September 17, 2025 • 32 mins
Ever wonder why some marketing cuts through the noise while most fades into oblivion? G Ranasina, CEO of Caxino marketing agency and a veteran marketer since the days of AOL CDs, reveals the uncomfortable truth about what's wrong with modern marketing.
"Marketing bros think all you need is to throw data into some AI engine and have it vomit out a thousand clichéd images," Ranasina explains with refreshing candor. "But what's missing is the idea, the concept, the emotional connection." Drawing on decades of experience helping over 400 startups across 20 countries, he articulates why the fundamental principles of marketing remain unchanged despite technological revolution.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Ranasina distinguishes between efficiency and effectiveness in marketing. While other business units can optimize for efficiency, marketing requires emotional resonance that can't be quantified in dollars. "We've exorcised creativity from the equation," he laments, explaining why $1.6 trillion in marketing spending with increasingly sophisticated targeting tools has resulted in decreasing effectiveness.
For podcasters and business owners alike, Ranasina offers a compelling perspective on standing out in a crowded marketplace. "You need to have the balls to be different, to be distinctive in your category," he advises, citing brands like Liquid Death that embrace their uniqueness rather than blending into the background. His insights on why we're "feeling creatures that think" rather than "thinking creatures that feel" provide a psychological framework for creating marketing that works.
Whether you're looking to improve your marketing strategy, grow your podcast audience, or simply understand why some messages stick while others don't, this episode delivers actionable wisdom wrapped in entertaining, no-nonsense commentary. Connect with G Ranasina on LinkedIn for more marketing insights delivered with his signature blend of expertise and straight talk.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carl (00:04):
Welcome to Communication Connection Community the
podcaster's podcast.
This podcast takes a deep diveinto modern day communication
strategies in the podcastingspace.
We chat with interesting peoplewho make the podcasting and
speaking spaces exciting andvibrant.
We also dive into thepodcasting community with news
(00:24):
updates, latest trends andtopics from this ever-evolving
space.
So strap in, it's going to beone amazing ride.
Let's dive into today's episode.
Gee Ranasinha has been inmarketing since the days of
dial-up internets and AOL CDs.
(00:46):
Wow, we might have to take atrip down memory lane on that
one.
Today he's the CEO of Kexino,an award-winning marketing
agency, and over the past 16years Kexino has has helped over
400 startups and smallbusinesses in over 20 countries
grow awareness, reputation,trust and sales.
And we're going to talk a lotabout, obviously, marketing
(01:10):
today and how it relates topodcasting, how it relates to
your business in general.
Gee, welcome to the podcast.
Gee (01:17):
Thank you very much for the invitation, Carl.
Very nice to be here.
Delighted to be invited.
Carl (01:23):
I am amazed that your experience in marketing goes
back to dial-up internet and AOL.
You've got mail.
A lot has changed since then, Iwould say.
Gee (01:38):
Yes and no.
I mean lots of people would say, oh, my goodness, you know,
marketing has changed so much,it's continuing to evolve at
such an amazing rate, this, thatand the other.
But actually I'm not so surethat's.
I wouldn't actually say thatwas actually true, because I
(01:59):
think a lot of what marketing isis hasn't changed at all in
terms of the way that humanbeings look and consider and
evaluate products or services atan emotional level, within
context, hasn't changed forthousands of years Now.
(02:23):
Sure, the tools have changedAbsolutely.
The execution has changed.
Sure, the tools certainly havechanged.
To be honest, the tools get inthe way of marketing.
And what do I mean by that?
Marketing is about affecting achange in an industry, in a
(02:48):
society, in a company, in anindividual, so that the end
result after marketing isdifferent would have been if
marketing wasn't there?
Right, it's about affectingchange.
And if we're talking aboutmarketing from the aspect of
sales, which marketing prettymuch is, it's about creating an
(03:13):
emotion in the minds of yourbuyer that predetermines a bias
towards your product or serviceover and above your competitors.
Right?
All marketing will actually dois to say, is to create mental
(03:36):
structures, resonances withinthe brain, so that when I'm in
the moment for buying morewashing powder, I'm in the
moment for buying more washingpowder I may consider your brand
of washing powder along withthe three, four, five other
brands of washing powder that Inormally buy.
Okay, that's all marketing canactually do, and anybody who
(04:01):
tells you otherwise is living inla-la land, because the human
mind is far more complex thanwhat I call marketing bros would
have you believe.
Are you familiar, Carl, withthe term Marketing Bro?
I didinvent the term okay
Carl (04:22):
, I'm not familiar with it actually bro.
Gee (04:26):
I did invent the term.
Okay, I'm not familiar with it.
Actually, if I describe amarketing bro to you, you will
certainly know the type ofperson I mean.
I talk about the people who areinvariably in their mid to late
20s, crouching in front ofLamborghinis, throwing gang
signs.
Carl (04:41):
Okay.
Gee (04:42):
These people who think that all you have to do with
marketing is throw some datainto some AI engine and have it
vomit out a thousand really,really cheesy cliched images
with a thousand headlines and athousand subheads, and you throw
that all into an algorithm tovomit out some creative
(05:07):
execution and job done.
Okay, what I'm talking about isunderstanding your customer to
the point where you createcommunication that evokes an
emotional response.
Carl (05:23):
I was just going to say the emotion piece too.
We see that not necessarily inthe detergent aisle for clothing
, but we see the emotional piece, for example, when we're at the
checkout and the chocolate barsand chips are there as opposed
to.
You know, typically you don'tput celery in the checkout line.
People probably wouldn't buy it.
(05:44):
There's not an emotionalresponse.
Gee (05:46):
That is Well there is an emotional response, but it's not
a positive one, is it?
Carl (05:51):
It's not the one from a sales perspective, from a
marketing perspective,Absolutely.
It's that experience, it's thatjourney I always think about.
When I was a kid growing up,one of my favorite candy bars
back then was a chocolate barcalled Jersey Milk.
I don't know if you've heard ofit, but anyways, I loved it,
Loved it as a kid growing up.
Now I limit them, shall we say,but if I saw that, of course,
(06:17):
at the checkout line I wouldalways, always be bugging my
parents Can I get a Jersey Milk?
Can I get a Jersey Milk?
No, it'll spoil your supper.
You know the routine.
But you said something veryinteresting too.
That marketing is.
There's more depth to it thanwe think there is, but it also
hasn't changed in thousands ofyears.
But you did mention that thetools have changed.
How have the tools affected,positively or negatively, the
(06:42):
journey or the experience inmarketing?
Gee (06:46):
Okay In the old days when TV was black and white, when AOL
, cds and dial-up internet no,okay.
In the old days, marketing withan uppercase M used to be
primarily about persuadingpeople, influencing their
behavior, in order to deliver acommercial result right and, as
(07:08):
a consequence, the bestmarketers of the day were
familiar with concepts like youknow human behaviour, human
insight, psychology, what wecall behavioural science today,
which is just a rebranding ofpsychology.
Really, okay.
Today, I have the feeling that99% of the marketing that we see
as consumers okay, especiallyon the online space has been
(07:31):
created to be more concernedwith efficiency than
effectiveness.
It's as though marketing isseen by the organisation as like
a branch of logistics.
What am I talking about?
Efficiency and effectiveness,okay, so effectiveness is what
we're going for.
Effectiveness is how well we dosomething, how well we're doing
(07:53):
to achieving our goals, howsuccessful we are in delivering
what we set out to do right.
Efficiency, in contrast, is aratio.
Efficiency is about how muchinput you make to deliver a
particular output and, as aconsequence, by chasing
(08:15):
efficiency metrics, the idea isto meet a particular output for
less and less input.
So that type of mentality worksin other areas of the business.
If you're making widgets, okay,if you look at that
manufacturing process of thewidget, if you can make that
(08:36):
widget for a lower cost, right,maybe you can get the raw
materials cheaper.
Maybe you can create someautomation so that there's less
people touching the widget toactually manufacture it.
Maybe you can get fastermachines that crank out more
widgets per hour.
(08:56):
Whatever it is, that way you'redecreasing the per widget cost.
So this is good stuff.
And every other business unitwithin the organisation operates
around this kind of Newtonianmodel.
Right For marketing.
It doesn't work like that,because in marketing we're not
(09:21):
looking at logical, rationalprogress where the answer is
always the same 2 plus 2 alwaysequals 4.
In marketing it doesn't worklike that.
There are a number of ways toachieve the same or maybe an
even better result, and alsothat method to achieve that
(09:41):
result can vary depending on thecontext.
It can vary by the person, itcan vary by the season, it can
vary by the choice of messagechannel.
It can vary by 101 differentthings.
So, pursuing metrics basedaround efficiency above all else
, what happens is that, byconsequence, we exorcise the
(10:05):
creativity aspect out of theequation, because we know how
much everything else costs, butyou can't quantify creativity.
You can't say, okay, for thisparticular marketing campaign,
we're going to spend $227 ofcreativity.
What does that mean?
Right, we can't do that.
So, instead of doing the basicsof marketing research,
(10:30):
segmentation, positioning,messaging, all that stuff we've
come to the conclusion that badmarketing that's more targeted
works better than greatmarketing that's spread wider,
right, which is why marketersresort to things like tracking,
cookies, remarketing tags,programmatic advertising and all
(10:50):
that other stuff, and this iswhy we have things like GDPR and
CCPA and PIPL and CPRA and CDPAand 101 other four-letter
acronyms that are going to bearound.
Okay, businesses have created adata-driven, repeatable process
for their marketing output, fortheir tangible marketing output,
(11:12):
but one that's devoid ofcreativity, salience or
resonance.
And then they moan why theirmarketing sucks.
And it sucks because it's notevoking a human emotion.
There's no emotion being putinto that, and this is what I
mean.
Marketing is about invoking ahuman emotion.
(11:33):
Now, the tools have changed?
Of course they have, but thatbasic predisposition, that basic
goal, hasn't changed inmillennia.
You look at the state ofmarketing today right, as an
industry, it's about $1.6trillion.
Okay, we've had some kind ofautomation in marketing for at
(11:55):
least a decade.
If you look at the way that youcan target consumer groups in
Facebook, google or whoever youwant, right, you can do
geolocation, preferences,political persuasion, gender,
whatever else.
Okay, you've got all of thesewonderful tools, yet the
effectiveness is going down.
(12:18):
So we've got all of thisautomation, all of these tools,
all of this AI stuff, and moreand more of marketing is being
ignored.
Carl (12:28):
And is it because we're not creating that emotional
experience?
Gee (12:32):
Exactly, there's no idea.
There's no idea, there's noconcept behind the communication
.
And we need emotion, empathy,humor, entertainment, humor,
entertainment in order for it totrigger neural pathways, to be
(12:52):
able to be remarked upon.
By remarkable I mean remarkedupon right, so that in some deep
and distant in your gray matter, it comes to the fore when you
(13:13):
see that product advertiseddigitally or on the supermarket
shelf or whatever else.
And that's the main reason whyso much of marketing fails.
It's because we're focused allaround the tools and not around
the concept, the basiccommunication idea that we're
trying to get across to ouraudience.
(13:34):
To be honest, the tools areimmaterial, they're secondary.
If you haven't got a core,strong idea, no tool is going to
work.
Let me give you an example.
Supposing I spent a thousandbucks on chef's knives, bought a
really nice.
You know one of these thingsthat roll up that you see, you
know, on these chef programs,right, I get one of these things
(13:57):
super duper.
I could spend a thousand buckson chef's knives, but it doesn't
make me gordon ramsay, does it?
not typically right right I, Ican spend 20 grand on a camera,
but I'm not going to be AnnieLeibovitz.
I could buy a Ferrari.
I'm not going to be a race cardriver.
It's not about the tools andthen use whatever tool is
(14:26):
necessary to best execute thatidea according to budget channel
media.
All the rest of it and this iswhat people are missing they're
skipping over this stage.
So you've got bland, insipid,mediocre messaging that nobody
remembers mediocre messagingthat nobody remembers.
Carl (14:55):
And I think that's one of the challenges that podcasters
are facing is and some arebeating their heads against the
wall or even quitting becausethey're relying on these tools
and they're just spitting out alot of information, hoping that
they're I'll say, hoping hopingthat they're the Gordon Ramsay
with the thousand or these areprobably worth more than a
thousand dollars.
But I get your point thatexpensive knife set not
realizing that in order to getthere, there needs to be the
(15:18):
correct messaging, the correctcalls to action in building
towards, as we've talked about,the emotional response that does
drive the audience.
That's why I bring it back topodcasting just in this moment,
because we do work a lot withpodcasters, but those podcasters
are also business owners whoare relying or not relying, but
(15:38):
they're utilizing a marketingtool, because a podcast is a
tool that's really all it is toallow you to put your voice and
now your face, because there'svideo podcasts to put your voice
and face out there, your image.
But if you're not using itcorrectly, or you're not using
the tool or understanding howthe tool works, you won't get
(16:01):
the results that you want.
Gee (16:04):
Okay, we can use podcasting as an example.
Okay, why do some podcasts workand the vast majority of
podcasts fail?
Because there's not enough meatin the sandwich.
Right, podcasters haven't got acompelling initial position, an
(16:34):
idea which they can expoundupon in 150 directions, to be
able to create a compellingnarrative storytelling that gets
people to come back.
Because it's not about findingyour podcast, it's about coming
back to your podcast.
Right, that's the holy grail.
It's the same thing for anythingwithin marketing.
If you're just bland andvanilla, yeah, okay, you may get
(16:55):
an eyebrow raised, but you knowit's not going to put your kids
through college, that's fordamn sure.
Right, ain't gonna work.
Okay, we need to take a stand,we need to be strong enough,
brave enough.
Let us say let's have thecojones to say this is who we
are, this is what we stand for,this is what we're about.
(17:18):
And you know, you and I canboth name 101 podcast hosts who
fit this profile.
Love them or hate them.
You cannot ignore them andthat's the whole point.
That's why people keep oncoming back.
And it's the same thing formarketing, it's the same thing
for messaging, and the problemis too many business owners and
(17:42):
marketers for that matter, theyjump straight into the tactical
execution and they haven't donethe basics for marketing to
actually understand customerresearch, positioning,
segmentation, targeting, all ofthis stuff so that they can
actually have a clearly definedposition, not for them but for
(18:05):
their intended audience.
Because as people, as humanbeings, what we do is we
pigeonhole, right, it's just howthe brain works, so so-and-so
does this cause and effect, andit's all very transactional.
So, unless there's a clearposition that when your name,
(18:30):
your podcast's name, yourbrand's name, is mentioned in
the minds of your targetaudience, they can associate
your brand with this type ofposition from an aspirational
standpoint, informationalstandpoint, educational,
whatever it may be, unless youcan do that, any communication
(18:52):
that you then use on top of thatis bound to fall flat, because
you're putting the cart beforethe horse, aren't you?
Carl (19:01):
I think some of the challenges, too, that
up-and-coming podcasters face isthey're drawing comparison
based on somebody else'sexperience.
So they're saying, well, thisindividual is this successful
with the show.
Ergo, so should I be.
Just because I'm.
Gee (19:19):
You know, I'm doing a show too, so I'll take which is the
total wrong way of doing it,because what happens is the
audience thinks of them and notyou, right?
Look at 99% of mobile phone adson the TV.
Okay, we see the mobile phoneon a white background and it's
(19:39):
spinning around and it's superclose up and it's, you know,
ultra high definition and it'sperfectly lit, and there's some
plinky plplonky music going inthe background, right, and you
know whether it's Samsung orGoogle or whomever else, you
immediately think of Apple,right?
They're all trying to do whatApple are doing with their
(20:00):
hardware, and it doesn't workbecause you just think of Apple,
you don't think of Samsung,right?
So you know you need to forgeyour own path.
Now, that's scary, don't get mewrong, but the object of a brand
is to be distinctive in yourcategory.
The object of your brand is tobe different.
(20:23):
So being different starts fromday one.
So, by definition, you know youcan either be a brand leader or
you can be a brand follower.
Which one do you want to be?
Okay, if you want to be a brandfollower, it's easy.
Do what the other guys aredoing, right, but you'll be
drowned out in the general seaof sameness and nobody will
(20:47):
remember who you are.
So you need to have the balls,if I can use that word, to be
different, to be distinctive inyour category, so you can take
ownership of a particularposition, state of mind that
your intended audience canembrace, aspire to, acknowledge
(21:14):
whatever that may be, and ownthat space.
And there are plenty of brandswho are doing that today.
Liquid Death, for example.
Okay, they sell frigging water.
For goodness sake.
If you look at theiradvertising, it's like they're
selling like 200% proof grainalcohol or something right, and
(21:35):
they have fun with it.
Their delivery vans are in theshape of hearses.
They embrace the difference.
Now, it's not for everyone.
If you're used to your littleEvian bottle or your nice
teardrop-shaped Perrier bottle,great, but they're not for you
and they don't pretend to be foryou.
(21:56):
They're for a different type ofbuyer and they're not
embarrassed or ashamed of that.
And as a brand, you need to bedoing the same.
Carl (22:07):
I love where this has taken us.
I have one more question, then.
I want to give us theopportunity to make sure I, or
give you the opportunity toshare how people can connect
with you.
Let me give you the opportunityto gaze into a crystal ball and
share in your estimation.
What new marketing trends doyou see emerging, let's say,
(22:28):
over the next five to 10 years?
Where is marketing headedemerging, let's say over?
Gee (22:32):
the next five to 10 years.
Where is marketing headed?
I think because of what peopleare calling AI, which isn't
really AI yet, but let's justuse the terminology that people
know right.
Because of that, what we'regoing to get is more and more
brands looking the same, becauseeverybody's going to be
throwing their prompts into abunch of ai tools and it's going
(22:56):
to be vomiting out diarrhea.
All right, now there's an imagefor you, all right, and what
we're going to do is we're goingto get a sea of sameness.
No, already, when you look atmarketing today, especially
anything online okay, if you seethe creative, if you put your
(23:17):
hand over the logo, themessaging could be used by 150
different companies Already.
We have no distinctiveness, wehave no differentiation.
That's already the case.
Carl (23:29):
We're seeing it in the real estate space here, actually
, with a lot of realtors usingAI-generated tools to provide
their property descriptions, andyou can tell.
Gee (23:39):
Absolutely, because AI tends to use words that real
people don't use.
Right, when ChatG PT came outwhat was it?
Two Decembers ago?
Whatever it was okay, if you doa Google trend search for the
word Delve, all of a sudden itshot up, because most people
(24:00):
don't use the word Delve veryrarely anyway.
And ChatGPT, for some well, 3or 3.5, whatever it was at that
time 3 or 3.5, whatever it wasat that time had a predilection
for using the word Delve.
It smells wrong.
You know, you don't know whatit is, but there's something a
(24:21):
bit iffy here.
You know you open the fridgeand it's like no, there's
something in here that needs togo and needs to go now.
We've all been there.
Okay, I don't care how many,how often you clean your fridge,
which is never as often as yousay, okay, ever Right, there's
something not quite right, andthat's why I think the greatest
(24:44):
advances that we're going to seein marketing over the next few
years are not going to betechnological.
Next few years are not going tobe technological.
They're going to bepsychological, because it's not
about how AI works, it's notabout how Instagram works.
It's how the algorithm works.
It's how LinkedIn works.
(25:05):
No, the question we need to askourselves as marketers is how
does a human mind work?
How do we game the human mindto tap into those mental
structures, to be able to embedour message at a cerebral level
(25:25):
so that it can be thenremembered at the time of
consideration of purpose?
And that can only be done froman emotional aspect.
It can't be done purely factual, because that's not how our
brain works.
There's a great quote by a ladyby the name of Dr Jill
Bolt-Taylor who's aneuroanatomist.
(25:45):
It's a quote I use a lot and mypeople will tell you that I use
it too damn often and what shesays is most people assume that
we are thinking creatures thatfeel, when actually we are
feeling creatures that think.
And we need to tap in anybody,no matter what you're selling,
(26:06):
who you're selling it to,whether it's B2B, b2c, D2C,
whatever else.
Okay, all of us, we buy here.
We buy from our heart first,and then we post-rationalise
with our head.
We tell ourselves a story toconvince ourselves that that was
a good purchase to make, but webuy emotionally.
(26:28):
Even the decisions that wethink we're taking rationally
are actually taken emotionally,unless you're talking about
commodity goods, in which casebranding becomes very important
in various ways, but otherwise,consciously or unconsciously, we
buy emotionally and wepost-rationalize logically.
Carl (26:50):
Wow, I am so astounded by our conversation today, oh
really yeah, you need to get outmore clearly.
I'll give you that one.
I'll give you that one my friend, a very deep dive into
marketing, and you know what?
I'm sure that our audience isgoing to glean a lot out of this
(27:11):
, just because of the fact thatthere are many podcasters out
there who need to consider anumber of the things that we've
touched on today.
However, what I want to do isgive you the opportunity to
share how people can reach outto you or connect with you to
find out more about what it isthat you do.
What's the best way for folksto do?
Gee (27:25):
that I tell you they should all go away and leave me alone
in peace.
That's what they should do.
No, the best way to get hold ofme to be honest is on LinkedIn.
Now, Carl, you may find thisextremely, extremely weird, but
did you know there's only oneGee Ranasinha on LinkedIn?
Carl (27:44):
I am morbidly surprised.
That's what it sounds like.
Gee (27:48):
So best way to connect with me is to find me on LinkedIn.
A few times a week I expoundthis kind of drivel on my
LinkedIn feed with a bunch ofvideos, and they're small,
bite-sized, one-minute longvideos with either words of what
I would consider wisdom orsomething that's pissed me off
(28:08):
that day, or whatever else.
But hopefully people will findit either educational, amusing,
entertaining, offensive,whatever.
As long as the reaction to itis not indifference, then I'm a
happy man.
So find me on LinkedIn.
Otherwise, obviously, thewebsite is Kexino.
com and I'm on far too manysocial media channels.
(28:35):
I'm almost embarrassed to tellyou how many.
Otherwise, just Google me,you'll find me.
It's pretty darn easy.
Carl (28:41):
We'll make sure that we post the links to all of those
social channels, especially yourLinkedIn and your website as
well, in the show notes, sopeople can check that afterwards
.
Gee, before I let you go,though, to either post something
on your LinkedIn feed orinspire somebody else to do the
correct kind of marketing, I'llleave you with the final thought
(29:03):
.
Gee (29:05):
I think the final thought has to be is to understand.
Lots of people ask me you know,what is the secret in business?
How can I be better at business, how can I serve my customers
better, how can I differentiatemyself from my competitors?
And based upon, you know thenumber of years I've been on
(29:25):
this rock that's spinning aroundthe sun.
One thing I've seen time andtime again is just do what you
said you were going to do whenyou said you were going to do it
.
Just doing that will put you atleast 80% up on the entire list
(29:50):
of everybody else, because mostpeople fail at that.
What do I mean by that?
I mean, if you tell yourcustomer that you will give them
a proposal on Friday at 10am,you make sure you move heaven
and earth to deliver that onFriday at 10am, not Friday at
10.30am.
On Friday at 10am, not Fridayat 10.30am, not Friday at 3pm,
(30:13):
certainly not Monday at 9am, butFriday.
You just do what you said youwere going to do when you said
you were going to do it.
Right, because I thinkintegrity a precious and
fleeting resource withinbusiness and fleeting resource
(30:34):
within business and, at the endof the day, people buy from
people, and if you can just betrustworthy and honest with
yourself and how you deal withother people will automatically
put you in the top percentilecompared to your competitors.
Carl (30:51):
I think that's a great place to leave it.
Gee Ranasinha, thank you somuch for being my guest today.
Gee (30:56):
It was an absolute pleasure .
Thanks to you again for theinvitation.
Carl (31:00):
And thank you for joining us today.
Special thanks to our producerand production lead, Dom Carillo
, our music guru, Nathan Simon,and the person who works the
arms all of our arms, actuallymy trusty assistant, Stephanie
Gafoor.
If you like what you heardtoday, leave us a comment and a
review, and be sure to share itwith your friends.
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(31:21):
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ca.
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Welcome to Communication Connection Community the
podcaster's podcast.
This podcast takes a deep diveinto modern day communication
strategies in the podcastingspace.
We chat with interesting peoplewho make the podcasting and
speaking spaces exciting andvibrant.
We also dive into thepodcasting community with news
(00:24):
updates, latest trends andtopics from this ever-evolving
space.
So strap in, it's going to beone amazing ride.
Let's dive into today's episode.
Gee Ranasinha has been inmarketing since the days of
dial-up internets and AOL CDs.
(00:46):
Wow, we might have to take atrip down memory lane on that
one.
Today he's the CEO of Kexino,an award-winning marketing
agency, and over the past 16years Kexino has has helped over
400 startups and smallbusinesses in over 20 countries
grow awareness, reputation,trust and sales.
And we're going to talk a lotabout, obviously, marketing
(01:10):
today and how it relates topodcasting, how it relates to
your business in general.
Gee, welcome to the podcast.
Gee (01:17):
Thank you very much for the invitation, Carl.
Very nice to be here.
Delighted to be invited.
Carl (01:23):
I am amazed that your experience in marketing goes
back to dial-up internet and AOL.
You've got mail.
A lot has changed since then, Iwould say.
Gee (01:38):
Yes and no.
I mean lots of people would say, oh, my goodness, you know,
marketing has changed so much,it's continuing to evolve at
such an amazing rate, this, thatand the other.
But actually I'm not so surethat's.
I wouldn't actually say thatwas actually true, because I
(01:59):
think a lot of what marketing isis hasn't changed at all in
terms of the way that humanbeings look and consider and
evaluate products or services atan emotional level, within
context, hasn't changed forthousands of years Now.
(02:23):
Sure, the tools have changedAbsolutely.
The execution has changed.
Sure, the tools certainly havechanged.
To be honest, the tools get inthe way of marketing.
And what do I mean by that?
Marketing is about affecting achange in an industry, in a
(02:48):
society, in a company, in anindividual, so that the end
result after marketing isdifferent would have been if
marketing wasn't there?
Right, it's about affectingchange.
And if we're talking aboutmarketing from the aspect of
sales, which marketing prettymuch is, it's about creating an
(03:13):
emotion in the minds of yourbuyer that predetermines a bias
towards your product or serviceover and above your competitors.
Right?
All marketing will actually dois to say, is to create mental
(03:36):
structures, resonances withinthe brain, so that when I'm in
the moment for buying morewashing powder, I'm in the
moment for buying more washingpowder I may consider your brand
of washing powder along withthe three, four, five other
brands of washing powder that Inormally buy.
Okay, that's all marketing canactually do, and anybody who
(04:01):
tells you otherwise is living inla-la land, because the human
mind is far more complex thanwhat I call marketing bros would
have you believe.
Are you familiar, Carl, withthe term Marketing Bro?
I didinvent the term okay
Carl (04:22):
, I'm not familiar with it actually bro.
Gee (04:26):
I did invent the term.
Okay, I'm not familiar with it.
Actually, if I describe amarketing bro to you, you will
certainly know the type ofperson I mean.
I talk about the people who areinvariably in their mid to late
20s, crouching in front ofLamborghinis, throwing gang
signs.
Carl (04:41):
Okay.
Gee (04:42):
These people who think that all you have to do with
marketing is throw some datainto some AI engine and have it
vomit out a thousand really,really cheesy cliched images
with a thousand headlines and athousand subheads, and you throw
that all into an algorithm tovomit out some creative
(05:07):
execution and job done.
Okay, what I'm talking about isunderstanding your customer to
the point where you createcommunication that evokes an
emotional response.
Carl (05:23):
I was just going to say the emotion piece too.
We see that not necessarily inthe detergent aisle for clothing
, but we see the emotional piece, for example, when we're at the
checkout and the chocolate barsand chips are there as opposed
to.
You know, typically you don'tput celery in the checkout line.
People probably wouldn't buy it.
(05:44):
There's not an emotionalresponse.
Gee (05:46):
That is Well there is an emotional response, but it's not
a positive one, is it?
Carl (05:51):
It's not the one from a sales perspective, from a
marketing perspective,Absolutely.
It's that experience, it's thatjourney I always think about.
When I was a kid growing up,one of my favorite candy bars
back then was a chocolate barcalled Jersey Milk.
I don't know if you've heard ofit, but anyways, I loved it,
Loved it as a kid growing up.
Now I limit them, shall we say,but if I saw that, of course,
(06:17):
at the checkout line I wouldalways, always be bugging my
parents Can I get a Jersey Milk?
Can I get a Jersey Milk?
No, it'll spoil your supper.
You know the routine.
But you said something veryinteresting too.
That marketing is.
There's more depth to it thanwe think there is, but it also
hasn't changed in thousands ofyears.
But you did mention that thetools have changed.
How have the tools affected,positively or negatively, the
(06:42):
journey or the experience inmarketing?
Gee (06:46):
Okay In the old days when TV was black and white, when AOL
, cds and dial-up internet no,okay.
In the old days, marketing withan uppercase M used to be
primarily about persuadingpeople, influencing their
behavior, in order to deliver acommercial result right and, as
(07:08):
a consequence, the bestmarketers of the day were
familiar with concepts like youknow human behaviour, human
insight, psychology, what wecall behavioural science today,
which is just a rebranding ofpsychology.
Really, okay.
Today, I have the feeling that99% of the marketing that we see
as consumers okay, especiallyon the online space has been
(07:31):
created to be more concernedwith efficiency than
effectiveness.
It's as though marketing isseen by the organisation as like
a branch of logistics.
What am I talking about?
Efficiency and effectiveness,okay, so effectiveness is what
we're going for.
Effectiveness is how well we dosomething, how well we're doing
(07:53):
to achieving our goals, howsuccessful we are in delivering
what we set out to do right.
Efficiency, in contrast, is aratio.
Efficiency is about how muchinput you make to deliver a
particular output and, as aconsequence, by chasing
(08:15):
efficiency metrics, the idea isto meet a particular output for
less and less input.
So that type of mentality worksin other areas of the business.
If you're making widgets, okay,if you look at that
manufacturing process of thewidget, if you can make that
(08:36):
widget for a lower cost, right,maybe you can get the raw
materials cheaper.
Maybe you can create someautomation so that there's less
people touching the widget toactually manufacture it.
Maybe you can get fastermachines that crank out more
widgets per hour.
(08:56):
Whatever it is, that way you'redecreasing the per widget cost.
So this is good stuff.
And every other business unitwithin the organisation operates
around this kind of Newtonianmodel.
Right For marketing.
It doesn't work like that,because in marketing we're not
(09:21):
looking at logical, rationalprogress where the answer is
always the same 2 plus 2 alwaysequals 4.
In marketing it doesn't worklike that.
There are a number of ways toachieve the same or maybe an
even better result, and alsothat method to achieve that
(09:41):
result can vary depending on thecontext.
It can vary by the person, itcan vary by the season, it can
vary by the choice of messagechannel.
It can vary by 101 differentthings.
So, pursuing metrics basedaround efficiency above all else
, what happens is that, byconsequence, we exorcise the
(10:05):
creativity aspect out of theequation, because we know how
much everything else costs, butyou can't quantify creativity.
You can't say, okay, for thisparticular marketing campaign,
we're going to spend $227 ofcreativity.
What does that mean?
Right, we can't do that.
So, instead of doing the basicsof marketing research,
(10:30):
segmentation, positioning,messaging, all that stuff we've
come to the conclusion that badmarketing that's more targeted
works better than greatmarketing that's spread wider,
right, which is why marketersresort to things like tracking,
cookies, remarketing tags,programmatic advertising and all
(10:50):
that other stuff, and this iswhy we have things like GDPR and
CCPA and PIPL and CPRA and CDPAand 101 other four-letter
acronyms that are going to bearound.
Okay, businesses have created adata-driven, repeatable process
for their marketing output, fortheir tangible marketing output,
(11:12):
but one that's devoid ofcreativity, salience or
resonance.
And then they moan why theirmarketing sucks.
And it sucks because it's notevoking a human emotion.
There's no emotion being putinto that, and this is what I
mean.
Marketing is about invoking ahuman emotion.
(11:33):
Now, the tools have changed?
Of course they have, but thatbasic predisposition, that basic
goal, hasn't changed inmillennia.
You look at the state ofmarketing today right, as an
industry, it's about $1.6trillion.
Okay, we've had some kind ofautomation in marketing for at
(11:55):
least a decade.
If you look at the way that youcan target consumer groups in
Facebook, google or whoever youwant, right, you can do
geolocation, preferences,political persuasion, gender,
whatever else.
Okay, you've got all of thesewonderful tools, yet the
effectiveness is going down.
(12:18):
So we've got all of thisautomation, all of these tools,
all of this AI stuff, and moreand more of marketing is being
ignored.
Carl (12:28):
And is it because we're not creating that emotional
experience?
Gee (12:32):
Exactly, there's no idea.
There's no idea, there's noconcept behind the communication
.
And we need emotion, empathy,humor, entertainment, humor,
entertainment in order for it totrigger neural pathways, to be
(12:52):
able to be remarked upon.
By remarkable I mean remarkedupon right, so that in some deep
and distant in your gray matter, it comes to the fore when you
(13:13):
see that product advertiseddigitally or on the supermarket
shelf or whatever else.
And that's the main reason whyso much of marketing fails.
It's because we're focused allaround the tools and not around
the concept, the basiccommunication idea that we're
trying to get across to ouraudience.
(13:34):
To be honest, the tools areimmaterial, they're secondary.
If you haven't got a core,strong idea, no tool is going to
work.
Let me give you an example.
Supposing I spent a thousandbucks on chef's knives, bought a
really nice.
You know one of these thingsthat roll up that you see, you
know, on these chef programs,right, I get one of these things
(13:57):
super duper.
I could spend a thousand buckson chef's knives, but it doesn't
make me gordon ramsay, does it?
not typically right right I, Ican spend 20 grand on a camera,
but I'm not going to be AnnieLeibovitz.
I could buy a Ferrari.
I'm not going to be a race cardriver.
It's not about the tools andthen use whatever tool is
(14:26):
necessary to best execute thatidea according to budget channel
media.
All the rest of it and this iswhat people are missing they're
skipping over this stage.
So you've got bland, insipid,mediocre messaging that nobody
remembers mediocre messagingthat nobody remembers.
Carl (14:55):
And I think that's one of the challenges that podcasters
are facing is and some arebeating their heads against the
wall or even quitting becausethey're relying on these tools
and they're just spitting out alot of information, hoping that
they're I'll say, hoping hopingthat they're the Gordon Ramsay
with the thousand or these areprobably worth more than a
thousand dollars.
But I get your point thatexpensive knife set not
realizing that in order to getthere, there needs to be the
(15:18):
correct messaging, the correctcalls to action in building
towards, as we've talked about,the emotional response that does
drive the audience.
That's why I bring it back topodcasting just in this moment,
because we do work a lot withpodcasters, but those podcasters
are also business owners whoare relying or not relying, but
(15:38):
they're utilizing a marketingtool, because a podcast is a
tool that's really all it is toallow you to put your voice and
now your face, because there'svideo podcasts to put your voice
and face out there, your image.
But if you're not using itcorrectly, or you're not using
the tool or understanding howthe tool works, you won't get
(16:01):
the results that you want.
Gee (16:04):
Okay, we can use podcasting as an example.
Okay, why do some podcasts workand the vast majority of
podcasts fail?
Because there's not enough meatin the sandwich.
Right, podcasters haven't got acompelling initial position, an
(16:34):
idea which they can expoundupon in 150 directions, to be
able to create a compellingnarrative storytelling that gets
people to come back.
Because it's not about findingyour podcast, it's about coming
back to your podcast.
Right, that's the holy grail.
It's the same thing for anythingwithin marketing.
If you're just bland andvanilla, yeah, okay, you may get
(16:55):
an eyebrow raised, but you knowit's not going to put your kids
through college, that's fordamn sure.
Right, ain't gonna work.
Okay, we need to take a stand,we need to be strong enough,
brave enough.
Let us say let's have thecojones to say this is who we
are, this is what we stand for,this is what we're about.
(17:18):
And you know, you and I canboth name 101 podcast hosts who
fit this profile.
Love them or hate them.
You cannot ignore them andthat's the whole point.
That's why people keep oncoming back.
And it's the same thing formarketing, it's the same thing
for messaging, and the problemis too many business owners and
(17:42):
marketers for that matter, theyjump straight into the tactical
execution and they haven't donethe basics for marketing to
actually understand customerresearch, positioning,
segmentation, targeting, all ofthis stuff so that they can
actually have a clearly definedposition, not for them but for
(18:05):
their intended audience.
Because as people, as humanbeings, what we do is we
pigeonhole, right, it's just howthe brain works, so so-and-so
does this cause and effect, andit's all very transactional.
So, unless there's a clearposition that when your name,
(18:30):
your podcast's name, yourbrand's name, is mentioned in
the minds of your targetaudience, they can associate
your brand with this type ofposition from an aspirational
standpoint, informationalstandpoint, educational,
whatever it may be, unless youcan do that, any communication
(18:52):
that you then use on top of thatis bound to fall flat, because
you're putting the cart beforethe horse, aren't you?
Carl (19:01):
I think some of the challenges, too, that
up-and-coming podcasters face isthey're drawing comparison
based on somebody else'sexperience.
So they're saying, well, thisindividual is this successful
with the show.
Ergo, so should I be.
Just because I'm.
Gee (19:19):
You know, I'm doing a show too, so I'll take which is the
total wrong way of doing it,because what happens is the
audience thinks of them and notyou, right?
Look at 99% of mobile phone adson the TV.
Okay, we see the mobile phoneon a white background and it's
(19:39):
spinning around and it's superclose up and it's, you know,
ultra high definition and it'sperfectly lit, and there's some
plinky plplonky music going inthe background, right, and you
know whether it's Samsung orGoogle or whomever else, you
immediately think of Apple,right?
They're all trying to do whatApple are doing with their
(20:00):
hardware, and it doesn't workbecause you just think of Apple,
you don't think of Samsung,right?
So you know you need to forgeyour own path.
Now, that's scary, don't get mewrong, but the object of a brand
is to be distinctive in yourcategory.
The object of your brand is tobe different.
(20:23):
So being different starts fromday one.
So, by definition, you know youcan either be a brand leader or
you can be a brand follower.
Which one do you want to be?
Okay, if you want to be a brandfollower, it's easy.
Do what the other guys aredoing, right, but you'll be
drowned out in the general seaof sameness and nobody will
(20:47):
remember who you are.
So you need to have the balls,if I can use that word, to be
different, to be distinctive inyour category, so you can take
ownership of a particularposition, state of mind that
your intended audience canembrace, aspire to, acknowledge
(21:14):
whatever that may be, and ownthat space.
And there are plenty of brandswho are doing that today.
Liquid Death, for example.
Okay, they sell frigging water.
For goodness sake.
If you look at theiradvertising, it's like they're
selling like 200% proof grainalcohol or something right, and
(21:35):
they have fun with it.
Their delivery vans are in theshape of hearses.
They embrace the difference.
Now, it's not for everyone.
If you're used to your littleEvian bottle or your nice
teardrop-shaped Perrier bottle,great, but they're not for you
and they don't pretend to be foryou.
(21:56):
They're for a different type ofbuyer and they're not
embarrassed or ashamed of that.
And as a brand, you need to bedoing the same.
Carl (22:07):
I love where this has taken us.
I have one more question, then.
I want to give us theopportunity to make sure I, or
give you the opportunity toshare how people can connect
with you.
Let me give you the opportunityto gaze into a crystal ball and
share in your estimation.
What new marketing trends doyou see emerging, let's say,
(22:28):
over the next five to 10 years?
Where is marketing headedemerging, let's say over?
Gee (22:32):
the next five to 10 years.
Where is marketing headed?
I think because of what peopleare calling AI, which isn't
really AI yet, but let's justuse the terminology that people
know right.
Because of that, what we'regoing to get is more and more
brands looking the same, becauseeverybody's going to be
throwing their prompts into abunch of ai tools and it's going
(22:56):
to be vomiting out diarrhea.
All right, now there's an imagefor you, all right, and what
we're going to do is we're goingto get a sea of sameness.
No, already, when you look atmarketing today, especially
anything online okay, if you seethe creative, if you put your
(23:17):
hand over the logo, themessaging could be used by 150
different companies Already.
We have no distinctiveness, wehave no differentiation.
That's already the case.
Carl (23:29):
We're seeing it in the real estate space here, actually
, with a lot of realtors usingAI-generated tools to provide
their property descriptions, andyou can tell.
Gee (23:39):
Absolutely, because AI tends to use words that real
people don't use.
Right, when ChatG PT came outwhat was it?
Two Decembers ago?
Whatever it was okay, if you doa Google trend search for the
word Delve, all of a sudden itshot up, because most people
(24:00):
don't use the word Delve veryrarely anyway.
And ChatGPT, for some well, 3or 3.5, whatever it was at that
time 3 or 3.5, whatever it wasat that time had a predilection
for using the word Delve.
It smells wrong.
You know, you don't know whatit is, but there's something a
(24:21):
bit iffy here.
You know you open the fridgeand it's like no, there's
something in here that needs togo and needs to go now.
We've all been there.
Okay, I don't care how many,how often you clean your fridge,
which is never as often as yousay, okay, ever Right, there's
something not quite right, andthat's why I think the greatest
(24:44):
advances that we're going to seein marketing over the next few
years are not going to betechnological.
Next few years are not going tobe technological.
They're going to bepsychological, because it's not
about how AI works, it's notabout how Instagram works.
It's how the algorithm works.
It's how LinkedIn works.
(25:05):
No, the question we need to askourselves as marketers is how
does a human mind work?
How do we game the human mindto tap into those mental
structures, to be able to embedour message at a cerebral level
(25:25):
so that it can be thenremembered at the time of
consideration of purpose?
And that can only be done froman emotional aspect.
It can't be done purely factual, because that's not how our
brain works.
There's a great quote by a ladyby the name of Dr Jill
Bolt-Taylor who's aneuroanatomist.
(25:45):
It's a quote I use a lot and mypeople will tell you that I use
it too damn often and what shesays is most people assume that
we are thinking creatures thatfeel, when actually we are
feeling creatures that think.
And we need to tap in anybody,no matter what you're selling,
(26:06):
who you're selling it to,whether it's B2B, b2c, D2C,
whatever else.
Okay, all of us, we buy here.
We buy from our heart first,and then we post-rationalise
with our head.
We tell ourselves a story toconvince ourselves that that was
a good purchase to make, but webuy emotionally.
(26:28):
Even the decisions that wethink we're taking rationally
are actually taken emotionally,unless you're talking about
commodity goods, in which casebranding becomes very important
in various ways, but otherwise,consciously or unconsciously, we
buy emotionally and wepost-rationalize logically.
Carl (26:50):
Wow, I am so astounded by our conversation today, oh
really yeah, you need to get outmore clearly.
I'll give you that one.
I'll give you that one my friend, a very deep dive into
marketing, and you know what?
I'm sure that our audience isgoing to glean a lot out of this
(27:11):
, just because of the fact thatthere are many podcasters out
there who need to consider anumber of the things that we've
touched on today.
However, what I want to do isgive you the opportunity to
share how people can reach outto you or connect with you to
find out more about what it isthat you do.
What's the best way for folksto do?
Gee (27:25):
that I tell you they should all go away and leave me alone
in peace.
That's what they should do.
No, the best way to get hold ofme to be honest is on LinkedIn.
Now, Carl, you may find thisextremely, extremely weird, but
did you know there's only oneGee Ranasinha on LinkedIn?
Carl (27:44):
I am morbidly surprised.
That's what it sounds like.
Gee (27:48):
So best way to connect with me is to find me on LinkedIn.
A few times a week I expoundthis kind of drivel on my
LinkedIn feed with a bunch ofvideos, and they're small,
bite-sized, one-minute longvideos with either words of what
I would consider wisdom orsomething that's pissed me off
(28:08):
that day, or whatever else.
But hopefully people will findit either educational, amusing,
entertaining, offensive,whatever.
As long as the reaction to itis not indifference, then I'm a
happy man.
So find me on LinkedIn.
Otherwise, obviously, thewebsite is Kexino.
com and I'm on far too manysocial media channels.
(28:35):
I'm almost embarrassed to tellyou how many.
Otherwise, just Google me,you'll find me.
It's pretty darn easy.
Carl (28:41):
We'll make sure that we post the links to all of those
social channels, especially yourLinkedIn and your website as
well, in the show notes, sopeople can check that afterwards
.
Gee, before I let you go,though, to either post something
on your LinkedIn feed orinspire somebody else to do the
correct kind of marketing, I'llleave you with the final thought
(29:03):
.
Gee (29:05):
I think the final thought has to be is to understand.
Lots of people ask me you know,what is the secret in business?
How can I be better at business, how can I serve my customers
better, how can I differentiatemyself from my competitors?
And based upon, you know thenumber of years I've been on
(29:25):
this rock that's spinning aroundthe sun.
One thing I've seen time andtime again is just do what you
said you were going to do whenyou said you were going to do it
.
Just doing that will put you atleast 80% up on the entire list
(29:50):
of everybody else, because mostpeople fail at that.
What do I mean by that?
I mean, if you tell yourcustomer that you will give them
a proposal on Friday at 10am,you make sure you move heaven
and earth to deliver that onFriday at 10am, not Friday at
10.30am.
On Friday at 10am, not Fridayat 10.30am, not Friday at 3pm,
(30:13):
certainly not Monday at 9am, butFriday.
You just do what you said youwere going to do when you said
you were going to do it.
Right, because I thinkintegrity a precious and
fleeting resource withinbusiness and fleeting resource
(30:34):
within business and, at the endof the day, people buy from
people, and if you can just betrustworthy and honest with
yourself and how you deal withother people will automatically
put you in the top percentilecompared to your competitors.
Carl (30:51):
I think that's a great place to leave it.
Gee Ranasinha, thank you somuch for being my guest today.
Gee (30:56):
It was an absolute pleasure .
Thanks to you again for theinvitation.
Carl (31:00):
And thank you for joining us today.
Special thanks to our producerand production lead, Dom Carillo
, our music guru, Nathan Simon,and the person who works the
arms all of our arms, actuallymy trusty assistant, Stephanie
Gafoor.
If you like what you heardtoday, leave us a comment and a
review, and be sure to share itwith your friends.
If you don't like what youheard, please share it with your
(31:21):
enemies.
Oh, and if you have asuggestion of someone who you
think would make an amazingguest on the show, let us know
about it.
Drop us an email, askcarl@carlspeaks.
ca.
Don't forget to follow us onLinkedIn and Twitter as well.
You'll find all those links inthe show notes, and if you're
ready to take the plunge andjoin the over 3 million people
who have said yes to podcasting,let's have a conversation.
(31:43):
We'll show you the simplest wayto get into the podcasting
space, because, after all, we'repodcast.
Solutions made simple.
We'll catch you next time.
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