April 17, 2024 • 26 mins
We discourage everyone from listening to this episode and hearing our thoughts on the new ad for NotMayo. Just rip out your earbuds now, because you do not want to know what we have to say.
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #Mayonnaise #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #MayoHaters #Dove #RealBeauty #Reactance
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #Mayonnaise #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #MayoHaters #Dove #RealBeauty #Reactance
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Speeding Human. Today on Speaking Human, we discourage everyone from listening to this
episode and hearing our thoughts on thenew ad for not mayo. Just rip
out your earbuds now because you donot want to know what we have to
(00:21):
say. Speaking Human. Welcome toSpeaking Human, where we simplify the world
of marketing for humans. I'm ShadConley, and with me is my co
host Patrick Jebber. Patrick, sinceyou are hip with the gen Z Lingo,
(00:47):
you want to fill me and ourlisteners in on the new word of
the day. What's the word ofthe day? Man? All right?
The word of the day, Shad, it's actually ready three words combined to
make one meaning. Okay, okay, the word or the phrase I should
say, it's the phrase. It'sskibbity. Ohio riz oh. It's a
(01:12):
triple a triple threat right now forthose maybe who aren't as cool as you
out there, what does that meanexactly? I'll break it down very similarly
to how I was taught. Now, I knew the word skibbety. Skibbity
kind of comes from a set ofviral videos. It was a skibbity toilet.
(01:36):
Yep, I know skibbity toilet.Okay, it's real weird. So
skibbety means bad. It's come tomean bad over time, right, the
word has evolved a little bit,not like when people used to be like
skibbity be bop be bop boop bop. Well, you know, yeah,
I think it had some sort oflike connection to that at some point,
(01:57):
but you know, it just becamesomething else, And a lot of what
I understand is like middle schoolers kindof started a lot of this trend in
terms of using words to mean somethingelse, or using a word that started
from something and that became morphed intoanother whole other thing. Right, So
(02:17):
skibbity toilets morphed into skivity, whichmeans bad. Gotcha, easy enough?
Yeah. So then you have Ohio, the state skibbity Ohio riz Ohio,
interestingly enough, started from a lotof the negative press that Ohio got in
(02:38):
the news. We got some badpress in Ohio from a number of different
things, from education to you know, just whatever, and people would say
only in Ohio. So then itjust got condensed down to Ohio. Does
this relate to that down in Ohio? Song, I don't know. That's
(02:59):
a great question. And I don'tknow if that's if that's part of it
could be. I suppose, Imean, you know, there's probably elements
of that. So does ohio meanbad too? Yeah, ohio means cringey
in if you know what cringey,cringe e is bad, you know,
generally speaking, and riz is likeif you've got game, your ability to
(03:21):
flirt. You know, some wouldsay charisma, So skibbity ohio riz means
you don't have good game, youdon't have good charisma. It is,
for what I understand it to bethe ultimate diss right, it's the ultimate
insult. So skibbitty ohio riz.That's the word of the day. So
(03:46):
you'd be like, man, thatguy's got some skibbity ohio riz. Yeah.
And as a phrase, you know, you can use it together,
right, which is the ultimate insultor disc But but each of those words
individually can be used. Like you'llhear kids just running around saying ohio and
they're talking about something that's cringey orskibbety, you know, and then combining
(04:13):
that even with obviously skibbity toilet orsomething like that, so they're not scatting
or teaching each other about the statesright that they are not they are not.
And you know, as a matterof fact, even bringing this up
to my own teenagers, they theywere appalled. They were appalled that I
(04:34):
was even one saying the words,but two they were mortified that I was
going to be talking about it onthe podcast. So, listeners, I
am giving you the real tea rightnow. Okay, as as it's known,
which means you know the truth,and to my own demise, I
(04:58):
may be given it to you.You know, I get canceled by middle
schoolers everywhere. Yeah, this issome insider scoop. This is the thing
they don't want you to know.Right, So if you're trying to speak
to your audience, and your audienceis that of gen Z I guess would
be the right generation, then youmay need to know these words. So
(05:24):
that's why these words are the wordsof the day. What a knowledge bomb.
You didn't just give us one,You dropped us a combo. Yeah,
that's like learning a move in avideo game. It's like a triple
threat there. Yeah, instead oflearning bonyo, you know in Spanish,
you learn to ask where the bathroomis? Right? Where is the library?
(05:48):
You know? And when you learna different language, you want a
phrase that helps you, and thismight be that for you. What a
way to I don't even know howwe're going to follow that up? What
a way to start start off?The show has absolutely nothing to do with
what we're talking about today. Idon't even know how to segue from there
to you. Well, you know, you might say, today we're going
(06:14):
to be talking about the Not Mayoad, and the people in this ad
might consider mayo skivity, skibbty,ohio bad, cringey, yuck m right.
Well, yeah, And another wayof looking at it is you're talking
about a negative phrase, right,the use of negative phrasing, and in
(06:36):
some ways we're talking about turning negativeinto a positive within you know, advertising
and marketing. So maybe that's yourconnection there as we dive in to a
big vat of mayonnaise. Nothing likea big vat of mayonnaise to make an
episode go down smooth. Yeah,And that is not slang term. We're
(07:01):
literally, we're literally talking about mayonnaise. Let's get into that. In March,
Craft Times and the Not Company actualname of the company, The Not
Company, debuted a new ad forNot Mayo, a vegetable based mayonnaise titled
(07:25):
Mayo Haters. That's the name ofthe ad, Mayo Haters. In the
ad, people who hate mayonnaise areinvited to a focus group to try a
mysterious product. They are told it'snot mayonnaise, but what they're given tastes
exactly like mayonnaise, so much sothat it makes many of them gag.
(07:47):
This is the comical premise, notMayo tastes so much like Mayo it grosses
people out who hate Mayo? Patrick, what do you think of this ad
for not Mao Mao Haters? Youknow, I thought this was going to
be really stupid. I went inactually thinking that it was going to be
skibbitty ohio Yeah, But instead Iended up liking it. I thought it
(08:11):
had some riz No, that's gotrizz. It's probably not the right term,
but it was. It was muchbetter than I thought it was going
to be. I'm I'm with you. I actually love it. I think
it nails. It nails the message, and it does so in an entertaining
way. At what first looks likekind of one of these, you know,
(08:31):
reality focus group things, turns outto be something a little more interesting,
even though if you stop to thinkabout it for more than a minute,
the premise holds absolutely no weight.The thing is is it tries to
come around you and kind of likesneak up, like, hey, if
(08:54):
you love mayonnaise, you're gonna lovethis because this tastes like mayonnaise, but
telling you in a way that it'sdescribing it as tasting like mayonnaise and giving
it to people who hate mayonnaise.So it's sneaky. It's sneaky like that,
right, Yeah, well I supposeit's sneaky with a purpose too,
which is if you love mayonnaise,you're probably like, I'm not interested.
(09:18):
I love mayonnaise. Yeah. It'skind of a genius concept and it's executed
super effectively. I mean, youreally leave this two minutes with one key
piece of information, which is notmayo, which is this plant based mayo
tastes exactly like mao. Right,you leave this. You watch these people
who don't like mayonnaise and they trythis and they're like, ah, it's
(09:43):
mayo. It's mayo. It's justlike mayo. So you leave this thing
thinking, wow, this stuff musttaste exactly like mayo, even though you
know once once I got away fromit. I was like, what do
people who never eat mayo or hatemayo really know about the taste of mayo?
But none of that really matters.You get that message and it comes
across so effectively. This stuff reallytastes a lot like Mayo. That's what
(10:05):
you leave there thinking. And it'sa lot like these taste test promos that
they do, you know, butit has this reverse testimonial type of vibe
to it, which it's like ifyou were going to buy a product on
Amazon but only wanted to see thenegative reviews to know the product is good,
you know what I mean, Like, oh yeah, all those negative
(10:28):
reviews. That means this is exactlywhat I want, right yeah. And
that's what makes it entertaining. Ifit was just a straight up taste test,
people be like, oh, it'sgood, it tastes like Mayo.
Instead, you know, you watchthis and you watch these people who don't
like Mayo gagging on this stuff becauseit's so much you know, it's mayonnaise,
(10:50):
tasteless like mayonnaise. You just grabthat message and you're you know,
you're laughing while you're getting the idea. It's like put across in a way
that's incredibly memorable. Yeah, yeah, and somehow it works far better.
I mean, do you remember theLiquid Death versus the most expensive beverages on
Earth where they do the taste testsand they give them like stuff they put
(11:11):
in a blender that's like really expensive, like Caviare and all that, and
it's very disgusting. They put ayou know, blind taste tests against next
to their water, and you know, obviously the water's going to taste better
than this stuff is gross. It'sa lot like that, but it's just
(11:31):
way more clever, you know,than Not Mayo. The other one is
so obvious. It's like, well, yeah, if you put it next
to something that's really gross and costsa lot of money, you don't need
to spend a lot of money tohave something that tastes good, right,
is the Liquid Death thing? Youknow, it's a dollar ninety nine for
the water, but the not Mayo. It works so well because watching someone
(11:54):
sort of like gag because they hateMayo so bad. You would think it
would be too gimmick, but it'spretty funny because they go into it saying
I don't like Mayo already. I'mtelling you up front this is disgusting,
and yet you're still feeding it tome to explain to me that this taste
(12:16):
just like the thing that I hate. You know. So there's some just
built in humor to this thing thatI can't deny. Is is very entertaining
to watch. I love how theywalk into the focus group going, I
hope they don't get me mayo,and then they're like this is mayo and
they're like no, it's not,like yes, it is. Yeah.
(12:39):
The great thing it does, though, it creates these people. It makes
us believe they are experts on thetaste of mayonnaise. The people hate mayonnaise.
It spends our disbelief, you know, through this whole setup that these
people know better than anyone the tasteof mayonnaise. You know. So we
leave this thing thinking, well,if these people are telling me that this
(13:03):
stuff tastes just like mayonnais, itmust taste just like mayonnaise. Again,
when you actually think about that,I don't know that there's much truth to
that, but it sells it sowell that you walk away from it and
you just you're totally sold on thatmessage. It was. It was one
of those natural efforts that you know, you and I both watched and we
(13:24):
were like, this is something totalk about, right, because this idea
of whether you want to call itreverse psychology or whatever, is something that
you know, brands have done overthe years and sometimes really well, sometimes
not so great, I suppose,but it's a unique way of selling a
product or service or brand. Yeah, it's a twist. I refer to
(13:48):
it as like inverse marketing. Youknow, rather than go the traditional straight
ahead route, which is, youknow, what are the benefits, what
are the features, and you tryto sell people on it kind of saying
the opposite. You're talking about anegative or you're finding somebody who doesn't like
it, or talking about why theproduct isn't good, or making fun of
(14:09):
the brand or making fun of theindustry. You know, you're going around
the edges to get people to onepay attention to your marketing, which is
key, and to try to getthat message to stick in some way.
Yeah, doing it in a veryunconventional way. I mean that's really the
idea is like not how you wouldtypically see that brand or product being sold
(14:31):
by competitors even. Yeah, sothe not MAO ad got us kind of
thinking about some of these other examplesof inverse marketing. If we want to
call it that, like you said, kind of long used. I wouldn't
say super commonly used, but it'sbeen around for a while, you know.
If you want to call it reversepsychology or another way of talking about
it is reactants where individuals feel liketheir freedom or autonomy is being threatened,
(14:58):
leading them to react in an oppositeway to assert their dependence. Again,
there's kind of different shades of howmarketers use this, different ways they can
approach this to kind of flip marketingon its head. So we want to
share some examples of that with youtoday. We each kind of put one
together that we kind of pulled out. Do you want to talk about what
(15:18):
you want to spotlight your example there? Patrick, This is the one I
come back to that I thought hadthe most merit. In this case,
it's not quite the same approach thatthe not company used with not Mayo.
But my example comes from Dove,who began its life I'll give you a
(15:41):
little bit of background, who beganits life in nineteen fifty seven in the
US, so it's an older brand. It's owned by Unilever today, and
ironically, I thought this was interestingUnilever also owns the Helman's brand. Hello
not Mayo. Right, everything's ownedby the same person, is what you're
(16:03):
saying. Yeah, yeah, butI like the Mayo connection. So the
Dove campaign for Real Beauty, whichlaunched in two thousand and four September of
two thousand and four, nearly twentyyears ago, is a great example of
a company using reverse or inverse marketing. This campaign has had many individual efforts
(16:23):
over the past two decades, butthe one that I'd like to mention is
their beauty sketches. Have you everseen this one? I don't know it
sounds the name sounds familiar, butdescribe it and maybe I'll see if I
remember. So this one is fromroughly ten years ago. And first,
let me start by saying that thisis a company that is in the health
and beauty market. And one mightthink that to market to their audience,
(16:48):
in this case women, is totell them why they need their products,
that it will make them pretty orwill make them beautiful. But Dove's approach
within their whole campaign is the opposite. It's to make their audience realize or
see their inherent beauty. In thebeauty sketches ad they have a handful of
women sit down with a sketch artistwho cannot see them as they describe their
(17:12):
physical appearance to him. Then theyinvite these same women who met each other
during the filming of the ad todescribe each other, and the descriptions that
they provide are much more flattering thanthe ones they gave of themselves. They
come face to face with how theyview themselves and how others view them with
(17:33):
opposing sketches. So the sketch artistsactually shows them this is what you said
you looked like, but this iswhat so and so said you look like,
and how they could see the totalopposite or the you know, or
just a much more flattering vantage pointfrom someone else. And it really shines
a spotlight on how women can focuson what they perceive as negative attributes and
(17:57):
how their own perceptions can be skewedfor any number of reasons, right society,
all kinds of things. But thisis just one of the many individual
efforts within the Dove campaign for RealBeauty. In fact, you know how
I mentioned the twentieth anniversary of thiscampaign, They just put out a press
release a couple of days ago announcingtheir renewed commitment to real and made a
(18:21):
pledge to never use AI to representreal women and its advertising because of the
skewed nature in which AI projects beauty. So sometimes it's just about doing good,
in this case, doing the rightthing, which is not necessarily selling
their product, but by doing theright thing, they ultimately sell their product
(18:44):
because people trust them. Yeah,that's a really interesting example and a really
like unique way of kind of lookingat this, this whole idea talk about
coming at at things, you know, from an angle that nobody come at
it. They're almost like recreating thewhole category by breaking it down. It's
(19:04):
almost like the brand is secondary tothis this larger idea. Yeah, I
mean, and you know, empoweringyour customers in this case, you know,
or empowering your audience with something thatis probably very hard to come by,
which in some cases it's like selfesteem, you know, like really
(19:26):
building self esteem as opposed to breakingit down and use that to sell your
product. So so I think itwas really interesting. And then I've read
some stats and stuff. I mean, they've definitely i mean, as a
brand, there's some that say thatthey've been able to generate sales over a
billion dollars due to the campaign.I don't know how true that is,
(19:48):
you know, there's again it's it'shard to contextualize that, but regardless,
it's something really powerful about putting thatgood into the world right by doing this
kind of you know, real beautycampaign. So no, I like that
one, and I remember that sketchad in particular and kind of how powerful
(20:10):
that was as it really threw acurveball and something you weren't expecting. Yeah,
the new one's really cool too.It's kind of shows how AI when
you put in prompts shows beauty.We'll have both these up on the Speaking
Human website if you want to checkthem out. But it's really kind of
interesting. The new this like newrenewed sense of beauty and pledging not to
(20:32):
show AI versions of of women.What did you banko? Was a good
example of inverse marketing or coming aroundbeing sneaky, sneaking up on you.
So I looked at quite a fewof these and consider these, and again
there's just so many different like shadesof these. I considered even a diner
putting a sign in the window thatsays world's worst coffee. You know,
(20:56):
like, should I go in andget it. I also thought about if
you remember a long time we talkedabout the like Adiica ad where the grandfather
pretends to be dead to bring hisfamily together. Mm hmm. Kind of
fits in this category as well.I'll give you I'll give you two examples
that kind of do variations of thesame thing, which is give you conflicting
(21:18):
directives to what you would expect asa consumer. The first one comes from
the British Army ran a campaign thatsaid don't join the army, so it
was don't join the army, don'tbecome a better you. And another ad
it said don't join the army,don't stand on your own two feet,
don't make a difference, don't makefriends that last a lifetime, don't find
(21:42):
out what you're capable of, don'tbecome a better you, and it's army
be the best you know. Soit's this whole idea of this, this
don't idea of this kind of reversedirective almost challenging you in some way.
So that's the first kind of example. The second one, which took a
a little bit of a different approach, came from the Miami Hurricanes college sports
(22:03):
team during the twenty fourteen season footballteam not doing so great ran a big
headline in the newspaper that said,go to fewer games, and they were
selling many two game packages instead ofpushing like season tickets. It was go
to fewer games, go to lessgames. We're not going to try to
(22:26):
sell you full season tickets. We'rejust gonna we're going to sell you these
two game packages. But big letters. Go to fewer games. You know,
it's trying to sell you less.Similarly, you know, if you
go back, Volkswegen had like athink Small campaign a long time ago where
everybody was like trying to get largercars. They're like, no, you
(22:48):
don't want more, you want youwant smaller. It's this kind of like
inverse idea. It's here, you'reexpecting us to try to push more on
you, We're going to actually tryto sell you less. You know,
it grabs your attention by doing theopposite of what you're expecting from them.
I love those, And you knowthe thing is is like you're saying the
(23:11):
same thing as you would if youwere just using the positive. By saying
it in a negative way, youare immediately attracting a person's attention maybe it's
because we're drawn to negativity or something. I don't know, you know,
it's it's like, don't join thearmy, don't stand on your own two
feet. That idea, I thinkis just so powerful and it doesn't always
(23:37):
work, but in a lot ofways, when it's super simple like that,
I think it's the most effective.The negativity. We're just drawn to
it in some ways. So Ithink that that's why a lot of the
reverse psychology works. But yeah,which I think wraps into I guess our
final question here is this marketing approwhat's effective? And if so, why?
(24:02):
Why? Patrick? Why is iteffective? Well, here's what I'll
say. I think it can be. I don't think it always is,
but I think it can be.I think there's one element that I would
pull out right here on this episode, and that's that you really need to
know your audience. You build arelationship, you know, like I appreciate
(24:22):
you for not just trying to shillme some health and beauty products. That
makes me feel connected to that brand, you know. So making people feel
better about themselves empowers the audience andbuilds them up, And I think ultimately
that was them knowing their audience rightnow. That's a really good point.
(24:44):
My thought was along those same lines. It can be incredibly effective because it's
a zag when people are expecting azig, right, so it catches us
off guard and that grabs people's attention. And seventy five percent of marketing is
just getting people attention. Of course, the other key piece is getting your
message to stick then right once youdo have their attention. I think that's
(25:06):
where something like what the not Maoad did and if you've seen you know
Patagonias don't buy this jacket ad.They had a whole message built around that
and they really got people's attention withit one because it's not something they do
all the time. But you needto grab them and then get them to
remember more than just the surprise,you know, it has to be more
than just the zag. There.Yeah, well I think that. I
(25:29):
mean, those are some great examplesand hopefully you got a lot out of
this. And if you didn't,then maybe you love mayonnaise so you hate
this episode because we all know thatpeople who hate mayonnaise love this episode.
Do people who love mayonnaise hate thisepisode or people who hate mayonnaise love this
episode? I think people who hatemayonnaise, love this episode. Okay,
(25:52):
just just wanted to make sure wewere clear. I'm just you know,
I mean, that's my clarification.I could be wrong. Maybe you love
manse and hate this episode. Maybeyou should tell us that. Or maybe
you love mayonnaise and love this episode. That's cool too. I mean I
don't want to love not mayo andlove this episode. Yeah. I don't
want to throw you in a bucketand tell you you should love or hate
(26:15):
this episode, but I think youknow you should love this episode. Think
for yourself. Be who you are. Yeah, definitely be who you are.
Well, that's it for today's episode. Everyone. You can find current
and past episodes of the podcast onSpeakinghuman dot com. We'll be back in
(26:36):
two weeks with another episode of SpeakingHuman Catch It then Humans Speaking Human
Speeding Human. Today on Speaking Human, we discourage everyone from listening to this
episode and hearing our thoughts on thenew ad for not mayo. Just rip
out your earbuds now because you donot want to know what we have to
(00:21):
say. Speaking Human. Welcome toSpeaking Human, where we simplify the world
of marketing for humans. I'm ShadConley, and with me is my co
host Patrick Jebber. Patrick, sinceyou are hip with the gen Z Lingo,
(00:47):
you want to fill me and ourlisteners in on the new word of
the day. What's the word ofthe day? Man? All right?
The word of the day, Shad, it's actually ready three words combined to
make one meaning. Okay, okay, the word or the phrase I should
say, it's the phrase. It'sskibbity. Ohio riz oh. It's a
(01:12):
triple a triple threat right now forthose maybe who aren't as cool as you
out there, what does that meanexactly? I'll break it down very similarly
to how I was taught. Now, I knew the word skibbety. Skibbity
kind of comes from a set ofviral videos. It was a skibbity toilet.
(01:36):
Yep, I know skibbity toilet.Okay, it's real weird. So
skibbety means bad. It's come tomean bad over time, right, the
word has evolved a little bit,not like when people used to be like
skibbity be bop be bop boop bop. Well, you know, yeah,
I think it had some sort oflike connection to that at some point,
(01:57):
but you know, it just becamesomething else, And a lot of what
I understand is like middle schoolers kindof started a lot of this trend in
terms of using words to mean somethingelse, or using a word that started
from something and that became morphed intoanother whole other thing. Right, So
(02:17):
skibbity toilets morphed into skivity, whichmeans bad. Gotcha, easy enough?
Yeah. So then you have Ohio, the state skibbity Ohio riz Ohio,
interestingly enough, started from a lotof the negative press that Ohio got in
(02:38):
the news. We got some badpress in Ohio from a number of different
things, from education to you know, just whatever, and people would say
only in Ohio. So then itjust got condensed down to Ohio. Does
this relate to that down in Ohio? Song, I don't know. That's
(02:59):
a great question. And I don'tknow if that's if that's part of it
could be. I suppose, Imean, you know, there's probably elements
of that. So does ohio meanbad too? Yeah, ohio means cringey
in if you know what cringey,cringe e is bad, you know,
generally speaking, and riz is likeif you've got game, your ability to
(03:21):
flirt. You know, some wouldsay charisma, So skibbity ohio riz means
you don't have good game, youdon't have good charisma. It is,
for what I understand it to bethe ultimate diss right, it's the ultimate
insult. So skibbitty ohio riz.That's the word of the day. So
(03:46):
you'd be like, man, thatguy's got some skibbity ohio riz. Yeah.
And as a phrase, you know, you can use it together,
right, which is the ultimate insultor disc But but each of those words
individually can be used. Like you'llhear kids just running around saying ohio and
they're talking about something that's cringey orskibbety, you know, and then combining
(04:13):
that even with obviously skibbity toilet orsomething like that, so they're not scatting
or teaching each other about the statesright that they are not they are not.
And you know, as a matterof fact, even bringing this up
to my own teenagers, they theywere appalled. They were appalled that I
(04:34):
was even one saying the words,but two they were mortified that I was
going to be talking about it onthe podcast. So, listeners, I
am giving you the real tea rightnow. Okay, as as it's known,
which means you know the truth,and to my own demise, I
(04:58):
may be given it to you.You know, I get canceled by middle
schoolers everywhere. Yeah, this issome insider scoop. This is the thing
they don't want you to know.Right, So if you're trying to speak
to your audience, and your audienceis that of gen Z I guess would
be the right generation, then youmay need to know these words. So
(05:24):
that's why these words are the wordsof the day. What a knowledge bomb.
You didn't just give us one,You dropped us a combo. Yeah,
that's like learning a move in avideo game. It's like a triple
threat there. Yeah, instead oflearning bonyo, you know in Spanish,
you learn to ask where the bathroomis? Right? Where is the library?
(05:48):
You know? And when you learna different language, you want a
phrase that helps you, and thismight be that for you. What a
way to I don't even know howwe're going to follow that up? What
a way to start start off?The show has absolutely nothing to do with
what we're talking about today. Idon't even know how to segue from there
to you. Well, you know, you might say, today we're going
(06:14):
to be talking about the Not Mayoad, and the people in this ad
might consider mayo skivity, skibbty,ohio bad, cringey, yuck m right.
Well, yeah, And another wayof looking at it is you're talking
about a negative phrase, right,the use of negative phrasing, and in
(06:36):
some ways we're talking about turning negativeinto a positive within you know, advertising
and marketing. So maybe that's yourconnection there as we dive in to a
big vat of mayonnaise. Nothing likea big vat of mayonnaise to make an
episode go down smooth. Yeah,And that is not slang term. We're
(07:01):
literally, we're literally talking about mayonnaise. Let's get into that. In March,
Craft Times and the Not Company actualname of the company, The Not
Company, debuted a new ad forNot Mayo, a vegetable based mayonnaise titled
(07:25):
Mayo Haters. That's the name ofthe ad, Mayo Haters. In the
ad, people who hate mayonnaise areinvited to a focus group to try a
mysterious product. They are told it'snot mayonnaise, but what they're given tastes
exactly like mayonnaise, so much sothat it makes many of them gag.
(07:47):
This is the comical premise, notMayo tastes so much like Mayo it grosses
people out who hate Mayo? Patrick, what do you think of this ad
for not Mao Mao Haters? Youknow, I thought this was going to
be really stupid. I went inactually thinking that it was going to be
skibbitty ohio Yeah, But instead Iended up liking it. I thought it
(08:11):
had some riz No, that's gotrizz. It's probably not the right term,
but it was. It was muchbetter than I thought it was going
to be. I'm I'm with you. I actually love it. I think
it nails. It nails the message, and it does so in an entertaining
way. At what first looks likekind of one of these, you know,
(08:31):
reality focus group things, turns outto be something a little more interesting,
even though if you stop to thinkabout it for more than a minute,
the premise holds absolutely no weight.The thing is is it tries to
come around you and kind of likesneak up, like, hey, if
(08:54):
you love mayonnaise, you're gonna lovethis because this tastes like mayonnaise, but
telling you in a way that it'sdescribing it as tasting like mayonnaise and giving
it to people who hate mayonnaise.So it's sneaky. It's sneaky like that,
right, Yeah, well I supposeit's sneaky with a purpose too,
which is if you love mayonnaise,you're probably like, I'm not interested.
(09:18):
I love mayonnaise. Yeah. It'skind of a genius concept and it's executed
super effectively. I mean, youreally leave this two minutes with one key
piece of information, which is notmayo, which is this plant based mayo
tastes exactly like mao. Right,you leave this. You watch these people
who don't like mayonnaise and they trythis and they're like, ah, it's
(09:43):
mayo. It's mayo. It's justlike mayo. So you leave this thing
thinking, wow, this stuff musttaste exactly like mayo, even though you
know once once I got away fromit. I was like, what do
people who never eat mayo or hatemayo really know about the taste of mayo?
But none of that really matters.You get that message and it comes
across so effectively. This stuff reallytastes a lot like Mayo. That's what
(10:05):
you leave there thinking. And it'sa lot like these taste test promos that
they do, you know, butit has this reverse testimonial type of vibe
to it, which it's like ifyou were going to buy a product on
Amazon but only wanted to see thenegative reviews to know the product is good,
you know what I mean, Like, oh yeah, all those negative
(10:28):
reviews. That means this is exactlywhat I want, right yeah. And
that's what makes it entertaining. Ifit was just a straight up taste test,
people be like, oh, it'sgood, it tastes like Mayo.
Instead, you know, you watchthis and you watch these people who don't
like Mayo gagging on this stuff becauseit's so much you know, it's mayonnaise,
(10:50):
tasteless like mayonnaise. You just grabthat message and you're you know,
you're laughing while you're getting the idea. It's like put across in a way
that's incredibly memorable. Yeah, yeah, and somehow it works far better.
I mean, do you remember theLiquid Death versus the most expensive beverages on
Earth where they do the taste testsand they give them like stuff they put
(11:11):
in a blender that's like really expensive, like Caviare and all that, and
it's very disgusting. They put ayou know, blind taste tests against next
to their water, and you know, obviously the water's going to taste better
than this stuff is gross. It'sa lot like that, but it's just
(11:31):
way more clever, you know,than Not Mayo. The other one is
so obvious. It's like, well, yeah, if you put it next
to something that's really gross and costsa lot of money, you don't need
to spend a lot of money tohave something that tastes good, right,
is the Liquid Death thing? Youknow, it's a dollar ninety nine for
the water, but the not Mayo. It works so well because watching someone
(11:54):
sort of like gag because they hateMayo so bad. You would think it
would be too gimmick, but it'spretty funny because they go into it saying
I don't like Mayo already. I'mtelling you up front this is disgusting,
and yet you're still feeding it tome to explain to me that this taste
(12:16):
just like the thing that I hate. You know. So there's some just
built in humor to this thing thatI can't deny. Is is very entertaining
to watch. I love how theywalk into the focus group going, I
hope they don't get me mayo,and then they're like this is mayo and
they're like no, it's not,like yes, it is. Yeah.
(12:39):
The great thing it does, though, it creates these people. It makes
us believe they are experts on thetaste of mayonnaise. The people hate mayonnaise.
It spends our disbelief, you know, through this whole setup that these
people know better than anyone the tasteof mayonnaise. You know. So we
leave this thing thinking, well,if these people are telling me that this
(13:03):
stuff tastes just like mayonnais, itmust taste just like mayonnaise. Again,
when you actually think about that,I don't know that there's much truth to
that, but it sells it sowell that you walk away from it and
you just you're totally sold on thatmessage. It was. It was one
of those natural efforts that you know, you and I both watched and we
(13:24):
were like, this is something totalk about, right, because this idea
of whether you want to call itreverse psychology or whatever, is something that
you know, brands have done overthe years and sometimes really well, sometimes
not so great, I suppose,but it's a unique way of selling a
product or service or brand. Yeah, it's a twist. I refer to
(13:48):
it as like inverse marketing. Youknow, rather than go the traditional straight
ahead route, which is, youknow, what are the benefits, what
are the features, and you tryto sell people on it kind of saying
the opposite. You're talking about anegative or you're finding somebody who doesn't like
it, or talking about why theproduct isn't good, or making fun of
(14:09):
the brand or making fun of theindustry. You know, you're going around
the edges to get people to onepay attention to your marketing, which is
key, and to try to getthat message to stick in some way.
Yeah, doing it in a veryunconventional way. I mean that's really the
idea is like not how you wouldtypically see that brand or product being sold
(14:31):
by competitors even. Yeah, sothe not MAO ad got us kind of
thinking about some of these other examplesof inverse marketing. If we want to
call it that, like you said, kind of long used. I wouldn't
say super commonly used, but it'sbeen around for a while, you know.
If you want to call it reversepsychology or another way of talking about
it is reactants where individuals feel liketheir freedom or autonomy is being threatened,
(14:58):
leading them to react in an oppositeway to assert their dependence. Again,
there's kind of different shades of howmarketers use this, different ways they can
approach this to kind of flip marketingon its head. So we want to
share some examples of that with youtoday. We each kind of put one
together that we kind of pulled out. Do you want to talk about what
(15:18):
you want to spotlight your example there? Patrick, This is the one I
come back to that I thought hadthe most merit. In this case,
it's not quite the same approach thatthe not company used with not Mayo.
But my example comes from Dove,who began its life I'll give you a
(15:41):
little bit of background, who beganits life in nineteen fifty seven in the
US, so it's an older brand. It's owned by Unilever today, and
ironically, I thought this was interestingUnilever also owns the Helman's brand. Hello
not Mayo. Right, everything's ownedby the same person, is what you're
(16:03):
saying. Yeah, yeah, butI like the Mayo connection. So the
Dove campaign for Real Beauty, whichlaunched in two thousand and four September of
two thousand and four, nearly twentyyears ago, is a great example of
a company using reverse or inverse marketing. This campaign has had many individual efforts
(16:23):
over the past two decades, butthe one that I'd like to mention is
their beauty sketches. Have you everseen this one? I don't know it
sounds the name sounds familiar, butdescribe it and maybe I'll see if I
remember. So this one is fromroughly ten years ago. And first,
let me start by saying that thisis a company that is in the health
and beauty market. And one mightthink that to market to their audience,
(16:48):
in this case women, is totell them why they need their products,
that it will make them pretty orwill make them beautiful. But Dove's approach
within their whole campaign is the opposite. It's to make their audience realize or
see their inherent beauty. In thebeauty sketches ad they have a handful of
women sit down with a sketch artistwho cannot see them as they describe their
(17:12):
physical appearance to him. Then theyinvite these same women who met each other
during the filming of the ad todescribe each other, and the descriptions that
they provide are much more flattering thanthe ones they gave of themselves. They
come face to face with how theyview themselves and how others view them with
(17:33):
opposing sketches. So the sketch artistsactually shows them this is what you said
you looked like, but this iswhat so and so said you look like,
and how they could see the totalopposite or the you know, or
just a much more flattering vantage pointfrom someone else. And it really shines
a spotlight on how women can focuson what they perceive as negative attributes and
(17:57):
how their own perceptions can be skewedfor any number of reasons, right society,
all kinds of things. But thisis just one of the many individual
efforts within the Dove campaign for RealBeauty. In fact, you know how
I mentioned the twentieth anniversary of thiscampaign, They just put out a press
release a couple of days ago announcingtheir renewed commitment to real and made a
(18:21):
pledge to never use AI to representreal women and its advertising because of the
skewed nature in which AI projects beauty. So sometimes it's just about doing good,
in this case, doing the rightthing, which is not necessarily selling
their product, but by doing theright thing, they ultimately sell their product
(18:44):
because people trust them. Yeah,that's a really interesting example and a really
like unique way of kind of lookingat this, this whole idea talk about
coming at at things, you know, from an angle that nobody come at
it. They're almost like recreating thewhole category by breaking it down. It's
(19:04):
almost like the brand is secondary tothis this larger idea. Yeah, I
mean, and you know, empoweringyour customers in this case, you know,
or empowering your audience with something thatis probably very hard to come by,
which in some cases it's like selfesteem, you know, like really
(19:26):
building self esteem as opposed to breakingit down and use that to sell your
product. So so I think itwas really interesting. And then I've read
some stats and stuff. I mean, they've definitely i mean, as a
brand, there's some that say thatthey've been able to generate sales over a
billion dollars due to the campaign.I don't know how true that is,
(19:48):
you know, there's again it's it'shard to contextualize that, but regardless,
it's something really powerful about putting thatgood into the world right by doing this
kind of you know, real beautycampaign. So no, I like that
one, and I remember that sketchad in particular and kind of how powerful
(20:10):
that was as it really threw acurveball and something you weren't expecting. Yeah,
the new one's really cool too.It's kind of shows how AI when
you put in prompts shows beauty.We'll have both these up on the Speaking
Human website if you want to checkthem out. But it's really kind of
interesting. The new this like newrenewed sense of beauty and pledging not to
(20:32):
show AI versions of of women.What did you banko? Was a good
example of inverse marketing or coming aroundbeing sneaky, sneaking up on you.
So I looked at quite a fewof these and consider these, and again
there's just so many different like shadesof these. I considered even a diner
putting a sign in the window thatsays world's worst coffee. You know,
(20:56):
like, should I go in andget it. I also thought about if
you remember a long time we talkedabout the like Adiica ad where the grandfather
pretends to be dead to bring hisfamily together. Mm hmm. Kind of
fits in this category as well.I'll give you I'll give you two examples
that kind of do variations of thesame thing, which is give you conflicting
(21:18):
directives to what you would expect asa consumer. The first one comes from
the British Army ran a campaign thatsaid don't join the army, so it
was don't join the army, don'tbecome a better you. And another ad
it said don't join the army,don't stand on your own two feet,
don't make a difference, don't makefriends that last a lifetime, don't find
(21:42):
out what you're capable of, don'tbecome a better you, and it's army
be the best you know. Soit's this whole idea of this, this
don't idea of this kind of reversedirective almost challenging you in some way.
So that's the first kind of example. The second one, which took a
a little bit of a different approach, came from the Miami Hurricanes college sports
(22:03):
team during the twenty fourteen season footballteam not doing so great ran a big
headline in the newspaper that said,go to fewer games, and they were
selling many two game packages instead ofpushing like season tickets. It was go
to fewer games, go to lessgames. We're not going to try to
(22:26):
sell you full season tickets. We'rejust gonna we're going to sell you these
two game packages. But big letters. Go to fewer games. You know,
it's trying to sell you less.Similarly, you know, if you
go back, Volkswegen had like athink Small campaign a long time ago where
everybody was like trying to get largercars. They're like, no, you
(22:48):
don't want more, you want youwant smaller. It's this kind of like
inverse idea. It's here, you'reexpecting us to try to push more on
you, We're going to actually tryto sell you less. You know,
it grabs your attention by doing theopposite of what you're expecting from them.
I love those, And you knowthe thing is is like you're saying the
(23:11):
same thing as you would if youwere just using the positive. By saying
it in a negative way, youare immediately attracting a person's attention maybe it's
because we're drawn to negativity or something. I don't know, you know,
it's it's like, don't join thearmy, don't stand on your own two
feet. That idea, I thinkis just so powerful and it doesn't always
(23:37):
work, but in a lot ofways, when it's super simple like that,
I think it's the most effective.The negativity. We're just drawn to
it in some ways. So Ithink that that's why a lot of the
reverse psychology works. But yeah,which I think wraps into I guess our
final question here is this marketing approwhat's effective? And if so, why?
(24:02):
Why? Patrick? Why is iteffective? Well, here's what I'll
say. I think it can be. I don't think it always is,
but I think it can be.I think there's one element that I would
pull out right here on this episode, and that's that you really need to
know your audience. You build arelationship, you know, like I appreciate
(24:22):
you for not just trying to shillme some health and beauty products. That
makes me feel connected to that brand, you know. So making people feel
better about themselves empowers the audience andbuilds them up, And I think ultimately
that was them knowing their audience rightnow. That's a really good point.
(24:44):
My thought was along those same lines. It can be incredibly effective because it's
a zag when people are expecting azig, right, so it catches us
off guard and that grabs people's attention. And seventy five percent of marketing is
just getting people attention. Of course, the other key piece is getting your
message to stick then right once youdo have their attention. I think that's
(25:06):
where something like what the not Maoad did and if you've seen you know
Patagonias don't buy this jacket ad.They had a whole message built around that
and they really got people's attention withit one because it's not something they do
all the time. But you needto grab them and then get them to
remember more than just the surprise,you know, it has to be more
than just the zag. There.Yeah, well I think that. I
(25:29):
mean, those are some great examplesand hopefully you got a lot out of
this. And if you didn't,then maybe you love mayonnaise so you hate
this episode because we all know thatpeople who hate mayonnaise love this episode.
Do people who love mayonnaise hate thisepisode or people who hate mayonnaise love this
episode? I think people who hatemayonnaise, love this episode. Okay,
(25:52):
just just wanted to make sure wewere clear. I'm just you know,
I mean, that's my clarification.I could be wrong. Maybe you love
manse and hate this episode. Maybeyou should tell us that. Or maybe
you love mayonnaise and love this episode. That's cool too. I mean I
don't want to love not mayo andlove this episode. Yeah. I don't
want to throw you in a bucketand tell you you should love or hate
(26:15):
this episode, but I think youknow you should love this episode. Think
for yourself. Be who you are. Yeah, definitely be who you are.
Well, that's it for today's episode. Everyone. You can find current
and past episodes of the podcast onSpeakinghuman dot com. We'll be back in
(26:36):
two weeks with another episode of SpeakingHuman Catch It then Humans Speaking Human
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