B2B Marketing Lessons From Unlikely Industries

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
If you're only studying B2B, you're missing the

(00:02):
best ideas.
Liquid Death grew fromapproximately 110 million in
2022 to 263 million in 2023 bytransforming canned water into a
rebellious, story-driven brand.
It's proof that looking outsideyour own category can spark
strategies most B2B teams nevereven think about.
But we're going to be thinkingabout them on today's episode.

SPEAKER_01 (00:28):
All right, well, welcome everybody and welcome
Zach.
Good to see you.
Glad you're liking the newmonitor.

SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
Good to see you too, Rich.
If you guys see me looking up,it's because Rich is on one
monitor and my prep is onanother.

SPEAKER_01 (00:40):
So Zach is a dual monitor setup now, so we're all
good.
Um, all right, so in thisepisode, we're gonna step out of
the B2B bubble a little bit andinto three very, very different
B2C campaigns that shouldn'treally work on paper, but they
they totally did.
Um, for each one, we're gonnabreak down what happened and the
real numbers behind thecampaigns, and we will dive a

(01:02):
little bit into why these B2Ccampaigns matter for B2B.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08):
There's some really interesting ones.
I'm ex I'm interested to seewhat you think, Rich.

SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
All right.
Well, I'm interested to see whatUncle Angelo's eggnog is.
We're really getting themed onthese drinks now as we get
closer to Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20):
Yep.
We're getting into that lateNovember, early December time of
year.
Uh, so this one is a punchserving, and it is from a
legendary bartender andmixologist Dale de Graff.
Uh, in my research on this, Iwas like, okay, who's Uncle
Angelo?
Uncle Angelo is actually hisUncle Angelo.
And uh there's actually a lot ofvideos online of this specific

(01:44):
recipe of people using it.
So it's very popular around theholidays.
Uh, it uses a split base ofbourbon and spiced rum, real
eggs, whole milk, and heavycream.
And then it gets whipped intosomething that's both fluffy and
very easy to drink.

SPEAKER_01 (01:57):
So all right then.
Um, interesting.
Glad it's really his UncleAngelo, not just some made-up
fake character.
That's great.
Uh okay, so let's get into therecipe.
Um, just for the record, I donot like eggnog.
I think it's disgusting.
Um, if somebody made this, Iwould try it though,
potentially.
Uh so six eggs separated intoyolks and whites.
So you can separate those withyour fingers, or there's a whole

(02:19):
bunch of ways to do it.
You can buy an egg separator.
Yolks in one bowl, eggs in theother bowl, or uh whites in the
other bowl, I guess.
Three quarters of a cupgranulated sugar divided into
two portions, uh, eight ouncesof bourbon, four ounces of
spiced rum, one quart of wholemilk, one pint of heavy cream,
and garnish it with freshlygrated nutmeg, which sounds

(02:39):
absolutely delicious.
Okay, so if we're going to,okay, so we're really like, I
mean, we're almost makingwhipped cream with these egg
yolks kind of a thing, like, ormeringue, I guess it would be.
So in a large bowl, you're gonnawhisk the egg yolks with about
half the sugar until it lightensin color and thickens a little
bit.
Stir in the bourbon, the spicedrum, the milk, and the cream

(03:00):
until everything is fullycombined.
And then in another bowl, you'regonna beat the egg whites with
the remaining sugar until softpeaks form.
So, yes, you're making ameringue, 100%.
So gently fold roughly one-thirdof the whipped egg whites into
the yolk and spirits mixture tolighten it, keeping the rest
aside.
So uh fold in.
Uh, you've got to fold in thecheese, as Moira Rose said, but

(03:23):
no, we're folding in the softpeaks um into the yolk mixture.
Okay, I might do this one.
Um it's not a traditional eggnogat all.
Um, so divide that eggnog intoabout 12 puncher teacups, or
just put it in a punch bowl ifyou wanted to.
Um, you're gonna spoon a littleof the reserved whipped egg
whites on each serving if youwant a little bit of extra foam,

(03:44):
and then finish each one offwith some freshly grated nutmeg
on top.
Sounds great.
So, fun fact we have a nutmeggrater.
It's a little thing that goes inand you do this and it just
comes out the bottom.
It's very nice.
Highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 (03:58):
Yeah, this one's a fun one.
Um, I have a family Christmascoming up at the very beginning
of December.
And it's another one where it'slike mold wine, maybe a little
bit of this new eggnog we'venever tried.
Maybe this time they'll uhactually like it compared to the
mold wine.

SPEAKER_01 (04:12):
Yeah, you said the mold wine was not a hit.
So I think, I mean, I thinkhonestly, if you didn't
necessarily tell people this waslike if you didn't tell me this
was eggnog and you gave it tome, I would probably eat it or
drink it.
Um yeah, it looks pretty cool.
Yeah.
Um fun fun fact, you can alsowhip egg whites like that and
throw them on like hot cocoa oranything like that.

(04:32):
You can toast them a little bit,like put them on chocolate.
That sounds really good.
Yeah.
All right.
So that's from liquor.com.
Thank you to those folks and touh the legendary Dale de Gruff,
who I haven't heard of, butapparently Zach knows who he is.

SPEAKER_00 (04:46):
Apparently, this recipe is very popular.
I was reading a bunch of thecomments on one of the YouTube
videos, and everyone was like,This is my favorite recipe for
like Christmas.
And the video was six years old,so it's been around a while.

SPEAKER_01 (04:58):
Wow, that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 (05:01):
Yeah.
So uh, should we get into it?

SPEAKER_01 (05:10):
Uh, we're gonna talk about three very weird B2C
campaigns that uh worked reallygreat and shouldn't have because
you look at them on paper and belike, this is insane.
Um, but all of them did.
So we've got Liquid Death, uh,the Duolingo TikTok campaign.
I knew about that one andbringing detour, yeah.

(05:32):
Um, which I wasn't, I don'tknow.
I can't remember.
I feel like I know the Whopperdetour, but I don't remember
what it was because I don't dolike fast food really.

SPEAKER_00 (05:40):
So I think it's so interesting.
Um, so the interesting statsthis time are going to be used
to introduce introduce eachcampaign.
Um, so starting with LiquidDeath, we kind of teased this in
the intro, but in Liquid in2023, Liquid Death hit about 263
million in retail sales andexpanded to roughly 113,000

(06:00):
retail doors across the US andUK, making its third straight
year of triple digit growth,which is insane.

SPEAKER_01 (06:07):
Yeah, and then they grew again in 2024 by almost 100
million too, I think, uh, if Iremember right.
Okay, so liquid death.
Like, go ahead.
Sorry, I didn't mean to step onit.

SPEAKER_00 (06:18):
You're totally fine.
So this one to me is probablyone of the biggest examples of
how like for B2B, of somethingyou could do in B2B that could
translate well, or something toat least expand your horizons,
maybe not necessarily go as hardas they did, but liquid death
sold something that everyonesells the same, right?
Water.

(06:38):
Canned water.
Like, how can you sell water anydifferently than you already
selling it?

SPEAKER_01 (06:42):
Well, make it sound like it's gonna kill you, for
one.

SPEAKER_00 (06:44):
Make it sound like it's gonna kill you and get
people to buy into the actualbrand itself with their own
unique brand voice.
So they turned water into alifestyle and personality test,
which is funny because it's likeI know so many of my friends who
drink liquid liquid death, andthe water, I don't know if
you've ever tried it, Rich, butthe water is just like it's just

(07:05):
water.
But like people in my generationspecifically, and people that
are like more like punk, likeyou know, like the darker like
theme of things love it.
And I think it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 (07:16):
I think it's like Starbucks is just coffee, and
it's not even great coffee.
Like sometimes it's a little bitburnt, but I mean, you can build
like that lifestyle brand onsomething very ordinary and
boring.
Um like it's this one's aninteresting one to me because
they really like doubled down onthe death piece, right?

(07:38):
Yep, like just really went hardat that.
Um I also love that they did thetall boy beer cans, like beer
cell cans.

SPEAKER_00 (07:47):
Like they look cool when you drink them.

SPEAKER_01 (07:49):
Yeah, it looks like you're drinking like alcohol,
basically, but it's just it'sjust water.
Um, and it sounds like it'llkill you, but really their whole
tagline was murder your thirst.

SPEAKER_00 (08:01):
And they have actually kind of turned into a
lifestyle brand too.
A lot of their merch does reallywell from what I've seen.
And they do a lot of interestingcampaigns, like uh where I don't
know, like I I can't what wasthe one I was thinking of?
They do like a lot of campaignson like social media to try and
get people to like join them.
I'm pretty sure like one of themwas like you could like like

(08:24):
sell your soul to like get likefree water or something like
that.
And it's like that wow, that'sreally leaning into it.

SPEAKER_01 (08:31):
Really double down on the death piece.
So they didn't really have toput much behind this aside from
the brand, right?
So this wasn't like a bigmulti-million dollar,
multi-billion well,multi-million, I guess, hundred
million dollar campaign oranything.
It's just they found an audiencethat resonated really, really
well with them.
Um, and or that they resonatedwell with and pushed it hard.

(08:55):
Like, yeah, so I see like liquiddeath t-shirts more than I see
liquid death cans of water.
Exactly.
Because it's just a cool logo,right?
Like it's edgy, it's like alittle bit dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 (09:05):
Um they have like different flavors now, they're
expanding.
They raised funding at a$1.4billion valuation in 2024, which
is like double from 2022.
And it's brand awareness iscrazy.
I mean, if you ask someone whatliquid death is, there's
probably a pretty good chancethey know what it is.

SPEAKER_01 (09:23):
Yeah, about a third, right?
So it's about a 34% like umbrand awareness, um, which is
about 70 million people whorecognize the brand just
immediately.
Um so that is absolutely huge.
Yeah, and I love so I do havefriends who drink this as they
drink the energy drinks.
So they went from water tosparkling water, teas, energy

(09:44):
drinks.
Um, like probably really makingsome people in that um
non-alcoholic beverage category,like the teas and waters and
energy drinks, nervous.
Like, because I mean, and yougot liquid death energy drink,
it sounds like it's going totake you right to the edge of
death, which is like hyperenergetic, right?
Like that's what I would think.

SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 (10:04):
And insane.

SPEAKER_00 (10:06):
It's just interesting, right?
So the reason that I associatethis like as the campaign to
learn from the most is becauseB2B is a lot of the same boring
stuff, right?
We're all trying to sell thesame stuff.
And I think something that youcan take away from this, right,
is boring isn't a fixed state.
If water can become a brand thatpeople can get behind, then

(10:27):
things like any B2B industry canget like be a you have a unique
brand voice that people can getbehind.

SPEAKER_01 (10:34):
Yeah.
Digital marketing, we docampaigns, but like it's there's
a lot of people who do that.
You know, insurance is a greatB2B, like selling business
insurance is not the sexiestthing.
Um, and I think you saw in theconsumer side, Geico kind of did
that with insurance, right?
With the gecko trying to make itfun, and then they just
basically went to whatever'sweird and wacky they would um,

(10:55):
you know, kind of go with.
Um yeah.
So yeah, and we we talked aboutin B2B, like embracing your
brand, knowing your brand,embracing your brand and going
further with it.
And we talk about it with us,like we don't take the antidote
thing as far as we could, youknow.
And I've been like, do we dumpit?
Do we like keep it and goharder?
Like, you know, I hear there'ssome stuff on the content plan
for next year about that, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 (11:16):
But oh 100%.
But yeah, you just you just wantto design a brand that buyers
want to associate with, create acommunity.
If a lot of the reasons thatpeople are working with you are
because I mean, we've said it,people like our vibes and like
us as people, make that yourbrand and make it your unique
brand positioning and like yourunique brand voice.

(11:37):
Like it doesn't have to beboring, not everything has to be
the same.
I know we've been drilling intothat a lot in the last few
episodes, but it's true.

SPEAKER_01 (11:44):
Yeah, how far can you push it?
Like the good stuff happens whenyou're uncomfortable, even with
your brand.
Like you don't want tocompletely violate what your
brand's about, but a little bitof discomfort and feeling like
you're pushing it, especially ifyou're trying to reach a new
audience.
And honestly, as you know, GenZ, uh, well, millennials are
definitely decision makers inthe workplace now.

(12:04):
As Gen Z moves into that, andeven the younger folks, like
you're going to have to make ashift.
And these are the things theygrew up on, and these are the
things that they resonated with.
Now, you don't have to be like,you know, uh the what marketing
murder capital or I don't know.
Like, I don't even know what itwould be, what the exact example
would be.

(12:25):
Yeah, digital murder.
Um, but figuring out kind ofwhat you are and going into it.
And I think all of these brandsreally do that really well.
Um and yeah, if you freak out alittle bit, like that's okay.
Totally fine.
So all right.
So that was liquid death.
So die, like have an edge, havea point of view, dive into it in

(12:50):
an entertaining, fun way, andlike just double down on your
name and your brand and go forit.
All right, so uh I'm gonnaintroduce the next one then.
So does that sound okay?
Uh so uh there was a Dual LegoTikTok campaign teaching the
meaning of hashtags, whichgenerated a 39% click-through
rate.
If you've ever done anything indigital or in social, 39%

(13:13):
click-through rate isoutrageous.
They had 90 million video viewsand a 1400% increase in
followers for the brand'saccount.

SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
So that is insane.

SPEAKER_01 (13:23):
Like, and right, so they're doing like so Duolingo
is like learning a language,right?
Like it's you're learning alanguage.
Again, something that hashistorically been fairly boring.
You know, you get used to beCDs, or now it's online, and you
just repeat and repeat andrepeat, and Duolingo's like,
nah, we're gonna do somethingbetter.

(13:44):
All right.

SPEAKER_00 (13:45):
They're so honestly, the reason they're so successful
is because they're just all inon TikTok and they're unhinged
and they're not afraid to pushthe boundaries.
I know that can be pretty likescary for B2B businesses because
it's a lot more professionalservices and things like that.
But what you can really takeaway from Duolingo, right, is
they understand the platformwell.

(14:07):
So they're not afraid to go allin on the platform.
And they also really leaned intotheir brand and the humor of
their brand by having a mascotand making it do all the trends
on TikTok, making it do unhingedthings that you wouldn't expect
from it because it drivesawareness and it gets more eyes
on what Duolingo is.

(14:27):
I would say like a good amountof stuff that Duolingo posts
isn't even related to their appsometimes.
It's their mascot just doingsomething that's trendy,
unhinged, and funny.

SPEAKER_01 (14:39):
And I think that this goes back to like the
people like saying, Oh, should Ibe on TikTok?
Should I follow these trends?
And it's like the general adviceis only jump into a trend if it
man, if it like aligns with yourbrand.
Like make sure that there'ssomething that makes sense.
But Duolingo kind of threw thatout the window.
And it's sort of like when amovie is so bad it's good.

(15:02):
They went so far as to just havethis owl jump in on every single
trend, everything.
And so rather than pick andchoose what related to, like,
you know, learning languages,which I'm sure there's plenty of
stuff on there, the owl justdoes whatever.
He's like your crazy friend wholike tries to rope you into
every single TikTok challengethat ever comes up.

(15:25):
And so that I think is aninteresting lesson, lesson of
just pushing it too far andgoing all in, but by pushing it
too far, you did it just theright amount and you got noticed
and you got what you wanted fromit.

SPEAKER_00 (15:40):
Um I think it's interesting what they do with
the mascot, right?
So their brand is that mascotand they're giving it a
personality.
It's not just an owl doingrandom things.
You'll because you can kind ofexpect what the owl will do
based off of who Dewe Linguo isas a brand.
So it's a really interestingnarrative device.

SPEAKER_01 (15:58):
Yeah, I mean, and so for results, like we talked
about their social growth andeverything.
They went from about 50,000followers to several million
followers, which is great.
But like we we talk about likefollowers are a vanity metric,
right?
Like, yeah, it's there, but whatdo you get from that?
So they have 24.2 million activeusers.
Um, so that is huge.

SPEAKER_00 (16:21):
It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 (16:21):
Um, we don't have the numbers on where they were
before this, but probably prettysmall and being able to come
out.
But um they're really, reallyamazing at how they've converted
that social audience into actualpurchasers.
And then, like you can buyDuolingo, you can buy software,
but if you never use it, at somepoint you're gonna unsubscribe

(16:43):
or be done with it.
But they're they've got tens ofmillions of daily active users.
I think everybody with a serviceor an application would want
even 10 million daily activeusers.
Holy cow! That's likelife-changing for any brand.

SPEAKER_00 (16:59):
Um, and I think of so much what marketing is now is
it's less about sharing whatyour product and service is
sometimes, and it's more aboutjust getting awareness for your
brand, right?
And catching people's attention.
Like Duolingo, like I said, itdoesn't necessarily just talk
about the app itself.
They are pretty like cheeky withhow they throw it in there, but

(17:21):
it's more focused on grabbingyour attention because again,
the attention economy is socrowded that you only have a few
seconds anyway.
You might as well do somethingmemorable that makes your brand
memorable.
So when people see it, it'lldrive them back to it.

SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
Yeah.
And and just like, you know,somehow I have no idea how, but
damn, that all is crazy.
I should learn Italian.
It just connects in some weirdway and works.
I think the other piece of itthough, to your point, is it's
that awareness piece, right?
So if you were thinking ofstudying a language, I would
rather study one that has a fun,like with a with a company that

(17:56):
has a fun personality and brand,because my guess is the lessons
are going to be a little bitmore fun.
The lessons might even containsome unhinged elements, um, you
know, some unusual things thatthey might teach you.
Like that would be where I wouldgo with that.
So it doesn't necessarily meanpeople like suddenly want to
sign up and learn anotherlanguage, but if you're already
considering it and you've gotthe choice between like this

(18:17):
boring black and yellow logoover here that just has like
playlists that you download andyou go through them all and you
learn stuff, or Duolingo, whichdoes have a different
methodology to it as well.
And I think the crazy unhingedowl like ties in with their
slightly unorthodox way to learnlanguages.

SPEAKER_00 (18:36):
So there is a tie-in there though, but it's um it's
smart and it's calculated andit's not necessarily the entire
focus.
I mean, look at how much likelook at the success they've had
with it.
It obviously is like a formulafor success.
So Yep.

SPEAKER_01 (18:51):
And mascots can be hard too.
Yeah like you've really got tohave a point of view with their
mascot um and have somebody likemanaging that personality for
you or a team and really have itwell defined.
So all right, so should everyB2B brand just go get a mascot
and do crazy stuff on TikTok?
That's not what we're saying.

SPEAKER_00 (19:09):
Not at all.
No.
But again, it goes back to yourunique brand voice, right?
You need to have a unique brandvoice and you need to honestly,
you need to have some kind ofcharacter in the way that you're
like putting things out there,right?
Like ways of driving awareness,ways to get your unique voice
out.
And also, I think another lessonfrom this is just understanding

(19:32):
the platform that you're puttingyourself on.
Because if you have a deepunderstanding of that, it'll be
it'll you'll be able to drivemore success across Ali channels
as well.
So Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (19:42):
And I think that them narrowing to like just
really focus on TikTok, justsaying, look, this is where
we're gonna get the youngestaudience.
They're gonna be edgier, they'regonna be weirder, there's all
these trends and stuff thathappen on here.
So we're just gonna jump ontothat um and just double down on
it.
I mean, it's a risk, right?
Like to pick one channel andjust be like, we're gonna go all
in on this.

(20:02):
But then you get the buzz andpeople share outside of that
space, right?
Like I don't have TikTok, uh,which I mean, I'm old, I
shouldn't have TikTok probably.
People don't want me on there.
But um, I see TikTok videosbecause people reshare them as
reels or somebody sends it to meas a link in text.
Um, so they do, you know, moveoutside the platform as well.

(20:23):
And so I think as a B2B um, youknow, marketer or B2B business,
find a platform that works andgive it six months and just
double down on it.
Ignore everything else and justnail that platform that has your
audience and do something that'strue to that platform.

SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
Or if there's already a platform that's
driving growth or that's showingpotential like that, figure out
what you need to do to take itto the next level.

unknown (20:51):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (20:51):
How do you get noticed?
What are other people doing?
What content are peopleconsuming?
And what works for you?
It doesn't have to be anunhinged owl, like Duolingo,
like, you know, it's like it'slike lightning striking, right?
With some of those.
Um, you know, it worked reallywell for them, but they did it
and they own that and they ownthat space.
They own that kind of chaotic,crazy character space.

SPEAKER_00 (21:13):
Um they found their invisible differentiators.

unknown (21:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (21:17):
I mean, T-Mobile used to have it with their old
um, their old CEO.
He did weird, crazy stuff onmostly on YouTube, um, where he
would like speak directly topeople and he would just do
weird stuff and talk about howthey're just doing things
differently in the industry, youknow.
No taxes and fees, it's all justincluded.
If we say$35, it's$35.

SPEAKER_00 (21:36):
Now that's kind of Mint Mobile now, too, in that
space, right?
Where it's that's kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (21:41):
Yeah, mint is there.
Um, I mean, there's a few otherones that were there, but
T-Mobile, like prepaid carriers,did that because it was easier
and they had a lot of peoplepaying in cash, and it's so much
easier to not deal with senseand you know, with change in
cash.
Um but T-Mobile was the firstkind of major carrier to do it.
Um, and it resonated withpeople.

(22:01):
Like it's really, really handy.

SPEAKER_00 (22:03):
Yeah, and that's a good example of that.
We do have one last one, and Ireally want to share this one
because I think it's thefunniest one of the group.
And when I I didn't know thishappened, but the fact that this
happened is just it's an awesomeidea and it's really creative,
and it's a really fun way oflike poking fun at your
competitors.
So, for those that don't knowwhat Burger King's Whopper

(22:24):
Detour is, it's a stunt thatdrove more than 1.5 million app
downloads for Burger King, 3.5billion impressions, and around
40 million dollars in earnedmedia, a 37 to 1 return on
investment, which is bonkers.
But basically, what it is isBurger King gave people a one
cent Whopper deal.
If they were standing next to aMcDonald's when they opened or

(22:46):
downloaded the Burger King app,it was that's just such a funny
idea.
Like, I could not wrap my headaround that one.

SPEAKER_01 (22:55):
Great use of geofencing, right?
Like people think, oh, I shouldgeofence my location and remind
people when they're nearby thatthey should come here.
No, they were like, when youwere getting close to going to
our main competitor, we're goingto give you our product for a
penny.
Um, which I I wonder how manypeople steered away from a
McDonald's and just like gotback in their car and drove to
drove to Burger King.

SPEAKER_00 (23:16):
It's such a good idea because it's like one, like
Mc McDonald's was probably sopissed about that.
But also, like, you're justdriving so much revenue.
And like if you're getting a onecent Whopper, okay, I can
probably afford to get fries anda large drink and like one cent
is nothing.
And just like to get people todownload your uh app, which I'm

(23:40):
sure was the primary goal here,that is just like brilliant.
Like that is such a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 (23:46):
Yeah, because this was fairly early on the food
ordering apps, I believe, um,when this actually hit.
I don't think it was you know asubiquitous as it was because
what was this pre-COVID?

SPEAKER_00 (23:56):
Oh, I don't even I I didn't even see the date for
this actually.

SPEAKER_01 (23:59):
Let me look it up.

unknown (24:01):
Utah.

SPEAKER_00 (24:02):
It definitely could have been.
So something that I think isinteresting and how they came to
the conclusion to run thiscampaign is they started with a
very clear business goal, right?
Let's see how we can get appdownloads because we need people
to download our app.
What's and you break that idea,right?
You don't just say, okay, let'srun a campaign to generate
downloads and gain awareness.

SPEAKER_01 (24:22):
Call to action, download now.

SPEAKER_00 (24:24):
Yeah, you could they could have easily done something
like that, ran YouTube ads withlike a funny, you know.
But they went above and beyondto break what they would
normally do for a campaign likethis.
And I think that's somethingthat you should keep in mind as
a B2B business is okay, we allhave we have a goal of gaining,
you know, more website visits.
How can you be creative withthat goal?

(24:45):
How can you push the boundariesof what's normally done?
Because at the end of the day,we're not trying to go viral,
but if you can push outside ofthe box, you're bound to see
some success, especially if it'sas brilliant as this.

SPEAKER_01 (24:55):
So I was right.
This was 2018, it was pre-COVID.
So this was before we were allused to having food and having
food delivered.
This is when DoorDash was like,eh, like, I don't know, like
it's kind of awkward to use andit's expensive.
This was before, you know,having somebody bring food to
your house was ubiquitous, oreven ordering in an app and
going to pick it up, likethrough the drive-thru or pick

(25:16):
it up in one of the littlemarked parking spaces.
Like, I don't think they hadmarked parking spaces in 2018
for like buy online, pick up andstore for food.
So this is huge.
I mean, this also gets me to themessage and like what's your
offer.
So I think download our app andanytime you're near a
McDonald's, or you know, thefirst time you're in a
McDonald's, whatever it was, geta one cent Whopper.

(25:38):
It's basically download our app,get a one cent Whopper.
You know, there's a littlecondition inside there about
where you have to begeographically.
Um the beauty is you can alsoset this on autopilot, right?
Like it just geofencing justruns.
And so they had all this set upin the back end, and their
message was super easy.
And when it got out, like yousaid, 40 million in earned

(26:00):
media, three and a half billionimpressions.
So earned media.
They didn't have to spend 40million on a campaign because
everybody wanted to talk aboutthis.
Um it's absolutely ridiculous.
Uh so what did they get for it?

SPEAKER_00 (26:16):
It's so awesome.

SPEAKER_01 (26:18):
I mean they sold burgers, right?

SPEAKER_00 (26:21):
Like tons.
37 to 1 return on investment.
I'd say that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 (26:26):
Yep.
Highest Burger King foot trafficin more than four years for them
during this campaign.
And that's what you wanted,especially then as retail.
You want people to come back.
You want people in the door.
And it used to be like, oh, runradio ads.
And it's like, no, like, no.

SPEAKER_00 (26:42):
Well, and I think it's interesting that they
played offense and not defense,right?
Like, the most we see with likeplaying offense with competitors
in B2B is like, oh, we'll tryand rank for the same keywords,
branded keywords as them, sothat when people search their
brand, we can like a company, wecan be on top.
But I think there's likeinteresting ways you could go
about it if you really thinkoutside of the box, which has me

(27:04):
thinking, like, how can we playoffense for some of our clients,
right?
Like, what can we do to like goabove and beyond just ranking
for keywords that ourcompetitors would?

SPEAKER_01 (27:14):
So one of the things we did when I was at cricket is
whenever we went into a newmarket, uh, one we before
anybody knew we were coming inthere, which was really early.
Because like when you startbuilding towers and you get
licenses for like everybodyknows you're coming in and all
your competitors do.
So from a marketing standpoint,our agency would go in with an
unnamed client long before we'regoing into the market, and they

(27:38):
would reserve billboards um nearor ideally above or right next
door to competitors' locations.
Um, if we were in a market wherethe competitor had a
headquarters, we would put abillboard on the way to and on
the way out of theirheadquarters.
Um, there was one time um weactually put a billboard uh on

(27:59):
the route that the CEO of acompeting company would take to
and from work, specificallymessaged at him.
So those kinds of things can befun.
It reminds me of um have haveyou seen the Wendy's billboard,
like that's outside theMcDonald's where she's just like
looking through the trees likethis?

SPEAKER_00 (28:15):
Yeah, like I've seen it.

SPEAKER_01 (28:16):
It's so hilarious.
So you can use outdoor likethat, you can use digital like
that.
Um, there's interesting thingsyou you can do with digital out
of home um with displays andthings, and having messages come
up when somebody with a specificdevice is within that radius of
that sign.
Um very, very interesting.

(28:38):
So I think this one is thatplaying offense is really you're
nailed at the key to this one ishow do you get ahead of it and
like catch your competitor offbalance, like throw them off
balance to catch them off guard.

SPEAKER_00 (28:53):
Um and how do you take simple campaign goals and
go outside of the box with them?
How do you achieve those goalsin a way that others haven't so
you can beat that sea ofsameness?
I feel like that's my likecatchphrase lately is like sea
of sameness, but it really is alot of the same stuff, and you
really need to think outside thebox.

SPEAKER_01 (29:12):
So a hundred percent.
I mean, and this one's a littlebit harder because like I also
think like think about youroffer too.
Um, you know, a lot of places doa free consult, they'll do a
free, like we'll do a free auditof your social media, those
types of things.
Those are things that we couldput out in front of somebody.
Um I also wonder, so sometimesthat um the one cent burger

(29:35):
probably performed better intesting than the free whopper
because a free whopper has novalue.
A one cent whopper isdiscounted, whatever the price
is, down to one cent.
Yep.
Um, same reason that retailNebraska Furniture Mart does
this all the time.
It's a purchase with purchaseinstead of a gift with purchase.
If you buy this couch, then youcan buy well, a big better one

(29:59):
is if you buy this.
This oven, you can get thisturkey roasting kit for just
five dollars.
But they make you pay for itbecause then it has value, you
know, and they say, you know,regular retail value of$50 or
whatever it is.
Um, so the penny was interestingfor me here too.

SPEAKER_00 (30:19):
It's all interesting.
I love those campaigns.
Like a lot of them are justlike, I just want it just makes
me think what we can do to likeemulate or like come up with
ideas to really think outsidethe box.
It just, oh, it's just fun.
And you can push it right up tothe line of petty.

SPEAKER_01 (30:34):
Like you're like being petty is a little bit like
sometimes you can go over theline.
I know we have a couple oftimes.
Um, but you know, getting itright up there and making sure
that you're getting that thathumor and impact benefit for
whatever kind of chaotic evilyou've got going on within this
campaign as well.
So these are good, these arefun.

SPEAKER_00 (30:56):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (30:57):
All right.

SPEAKER_00 (30:58):
That's an episode.

SPEAKER_01 (31:00):
It is.
So uh thanks everybody forlistening.
We are super happy um thatyou're here and we hope you
found this interesting.
And definitely let us know.
So Zach will let you know how todo that.

SPEAKER_00 (31:11):
Yeah, you can find our agency at editou71.com and
all of our socials that arethere as well.
If you have a question you'dlike to send our way, head it to
head to CTA Podcast.
Your question will make it intoa future episode of the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 (31:31):
All right.
Uh, and we will be back nextweek, I believe, with another
episode.
See you next week.