What the Hollywood Actor Strike Can Teach You About Marketing

0:00Alright, so we're going to talk about what the Hollywood actor strike can teach you about marketing. So interestingly enough, Neil, where I live in LA, I can see the picketer. So Monday through Friday, the picketers. So there's one on the other side, which is Wilshire. And then one on Santa Monica, which is where I am. And they're just going the entire day. And when it was freaking hot last week, they're just going hardcore. And let's not talk about hot. You guys don't know what hot is in Los Angeles. Yeah, touche. But okay. So I want to give a little high level on the actor strike and you can add in here too.

0:29So basically, so I trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu and then one of the guys in my class, or he's actually in a higher class than mine, but he's an actor and he's on that show Deadwood. I think that's what it is. He's like the sheriff, but point being he's, yeah, we're just like far apart. The streaming platforms are just making way more money now and we're not getting a piece of it. And now they're talking about using AI to use our likeness and just pay us one time for that. And we're just so far apart. We need better treatment or whatever it is exactly. And so it's a situation where not only the actors are striking, but the writers are striking too, because of all the power that's consolidating with these large corporations.

1:07So is there anything I might have missed there? No, they're also striking in front of Paramount. That's on Melrose. Yeah, I'm sure they're striking. I don't know why they're striking over here, to be honest. But point being is, I'll start it off first. From a marketing standpoint, look, at the end of the day, if you're Robert Downey Jr., aka Iron Man, or if you're one of the superstars, it just doesn't matter, right? Right. There's always going to be the top 1 % that drive like a lot of the, I'm not saying these other actors aren't important or writers aren't important, but there's the superstars that stand out.

1:39Just like in the NBA, you have the super superstars and then you have the NBA players. And then you have the vast majority of people that can never play in the NBA. Right. It's the same thing with creator, creating anything at all. If you're going to be top 1 % to 1%, you're going to get outsized returns. And I think that's one thing to consider that, for example, in marketing, if you're going to be a creator, just understand that 1 % results means you have to get outsized returns. to put in top 1 % of the work. That's all I'm saying at the end of the day. My perspective on the strikes, I think they'll probably work out a lot of these deals.

2:09But at the end of the day, I think it's very difficult to protest your way to getting what you want. I think the way to get what you want is just busting your butt and struggling through and then powering through the journey, right? And eventually you figure it out or most people give up. And so I'm oversimplifying it a little bit, but I do think that's how it is. dude ideally you want to be in the top one percent but it's just tough and i get it what you're going to end up seeing is there's always going to be people who are willing to take the terms for a lot of the people who are protesting and saying hey i won't be able to do x y and z you can't use my name likeness and keep using it in the future and using ai to create versions of me without continuing getting paid there's gonna be some people like cool sounds good pay me whatever you want.

2:53I'll take something. It's better than nothing. But it's funny. It's just like, I look at what's happening here is this strike is just going to create a lack of amazing content because for a period of time, people just won't be producing as much, whether it's because of the writers or because of the actors, you're just not going to have as amazing content coming out in the future. and what I've always found at least in marketing is if you can be consistent with your content creation and create amazing content especially when other people aren't you can gobble up quite a bit of traffic so for example if there's not as many movies and tv shows that are going to come out because of this that are amazing go create more content yourself this gives you opportunity for people to spend more time on your websites versus watching abc tv or fox or whatever it is because even if you're not in entertainment, if people can't watch the latest episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, they get bored, what are they gonna do?

3:52They're gonna turn to Instagram, Facebook. They're gonna end up turning to blogs. This is when you should continually produce more content because if they can't be entertained elsewhere, they're gonna turn to the social platforms and blogs like yours. And if your content's good, you'll start gathering more eyeballs. Do you remember when the pandemic first hit and the only thing to watch on TV was like The Last Dance? I don't know about the last dance, but I always watched the Disney sing-along kids. So they were just, that was the thing that we kept watching almost every single day. The point is there wasn't much to watch when the pandemic hit.

4:28Like ESPN, there are no more sports things. Because sports is a lot of like group type of stuff, right? ESPN, all it had was the last dance, which was amazing. It was Michael Jordan's journey, right? And so Neil's point is really - Which is really good, by the way. The last dance was amazing. It was amazing. So to Neil's point, it's really, there's going to be a lot of attention that's available because I'm just looking at some of the updates over here. Numerous big budget movies that had been shooting had to shut down immediately, including Twisters, Venom 3, Deadpool 3, and Gladiator 2. If there's this void when it comes to attention, this is your chance to step up as a creator.

5:04And when ad costs are down as well, this is also your chance to step up as a creator. And so what i'll say is also is this if you're going to do this any marketing at all really comes down to the creative It comes down to the idea at the end of the day I'm talking more exclusively to youtube in this scenario A really good idea a really good thumbnail a really good headline and that goes a long way And that type of concept works for a lot of creators that you're going to make or any type of content that you're going to make At the end of the day because what you're doing is not just educating but you're also entertaining as well So edutainment and I think that's a big piece of it one other a couple other key points to call out from this thing too is the strike is the first joint strike in more than six decades.

5:41So that's a very long time. And there's no plans to restart negotiations. And strike is demanding better pay, fair working conditions and protections from AI threats. I think that's a, I think that it's fair to ask for those things. If it's, I don't know enough about it, but I think it's fair to fight for them. I do believe that the fears of a tech dominated future, that's just human nature, right? When new technology comes out and we'll work towards wrapping this up, but when new technology comes out for example when computers first came like no my computers will never take over when industrial age happens no they won't take our people people are generally like fearful of these new technologies but at the end of the day we find a way to make it work out so do you remember when people were afraid of the year 2000 what would happen with computers yeah y2k yeah yeah that's a long time ago do you remember the wrestler y2j he came from chris jericho who came from the whole concept of Y2K.

6:33But anyway, I digress. So look, we hope this strike resolves, but if it doesn't, it's an opportunity for you to step up. But the other thing too, to bear in mind here is that control what you can control and let the rest of the chips fall into their places and you will be okay. That's it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.