into is from like youknow style and like.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I like what you said Right, because you know we're
all talking about it positively.
I like what you said becauseyou know we're all talking about
it positively, but, like, whenI think about it, it's like it's
such a blessing to have anolder sibling or cousin who has
style, who you could be, like yo, let me take this from his
closet and that's how you startbuilding your own.
So, like I feel bad, no offense.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
I feel bad for people who don't have that person in
their life who's like yo let meput you on this but it don't
necessarily have to come fromyour family.
Don't feel bad for me, bro, butit don't have to come from
family, Because sometimes youthinfluence a lot.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
I didn't know that was you, my bad dog.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
But the youth will influence a lot of times hands
down.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I'm the best dressed person out of my close circle
growing up because of havingolder, no, just because I am.
I'm just that guy, I just knowI do I just know how to put
stuff together like like that'sit, I'm for sure in that
category, like amongst uhgrowing up and like my friends
exactly I was always bestdressed junior high school, high
(38:10):
school like it's it's.
I wasn't.
I'll say I wasn't always bestdressed, but I always learn and
build and but it's a matter oflike taste.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
Yeah, right, because there's people who just want to
fall in line and just sayinglike, okay, I don't really have
an identity, but I want to.
I'm not brave enough to thinkoutside of the box and think
creatively and put shit together, right, right, I think that's a
talent.
We can just take a step backand say you know what?
I'm going to take a little risk.
Yeah, I'm going to trysomething.
I'm going to take a little riskbut at the same time I'm going
(38:41):
to whether if I'm coordinatingcolors or whether if I'm going
to, you know, make sure I'madapting to the seasons, make
sure I'm adapting to the seasons.
I'm going to come out with thisfit and this is going to be a
representation of me.
So I just want to circle back alittle bit, because I know AD
had called out the TimberlandMoccasins and I feel like what
we had in New York at the timewas the 40 Below Timbs, yeah,
(39:02):
and then Wu-Tang with the Clarks, right.
So those are like big movementsas it relates to fashion.
But I will say, to kind of landmy plane a little bit with this
topic, hip hop.
Seeing the popularity in hip hop, I think a lot of brands
(39:24):
started to see like, okay, howdo we get involved in this?
How do we sign up?
How do we get involved in this?
How do we sign up?
How do we sign up, how do weget involved in this and promote
our brands?
Because I remember one of thefirst rappers to promote Tommy
Hilfiger for me was Grand Puba,grand Puba, right, grand Puba.
And I remember he had a rhymeabout.
(39:45):
You know, if Tommy, don't sendme my check like it's over, it's
out.
And he was one of the firstones.
I wouldn't say he wasn't thefirst with Polo, but he kind of
popularized a lot of brands,cool brands I actually have two
questions off of that.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
One do you think hip hop nowadays still has that same
influence?
And two, wanted to point out,see, that that was also kind of
the problem in the 90s, which iskind of what we do now with
social media right is, we'lljust, we'll just put, we'll
promote some shit, put it on,then it blows up, and then we
(40:19):
like yo, and then we'll go backand say yo, they owe it, owe me
a check well, I mean, I thinkit's a good question.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
Um wait, what was your first question?
Uh?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
do you think hip hop still has that influence?
Yeah I think hip hop still hasthe influence, absolutely like.
Speaker 4 (40:34):
It's the most influential genre of music.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Like I do think the artists are a little bit more
intentional now, like they'regonna talk about some of the
song, some kind of way they'regonna leverage that right.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
But and I was just about to get to the point in
which the second question thatyou had I feel like a lot of
artists saw that.
And then that's when you sawthe pivot to Sean John Rockaware
Like a lot of artists andentertainers started to say,
like you know what, let me putmy own brand out at a even what
(41:06):
is it?
50 Cent G-Unit, g-unit, yeah,fat Farm, right.
So I think that, to your pointpoint, it kind of got stale and
it's like you know, these checksain't adding up as it relates
to my influence.
You know I could just do thisshit myself.
I disagree.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Your first point I don't think.
I don't think, uh, I think thethe marketing nowadays I'm 50,
50 in the sense of I think themarketing nowadays is so obvious
that I think and I could bespeaking from a privileged point
because I work in advertising,so like I see it but to me it's
just so obvious that I don't.
(41:42):
When I see Shaq and Akia, I'mlike no, you're not driving Akia
, but that wasn't my first point.
No, no, I was.
Oh, I was just saying myhip-hop, no, no, oh well, I was
just saying entertainment,hip-hop.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
But I'm saying like I don't think you asked me, if
hip-hop has the influence, stillhas the influence.
I'm saying it absolutely does.
I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
I actually think it's 50-50.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Well, that's what I was trying to say, I and say I
feel like I'm biased becausewhen I see it, I kind of see,
because you know, you saw the,because I grew up.
Well, we all grew up.
We grew up in a time when thehypnotic was bam.
I didn't mean to hit the table.
But bam, right in the video,the nouveau.
So I'm saying like you kind ofsee, like oh it's obvious, the
(42:25):
Kavassier like talking aboutliquor brands, the Ace.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Shout out to mean well, look at the recent
superbowl.
I mean you can't.
That was undeniable hip-hopsuperbowl, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
But what did he?
What did he um you?
Speaker 3 (42:38):
don't have to sell anything, but apple sponsored.
That okay.
Okay, apple sponsor used to bepelsy, maybe maybe uh, wide leg
jeans.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
I was gonna say like, was it flare jeans like he um,
yeah, I think it's flare.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I don't know if it's flare or bell bottom yeah I
don't like his shoes.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
I could write but.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
But but now, people, when I understand, you didn't
see him, but people saw allright, from what I understand,
like those same jeans, likepeople went out and bought them.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
They did okay, yeah so it's like I think, don't get
me wrong, the jacket was fine ifI could find it's a black
designer.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
I gotta go back and research, but it was a black
designer, a black lady, whodesigned that jacket.
Jacket was fine.
But I think our last segment,to just kind of close out the
episode, I want to play a littlegame here, right?
So we talked about, like,influence, we talked about
branding, talked abouthistorical aspect of it.
Rose brought up this idea ofthe mnemonic, right, and I want
to play a game with you guys.
So I'm going to play somejingles.
(43:32):
I want to see if you guys canname that brand Because, again,
brand is not just what you see,it's also what you hear, it's
also what you feel, can we playthem legally?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, well, you can do that.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Oh, are we just going to say fuck it?
I'm going to say fuck it, wewant Alright ready.
Okay, sounds familiar.
Coca-cola Got one.
What you think?
I have no idea and the answeris Coca-Cola, alright, cool.
(44:07):
Alright, let's move on to thenext one, hbo.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Oh, I didn't know.
We was trying to rush to do itit's a game, but you know you're
not going to win a fair
Speaker 3 (44:23):
there's no perimeter sounds familiar HP, okay, intel,
oh, intel okay, that's a hardone mmm, I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Windows MasterCard okay, mcdonald's damn Okay
McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Yeah, it sounds like McDonald's, it's McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Oh wait.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Before we move on.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
I got.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Not pneumonics.
Well, actually the name of thebrand is in the song.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
I got a couple jingles Maybe New York.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
These might be a little too New York.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I mean, you know, I mean, yeah, the name is in that.
I think it's just Barnes nowand then Salino.
Yeah, he died in an accident.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
RIP Salino man, I got two more.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Well, I'm not going to play this whole, thing.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
But JG Wetwood.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Oh, yeah, yeah, now, alright, this one, this one I
think Rosé would probably, Idon't know if you know this one
oh, it's that time of year.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
All Hook ShopRite, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
The Ken man.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
So speaking of before we wrap up, speaking of when
you were talking about back inthe day, I remember this
commercial when I was a kidShopRite commercial.
It was probably local.
I think ShopRite is more of alocal supermarket.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
I think it's very specific.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
I remember hearing it in my grandparents' crib in
Harlem in Queens.
I know in it in mygrandparents' crib in Harlem in
Queens.
So yeah, those are my three.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
I know in Atlanta we had this thing.
You Got it All at South DeKalbMall, like, you know, that was a
jingle, right, Like it was.
Like the inherent nature of thebrand was in the song itself,
right, and you know, you got thesongs, that was jingles.
Then you got like these audiologos, right, but again brands
(46:35):
actually had tone, that sound,that song.
You gotta bring jingles back.
Yeah, right, and it's funny,since everybody now saying that
they're a brand, it's kind ofinteresting because those aspect
of branding is almost kind oflike have disappeared.
Right, you don't hear jinglesas much because more and more
people listen to podcasts.
They don't really listen toradio, right, you don't hear
jingles as much because more andmore people listen to podcasts.
They don't really listen toradio.
Right, you don't hear that thesound of a brand as much because
(46:55):
a lot of people just don't lookat tv.
Yeah, right, so if you're nottalking about brands being like
that and it has sound like, whatdoes that mean today?
I don't know.
Um, this segment don't have tobe that long, but I will say
that I think if people reallywant to get into branding, they
should be thinking aboutbranding a little bit more
holistic.
It's not just a look, it's notjust a tone, but what does it
(47:16):
sound like, what does it feellike, what does it taste like,
what is it?
Speaker 4 (47:18):
yeah, the five senses yeah, yeah, I mean just talking
about like mnemonics again.
I mean I'm thinking about espn,espn, like it's they just keep.
I think they've kind ofsimplified it right.
They've kind of removed theidea of jingles and, you know,
paying someone to actually singit, and like all those legal
(47:39):
yeah, I think it, I think it, Ithink it's come to that.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Yeah right, like the legal jingles guys got paid.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yeah, man who did all the stuff for mario?
Speaker 4 (47:46):
got paid all the legal entities, that's like,
involved in it.
They said, like you know, let'sjust remove it and let's just
have a sound that probably lastsfor three seconds, yeah because
it's usually in perpetuityuntil they change their brand.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
But we will get into changing your brand rebranding
in the next episode.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Yeah, and I think that ends this pretty well, man,
I think this is a great time tohave Rosé sign us off.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
Yes, sir, yes sir, Ad Bros another great episode.
As we all know, there's no softtalk when it comes to telling
the truth.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Yeah, and that's our brand.
Thank you very much, peoplePeace.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Thanks for tuning in to the Ad Bros podcast.
If you enjoyed the episode,don't forget to like, subscribe
and share with your crew.
Catch us next time for moreinsights and creativity, only on
the Ad Bros Podcast, powered byCaffeine Media Network.
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.