On the Spot: Joe Burns of Quality Meats and Jon Crowley of Fuse Create

0:00Jon Crowley: This series is brought to you by Tracksuit. Tracksuit is the affordable, always-on brand tracking tool that helps marketers and agencies answer the question, is what we're doing working? Companies pay$100 ,000, which I still can't believe, or even more, for brand tracking, which is out of the question for most modern brands. Their in-house research experts do the heavy lifting using best-in-class practices to craft your survey and get you results fast. Tracksuit gives you brand tracking you can afford. Check them out at GoTracksuit.com. That's GoTracksuit.com. And by System 1, what if you could predict whether an ad or product or an idea was going to connect with consumers and be successful?

0:50Jon Crowley: even before it launched. That's where System One comes in. They're the creative effectiveness platform that uses emotional measurement and norms to help brands predict what will truly drive growth and how to further improve it. From new product concepts and packaging to Super Bowl spots and social campaigns, System One enables you to create with confidence across all of your creative. To learn more, check them out at systemonegroup.com. That's systemonegroup.com. Welcome to On Strategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O 'Carroll in Chicago. Now, what you're going to hear today is the studio version of what we are doing live in New York City this Wednesday, meaning in two days from now, which would be Wednesday, September 23rd.

1:41Jon Crowley: We are doing On the Spot live at Johannes Leonardo. It's sort of a tweaked version of what you're going to hear today. In the live version, which is happening between 5 and 7 p.m. this Wednesday, we are actually having three strategists come in and pitch campaigns they love but they never worked on. And they're going to do it in front of a live audience. We have close to 200 strategists from New York City that are coming to this live show. It's pretty amazing and kind of speaks to the popularity of this show format, meaning this on-the-spot format. I'm holding in my hand, this is another advantage to watching this on YouTube, I'm actually holding in my hand the trophy that is awarded to the winning strategist on the night.

2:33Jon Crowley: And what happens is each strategist gets five minutes to pitch the campaign that they love to the live audience. They show the work, they talk about the strategy, the insights, the target audience, etc. The challenge that they feel the brand faced. And they get five minutes. At the end of the three strategists pitching, the audience is allowed to ask them votes, ask them questions, and ultimately votes on which they think is the best campaign. And this stunning, this stunning award is presented at the end of the night. It's a fun, informal way to get the strategy community together. And Lord knows we need some fun.

3:16Jon Crowley: So the three strategists that are presenting on Wednesday night, this Wednesday night at Johannes Leonardo are Ellery Luce is EVP strategy at Mischief. Veronica Thu is head of strategy at Mother in New York. and Jonathan Daly is head of comm strategy at Johannes Leonardo, otherwise known as JL. If you know where JL's offices are located, you'll know that they're super convenient for trains around New York City. They're downtown at 115 Broadway. So it will be brilliant to see you. Come along and hang out with the entire strategy community in New York City. You can get some of the final tickets on our website at onstrategyshowcase.com.

4:02Jon Crowley: Under the live tour tab on the homepage, you can get your tickets there. That's onstrategyshowcase.com. Super excited about it. I actually do love this on-the-spot format, which I know is kind of confusing because our show is called On Strategy Showcase, and this is called On The Spot. But there's an interesting story behind that. I'll tell you at some time in the future. So anyway, back today to our episode of On The Spot, which was recorded in the studio a couple of weeks ago. Now, today we have Joe Burns, who is partner and head of strategy at Quality Meats in Brooklyn. He is going to be pitching PlayStation to us today.

4:45Jon Crowley: And Joe picked a campaign that is a couple of decades old, which is cool to do, too. I mean, I think it really worked out well. It's the first time somebody did that. So, um, uh, it's a great conversation. And then we have John Crowley and John is partner and head of strategy at Fuse Create in Toronto. Now, uh, John is going to be pitching us Depop and, um, uh, what's really, what really worked out well here. And I always, you know, it's like anything you do, you, the more you do it, you learn new things. You have to be open to, to knowing what's working and what's not, and what might be good and experimenting.

5:23Jon Crowley: I think the experiment this week, this month for this episode was the fact that when I initially invited Joe Burns to come along, I said to Joe, is there somebody that you vibe really well with when you start sort of talking about strategy? And that's where he connected me with John Crowley, because those two guys, you know, go back and forth talking about strategy a lot. So I really liked that idea, too. Again, the fact that they know each other, they can vibe and they can go back and forth, creates great energy and I think a familiarity that really benefits the show. So if you have somebody you vibe with really well and you're in strategy, let me know and we'll see if we can fit you into a show coming up.

6:11Jon Crowley: Okay, so this is Joe Burns and John Crowley in this month's episode of On The Spot. Enjoy. Well, we are back this month with On The Spot, where planners talk about brands they love but never worked on. Two new guests this week at Joe Burns out of Quality Meats in New York City. Good to have you, Joe. Good to be here. And John Crowley is out of Fuse Create in Toronto. Good to have a Canadian who lives in Canada on the show again. Good to be here. So great to have you. We've also got Vanessa Chin, SVP Marketing for System One.

6:51Joe Burns: Hello.

6:52Jon Crowley: And back again, Rags Prey Tav, Head of Sales for Tracksuit in New York City. Good to have you back. Thanks, guys. Good to have you. Looking good as always. And we are going to be talking about two great brands today. One is Depop and the other is PlayStation. And the backdrop on all of this is that Joe knows John because they actually debate back and forth in various chat rooms about strategy and ideas and campaigns. So when I was talking to Joe, I was suggesting, well, Joe, who do you think would be somebody that you really kind of rap with well and have a good vibe with? And that's how John came on the scene.

7:29Jon Crowley: Now, for those of you not watching on YouTube, you're missing an amazing spectacle, which is the fact that John is in a room where he literally has every square inch of the wall behind him. It's his private sneaker shoe collection. Right, John? Describe it for people who are listening and not watching.

7:52Joe Burns: I've got about 120 pairs of sneakers sitting on floating shelves on the wall behind me. beautifully lit it is especially this time of day it's coming through really nicely but there's probably about 30 something pairs of air jordan ones up there i've got a lot of threes uh some nike dunks and then a whole bunch of adidas stuff that i've loved for the past few years so i am uh i'm brand agnostic when it comes to sneakers i am not like a one company guy well i gotta tell you i think i

8:23Jon Crowley: have one one pairs of two pairs of sneakers one i run with and the one i wear when i'm if i'm going out somewhere but i am i'm very deficient in the sneaker department unlike joe who's a shoe guy

8:34Joe Burns: right not not so much as sneaker guy yeah i love i love a pair of like nice welted sole shoes you know what i mean i come from the midlands which isn't far from northampton and if you know um if you know your shoe history you'll know that there's just like brands that have been there for like a thousand years, these guys have been making shoes, not the same guys, obviously. So there's a lot of shoe heritage in the UK. I'm a fan of it.

8:59Jon Crowley: And so do you buy mostly shoes from the UK or do you buy some over here?

9:03Joe Burns: Uh, there's some really great US brands and there's some good UK brands. I've got a few pairs of churches. I've got a few pairs of, um, trickers, which you'll probably be familiar with. I've got some Yucatens, which are a good, cool US brand. And they made those in Mexico and in the U.S. So, again, a brand agnostic kind of shoe guy.

9:25Jon Crowley: Love it. Anyway, so we are here to talk about a couple of great brands. But as we started the last time that we were on the show last week, last month, for the first time, we introduced cocktails and mocktails and insisted that people bring one along. So, John, what have you got? what are you drinking today? And it's not 9 a.m. in the morning, people. It is later, so we can now effectively have a drink.

9:54Joe Burns: I and my HR department, thank you for clarifying that. This is a spiced maple Manhattan, which I hope doesn't make me too much of a Canadian stereotype. That sounds like that's pretty delicious, man. Is it super sweet or not? It's a subtle sweetness. It's sweetened up that it feels like a treat, but not so much that I'm worried about being hungover in two hours.

10:15Jon Crowley: I like that.

10:16Joe Burns: How about you, Joe? What do you got? I've got the spaghet, or is it sometimes called hobo negronis? Oh, my God. Look at that. Which is a mill of high life, the champagne of beers. The champagne of beers, dude.

10:28Jon Crowley: Champagne of beers with a bit of Campari in there. Oh, my God. I love it. Vanessa, what have you got?

10:35Joe Burns: All right. Well, it's back to school season, so any parent knows that everyone's sick at this point.

10:40Jon Crowley: So let's just pretend that this is a hot toddy and just to smooth out the throat a little bit for today's recording. All right. All right. And Rags, what do you got?

10:51Joe Burns: I've got an athletic brewing with me. I'm glad that our clients are keeping our office fridge nicely stocked. How do you like that?

10:59Jon Crowley: I tasted that a couple of weeks ago. We did a show with our CMO. What's your thought of it?

11:05Joe Burns: I think it's pretty good. Yeah. It's nice. I think it's got a good flavor profile. I think it's like the IPA equivalent. But yeah, I like it.

11:15Jon Crowley: And I'm the old-fashioned guy, so I am always old-fashioned and enjoy it and will be tasting it throughout this conversation. So great to have everybody having a cocktail. It's because we're trying to reflect what it's like to hang out with friends at a bar. That's the whole idea behind cocktails. I did have somebody reach out and say, should we be promoting alcohol on this show? So to that person, we're not necessarily promoting alcohol. You could have a mocktail too, but we're just sort of trying to relax and have some fun with it. Okay. So John, you know, the idea behind the show, you talk about a campaign that you, that you loved, but you've never worked on.

11:52Jon Crowley: And then we all just sort of pile on and ask you questions about it. So you decided to pick a Depop. Tell us about the, tell us about why you picked that and what do you think the challenge is for that brand?

12:03Joe Burns: so i think depop's in a really fascinating space because there's kind of like the micro level challenge which is their resale clothing app and this is actually a pretty competitive space they've got grailed which is kind of owned the streetwear segment for an extended period of time in terms of designer resale you've got um poshmark which offers a really similar thing and then you've got the classics you've got your ebay's you've got your kijiji's there's a lot of players that are out there allowing people to sell the different products they have. And they're all competing with a couple of things.

12:37Joe Burns: One of them being the resale market isn't always the most appealing thing to everyone who would benefit from engaging in it. You either need to get over the work of kind of selling your stuff or you need to get engaged in buying your stuff. And so Depop found an interesting solution to this in my perspective was they basically treat themselves like a fashion brand here. rather than talking to you about features or delivery speeds or anything like that they made an ad that has the feeling of like a classic diesel or levi's ad from 15 years ago so it leans really into fashion codes there's there's some slapstick in it it's really funny and really engaging but by the time you get to the end of the ad you realize what they're selling you is their platform as a way of validating the quality of your taste rather than their platform as a way of putting 20 bucks in your pocket or buying a designer sweater for slightly less money i think it's fascinating from a rebranding challenge perspective especially because they do the great job of not acknowledging any of the structural reasons people might be engaging with this and then focusing on reasons why it might make you feel good to be a person in this community what do you mean structural reasons oh so i think i'm a little obsessed with is the fact that uh i don't know if you've heard but the economy is in a bit of a mess these last couple years um we're reading a lot about the k-shaped economy and the death of the middle class And the thing that fascinates me is for decades now, middle class has defined itself by the things it consumes.

14:02Joe Burns: You know, are you a person who gets your coffee at Dunkin' Donuts or are you a person who gets your coffee at Starbucks? What does that say about you as a human being? Now, more and more of these purchase decisions are actually being determined by governmental policy, by what your tax rate is this year, by whether your industry is doing well. And so people are needing to kind of hold on to their sense of identity by making different purchase decisions. And I think the growth in the resale market is part of that. People who don't want to give up buying the cutting edge clothes, maybe they're not going to Essence anymore.

14:31Joe Burns: Maybe they're going on Depop or an equivalent and making these purchases. But they need a way to make that feel aspirational rather than like some form of surrender to broader economic conditions.

14:41Jon Crowley: Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, my kids have been selling things on Depop, probably clothes that we invested a lot of money in buying for them. But it has been around for a while. I mean, I can't even remember how they used to market themselves and message themselves. Because the new work is from Uncommon out of New York and London. But do you have a sense of how they used to message themselves? Because I can't remember it.

15:07Joe Burns: I think like a lot of companies in this space, they started by tapping into existing online communities. There were a lot of message boards, a lot of Reddit threads, where people were engaging with conversation around this. and kind of being the product for those specific subcultures and communities was a great doorway in. But now as they try to expand more as they're trying to become mainstream and get broader market penetration, they need a story that's appealing to a broader set of people rather than people like me who are obsessive collectors of things the average person buys one or two of and moves on.

15:35Joe Burns: This may have spoken to me because I'm indirectly their target market.

15:39Jon Crowley: And you know, one of the other things that I heard about it was that 90 % of their buyers are under the age of 24. And that part of the challenge is how you sort of move that up a bit. One of the other guys in the category, I think, is Vinted. And Vinted has sort of more of an 18 to 40 range. And so it's almost a different buyer that has different fashion sensibilities, I think. And I wonder if that's part of it, Joe or John, is that the idea that they're featuring, to your point, a much more of a fashion forward more of a sort of sophisticated fashion sense in this rather than

16:20Joe Burns: younger it's a cool oh i think so i think that's the thing that i would say like it's a very cool brand and it's got cool heritage as a brand i think the thing that interests me about it is if you look at historically fashion will go through these kind of waves where it's kind of cool to look a bit scruffy and things are worn in you know what i mean like you look at a brand like barber no one looks good in a new barber look ridiculous but then when it's all crumpled and like you see all the creases in the way it's the same with denim jeans right new denim looks terrible until you've you've broken it in and i think the ad that you're talking about here there's a little element of that to it which is like there's this kind of story behind the things and i think that that's something that i've always felt is more aspirational something that's been around for a while to me is always kind of cooler than something that's like fresh unlike john's shoe collection which looks like it's never been it's not used it's vintage it's exactly i mean i think that's a big part of it that uh there is uh i do think like thrifting clothes buying clothes that have been loved or used or curated by someone else is becoming more of a mainstream behavior but part of the reason I think this lands it really well is it speaks to, it speaks to kind of like imbuing your value as a person with taste into the things you sell and the platform rewarding that rather than just focusing on the strictly transactional, you know, you take a photo of yourself and get your stuff from A to B.

17:50Joe Burns: Even though I do feel like they had some really great support from someone in strategy because they made sure to start the ad with someone literally using the product even if you don't see it on screen.

18:01Jon Crowley: So what's the, what's the spot that we're talking about it here joe that you that you said you like was it the was it the sort of threading yeah i

18:08Joe Burns: call it the weezer spot because of the weezer song that's what it makes me think of totally oh we're having a millennial party today i see what's going on here oh it's the we oh it's a creative must love weezer part of what also appeals to me about is it has a real like i'm dating myself here it has like a slight like michelle gondry surrealism to it a little bit when you're seeing the the impossible thing of this thread stretching across impossible space and dragging a person through walls and through doors that i think actually gets people to watch it add to the end which is the grand unspoken thing in the universe it's like can i keep your attention long enough to show you what brand this is for the other other than the comment i made earlier i feel like there's a rejection of best practices in order to actually create something compelling and meaningful that leaves you with a feeling that is rarer than i'd like it to be these days do you think that's the uncommon fingerprint it is uncommon right who did it yeah to me that's kind of like the nils leonard fingerprint on their output is that part of it is their thing which i think they say in their values it's something like brands that people want to exist in the world yes i think that's deep in this you know what i mean it's like oh do you know what i mean like there's that in there but then there's always that kind of like that uncommon thing that fingerprint on the work which is like it's kind of like vibesy but like in a way that you go that's clever right now yeah i'm not trying to sell quality minutes but we say dumb in a smart way whereas i feel like uncommons is like vibes in a smart way you know what i mean yeah it's a lot in a smart way the thing the thing i think it does incredibly well is you can see the effort going into what is on screen but it doesn't feel like they're trying too hard you know i feel like the benefit of an agency brand like uncommons is that uh people choose them to get this and so it's kind of self-selecting like you're not going to have someone call them up and demand the world's most boring dry work and i think that lets you do something that is a little bit more vibesy when it is self-selecting the people who are calling you and wanting to work with you yeah for sure i think i mean i think that's the way hopefully i mean we're getting into a chat about like agencies now which is classic for us to do but i think that's almost like we're preoccupied yeah the The future of the industry is that, hopefully.

20:24Joe Burns: You know what I mean? There's more personality and you can see that. I like it when you can see the thumbprint on the ads a little bit. And you're like, oh, that feels like an uncommon ad. It'd be like, it's not strong now when it was someone else. I think this is the win condition for smaller brands and smaller agencies. It's be distinctly something. Don't compete on function. Compete on meaning. Compete on positioning. Compete on being right for a segment of the market rather than just, you know, hey, we're here. We've got a lot of stuff.

20:54Jon Crowley: So let's, before we get into hearing the test results, let's explain the spot because we'll drop it in in post so people can hear it and talk about it. But in essence, what, for those who are just listening, the spot begins with a guy standing in his living room. He's taking a picture of a sweater that he wants to post on Depop. And then what you notice is that the string is unraveling from his sweater, and it's sort of pulling him along as it's unraveling. And he is pulled through a number of different sets and different scenes before he ultimately meets the person who is tugging on the other end.

21:35Jon Crowley: And it's the idea of having a doppelganger, that there is someone else in the world who has the same taste as you are. They talk about it as being sort of the emotional reward that you get when somebody buys something you want to sell because it feels like you're connecting to somebody. And there's that sort of dopamine hit that comes from knowing that somebody else shares or desires what your same taste has been. They talk about it where taste recognizes taste. That's sort of the tagline throughout the entire campaign. I was following the eye, was following the eye, was following the eye, was following the eye, was following the eye, was following the pack, I was following their clothes, with scarves of red, cut around their throats, to keep their little heads from falling in the snow.

22:31And I turn around and there you go And my clue would fall Turn the white stone red as strawberries

22:41Joe Burns: In some time

23:07Jon Crowley: How does it look in tracksuit data?

23:09Joe Burns: Yeah, it's really interesting. We looked at the pre-loved fashion buyer as the category here. So across the US, and I used Poshmark as the category leader from benchmarking. Poshmark across the country had 52 % claimed awareness. Depop had 23%. So pretty big gap. But Fergus, you said something really interesting earlier around, Like what was it? 90 % of Depop's buyers were 18 to 24.

23:35Jon Crowley: Under, under 20, under 26. Gen Z in essence.

23:39Joe Burns: So this is really interesting. That number from 20, 23 % nationally goes up to 48 % in awareness and becomes the category leader. Um, that's a big jump to suddenly. One more time on that. I missed that. Can you say it again? Please raise. Yeah. So 23 % of awareness nationally for Depop with an 18 to 24 year olds, that number goes up to 48. Poshmark dropped to 41. So they actually take over Poshmark and become a category leader. So aligned to what you, exactly what you were saying there. But there's something really, there's something really interesting in this about like the upstream strategy though, isn't there?

24:14Joe Burns: Yeah. Because like, now we're talking about this, the penny is kind of dropping for me because like, we've got, we live in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. It's quite, it's a well-heeled neighborhood, let's say that. And there's a real, real, real, Yeah. A real, real mega exclusive, right? Extremely expensive gear that you get in there. The amount they give you is nothing. You know what I mean? You'll take in something and be like, we'll sell this for a grand and we'll give you 50 quid. It's like, what, dollars? To me, I'm kind of going like, oh, if I was the big cheese at one of these reselling things, what's the right strategy for you to take?

24:53Joe Burns: Is the right strategy to be like, okay, let's be eBay, let's be vinted posh mark and we want mass awareness want everyone to know we want to remove the friction or do you want to be real real and be like only cool people are allowed in here we don't have crappy clothes from blah blah you know what i mean like we only want the cool people with premium and i think that to me is like that's where the strategy behind this stuff becomes really really interesting because i think this if you look at this spot and i think what we're seeing I'm not dissing you if you want to give us an RFP by the way Depop but what I'm saying is what I'm saying is you kind of do need to pick a lane you can't be in the middle you can't be like with the young cool trendy people who go to cool lower east side bars and you know have cool clothes that they can't really afford and have to sell at them because that that I think is where Depop in my head has always been I think what's strange about the this particular spot is you do feel it kind of pushes them into a bit more of a mainstream place yeah i think if you go above even the marketing but the strategy for the whole business it's like is that the right thing for depop to do so i feel like it's a good ad for maybe something that i'm and i don't know because i'm not i'm not employed by them and don't work there but like i'd love to know what their strategy is as a business is it to try and become more mass or do they want to lock down cool young people because i think like i don't think this is a great ad for locking down cool young people and i think the reasons that people have just said i don't really think it's a brilliant ad for to go in mass where you do need to do more of an educational job you know what i mean yeah yeah so the thing i find interesting is like there's there's another structural element that we need to consider in this broader market which is older people selling really expensive stuff they go to consignment stores yeah there is this in-between space of people that are just kind of not really an addressable market like if you're in the upper side and you're selling your chanel you're not going online to do that unless your housekeeper's stealing your stuff and making extra money by posting it so so like i do think that that youth market and like the young people using this as status signaling is an important thing to consider there but i think uh i think the other thing when i look at an ad like this is there's there's the second life that it has in terms of people seeing something of themselves or their social group in it and spreading it around on their own.

27:15Joe Burns: And I do think that's kind of like an unspoken element in the difference between how this performs as an ad in an ad setting and how it performs as a piece of content that people feel is representative of what they're doing. Because a thing you'll see about people talking and behaving in these kind of vintage used clothing reseller spaces is this idea that they are a curator and that their aesthetic and the choices they make says something meaningful about them as a person, in addition to it being an economic transaction. I think they've done a good job trying to own that a little bit. And so it doesn't shock me that that younger audience that might be more in tune with that is going to have a higher awareness level of this brand and feel potentially a little more represented by it.

27:53Joe Burns: I would love to know if there's like an essence.com to Depop pipeline of people just shopping that sale and then trying to flip where there's a slight deltter between the, uh, who knows? I'm going to have to look into this in more detail.

28:06Jon Crowley: We'll be right back. We're excited to collaborate with Lions Learning, the training division of Lions, home of the Effies, CanLion, Wark, and Contagious. Lions Learning is now enrolling for its next Master of Advertising Effectiveness program starting on October 12th. Led by James Herman, this eight-week online program gives marketing and advertising professionals a practical understanding of the proven principles behind advertising effectiveness and how to apply them to create work that drives stronger commercial results. James Herman is a globally recognized strategist and advertising effectiveness expert who just published his third book, Future Demand.

28:50Jon Crowley: He has won more than 50 advertising effectiveness awards and has spent over 20 years researching, publishing, practicing, and teaching advertising effectiveness. You can learn more about the course and register at learning.lions.co. That's learning.lions.co. Now back to the show. All right, so let's switch and go to Joe. Let's talk about what you selected and why.

29:17Joe Burns: so i i took this as a i was i loved getting this brief because i thought oh this is an opportunity for me to talk about some really good strategy when i really like advertising strategy that i really like and something that i think worked on me because i was probably in the target audience growing up so i chose an old one which i think wasn't ideal for the testing really because you kind of test in an ad from i don't even know 20 years ago i guess now yeah against the modern audience and i think this playstation that i want to talk about to me this is like the purest and best idea of what strategy is which is say everyone else is doing this and they're wrong because we're going to do this and it's just being like really confidently kind of like okay and in playstation's instance they were like sony nintendo and sega they think that computer games are toys they think video games are toys for kids so we're gonna not be for kids so we're gonna do all these ads that are kind of weird and fucked up and kind of almost don't even make sense but they no one who watches any of these things will ever think that this is an ad for kids and that's all that matters they're not really a message and like i always think you know now you can tell i'm getting animated and excited i think the idea that advertising needs a message is the most limiting thing because if you can do something like what sony i think did with this and like i can remember seeing it i'd be reading magazines i was probably 13 when this stuff was going on and there'd be like people with like ecstasy tablets on their tongue with the sony square circle triangle and it was just like immediately my brain is like this is being a teenagers this is having sex this is taking drugs this is all this cool stuff that i can't wait to do as a 13 year old and like they made playstation which is a video games thing sit in that world and like i'd go around my cousin who was older than me and he was taking drugs and having sex and all doing all that fun stuff so i was like oh i can't wait to be 17 like you are you know what i mean yeah he'd be like oh play on the playstation and then he'd put wipeout on and it'd be like the prodigy is the soundtrack of the game it's just like all this rave stuff and then you see these ads and it's just like oh this is completely insane all this stuff that's going on this is what it feels like to be 20 is what it feels do you know what i mean it's like you watch it okay i'm going to weird art house film screenings i'm going to raise and doing all this cool stuff so i think like the strategy there was just so bold in how it reframed the category of like everyone else is doing this wrong which i think is what the best strategies do and then the work itself the creative i'm a huge fan of and chris cunningham who did uh some of the direction but they brought in a load of these great directors and just made work and you know the other funny thing is it never get made today i don't think anyone would be bankrolling this kind of like crazy thing they're like you know so it's not

32:21Jon Crowley: that well held in calabar movie somebody's down to real real um um but the other thing is i always

32:31Joe Burns: we're all strategists i do feel sorry for creatives sometimes because like you know what i mean they they hope no one clips this and pulls it up in your office tomorrow well i do feel so for creators because they got into this industry thinking like oh i'm going to be working with you know chris cunningham and all these direct and like jonathan glaze is going to direct this crazy idea that i've got now they're you know i mean putting the brand in the first six seconds and you know well but then but then you've got something but then you got mother doing kfc

32:59Jon Crowley: in the uk where they're uh where they're doing the whole chicken campaign but that stuff is equally

33:04Joe Burns: as interesting and bizarre it's true i did i had a brief sent me some comms planning stuff when i was at mother on on that account and like i think that's testament to like quality client relationships who are willing to take those risks and make this but but this playstation campaign for me is just like okay that's the strategy in the purest sense where what it's trying to do is just like it's very simple and easy to explain but it's just a huge shift in what you're how you're thinking about and how you're playing the game of the category um i wonder if that was because the

33:36Jon Crowley: games at the time i'm wondering was were games independent games also signaling such a significant

33:42Joe Burns: shift away from kids or not i think that was i think that was part of it was that nintendo are very strict and they're still strict to this day i think like if you look at computer games the nintendo version often doesn't even have blood in the computer games so like that do you know what i mean there's truth in there and you can see how the logic would form yeah no um so i i think there was a general shift to that but i just think it was like a smart way to look at where growth is going to come from and like what's what's containing and holding the category back and then building a campaign that just like went balls to the wall with it you know yeah what do you think john i think there was also a great business problem in there which is like looking back at this 20 years ago give or take sony didn't have ip for video games and everyone else who was dominant video games did you know they didn't have a mario they didn't have a sonic the hedgehog uh at this point final fantasy 7 hadn't come out yet if we're talking about the campaign i think we're talking about so like the reason to buy a playstation couldn't be what it was for the entire category which was like if you want to play mario you're buying a nintendo or you can go to hell so they they had to give you an identity and a reason to buy it that wasn't the game so i think they did an incredible job doing that don't get me wrong i think this is fantastic campaign and some of the images from this are like haunting enough that i've used them in references for

35:04Jon Crowley: briefs for people yeah there's the one where it's like the little like eye veins that are showing

35:10Joe Burns: the four shapes from the controller. I don't know if you remember that one, but that was from, from the same era of Sony print ad. They were fantastic, but they were kind of solving two problems at once. One of them being this idea that, you know, video games are for little kids and Joe, I think you've called that perfectly. Like this was the big debate, but the other problem was they, in a fundamental way, they had like, they had a classic superior inferior product. You know, it was, it was like Betamax versus VHS. Every movie you wanted to watch was on VHS and Betamax and a higher frame rate and it was better blah blah blah blah blah people still want to see the movie they want to see and so I think Sony had to kind of climb that specific hill at the time they were launching no one knew what a crash bandicoot was because the

35:52Jon Crowley: campaign at least the spot that was tested for for this episode was SAP's which is society against PlayStation which kind of plays into what you guys are saying which is this idea that that there's this backlash in society against PlayStation for what it represents I don't know that then i said what do you think what was trying to represent yeah it is interesting testing

36:15Joe Burns: as much as we love 90s nostalgia it's really interesting to test work now because when we test it we don't give it a you know a disclaimer that this is an old ad we just let them watch it and see how it makes them feel and um we tested several spots and actually the ad that you'll air in this episode um it was very high scoring and definitely beat the category average so i don't know if we're going to do a test, but, um, yeah, we are some really, really, I mean, this is really interesting storytelling with like the, and the reverse psychology and all of that. Um, there's a lot that goes into this work, um, that is all right brain and, you know, helps, you know, make you feel something.

36:53Joe Burns: Cause this, there was a clear point of view, um, trying to be communicated, um, in this work and, um, that definitely made folks feel something.

37:02Jon Crowley: So, okay. Uh, Joe, uh, just Vanessa, So this was, did we go gen pop on this or did we do a cut on ages?

37:10Joe Burns: I have both, I believe. Yeah. I mean, it's all going to be gen pop. But let me just double check that we've got the age and demos at the end. I'm pretty sure we do. So what do we do? Yeah, I've got it.

37:23Jon Crowley: You got it. Okay. So what are your demo cuts? Where does it cut? 18 to 24?

37:28Joe Burns: So 18 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55 plus.

37:33Jon Crowley: Okay. So that's a 35 to 54. Why don't we, why don't we guess what we think it rated at 18 to 34? I mean, is that fair to say for maybe the primary audience? Joe, what do you think on a scale of one to 5.9?

37:45Joe Burns: Uh, I'm going to say four. It's a nice round four. Okay. John. I'm going to give it a 4.3. I recall these being very invigorating when I was in the target audience.

37:58Jon Crowley: Yeah.

37:59Joe Burns: Rags. I'm going to go 3.6. I think sometimes when thinking about the way these are tested, I think like clarity should be rewarded to some degree. So, yeah, I think that's probably the one thing that that might be missing from this.

38:13Jon Crowley: OK, I'm going to go I'm going to go 3.0 only because it's a 20 year old ad been tested against the young audience today. I think their their tolerances are probably even higher than what was in this particular spot. But, you know, I'm probably wrong. Right, Vanessa?

38:31Joe Burns: John was correct at 4.3. Holy shit. But actually, Fergus, the 18-34 scored the same as 35-54. And someone who was a teen in the 90s, I definitely had some really positive, nostalgic thoughts as I was watching, and I felt like I was back.

38:53Jon Crowley: So this is the spot here. We'll drop it in here. Hello, citizens of Europe.

38:59Joe Burns: As spokesperson for SAPS, the Society Against PlayStation, I'd like to talk to you about a mess threatening humanity. It's happening right here, in our very homes, and corrupting the lives of our loved ones. Yes, friends, I'm talking about this. It may look like a harmless bagel toaster, but inside is a deadly donut. How do you know PlayStation is not a normal game system? It carries these telltale signs. Scientists say its effects are mind-boggling. Users lose all sense of reality and enter another world. Here we have a normal, healthy young man. And here we have a fellow who's been experimenting with PlayStation for only a few minutes.

39:46Joe Burns: Proof that we saps must be on our guard. Remember, do not underestimate the power of PlayStation.

39:55Jon Crowley: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a freaking high score, Vanessa, 4.3.

40:01Joe Burns: The category average is 2.4. So, you know, what you're really seeing, and I think John mentioned it, was like the IP. Now so much focus today with Sony PlayStation is catering. They're so dominant in the category. It's not about, you know, growing their market share. They're really trying to carry forward their current gaming fans and the people that have already bought into certain IP and certain stories and certain characters and making sure that the next trailer, which is like a film trailer, that they carry them through and that they're excited about it. so when you actually start testing some of this work not gen pop you're seeing scores upwards of 5.9 like one after the other because they're so they are catering for the players um and they're they're they're really creating these worlds for them and they're super excited about the you know the next best thing but that's when they're running just ip stuff you mean i think i mean that's really interesting like you know you've invited us on a on a podcast that we can go on a soapbox it but i feel like you see that across categories i don't think it's just a media thing i think like it's so much easier to tell someone who already kind of likes the thing that you do or you know like oh hey we've got more of that stuff you already love and you gave us money for and you probably still give us money for even if we didn't show you this ad it's way harder to be like hey maybe you're on the fence check this out and we're going to engage I think like that shifts.

41:34Joe Burns: It's not just a games thing. I think that's like everything is trending towards the lower hanging fruit. I think Joe's just diagnosed why we're still getting more Marvel movies. Like when you, when you put something in front of people and it's like, it's the thing you remember, but a new one, they are all in. Maybe not after they've watched the entire thing, but they're definitely all in for the ad. Yeah.

41:57Jon Crowley: Well, Hey Rags, what's the tracksuit point of view?

42:00Joe Burns: yeah i mean look i think a lot of what vanessa alluded to um you know it's quite aligned to the data we look at um we look at gaming console buyers um again playstation no surprises here uh market leader i think as well what's interesting is you move further down funnel um looking at kind of that like purchase and preference metric um you know playstation outweighs xbox as the next competitor um by more than 10 and like that's a pretty big jump and i think when And someone is in, you know, I think, you know, Joe, talking about your kind of childhood, like you had your console, your games, you knew that experience and you remember that for a lifetime.

42:36Joe Burns: And it's very clear that people stay loyal within this category as well. So that's something that's really noticeable in the data that we see today as well. One thing that is kind of funny, though, is how it's flipped. And maybe the reason it's on the mind is my kid's five and I got him a Switch, a Nintendo Switch. so it almost feels like now the position in the gaming category is the opposite of like games aren't for kids it's like no games are for kids get your kid the switch it's okay it's like the same challenge as comic books if they wanted to hold on to their aging audience of people who were you know teens in the 1990s and so they've just kept keeping that audience they're like oh my god we forgot young people young people if we don't have those we're in trouble you know i have a kind of random question vanessa and uh and rags i and love your take on this do you think it maybe helped that this was a 90s ad that feels lo-fi and feels like there's like human hands on it for a modern audience because i'm thinking about the way every time someone makes something for tiktok or for instagram reels they're like oh we're gonna shoot it on an iphone we're gonna make it a little messy we want to have a little roughness to it so it feels human made is that suddenly back in um well nostalgia is um a huge lever um but there's i'll answer this two ways one is we when we see an ad especially like holiday ads and we see them come back every year like hershey's kisses with the bells um people just eat it up they absolutely love it and they get outstanding scores because they want to see it come back again um in this particular case, I think it's hit or miss.

44:11Joe Burns: It's not a given. So nostalgia doesn't always win. So in some of the work that we tested from PlayStation from the 90s, some worked and some didn't test as well. In this case, you saw it in the verbatim saying like, I like the nostalgia. I like the grainy. They actually even mentioned that. So there was quite a lot of positive verbatims. And the reason why they were happy with the work was because of that kind of approach to it, because they thought it was an ad running today. I've got another follow-on question, I guess, on that. Because I remember this was back in the UK when I was a mother, actually.

44:46Joe Burns: I remember seeing this cut. I think it was for an Ikea ad, and someone was like, oh, what do you think? I was like, it's just so dark. This ad's just dark. I don't mean, like, psychologically dark. I mean, like, the grade of this footage is dark. And I'm thinking, like, most of the time people are watching this, making a cup of tea or whatever, and it's on in the background. I think you go back and you look at that essay, the site against playstation ad the grade and the saturation and the richness of the color is so vibrant i mean like back to that era again like nickelodeon with all the vibrant oranges and greens and stuff yeah if you guys ever tested just like the impact of the grade on like advertising attention because like this is one of my like i am yes i am a strategist but one of my like crazy theories is just like dark ads don't work whether do you know what i mean like dark ads people just don't notice them because like it's too dark and they're not going to pay too much attention like never set an ad at night time you know i believe there is a color grading um study that was done so i will use it as a follow-up but the one ad that comes to mind that i'm was surprised it didn't score higher and i thought it was because it was so dark was um the instacart um ad the bananas super bowl spot that was a very very dark um and kind of green stiller yes yeah um and that didn't

46:04Jon Crowley: score as high as i thought it would dark in terms of comedic value oh uh no visual visually dark it

46:12Joe Burns: was very very dark and kind of grainy um and because there's a lot of right brain tools and like schadenfreude and you know humor and the song and it was it had all of these amazing components to it um but the viewers didn't quite give it um those like really really high scores and i had was thinking it could have been because of the color grading of it this is this is i think there's something in that i know exactly the idea you're talking about it's like but that that the playstation spot it's just so vivid it's just like oh the saturated tones of it it's like i'm searing into your brain i would love if color saturation was the new up the volume 10 in terms of getting people to pay attention when we cut from the hbo drama to the commercial break in

46:55Jon Crowley: between episodes well i will say that i'm drawn to the color saturation behind your head there john there is definitely i'm drawn to that yellow those shoes are vibrant

47:04Joe Burns: i think i've actually done in the past is depending on who i'm meeting with rearrange so you get a lot of their brand colors in in situ but uh that's uh yeah trick of the trade any from depop no actually there are a couple of pairs that i purchased on stock x but uh you know depop if If you want to sponsor me, give me a call.

47:29Jon Crowley: So let's wrap up with just your summary thoughts, Joe, on both of these campaigns. What was this that sort of struck you about each of them? Do they have sort of a shared challenge or are they looking at completely different things?

47:46Joe Burns: I mean, like, it's really hard to be in this spot because you want to kind of like be critical. So I'm going to be critical. I'm not saying I could do a better job. to me i feel like the depop campaign is a good example of i don't think the upstream strategy is right i say this as strategists i'm not trying to start a fight for whoever is doing that upstream strategy work but like at least looking at their execution i'm just not sure where they're heading as a brand and what they're like what's the bet they're putting down that they want to win and i think john's exactly right they've got this nice human thing about like oh taste is a validating thing i think that's a great resonant insight but to me strategy has to be dog eat dog it's like okay how does this idea kill ebay how does it kill real real or do we just ignore them and go for this thing over here like to me strategy's always got to be about winning and i don't see where the winning factor comes in the ad itself and the creative is good though whereas i think if you look at the sony work it's kind of the opposite where the strategy is so good that the creative can kind of just do whatever it wants within like a tightly defined area and when you give creative that if you give creative the freedom of like a really good winning oriented strategy for a brand i think it gives the creative more freedom to then excel so i think like if you're asking for like a little wrap-up again i'm not trying to start a fight with anyone at depot but i just feel like it's a great creative execution but i don't understand how the strategy there is one that's like gonna cut the legs off ebay do you get what i mean like yeah i do yeah i think it's fair and i think sony's work from the past it was just like it just kills savior it kills nintendo it's like they're kids toys i want this thing and when you've done that i think the creatives have just got such a better remit to do their thing so there's that the kind of wrap-up that would suffice that's beautiful john oh yeah i think there is a similarity between both campaigns and that both of them were trying to convince you they weren't the thing that you thought they were.

49:52Joe Burns: Sony was trying to convince you that the PlayStation wasn't another game system for kids, even though I would wager a decent portion of their sales was a game system for kids who didn't want to believe they were kids anymore. And I think Depop's trying to get you to think of them as more than another resale app. They're trying to think of themselves as a fashion force and be part of the conversation. So I do think they have that commonality. it's interesting though because i think uh i'm going to disagree with joe because that's you know one of my hobbies is that uh i think sometimes people forget that strategy is like advertising where it's not necessarily just about how to win it's also about how not to lose the biggest reason to advertise isn't actually to increase your portion of sales is to protect what you already have and i think both of these brands were trying not to lose by redefining the category that we're going to play in playstation knew that if it went head-to-head against nintendo and Sega at that point for we make fun games for kids, literally no one would have bought one.

50:49Joe Burns: And I feel like Depop's decided that they're in a really crowded space right now of we're your bargain hunting resale universe where there's 12 other players that are trying to compete for you to sell your Margiela tabbies on them. But if they pivot instead to wanting to be behaving more like a fashion brand and focusing more on offering validation connection for people who define themselves by the quality of their taste, that might be a different place to try to be a mass brand.

51:15Jon Crowley: You know, Etsy owns Depop. It did, which is kind of wild, man. I think they spun it off, Rags. Have you heard? I see a nodding there, Rags. Yeah. And Depop business is up 60 % year over year last year. So it's not a business sales problem. I think it's sort of an identity challenge.

51:35Joe Burns: Well, this could be a conversation for another day, but eBay had actually acquired Depop for every billion dollars.

51:43Jon Crowley: Ah, because it was spun out. There was some challenge with Etsy. I heard it was because of this ad, actually. They bought it and they blew it out.

51:49Joe Burns: What was that, John? I heard it was because of this ad, actually. It's so good, you get a billion dollars. Yeah.

51:58Jon Crowley: All right, Eddie, do you want to share a thought, Rags, before we wrap up?

52:02Joe Burns: Yeah, I mean, look, the Depop one, to me, I'm actually going to take Joe's side on this. the words that had kind of come back with this idea of like, you know, trend forward, fashionable, stylish, vintage, youthful. Those were some of the themes that we had picked up and I think, you know, may have been missed in terms of how that was delivered. So I really feel like, again, going back to those numbers, Fergus, of like where that audience sits. Also, again, like now adding in this whole eBay play, like, is there a reason to start to split that out? How does that kind of play out over time and the way they see the brand moving forward.

52:36Joe Burns: And I mean, you know, PlayStation have done incredible work here to tie into, at least now what we see is like some really like key nostalgic moments. But yeah, to your point earlier, it's probably a spot you would not see in today's world, but nonetheless, they really kind of like, you know, using a fair bit of creative license to create disruption in this space.

52:58Jon Crowley: So just for everybody to know, if you're watching again on YouTube, there's the advantage of being able to see this. But I'm going to show you this here. This is actually the on-the-spot trophy that is going to be handed out for the first time when we do this show live, this on-the-spot live in front of a live audience. Or in front of a live audience. And it's a little different format. Three strategists are going to pitch. They get five minutes each to stand up, pitch the work of the campaign they love but never worked on. then they're peppered with questions that are probably beer influenced and then the audience votes on the winner and the actual winner gets this delightful trophy we're doing it in new york joe at yannis leonardo as september 23rd we're doing a lot of it yeah you've got veronica haven't

53:46Joe Burns: you from we do man we do have veronica ask an awkward question or something yeah i love it

53:54Jon Crowley: So this is it. This is the beautiful winner's trophy for On The Spot. So we're excited to have it be a part of the show. So Joe, John, Vanessa, Rags, thank you all for being a part of it. It was great to have you guys chat. And I did love the dynamic between Joe and John. We've got to do this more often with people who are regular banter partners. Thanks for doing this. It does come in handy. Pleasure. Thanks for having us.

54:16Joe Burns: I love it. Thanks so much, guys.

54:18Jon Crowley: Bye. And we'll see everyone on the next episode.