Amazon vs. Taylor Swift: Battle of the Incomes | Weekly Digital Marketing Update 7/13

Joe and Kiersten are back in the studio! Amazon Prime Day and Taylor Swift are the hot topics, with a quick update on McDonald's Grimace marketing campaign!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Today on The Record podcast, wetalk about Amazon Prime Day, Taylor Swift,
moving the economy, and an updateon the Grimace Shake viral. Campaign.

(00:20):
Of Record is a podcast focus onthe marketing and advertising industry from the
perspective of industry expert Joe Clements.Joe Clements is a co founder of Strategic
Digital Services, a digital marketing firmbased in Tallahassee, Florida and founded in
twenty fourteen. Everybody, Welcome toanother episode of The Record podcast. The

(00:48):
actual host are back. The childrenhave been thrown out. I am your
host, Joe Clements, with meco host Kirsten Yo and producer Jamie Pushing
the buttons. Yep, Jamie hasa I listened to your guys podcast.
You have a really good voice.Thank you. You should do you did

(01:11):
some vos I know last week,but you have good voice. You need
to pick up your transition pace alittle though. Okay, yeah, I
think you had to move on tothe next thing. Speaking of the next
thing, so, something we talkedabout last time we were in studio was
the Grimace Shake TikTok trend and Icaught a bit an insider that the McDonald's

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CMO says they didn't plan it,and he's not sure if they want to
jump on it or I'm sorry.The McDonald's social media director denied rumors that
company planted the grimace shake trend andsay it's all from the fans, which
was what you thought. You saidthat someone probably just did it. It
picked up and the agents were probablylike, oh right, everybody. Yeah,

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And that's where I think we're gettinginto a little bit of nuance because
that term planted. I agree theydidn't plant it. I think what they
did is they hired a third party. Hey, go out, pay people
to do whatever and whatever works,tell them to keep doing it. So
I don't think they planted it.I don't think the idea came from McDonald's
corporate. I think the idea isbeing like genmed up by a third party

(02:21):
hire my McDonald's to get influencers doingit. And like I said, the
way I think they did it isthey just said, hey, here's fifty
bucks kid, do something to promotethe grimace shake, and then they watched
and saw what got the most attention, and then they highlighted to the other
influencers, Hey, here's what justgot attention. Do something similar and then

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that created the trend. One ofthe funniest things I saw come out of
this was like the person working atthe drive through and McDonald's hearing someone that
they're going to order a Grimace shakeand you have to make it just for
them to pour it all over theirheads and like they're just gonna spill it
out anyway, They're not even gonnaeat it. That's how it goes.
When you work at McDonald's sometimes getssome weird stuff. You're just like,

(03:04):
oh my god, like that.You know, they hate using the ice
cream machine of any sort, likebecause it's always broken, Like you know
that, the people were like,oh my god, I have to keep
making these stupid purple Grimace shakes.So another trend that I think is on
point besides Grimace shakes or on point. I'm not sure I like it.
I don't know how I feel aboutit. Christmas in July, yeah,

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yeah, so everybody's like full onChristmas in July. I'm seeing stuff all
around, including Amazon Prime Day nowbeing in July being like this huge shopping
day. Like you have a piecein here from market Watch that Amazon saud's
best sales performance ever on the firstday of Prime Yeah, which is kind

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of crazy that it exceeds any ofthe any of the holiday shipping days,
and it increased nearly six percent yearover year to six point four billion dollars
on the first day. Yeah.So we've talked about Amazon so much in
the past on this podcast, andthat I think they're still an undervalued company

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in terms of strength. What isyour opinion overall on Prime Day shopping?
Ka, Well, I just wantto go back to something you said months
ago, maybe even a year ago. At this point, I think it
was last Prime Day, is thatdoes this kick off the holiday shopping season?
And I think the answer is yes. I think when it happened in
October it did. Yes, Andit only happened in October because I think

(04:36):
of COVID that year. But um, I think you're right, and it's
a good thing because this is probablywhen people have more disposable income, Like
you either are taking a vacation,you're not taking a vacation, Like the
summertime is pretty a lax, relaxand kind of you know, yeah,

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thing I mean consumption of what isusual is consumption of almost everything goes down
in the summer except for travel.Yeah, people use apps, less people,
work, less people, watch lessTV. There's just more non consumptive
activities going on. They tend tobe outside or at events or things like
that. I mean, I cansee how this would tie in and maybe

(05:19):
like back to school, which ispretty big. But I suspect this is
just a bunch of people buying crapthey didn't know they needed until they opened
Amazon on Prime Day. Well that'show I shop on Prime Day, is
I things you didn't know you needed. I haven't bought anything for the actual
record, but I like to justlook at the lightning deals, Like I

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just like to browse through and see, like, what are other people buying?
Is it a good deal? BecauseI have gotten good deals on Prime
Day and it is kind of likeenough of a people are going to pull
the plug. Like my sister gotin like an I robot like self vacuum
thing and shell. Some of themare called I Robots. I think there's
another car. I think the brandis Robot. The product is a roomba.

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Today Kirsten's learned um, but shewouldn't have bought that full price ever,
but because it was like severely discounted, she was like, sure,
why not? I want to havea robot vacuum in my house. I
like my roomba. I had one. It was a knockoff rumba. Yeah
it was good, it was fine. It does it doesn't replace the whole

(06:23):
vacuum, but it's good in betweencovers the spaces where where you don't want
to do a full sweeping but stillwant something cleaned up. Yeah, exactly.
So Look, I think Prime Dayis it's its own thing now,
like it is generating and I knowthere's like wal Week or Walmart Week or
something Wally Week. It is.Amazon has created it effectively its own retail

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holiday, but has done it ina unique way where it didn't have to
create a holiday. So you goback to the turn of the century where
retailers were creating holiday, you know, are getting up Valentine's Day to sell
more stuff for Mother's Day and Father'sDay. You know, the old idea
of a hallmark holiday. Retailers usedto have to come up with the holiday

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to drive consumption. Amazon has managedto create a holiday around consumption to drive
consumption. Hmm. It's genius.It's genius, and it has spillover effect
to other online retailers, which isyou know, a sure sign of at
least marketplace power, if not culturalpower. See, my favorite thing about

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Prime Day is every other website isgoing to be running deals too, because
they're trying to get like wayfair.Is my like best example is that like
they all their stuff will be justas discounted as it is on Amazon,
if not maybe even a little bitmore. It's a good time to shop
around for things too, because geta good deal, got to compete.

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What do you see as being themost What are the trendy products right now
for Prime Day? Have you seen? I haven't even been on so there's
one specific product that is like trendy. I think TVs have been hot because
of the back to school This isa time when a lot of college students
pick out their TV that they're goingto have for the next four years and

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hopefully. UM A lot of theLightning deals were still the Amazon Echo.
It's still that same like Blink cameraswere. The other one that like was
a lot of those deals, whichI've said before on this podcast, is
that once you have an Echo,you're never going to buy another Echo.
Like is I just don't feel likeit's a what's the word I'm looking for

(08:37):
how many echos can someone buy atthis point? Like there's always a deal
on echoes? Yeah, well,Amazon thinks probably is correct. The more
devices you have in your house,the more like you are to buy from
Amazon because it keeps going voodoo Adeal on this? Do you want?
Would you like to follow such andsuch author? No? The next one

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picked up in our summer of liveevents going insane? And I'm going out
of town to a concert this weekend, Blink Win eighty two. And I
remember it like when Jamie was likeunborn and I went to see my first
Blink Win eighty two concert. Ithink the tickets were like thirty eight dollars,

(09:22):
thirty five dollars, something like that. And I remember because I remember
the fee from Ticketmaster was like twelvebucks, and I was like, how
can they get away with charting twelvedollars? I was like sixteen or seventeen
if only I knew how that wouldevolve? Can you guess what tickets are
going for right now for Blink ona two, which is a good band.

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But I wouldn't It's not like Iwouldn't say they're like the Rolling Stones
of their generation or anything like that. My sister is going to a Nickelback
concert at the end of the month, and I know for a fact that
her Nosebleed tickets were like sixty bucks. So and that's Nickelback. Yeah,
Blink one eighty two. I'm gonnaguess, or do you have good seats

(10:07):
floor seats kind of towards the backof the floor. I'm working on upgrade
and me and the boys. Butone sixty five like six hundred what yeah,
six hundred dollars. You're getting tailorswift prices for a Blink one eighty
two concert. So that wasn't theinitial retail price. That's what tickets are

(10:28):
going for currently. I think theywere four hundred and change. Okay,
I remember like a hundred bucks ofthat or fees. Yeah, so yeah,
which is nuts. I mean thatis like a more than ten x
increase in prices for the And lookbands do this. If you have a
popular act that becomes generationally popular andyou can stay together, Yeah, as

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you age up with your audience,you can command more prices for tickets.
And this is why fifteen twenty yearsago, you know, boomers are willing
to pay so much money for kindof outdated bands because they have more money
to spend, so the bands cancharge more money. And that's what's happened
now with Blink Winty two and millennials. Essentially is twenty years ago, millennials

(11:13):
had forty dollars to spend and nowthey have four hundred dollars to spend and
Blink Winny two can charge that muchmoney. Bro, you're gonna open her
wallet up after that concert and gowhere are you to all your cash that's
gonna be missing? So sorry,yeah, no, it'll be worth it.
I hope it is for your sake. I mean, I think it'll

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be a fun concert. But Jesus, I cannot There's no one I would
want to see for six hundred dollars. I just nothing. Yeah, you
know, price is the price.Speaking of that, and of six hundred
dollars nosebleed tickets, this I sawalso an insider caught my eye. Taylor
Swift's impact on the economy has caughtthe eye of the Federal Reserve. The

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Sunny says sess of Taylor Swift's ariostourshad a noticeable impact on the economy.
The Federal Reserve highlighted the impact ofSwift's three Philadelphia concerts in its most recent
Beige Book. Beige Book is likean economic report that I think is published
like eight eight times a year andin each region. And so what they
were picking up on and that Philadelphiashow was essentially the influx of people coming

(12:22):
into the city and spending money onthings. So they saw, you know,
increased hotel bookings, food restaurants.What they're looking at her cash flows
and so there was a big cashflow into the city when she was playing
those shows. I read something thatlike, Taylor Swift could very much run
for president at this point and itwould be like an easy election for her.

(12:46):
The only dance holding her back isher age. Do you think so
she's old enough? Well, she'salmost thirty six, right, thirty five?
Yeah, she's not quite there yet, but she's pretty darn close.
But I actually, like really thoughtabout that, and I was like,
you know, she could really runif she wanted to, like, and
then that's kind of crazy to thinkabout. Do you think she'd win?

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Yeah? I don't think so,why what could where? What party would
she run in? Oh she'd beDemocrats. Yeah, she wouldn't be allowed.
That's not how national Democratic Party politicsworks. No, I'm not saying
that she could run potentially for asentence seat. Yeah, I think she
could win a sentence syat in likeNew York. It's just the idea that
her impact, like we were justtalking about with the economy and stuff,

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is so extreme and how people willso I want to say blindly follow her,
but follow her so, like,yeah, she should really just start
a cult. She has a cult. They're called Swifties. That is a
coal that is dude. If yousee the videos of the people leaving her
concerts and they're all like meandering out, like it looks like a horror movie.
It was like an apocalypse. Itlooks like a bunch of zombies.

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And I love to a swift Iam a swifty but like, it's just
it's kind of intense. I justrealized I'd never put my headphones on for
this whole thing. I have noidea how out I'm being. Well,
you can put your headphones on theright right everybody, So no good transition
from Taylor Swift to AI. Ialso caught an article of people noticing that

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chat gpt has gotten dumber in thelast couple of months. There's a lot,
there's a bunch of you know,we're hitting the down slope of the
AI hype cycle right now, wherewe've been through six months of the hype
cycle, and now we're at thepart of the cycle where every little thing
it's getting a whack taken at it, like that usage usage is down,

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even though I saw like there isan estimate that chat GPT has ten million
users. Wow, yeah, butlike ten million paying users, uh,
you know, paying twenty bucks amonth, which is a ton of mone
a ton of money, Yeah,which is crazy when you think how many
apps? How many apps do peoplepay twenty dollars a month for none?

(15:01):
Yeah, maybe my Duolingo. Yeah, but that's about it. Yeah.
So it was slow but accurate atfirst, but it was expensive. And
so what the what the suggestion isis and I've seen this in some of
the side products where I'll let youchoose between do you want quality or speed?

(15:22):
In the response is that chat GBTis defaulting to it's using the fast
way of processing, which gives lowerquality answers, but it's cheaper to produce.
Which is an interesting product question becauseI am, for example, and

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I don't I'm not sure Internet searchis the best analogy. But when are
you ever searching for something when youwould rather have it fast but lower quality,
especially pretend the quality is notable.This works in fast food obviously.
I was gonna say, like,if I was looking for like a cheap,
quick answer, and my example isgoing to be how to open a

(16:06):
beer bottle without a beer opener,or how to get a cork out of
a wine bottle, like tiny littlethings like that, like how to maybe
like poach an egg, or likesomething that's just super simple, how to
break a zip tie like and it'slike, I don't really there's probably one
hundred ways you could do all thosethings, but like it doesn't really matter.
I just need a result right now. So I think if it just

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so, I think maybe that's whatI's trying to do is judge if the
quick and cheap one will work andthen when to use them heavier duty one
right right, Like, it's notgoing to give you the wrong answer.
It's not gonna say, like,oh, to open a beer bottle without
a beer can opener, don't abeer bottle open? Or whatever the I

(16:48):
am I having sector type talking today. It's not gonna be like, well,
have you tried your elephant, like, it's not going to give you
a bad answer. It's just notgonna give you maybe like the most like
detailed one where it's like obtain ascrewdriver and like you know, it's going
to give you a good answer.Still just not maybe the perfect answer.
Yeah, and maybe for an answeryou don't need it. But when it

(17:10):
gives you a written response back,I think is when you need it.
When you're going to use that writingfor something, yeah, when it's being
like customized. So Jack actually justdropped something in the O record thread we
use on the Taylor Swift thing,and it was this is Denver the Superstar
shows Friday and Saturday. Empower Fieldat mile Higher estimated to bring in one

(17:33):
hundred and forty million to call outits christ domestic product. Jesu dude.
I mean, I'm serious. Shecould run for president and like I think
people would. I think she'd win. I think it might be one of
the weirdest things to happen in thiscountry. But I'm not going to put
it. I'm not gonna put itpast because it's been a lot of weird
things have happened. What that mustbe suggesting is people. There's a lot

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of people driving from outside of Coloradoto go there. Because you know,
it's hard for me to believe thatTaylor Swift is generating significantly more money than
like a Broncos game when the Broncosare winning. Maybe the crowd is a
little bit bigger per show, butinternally the spending would be just the same.

(18:25):
It's got to be people traveling in, spinning on hotels, restaurants,
almost like a mega conference. Yeah, I think that it makes more than
a Broncos game. Though. Yes, a lot of those are locals and
that are just going to go tothe games, and that's for a lot
of football teams, and that hasto be what it is. It's not
the spending at the stadium, it'sthat it's effectively a conference. Yeah,

(18:48):
it's it's a concert, but economicallyit's working like a huge conference. When
you think of it Denver, likethere's a whole I mean that's pulling from
all the states around there that areprobably not going to be on the Eros
tour. Like you know, peoplein like New Mexico are right, they're
all making their little travel over becausethey get to spend a weekend in Denver

(19:08):
and that's a lot of fun.It's a vacation of its own and they
get to go see Taylor Swift andspend all the money. I wonder how
many people for who that was justthere like vacation, was going to see
Taylor Swift? Wait? Why howmany people is that like their vacation?
This time on a vacation that islike about probably the most suburban like white

(19:33):
girl thing to go do. It'slike, you guys want to get together
and get in the car and we'regonna drive downward sixty six and go see
miss like Americana and the Heartbreak Princewhatever. Man, that's a that's all.
That's a long story. Yeah,wow, that's what she's doing.
Um, all right, any otherthings. I didn't have as much time

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as I like to just scroll throughand pull articles. It's been busy around
here, like a lot of stuff. It's not always like this. Uh,
the last couple of months it's beenit's been slammed. I'm not gonna
lie and uh, every time wethink it's gonna get a little bit easier,
next thing comes, next thing lands, next thing lands. Stay busy.

(20:17):
That's good. I like to getpaid because I like to eat me
too, honestly, and I liketo have like a roof above my head.
Jamie, why are you? Whyare you squinting like that? She's
over here grimacing. I'm so focusedon the camera right now. Oh,
any stories we're missing that we shouldcover before we get out of here?

(20:38):
Actually a question what's going on inchildren's world? Well, I wanted to
know. I'm not a swifty andyou guys can hate me on this or
not. Yeah, I mean whenyou came in, she was singing Leanna
Lewis into the and I was like, that song was like before You're born.
Yeah. Um, I don't evenlike what's her demographic? Like how
many? Is it all kids oris it like no, she has a

(21:00):
very interesting demographic. Actually, soshe has like the millennials, the people
that grew up with her and thatare her age. She also has a
portion of gen Zers that were maybethe younger sibling and like, so she
has like that and and think aboutlike these millennials babysat these gen zers,

(21:22):
so they grow up with it ina way. And then I would even
say there's boomer moms out there orgen X moms out there who like their
daughter. It was their thing,like, oh, I used to listen
to it with my daughter all thetime. So it is, it transcends
generations. It's crazy. I dothink eventually that's going to narrow more as

(21:44):
she gets older and stuff. Wethought that was going to kind of happen.
Even when her folklore stuff came out. We talked about like how like
her music was no longer like Istay up too late and it was more
like, oh, it's gonna havea baby with you. Like it's gotten
a lot more a less relatable,not less relatable, but more niche.
It is. It is reflective ofa large audience. So you know,

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disaffected college educated woman. Okay,a little too close to home. Then
I'm sorry, I literally does thatcoffee come out of my nose for no
reason? It's just like I smallowedit and just like went out of my
nose. I don't know, Sorry, that was really so. I do
think she is highly millennial centric.It just so happens. The biggest cohort

(22:33):
of consumers currently are millennial women.Uh They're at a spot in their lives
where they're the largest population block andthey have uh you know, generally educated
have expendable income. I was gonnasay disposable income, have dispensable income?

(22:56):
What did he say? Um,and they have disposable income to spend on
things like this. I don't thinkshe's a resonant with Gen's ears. I
think they'll go see her. Ithink she's huge, so there's a fan
base there. I think you're rightabout what you see at concerts. I
think the core of that group justhappens to be the largest demographic in the

(23:19):
country that has money to spend.And even inside of that demographic, she's
also representative of a niche inside that, which is the niche of you know,
women in their late twenties to earlyforties who thought at this point in
their lives they'd be married, havea family, and that hasn't worked out
for multip reasons. That is whoshe is the patron goddess of right now.

(23:45):
So now we're getting revenge by spendingtons of money in football stadiums to
not watch football. But if you'rewatching the Taylor Swift phenomena, that is
a signal to in marketing is thepower of that consumer base and what they're
what they're interested in, and they'renot just interested in Taylor Swift and So

(24:08):
what you're seeing there is how doyou sell thirty four year old women other
things? How do you sell them? And this is why Capital One did
the deal Taylor Swift. How doyou sell them? Financial instruments? How
you sell them houses? How doyou sell them vacations? Even independent of
Taylor Swift, we could just literallydo a Taylor Swift podcast at this point.

(24:33):
This and bud Light. Listen,they had bud Light the last one
we did. It's the gift thatkeeps giving. It is always to talk
about. It is absolutely I can'tbelieve bud Light is still has become what
it's become so quickly. It's like, what what have you talked the most
about this year? Taylor Swift,bud Light, and maybe the Grimmace Shake

(24:55):
or the Submarine. Not sure?Barbie story. You have a Barbie story,
a big story. Oh yeah.So I don't know if you've heard
of the Sound of Freedom movie andthat stuff going around. Yep, that's
my new hyperfixation. Oh no,I haven't even heard of this. So
it's a it is an interesting marketstudy. What happened. It was this

(25:18):
independent film made by the same peoplewho did The Jesus Revolution that came out
earlier this year about like the nineteenseventies. Oh yeah, that I said
that looked good. I never watchedit, but it did really well,
which was made by the same peoplewho crowdfunded that drama about the Twelve Disciples.
Oh, this goes back several years. What has been happening is there's

(25:41):
this niche now carving out where thehighest performing content in movie theaters and TV
is increasingly coming from like traditionalist conservativecreatives, and it's consistently underestimated what it
will do. So they released thismove caused Sound of Freedom. Sound of

(26:02):
Freedom essentially Jim Covisial is playing thisdude who goes and saves kids from being
trafficked. And they released the sameday that the new Indiana Jones released and
then outperformed Indiana Jones. Wow.So what has happened in this like melee.

(26:25):
That's the problem, which is whyI think it's becoming somewhat controversial,
is that's really embarrassing for the studiosthemselves. So there's a media campaign going
on to discredit the movie has beinglike a QAnon film. What's that streaming

(26:45):
site that has like all the Christianmovies and shows on it pure flicks.
Yes, yes, yeah, they'relike high production value though, like that's
what it like. It's not likeI don't know when I first heard about
that was like I've seen the numberson some of these things. Because I've
been working on consulting with the project, I can't say a lot about in

(27:10):
that domain in like center right highend content world and not political stuff,
but just content for that there isa huge market there. It's when we
always talk about red economy, blueeconomy. It's massive, people will pay
money for it. It's absolutely underfed. The content doesn't even have to be
great to perform, it just hasto be good enough. So but I

(27:34):
think that's what you're seeing with thewhole Like this film is qan on,
Like the media are doing like bitsto discredit the film. Well, the
part that's like shocking to me isthe TikTok part of it, because I've
found of course all of it fromTikTok. But how in the movie theater,
Like apparently all the theaters are sabotagingthe movie now, where like people

(27:59):
that are going to see the movewe have been saying that the movie theater
has been refunding them randomly, they'reshutting down the theaters. They're saying that
that movie specifically is not working.Why that ec doesn't work? They come
in, they have the fire alarmgo off, like so many videos that
people are saying, this is alittle like too coincidental that all these people
are being kicked out of the samemovie. That's probably a my friend's car

(28:22):
trend. So my friend's car isthis. If you have a friend and
they get a new car, youstart to see that same car everywhere.
My car everyone always says, they'relike, ICR your car the other day,
and so something like that is goingto be a little bit somebody puss
says like, yeah, yeah,that happened to me. But that is

(28:44):
probably overlooking that a movie theater isheavily incentivized to put as many people in
the theater as possible, regardless ofthe content of the film. They may
have other antics going on, likepeople pulling the fire alarm or whatever,
but true bizarre if they do thatduring my Oppenheimer Barbie Marathon. Well,

(29:06):
those are those are the movies Hollywoodwants you to go watch. Jasper Scott
jer sit down, that's fine.The I saw I saw some coverage on
that. I think it was aRolling Stone article and they described Jim Caviezel,

(29:26):
who they're also saying is like Qand on conspiracy theorists as Jim Caviezel,
who uh once played? Who onceplayed a guy that was tortured to
death? What does that have todo with anything? He played Jesus and
passionate. But instead of saying thatthat is, let's played a guy who

(29:47):
was tortured to death on screen?Jamie, there's your clip for this?
What does that mean? He wasJesus? Oh? Okay, word all
right, y'all. We do needto wrap here, all right. If
you liked what you heard, pleaseleave us a review on your podcast app
of choice. Until next time.This has been the of Record podcast.
It is hosted by me Joe Clementswith the assistance of producer Alex Ranhard.

(30:15):
Of Record is produced at the TrailwayStudio in Tallahassee, Florida. Our theme
music is composed and performed by RobGoki Special thanks to our entire team here
at SDS. You can see moreinformation about the show on our website,
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(30:37):
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