The next wave of coffee is decaf.

24:30Jacques Spitzer:Yeah, I think there was a concerted effort to incorporate Unwell into her life and make it seem like this is a product that she's using. But it still came across as like it was like inserted in those occasions. It didn't feel like a natural occasion. And I think that's the difference. And I made a video about this and one of the, a lot of the comments were like, the name was bad. I don't want to drink something called Unwell. It's great for a media company. I think it's an excellent name for a media company. It's a Reverend. It's punchy. It really works for her podcast and for the media business.

25:08For a brand, I don't want to, I don't want to consume something that says Unwell. Also the products, not great. Yeah.

25:16Jacques Spitzer:Yeah. And I think that's a big piece of it. And the other piece of it is just celeb hydration brand. There are too many celeb hydration brands. I think it needed to be a different product that she could have promoted in the same way and would have felt a lot more authentic. I don't know exactly what that product would be, but just look at the context of all the other celeb hydration brands in the last year. And they all saw some pretty bad numbers or failed entirely like Logan Paul's prime hydration, which is still exists, but it has seen massive sales collapse, it dropped 17 to 90 % from its 2023 peak.

25:48Jacques Spitzer:That's insane. And then Moss Plus, which was Messi's sports drink, bet you never heard of it because it launched and was discontinued after less than two years of being on the market because Messi didn't really promote it that much. It was one of those just like failed brands in probably the most crowded space right now in beverage is hydration. And so with, again, like within the context of all of these hydration brands launching, all of them having a celebrity face, also just the history of hydration brands being associated with a celebrity, it doesn't feel as authentic as another kind of brand being associated with a celebrity.

26:25Jacques Spitzer:And I know one of the things that you spoke a lot about is investing, celebs investing feels more credible. I completely agree. And an example of that is that Alex Earl invested in Symbiotica, which is a supplement company this week. And she's also historically invested in Poppy. And when you look at that compared to how Sipmargs is kind of her brand, we don't care about Sipmargs. People don't really think, oh, this feels authentic to Alex Earl. It's a little bit, I think you're totally right that seeing a celeb put their money into something shows that they believe in the brand as opposed to we think that the brand is just paying them to be the face of it, which consumers are skeptical.

27:07Jacques Spitzer:That doesn't land as well. She is the face of Sipmargs. She does use it a lot in her videos. It looks like she's a consumer of Sipmargs, but consumers have this understanding of she's being paid to do that as opposed to she's putting her own money into a business that she uses and thinks is great. And that's a pretty distinct difference. There's a lot more we want to cover in depth, but we're going to just do a little bit more of a headline roundup. starting with liquid death because speaking of beverage liquid death is always relevant and it's always so weird and it's actually getting a lot weirder and in the last three weeks we've seen three different really strange stunts come out of liquid death i think the marketing team must be so busy i pity them but it started out three weeks ago with liquid death collaborating with mr beast Feastables, which is his Mr.

27:57Jacques Spitzer:Beast candy brand, on a limited edition soda-style sparkling water flavored like Feastables peanut butter cups. It doesn't actually contain peanuts, so one of their things in the pitch was that it's allergen-friendly and people can experience the taste of a peanut butter cup without experiencing peanut for the first time. I want to try it, but I'm good. This is giving the same vibe as mac and cheese ice cream it's a shtick it's a shtick totally i did try it and i can tell you it just tastes like artificial chocolate it doesn't taste like peanut at all it's not good it doesn't need to exist did i finish it yeah because i was like oh this tastes like chocolate i want to keep having it but it was bad also anyway weird collab but then it continued to get so much weirder actually because last week they launched a limited edition pack of cream soda scented butt wipes with your favorite nate good wipes they smell wild they yeah you got them right my god they smell like cream soda good wipes also partnered with olipop to do a peaches and cream soda scented tushy wipe those also smelled really weird using them was a bit jarring.

29:16They're no, the products the same. They have scented products, but they're like lavender and like Suntal. They're like normal scents, but using a cream scented tissue wipe is a very odd feeling. Yeah.

29:29Jacques Spitzer:And they send it to you with the cream soda. You can drink the cream soda. Oh yeah. And then, but I didn't get the butler. So this is the weirdest part of the sweep of the, this is the weirdest part of the campaign. Honestly, I'm unfazed because I'm like, I've seen soda butt wipes before, which was crazy. That's a sentence. 2026, the year that there are multiple soda scented butt wipes. But the collab includes something called the Butler sweepstakes. And you best bet that is Butler spelled with two T's where one winner of this sweepstakes will get a live-in butler to personally wipe them. Criminally insane.

30:06Jacques Spitzer:That's insane. That's crazy. I actually need to understand the logistics of this. Is it a one-time wipe situation? Do you get multiple wipes? Does the butler do anything other than wipe you? I have so many questions about this really bizarre sweepstakes. But then things got weirder because yesterday, Liquid Death launched a marketing campaign that is truly so freaking weird. They partnered with Jason Kelsey's Garage Beer on a campaign asking fans to pee in a cup, then donate that pee to AI data centers to use instead of water for cooling. There's been a lot of uproar around how AI data centers use a lot of water to cool down data centers.

30:54Jacques Spitzer:And so this is a weird social impact activism campaign coming from a beer brand founded by a football player and liquid death. I'm like, why are these the spokespeople for water usage and AI? So random. Second of all, please don't actually pee in the cup and send it to an AI data center. Really strange, but also so smart in the strangest possible way. I don't know if it will help the brands, although they are selling a cup that is on their website that's specifically for the use case of peeing in. So maybe they'll see some sales on that. Otherwise, I don't necessarily think this gets direct sales for liquid death or garage beer, but it shows them taking a stance on something that half the country is up in arms over data centers.

31:44Jacques Spitzer:So they're taking some kind of stance against them in the funny, weird way that they do. Yeah. What are your thoughts on it, Nate?

31:56it's just wild that we said all of those things i i watched the ad and it just opens with jason kelsey jason kelsey yeah jason kelsey uh just pissing his brains out and it's very jarring i think it's great that they're making a stance they're making a statement I don't know if their audience cares necessarily, but I will say I've been loving what Garage Beer's been doing. They're one of the fastest growing beer companies in the nation. They're the largest brewery in Ohio. So, look, I think it's weird. I think it's fun. I like to see Liquid Death sort of doing more of this than a Pop-Tart collab.

32:44I'd much rather them do the Cards Against Humanity type of activist marketing rather than a silly little cute collab. Like, do a little bit. You have a lot of money and clout and eyeballs on you. Anyways, we have another headline to cover. And this one is great for our gluten-free or gluten-intolerant or celiac friends out there. And we know there are so many of you. We know. So after years of consumers begging, Goldfish, owned by Campbell's, is launching their first ever certified gluten -free cheese crackers. They are hitting stores nationwide in November of this year. And this is not the first major brand to be launching a gluten-free version of their iconic cracker.

33:42Because earlier this year, Cheez-Its launched a gluten-free version. Also, after consumers for years were begging for them to make one. I saw it on shelf recently and I was like, oh, this makes me happy. Our celiac friends can eat. And sure, these companies can say they wanted to take their time and make the taste exactly right. Yada, yada, yada. But come on. Let's be honest here. They're massive businesses making billions of dollars a year with massive R &D teams. they could have formulated this in their sleep. This could have and should have come out the second the gluten-free wave of products were happening, which Jenna, I think when we were in high school, I remember all of a sudden there were like all of these gluten-free brands and I was like, where are the big guys?

34:31It's all these not great tasting ones.

34:33Jacques Spitzer:No, it's crazy. And it's like, even if the reason was it took a long time to formulate and make it exactly the way that they wanted to, that reflected the original product, whatever they say their reasoning is, there have been so many great gluten-free brands that have launched in the recent years that maybe if the issue was they needed gluten-free processing facilities that they don't have. Okay, buy, literally buy a brand. You're Campbell's. Buy a brand, buy their manufacturing facility, and make goldfish on it. I don't think it needed to be that deep. So it is really crazy that it took so long.

35:06Jacques Spitzer:But also, I'm really excited because there's something about, I know this isn't what they intended and I don't want to give them too much credit, but the fact that it was delayed makes the opportunity for nostalgia a little bit stronger because a lot of celiac folks or people who were diagnosed later in life that grew up on goldfish probably haven't had goldfish in years and years. And so it'll make it all the more enjoyable and nostalgic and impactful when they can finally try them again. And hopefully they do taste exactly the same. I'll try them. We'll see. I can try them side by side because I'm not gluten intolerant.

35:38Jacques Spitzer:Flex. Yeah, we're better than you. But it is really crazy how long this took. And in other snacky news, the David Protein founder is at it again. Peter Rahal, who is the former founder of RxBar, current founder of the ever-controversial David Protein, just announced his latest venture, which is under the same parent company of David Protein called Medici and he's working on this with the Stuffed Puffs founder, Michael Tierney. It's going to be a brand called Hall Pass. Great name, by the way. Hall Pass is a low calorie, zero sugar candy brand that was made possible by EPG. EPG, the ingredient that also makes David Protein Bars possible, which is the plant-based modified fat that tastes like fat, but doesn't get digested by your body like fat and can make a product extremely low calorie, high in the David protein example, high protein to calorie ratio.

36:41Jacques Spitzer:In this example, just low calories, zero sugar candy. Yeah. Without adding any extra fat calories. So hall pass is they're really promoting their peanut butter cups, which will launch nationwide at Walmart. And I think this is really interesting. It's going to be available later in August, they are priced just a little bit above Reese's. So that's two peanut butter cups in a package priced at$2.69. And that looks pretty different than David's strategy, which was a really premium priced bar to launch these products at a similar price point in Walmart shows that this is going to be a little bit more of a mass market approach for the Medici brands.

37:23Jacques Spitzer:Nate, what are you thinking about Hall Pass? This is going to crush it. This is going to do so well. I don't think there's enough of a cohort who care enough about EPG or the EPG acquisition situation that will sway consumer demand for this. I think the pricing strategy and the launch strategy in Walmart is incredibly smart. These look pretty good. This is very appealing. And if it tastes as good as the brand says it does, this will absolutely crush. And honestly, if I were some of the better few, especially the chocolate brands on the market, I would be a little concerned. Because candy at the end of the day is a mass market product.

38:18There's very few opportunities to make it premium. there's there's very few premium candy brands to be honest yeah you want it to be mass market and that's their positioning in such a smart way to do just that and launching with a peanut butter cup is the right move totally who doesn't love a peanut butter cup i think what you said around

38:40Jacques Spitzer:there not being like a big enough cohort that cares about epg being this scary ingredient or them acquiring epigee and there was a whole scandal around that we've spoken about a lot before Or to the same point, I think there's a really big cohort of people who just want lower calorie or lower sugar or no sugar versions of things that they like. We talk all the time about the better for you candy brands that are using dates to sweeten their products or are slightly lower calorie or slightly lower sugar. But as much as that cohort is large, I think there's a much larger tam of people who want the lowest calorie possible, zero sugar option.

39:17Jacques Spitzer:It's also for some people, it's more than just a preference. It's a necessity. If you have diabetes, this is a product that you would absolutely be reaching for. That's why the sugar-free candy section has existed for a while, but those products kind of suck. And this is a really good alternative to some of those that is evidently at the same price point. So as much as in our bubble, we're like, what about better-free ingredients and no fake ingredients and whatever? I think mass market, much bigger opportunity for zero sugar, lowest possible calorie candy. Yeah. And one last thing on this story, no protein.

39:56No protein. This is not like a horrible, strong bull situation. This is just low sugar candy. And respect. I respect that. they could have gone they could have gone the protein route and they didn't which is nice to see

40:14Jacques Spitzer:yeah i don't think candy necessarily needs protein as much as i love horrible's torables and i do this is really it's really good i really like it it's really fun and really satisfying for our last story of the week this is a big one and loosely related to candy funny enough Ferrero Group, the global giant behind brands like Nutella and Kinder, is acquiring Purely Elizabeth, the 17-year-old Boulder-based Better For You granola and oatmeal brand. And clearly Ferrero Group thinks that breakfast is the most important meal of the day because this comes less than a year after them buying W.K. Kellogg for$3.1 billion, which was Kellogg's entire cereal business.

41:07And we were wondering, why Purely Elizabeth? Why would they acquire this right now? Now, it checks a lot of consumer boxes currently. Clean, simple, better for you, and without all being overly processed. It's very simple ingredients. And also, since they've launched their higher protein and high fiber lines, they have seen a lot of success. And a lot of people are looking for protein and fiber. And now more than ever, fiber. And purely Elizabeth has been a leader in the modern breakfast set for a long time. They are the definition of the granola aisle, in my opinion. And they were reportedly doing$200 million in total brand sales last year and doubling their revenue in the past two years and expected to do a lot more in 2026.

42:02So they're buying this fast-growing brand, this breakfast platform. And it seems like they're building a breakfast platform for themselves, which is fascinating, especially to see as breakfast, really as cereal has been on the decline recently. And maybe they can do something to make it come back up. Yeah.

42:28Jacques Spitzer:And it's interesting to see that they have all of these cereals under their Kellogg's acquisition, under their portfolio. But they're like, we still need this. And it shows that they know there's a distinct customer that they can be reaching that reaches for Purely Elizabeth and would never reach for Kellogg's cereal. And so that's very telling in itself. You cannot bucket these things as just like all the cereal aisle because they're too different from each other. Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. I think it's really exciting for Purely Elizabeth because they have, again, as you said, been killing it for years and years.

43:02Jacques Spitzer:And this is an awesome acquisition. Of course, everyone on the internet is upset about it because they're saying that now that Purely Elizabeth is owned by a strategic, they will make all the ingredients bad and ruin all the things that made it special. And potentially that might happen, but also it might not. And maybe Ferrero will maintain what made Purely Elizabeth so appealing to consumers in the first place. If they're smart, they will. I don't think we always have to assume that just because a strategic swooped in and purchased a brand means they're going to ruin it. And I think that's a really interesting new rhetoric.

43:38Jacques Spitzer:Consumers were never talking about that or aware of that. And now they are. And there's a lot of influencers that give people that fear, but it doesn't mean that's going to happen necessarily. So it's a performative, I think a lot of that fear is performative. It's like part of this broader like wellness discourse that people are having trying to sound smart about what they're putting in their body and also trying to sound smart about the CPG space. They know nothing about how oftentimes an acquisition, it just means they have greater economies of scale. They have greater distribution. They still might be fully operated separately and still have different mandates from the rest of the company.

44:20It does not mean a business is changing. It can change. It happens, but there would be little incentive for them to acquire it and make it shittier. It happens. We're not saying it doesn't, but like that shouldn't be your initial thought. When you hear about an acquisition, it should be like, congratulations, Elizabeth, you made your bank.

44:40Jacques Spitzer:That and also I think to your point too, economies of scale, like we don't necessarily know that they will change the ingredients and make it worse. But what we do know is the chances are extremely high that the price point will get more accessible. So you should get really excited that people who couldn't access this brand before now can, instead of being like, I only buy brands that are independently. Good for you. You can afford it. What about people who can't? Now they potentially will have an option that is more accessible to them and better for you. So. Snaps. That's how we feel about that rhetoric.

45:15Jacques Spitzer:That's all for today. That's all the news we got for you today. Stick around because in less than 30 seconds, you will be hearing from Raindrop who helped build Grooms and Heist. They were actually the first investor into Grooms. So we get into all of that. Enjoy this conversation. We have a very fun and special guest, Jock Spitzer. Raindrop Agency, a very fun and special marketing agency. Marketing agency is a good way to describe it. Creative agency. Creative agency is a better way to describe it. But first, tell us some of the brands you work with. We work with like over 80 brands. I can name some brands.

45:59You do it. You do it. Let's do it for you. Dr. Squatch, Dude Wipes, Laundry Sauce. My favorite named brand, Poopery. runes, runes, native, runes. So I like to think we work with brands who are looking to punch above their weight and be challengers and be beloved brands, which I think we'll probably talk a lot about today.

46:24Jacques Spitzer:So if you're not a marketing agency and you are a creative agency, can you tell us what that means? What are you doing for some of the brands that we just spoke about? Yeah, it's a great question. I would say in general, every brand's at a different place in their journey. And we're pretty unique because I mentioned earlier, the humble beginnings, I literally started this agency 15 years ago, making flyers and organic social posts for not even gyms, but like personal trainers, like they didn't even own the gym and real estate agents and everything else. And now we've done multiple Super Bowls.

46:58And we did the largest brand launch in Procter & Gamble history with Spruce, which we're super proud of, we helped incubate and start Grooms. And we were the first investors and did all of the brand strategy work and all the campaign work, especially the first year and a half or so. And then now they're one of our largest partners as well, as we're creating so many campaigns for them. I think the best way to describe what we do is we try to figure out for brands, why do people buy? Why do they buy this? I know it sounds simple, but I think most people are more concerned about this is what I want people to know or maybe I can convince them to buy things.

47:36I always say that like if Dr. Squatch, if we took the approach of buy this soap because it's great, no one would ever buy it. What we told men is like, hey, you're worth better soap and this is an option that is worth it. And so if we're saying the soap's worth it, it'll never be. If we say you're worth it, you'll always be. As cheesy as that sounds, it's just true. We create creative literally for every channel from television to, I mean, you get it. You got to be everywhere. We create creative for every channel that breaks through with that lens.

48:07Jacques Spitzer:One of the things I'm really stuck on is you're saying you're helping these brands discover what the reason is that people are buying them and then communicate that message. What does that discovery process look like? And it might be helpful to actually use an example. Gruen's is a fun one because they were acquired by Unilever for$1.2 billion dollars. So when Grooms came to you really early, what were they trying to do? And what was like a reframe that maybe you helped them with? When we were approached by Grooms, we were the first to believe in them, right? Like truly. And it was actually maddening that we believed in them.

48:44And then I remember texting with Chad and so many people passing on. We couldn't convince people to invest with us. It was just like, no, no, no. And I'm like, guys, you don't get, you don't get how big this idea is. Like, this is, this is a massive idea. You know, what we believed in it and in Chad and what he was doing from the beginning, what we didn't know was that he was going to be the best operator we've ever worked with. That didn't hurt. Here's the simplicity of why we were like, oh, this could be really big. One of the biggest drivers for habit is that it spikes dopamine, Right. Right.

49:19And so I'm like, okay, what is the biggest problem with gummy vitamins? Everyone else has been talking about how AG1 is impossible to stick to. That's not why we invested in this, at least from my standpoint. I'm like, the biggest problem with gummy vitamins is that you only get one. I freaking love them. They're delicious. Of course, it's candy. They're delicious. Who doesn't love some candy? Right. What I started realizing was, I'm like, early on, we're like, whoa, this is going to be snackable nutrition. This is going to be something that people are going to look forward to every single day.

49:53People keep saying, I'm like, no, it's snackable nutrition. Happens to be gummies, right? Ultimately, what they're solving is people wanting their greens every single day. Yeah. That's an insane problem to solve. Truly. We wouldn't need the product if people were just like, give me more of that salad every single day all the time. And so the first version of the packaging and everything else was pretty clinical. and when we mapped out everything we really wanted to lean into joy and we wanted to lean into a brand that felt light and fun fit with who you want to be and become because there's already someone that's owning like hey you can choke down something and be hardcore but like for 90 percent of us like we actually just want to be one percent better every day and i think grooms is a perfect brand that executes on that really well.

50:45Interact Brands did the brand redesign on it. They nailed it. From zero to a hundred million, it was just pumping behind these assets that we were creating that showed people a new way to experience health and wellness through a daily dose of joy. And they've since expanded it quite a bit. When we tap into people's why, it broadens so much like who sees themselves as the end person for this. And we're no longer selling taste. We're selling identity that you are the kind of person that listens to the, that subscribes to express checkout that listens to this show. And I'm not going to lie. If you're still listening right now, I think I know a lot about you, even though I've never met you.

51:30Jacques Spitzer:Something I want to dig into this idea of building something aspirational. I think a lot of brands have heard that soundbite and they're like, I know I want to build something for what people want to become, but they don't necessarily know how to translate that into assets. So like, for example, I feel like oftentimes I see a brand that I'm like, oh, they're trying so hard to be a lifestyle brand. They're a supplement brand, but all of their pictures are like a fit woman on the beach and it doesn't translate. There's like this awkward disconnect. how do what does translate what is how do you build something aspirational that's not shoving this idea in your face and actually feels like relatable and can translate to the potential consumer what we consider to be aspirational is a moving target i think that's actually one of the trickiest parts of anything and i'll give you a great example i'm seeing this happen right now with nike and new balance as well as with lululemon and viore and aloe right where Nike built itself on being the top, the premier.

52:33And it was like, we're going to own everything that's aspirational about being an athlete. We're going to, we're going to own effort and greatness and we're going to do it over and over again. And then along comes New Balance. And this is why, this is why I always crack up because most people, they're always worried about their, like this competitor that's like you know the adidas or the other big players and i'm like no you gotta be worried about new balance because new balance comes in and they're like we got nothing to lose and the day to me the day that everything changed was when they signed kawaii leonard god that was weird it was so weird he's like self-admittedly weird and then over time though they they were a first mover behind otani and they were first mover behind you know now Cooper Flagg and they keep making these bets almost you could call them kind of like moonshot kind of bets on different athletes and different pieces of culture that are rapidly becoming the new aspiration and I think that's the the give and take of things it's like well aspiration used to be how great can you be and how hard can you try and then I feel like new balance is coming along and they're like aspiration is looking good without looking like you're trying too hard which is the give and take in the pool of everything and i think lululemon's going through a similar thing with the viories and the aloes of the world different reasons but i bring it up to say that aspiration is this very much moving target just as much as fashion is i think i think you could say fashion and aspiration are linked in the sense of what's considered aspirational any given moment is constantly shifting what you're probably feeling is that when someone's trying to be aspirational in a way that feels 10 years ago, it doesn't work.

54:23Jacques Spitzer:That's such a good point. Something that I'm interested in that I assume it wasn't surprising from your end, but from our end, it's wild to see that Dr. Squatch acquired 1.5 billion by Unilever, then Grunz acquired 1.2 billion by Unilever. I know you mentioned one of the reasons that Grunz wanted to work with you is because they saw what you did with Dr. Squatch. Can you, I mean, I don't want to ask you to like compare the brands, but I am interested. They ended up seeing a really similar trajectory in a lot of ways. What do you think that was? And was that something that you saw internally? Were you speaking to the same customer when you started working with Grunz or what did some of those similarities or differences look like?

55:02It's a great question, Jenna. Here's what I'll say. I believe that the ROI of joy is infinite. I believe that we work with a lot of premium products. We work with a lot of things. I mean, I constantly think about, wow, like we sold$9 bars of soap to men through the internet when you could buy a 30 pack of soap for$12.99 at Costco. And people were happy to do that. We love when we have the opportunity to turn what is a mundane daily occurrence into something that sparks joy. Right? And I think we did the same thing with Native. I mean, we grew them by like a billion dollars, right? If you take something that people have to do anyway and you infuse it with joy, both through the product, but also through their experience with it and the context that you tell them in advance that you're going to have.

55:56And then when they find themselves experiencing it, it's like you're paying off on the promise. That is very, very, very valuable because there is no brand or product out there that delivers more daily joy to people trying to get healthier than Grooms. So it's like, how do you, that's how you win. I'm like, they're delivering the most joy. Obviously a ton of benefit too. Name a soap company delivering more joy to men in this country than Dr. Squatch.

56:25Jacques Spitzer:But that's on a product level. And then I'm like, just so fascinated in how you communicate, because that's a really hard thing to communicate. This will bring you joy is like, okay, sure. What does that actually, I know Grunz, a lot of kind of what got them on the map is really great UGC. I'm curious, what were some of the, like more, from a more tactical standpoint, what were some of the tactics that you were able to use that communicated this joy that you're describing in either Dr. Squatch or Grooms. Yeah, we would never say this is going to make you happier. Because then it doesn't work because it doesn't make you feel happier.

56:59It doesn't make anyone feel happier to hear that, right? What Dr. Squatch did with this advertising was it said, hey, like, so one of the one of the biggest opening moments was, you're not a dish with like sad soap on it. Smash, you're a man, right? And it's like, oh, like, that's interesting. You're right. I'm using, and the next line is like, you're using like the same type of detergent we put on dishes to wash your body. That's crazy. And then lines like, are you still using the same bar of soap that your mommy bought for her little man? It's funny because so many people are like, oh, I've never thought about my soap.

57:38I just buy whatever I've always used. And so that disrupts that thing. And so when you talk about, when I talk about we were selling joy, it's like, because the advertising itself was funny and clever and made people feel like they were discovering something they felt something that they did not feel with a standard bar of soap you create a context for which people are going to enjoy it with grooms like if you go back and look at like some of the very very early long form ads that they ran super heavily on on especially on YouTube, the, it was, it's a completely, I think that's one of the interesting things.

58:14People see a Dr. Squatch work and it's like crazy and bombastic, but it doesn't have to be that. It has to connect with people on who they believe they are trying to become. So when the Groon's ad, the one that really connected with people was this woman, she's doing like sit-ups and she's like trying to eat salad at the same time. And it's like, look, like you're trying to be healthier, but let's be honest, there's gotta be a better way. This is hard, right? So it's more, it's funny, but it's empathetic and it connects. And it's like, okay, we solved that. This is all of those things and something that you'll actually enjoy, that you'll actually take with you.

58:48We're building this case for like, oh, this product will work for me in my life and deliver on joy. And so it's like, that's what I'm trying to say is like, we don't tell, no one ever, kind of like being aspirational, like you don't tell people anything. that you have to like, you have to show them that, oh, I've discovered this and it fits into my life so well, because I'm not that 5 % that is like going to choke down something no matter how it tastes or because like everyone, everyone keeps comparing it to AG1. And I'm like, AG1 definitely created the awareness of the market. So not going to lie about that.

59:24But the buyer for grooms isn't just like converting from AG1. It is all the people who are like, I would never, I would never sign up for AG1 because I know I wouldn't get more than three weeks into that. I already know I'm going to fail. And so Grunz is like, you might not fail this, this habit. It's working because people are sticking to it and they are seeing the benefits of it. So that's a very, man, you're asking great questions, but they're all connected. It's like, how do you sell joy?

59:51Jacques Spitzer:Exactly what you hit on is so interesting. It's not, it wasn't showing the person who already had their life together. It's like catching the consumer at the point of trying, not at the point of like, they already are there or not at the point of make you feel bad about yourself. No shaming. We never shame. It's more like, oh, we see you. Cause here's an example of someone trying and you're trying. I love that idea of like, just catch someone at the point of trying really interesting stuff. I wanted to ask one more thing before we close out. I'm sure people are asking you a lot about AI now. Are there good use cases for AI in a creative agency or are you steering away?

1:00:32Jacques Spitzer:What are the watchouts and what's useful? Yeah. Oh, I mean, we're using it. Of course we're using it. There's so many places we're using it, whether it's to accelerate early ideation, whether it's to like, one of my favorite things to do is I'll just close my mind and I'll beautiful mind this shit and I'll just talk about whatever's on my mind and then I'll just I'll talk you know using um oh what's the name of this thing it's worth the shout out whisper flow whisper flow yes yeah whisper flow changed my life so I use whisper flow I just talk talk and then I'm like organize these thoughts into something presentable and it like and I'm like perfect that's a great jumping off point we're starting to use it more and more as we get into augmenting and creating worlds we'll shoot something on a certain backdrop and then we We can extend the world out and like almost like picking things that would have been way outside of a budget from like a CGI standpoint and just being able to bring that into lower budget things where I'm very leery of it.

1:01:31And I think brands should be is we've made a commitment. We use human talent. And I get that. There are a lot of brands that will not use human talent and they will use it for a bunch of things. For instance, imagine, let me put it, Grooms, for example, why in the world would you risk risk your authenticity with people when you're an ingestible product that people have to trust in. The amount of risk involved in creating AI content and having a certain part of the demographic just be like, oh, hell no, is not worth it for a lot of people. And so we're really big on like, let's utilize the tools.

1:02:06That being said, I also think that there'll be legislation that comes out that already is coming out. And then YouTube confirmed that basically AI content has it embedded within it certain ones and zeros that allows them to flag it as content that's being generated. And so I'm just like, we're going to get to a world, we're already in it where it's soupy and there's a little bit of everything. But I think people don't want to feel tricked and they don't want to feel like they're not in on the fact that it's AI. And I think that part of the industry will shift. But ultimately, if you go back and read a book, which I have over here, you probably can't see, from 1905, we're still dealing with the same principles before television, before radio, before the internet on human psychology and how to move them.

1:02:49And the tools just keep changing.

1:02:50Jacques Spitzer:Absolutely. No, I completely agree. I mean, it's, it's tricky because it feels like you can get away with more because even though AI detection is there, like it's getting a little bit harder. Oh, it's scary. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's more just this element of joy is like the root of everything that you guys do. And I, I think that's just like something that AI has not experienced joy. So how, how is it going to know how to translate it? And what, and it's just, it's just like aspiration. What gives us joy evolves. I mean, that's the thing. It's not a static thing. So being with you today is what gives me joy.

1:03:25Thank you for having me. This is, this is so much fun. I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Jax of Raindrop. Make sure you're subscribed to Express Checkout wherever you find podcasts. Also subscribe to our newsletter at expresscheckout.co. Find us on Instagram at Express Checkout. And we'll catch you on the next one. Bye. Bye.