Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
Speaker 1: going to have to start making better content. I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
Speaker 1: When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
Speaker 1: I think it's that we're purpose driven platform, like we're
Speaker 1: trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
Speaker 1: happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It
Speaker 1: really is? What's up? I'm Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen.
Speaker 1: Welcome back at Landia. So, Alexa, recently I sent you
Speaker 1: a picture that is circulating the Internet of a Netflix billboard,
Speaker 1: and I thought we might start there. I have a confession.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you something. I saw that and
Speaker 1: I like started to sweat. When I was like two three,
Speaker 1: Yahoo had a billboard to billboards one in Times Square
Speaker 1: one in San Francisco, just like the Netflix billboard. And
Speaker 1: guess who had to program the content on that billboard.
Speaker 1: Guess guess who yours? Truly it was me? Every week
Speaker 1: a new message and guess what I did? But wait,
Speaker 1: were you changing the messaging yourself or not? It wasn't
Speaker 1: climbing a ladder, Laura. I was going into the visual
Speaker 1: of you not only concepting, but producing and actually executing.
Speaker 1: That would be amazing. No, But I concepted the copy
Speaker 1: and then I had to send it to the installer
Speaker 1: who would go up and put up the letters. Right.
Speaker 1: So this is like two thousand and three, two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, I was like a bitty boo in the
Speaker 1: agency world, and I get this call from my client
Speaker 1: for freaking out, like the Internet had broken. And I
Speaker 1: was like, what what's wrong? And they were like, you
Speaker 1: put the u r L on the billboards incorrectly And
Speaker 1: you would think like all of Yahoo went down, but
Speaker 1: now but now it was a slight change of the dot.
Speaker 1: The dot was in the wrong place for the U
Speaker 1: r L. That was my biggest career fumble. You could
Speaker 1: call it a fumble, or you could have asked to
Speaker 1: see the back end visits to know whether or not
Speaker 1: your billboard was an effective traffic driver, a truly unique
Speaker 1: Alexa Christian u r L. It was a truly unique
Speaker 1: Alexa Christian you are L. And in fact it was
Speaker 1: a hundred percent bounced percent bounce on that U are
Speaker 1: L shining moment. Then the Netflix copy couldn't be more
Speaker 1: on brand Alexa. The copy said, don't give up on
Speaker 1: your dreams. We started with DVDs, I started with incorrect
Speaker 1: U R L and the full circle. I think that's
Speaker 1: where the show begins and maybe hands today. So Alex,
Speaker 1: we have a great guest on the show today, Monica
Speaker 1: Padman from Armchair Expert is here, so good. But before
Speaker 1: we get into the Monica interview, we had a really
Speaker 1: good conversation last night. I called you last night because
Speaker 1: something has been bothering me, something that actually this episode
Speaker 1: got me thinking about in a slightly different way, and
Speaker 1: it's in context to what's been happening in the news
Speaker 1: with media outlets in the last two weeks and something
Speaker 1: that Monica said and you guys will hear this in
Speaker 1: the episode. The Armchair onm Brella has a huge, huge audience, right,
Speaker 1: They do like twenty million downloads a month just on
Speaker 1: Armchair Expert, like on their main show, which just just
Speaker 1: to put that in context, Tom Brady came back to
Speaker 1: play the New England Patriots Sunday Night Football doing twenty
Speaker 1: point five million viewers. So just to give some context
Speaker 1: as to the universe that we're talking about here, and
Speaker 1: that's Armchair Experts doing that monthly. And so when we
Speaker 1: brought that up to Monica in the episode. She was like,
Speaker 1: we don't think about that. I don't want to think
Speaker 1: about that. In fact, I don't even want to hear
Speaker 1: that number. And it got me thinking about how are
Speaker 1: we actually quantifying and more importantly qualifying what is good
Speaker 1: in media? And Laura, you said something to me last night.
Speaker 1: We've gotten in the game of more is more? But
Speaker 1: is it is it really more is more the goal?
Speaker 1: Because as we go into the issues that have come
Speaker 1: up in the last week with media companies, they've been
Speaker 1: chasing scale, the race to the bottom, and that's become
Speaker 1: the measuring stick, which is how big is your audience?
Speaker 1: Because you can sell more ads, how do you get
Speaker 1: to more eyeballs? And what's happened is through years, right,
Speaker 1: what you and I ended up talking about last night
Speaker 1: was what's the solve Because as long as media is
Speaker 1: race to the bottom, more is more volume volume volume
Speaker 1: buying on a CPM. Until that changes, we are going
Speaker 1: to see media outlets continue to put profit over great content,
Speaker 1: over people over what's right, and we will constantly see
Speaker 1: some form of inflation of those numbers. So, in building
Speaker 1: on that, bridging last week's episode to this week's episode.
Speaker 1: There was something that Austin said in our conversation with
Speaker 1: Morning Brew on our last episode that really stuck out
Speaker 1: to me and I can't stop thinking about it. When
Speaker 1: he was talking about receiving one of their first big
Speaker 1: RFPs from from a major advertiser, they RFP for a
Speaker 1: range of budget and as part of that conversation, he
Speaker 1: posed a question which was, well, how big does our
Speaker 1: audience have to be to warrant your five thousand dollar
Speaker 1: commitment or RFP? And it's sat with me because there's
Speaker 1: a common denominator here that we've applied as buyers in
Speaker 1: the industry that the same model or methodology I applied
Speaker 1: to buying a major broadcast network would be the same
Speaker 1: methodology I apply to buying a niche newsletter. When I
Speaker 1: think about people raising their hand, subscribing to a newsletter,
Speaker 1: spending five plus minutes with the newsletter, sharing the newsletter,
Speaker 1: coming back the next day in their inbox, opening the newsletter,
Speaker 1: it's a different behavior than being exposed to a thirty
Speaker 1: second spot on television, But yet I buy it the
Speaker 1: same way. Is that correct? So last night, after we
Speaker 1: got off the phone, which you know, I went on
Speaker 1: the Internet to try to figure out the origin of
Speaker 1: the CPM model. I would love to have somebody in
Speaker 1: Landia come on the show and take us through the
Speaker 1: origins of the CPM model and why it hasn't evolved
Speaker 1: into modern media. And I think the thing that we're
Speaker 1: getting to today is the creator economy and Web three
Speaker 1: might just be the thing that breaks the model. It
Speaker 1: breaks the model, and it has to break the model.
Speaker 1: It has to break the model. That's what's so exciting
Speaker 1: about this. When we talk about media capturing audience, the flip.
Speaker 1: The flip is audience voting with their wallet on that media.
Speaker 1: I mean Twitter, tip Jar is an example of that
Speaker 1: sub stack, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. This is not, by the way,
Speaker 1: this is not a drill. What's going to happen as
Speaker 1: more audiences fragment and they start to find who and
Speaker 1: what speaks to them, that's when you start to see
Speaker 1: the hockey stick. That's when you start to see the growth.
Speaker 1: That's when you buy the T shirt. It's exactly right,
Speaker 1: it's the t shirt, it's the ticket sale. It is
Speaker 1: a difference between monthly active users and fandom, and fandom
Speaker 1: and the metrics that you quantify for fandom as opposed
Speaker 1: to passive scale. It's just like we're talking about a
Speaker 1: different model. It's a totally different game. Kicking us back
Speaker 1: into the Monica episode, there are a couple of gems
Speaker 1: in here that could be ignored and it's what hooked
Speaker 1: me and got me thinking about this stuff last night,
Speaker 1: which was volume versus specific and are those things. It's
Speaker 1: very similar to the common station we had with Alex
Speaker 1: and Austin, which is niche and scale are not mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1: You can have niche and you can have scale. The
Speaker 1: specificity specificity why specific is universal. So with that, Atlantia,
Speaker 1: we hope you love this. Listen, we'll be right back
Speaker 1: al right at Landia. We are back with our partners
Speaker 1: that yield Mo. If you remember, we spent our first
Speaker 1: mini series talking about how yield Mo works with brands
Speaker 1: to make audience attention actionable and in this mini series
Speaker 1: we take on how contextual targeting is being reimagined as
Speaker 1: brands make every interaction with their consumer meaningful. Welcome Lisa Bradner,
Speaker 1: GM of Data and Analytics from yield Mo. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, great to be back. Always great to talk
Speaker 1: to you guys. Lisa, how does real time factor into
Speaker 1: context irrelevance? Real time for contextual is critical because if
Speaker 1: you don't have that audience signal that says I know
Speaker 1: who this person is and I know the message I
Speaker 1: gave them previously, you need those real time signals to
Speaker 1: say and I serving the right creative or not? Is
Speaker 1: this message hitting or not. In addition, so much media
Speaker 1: is now integrating commerce that that window between exposure and
Speaker 1: sale is getting shorter all the time. So if you're
Speaker 1: not real time, you may miss a sale. Right, It's
Speaker 1: not just you're missing the impression, you actually missed the
Speaker 1: opportunity to close the sale. So being able to quickly
Speaker 1: optimize and adjust and using machines to do that is
Speaker 1: how you're going to increase your row as your r
Speaker 1: o I, your sales overall. It's a critical component to
Speaker 1: marketing and advertising today. And if we need to get
Speaker 1: that close to increasing the potential of that sale conversion engagement,
Speaker 1: what are the implications that marketers need to be thinking
Speaker 1: about in optimizing the process. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that and then marketing that we need to
Speaker 1: turn on their head. I would challenge the first thing
Speaker 1: we should do is take the c DJ right, the
Speaker 1: consumer decision journey, throw it out and rethink it right.
Speaker 1: We've always come at it from oh we you know,
Speaker 1: Laura likes to listen to radio when she's up in
Speaker 1: the morning, and then she comes home and checks her
Speaker 1: phone for weather, and then she watches TV. As a marketer,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with that. I suggest
Speaker 1: that we turn it on their head and say, what
Speaker 1: do I want to communicate throughout my day? What is
Speaker 1: the right message, when, where and why for my customers
Speaker 1: and match the media and creative to that. I think
Speaker 1: we're really on the edge of marketers coming back and
Speaker 1: really owning that customer experience. And instead of worrying about
Speaker 1: each individual and thinking if I can just collect enough
Speaker 1: data about you, I can get you to buy me,
Speaker 1: they're going to take a healthy step back to saying
Speaker 1: who is my brand, where does it belong, and how
Speaker 1: should I show up in each of these environments and
Speaker 1: when to do that effectively, your creative and media strategies
Speaker 1: have to be completely linked, right. You can't build out
Speaker 1: the entire creative campaign and they say, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess we should have a media plan for this. You
Speaker 1: should be building that media plan and then building the
Speaker 1: creative notes that go with each step of that media plan.
Speaker 1: So instead of having a consumer decision journey, it should
Speaker 1: be the brand decision journey and mapping the creative and
Speaker 1: media to match all that. Thank you, Lisa Bradner and
Speaker 1: our partners at yield MO. Looking forward to having you
Speaker 1: back for part three of our four part series Welcome
Speaker 1: Back at Landia. We're super excited if you have a
Speaker 1: special guest with us today. Monica Padman is joining us
Speaker 1: in Adlandia. Monica is the co creator, co host and
Speaker 1: producer of Armchair Expert. Welcome Monica, Monica, Hi, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. We're so excited to have you. I have
Speaker 1: to shout out our friend Brad Grossman at Zeit Guide,
Speaker 1: who connected us and was like it was hilarious. Actually
Speaker 1: he texted me he said, do you know Monica Padman?
Speaker 1: I wrote back, No, why would I know, Monica Padman.
Speaker 1: So you're gracious enough to come on the show and
Speaker 1: talk to us about audio podcasting talent and the breakout
Speaker 1: show that you and Dak Sheppard have created, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to Actually it's not even a show anymore.
Speaker 1: It's a network yeah, it's a true network. So Laura
Speaker 1: and I have read all of the things, right, like
Speaker 1: how you and Dax kind of got started. I think
Speaker 1: people can read about that. It's a great story arguing
Speaker 1: about serial dak saying I'm really interested in podcasting. You
Speaker 1: guys have created something amazing. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of magic in the relationship that you have. Obviously you
Speaker 1: have a really strong perspective about the programming of the show,
Speaker 1: how you edit the show, how you produced the show,
Speaker 1: the shows that you've selected. It as the kind of
Speaker 1: network has started to really mature all of those things.
Speaker 1: So that's the kind of stuff we want to talk about.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, really talk about when
Speaker 1: I was reading I think it was the l A
Speaker 1: Times article that was profiling the show and really got
Speaker 1: deep into a little bit more detail. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that they said was Monica presented Dax with
Speaker 1: the business plan. So Dax said, I want to do this,
Speaker 1: and you presented him with a business plan. But nowhere
Speaker 1: could I find what the business plan actually said. So Monica,
Speaker 1: what was in the business plan? Well you probably haven't
Speaker 1: found details on that, because that's a really h that's
Speaker 1: really fancy way of saying what happened by saying that
Speaker 1: I proposed a business plan. Really what happened is he said,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to do a podcast. It goes
Speaker 1: really nonchalant, and I was like, okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out. So that was kind of the
Speaker 1: business plan I suppose. Um. And then from there, from
Speaker 1: there I was like, oh, I gotta I guess I
Speaker 1: gotta figure it out. UM. So I approached via my therapist.
Speaker 1: This is so bizarre, but my I found my therapist.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna their podcast. I was listening to this
Speaker 1: amazing podcast called Totally Lame that I used to love
Speaker 1: so much, and it's it's no longer a recurring podcast,
Speaker 1: but it was so good and my therapist was on
Speaker 1: it randomly before she was my therapist, and I heard
Speaker 1: her and I was looking for a therapist. So I, like,
Speaker 1: you know, reached out to like hello at totally lame
Speaker 1: dot com whatever they're like general email was, and I
Speaker 1: was like, can I have the email for this therapist?
Speaker 1: And they sent it to me and so she's my
Speaker 1: therapist now. Um. And then I sort of reverse engineered
Speaker 1: that and reached out to my therapist, and I was like,
Speaker 1: can you please connect me to Elizabeth? That totally lame.
Speaker 1: I'd like to pick her brain on this. So she
Speaker 1: did and I met with her, and then I sat
Speaker 1: in on a recording and like watched how they did
Speaker 1: it UM, and I left and I thought, Okay, we
Speaker 1: can do this. UM might be easy to bring in
Speaker 1: a third person who can like do the sound board
Speaker 1: and I don't have to worry about that. So we did.
Speaker 1: We brought on Rob and then from there we kind
Speaker 1: of really got into the weeds on what we wanted
Speaker 1: the show to be. You know, I have a lot
Speaker 1: of opinions. Dax has a lot of opinions. Luckily, in
Speaker 1: business they often align. In many other ways they never align,
Speaker 1: which is part of the fun, but in business they do,
Speaker 1: so you know. He he considers himself an armchair expert,
Speaker 1: which is a hilarious phrase. He learned an anthropology and
Speaker 1: call it into it where you think you know everything
Speaker 1: about everything. I must say, it's a really compelling like
Speaker 1: you get it instantly right, which just as marketers were
Speaker 1: always thinking about how do you communicate directly without having
Speaker 1: to kind of click in Well, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think generally and ax is just really really really good
Speaker 1: in general at naming stuff, um, you know, titling scripts
Speaker 1: and everything. So that's that's sort of his whealhouse in general.
Speaker 1: But um, it is true like I think in marketing.
Speaker 1: And I also was a double majored in theater MPR,
Speaker 1: so I took a lot of marketing classes as well
Speaker 1: and lived in that world for a bit. And so
Speaker 1: I just think relatability is, yeah, the key. It's the
Speaker 1: key across the board. And everyone knows someone who's an
Speaker 1: armchair expert or who themselves is considers themselves an arm
Speaker 1: track expert, like I know it all essentially, Um, everyone
Speaker 1: has one of those in their life. So you can
Speaker 1: immediately click into that when you hear it. I think
Speaker 1: that's sort of one of the powerful things about that
Speaker 1: title in general, um and and titles overall that attract me.
Speaker 1: It's like if your brain can connect into something personal,
Speaker 1: you're like you're half the battle is done. I think. Well,
Speaker 1: also a level of accessibility to yeah exactly. I think
Speaker 1: you just like described everything a marketer is trying to do.
Speaker 1: By the way, like period, like you can get all
Speaker 1: this fancy shit, but that's what a marketer is trying
Speaker 1: to do ultimately, how do I relate my product whatever
Speaker 1: that is to you exactly? And now where it's getting
Speaker 1: cool is in fans and community and creativity and opening
Speaker 1: that stuff up I think with more players hopefully right uh,
Speaker 1: in places we didn't expect them. So, Monica, you had
Speaker 1: the business plan, which is I'll figure it out to
Speaker 1: meet Rob. Rob joins the team. How did you begin
Speaker 1: to think about the thesis for the show and how
Speaker 1: you were going to program it? And was there a
Speaker 1: playbook that you kind of set out to deliver on
Speaker 1: or was it iterative? And as you grew you sort
Speaker 1: of learned where the sweet spot was. I think both.
Speaker 1: So we both loved Sam Harris's podcast It's now called
Speaker 1: Waking Up with Sam Harris. We loved that show and
Speaker 1: and and love that show still, UM and a lot
Speaker 1: of our debates were centered around Sam's podcast every week,
Speaker 1: and we love that format. It was just an interview show,
Speaker 1: you know, but Sam is a genius. I think by
Speaker 1: like real metrics, he's he is a genius, and so
Speaker 1: his questions were not normal, you know, they were very specific,
Speaker 1: in very different, very unique to his brain, which lad
Speaker 1: these interviews into such um interesting territory, I think, And
Speaker 1: so we just wanted to replicate that, not replicate what
Speaker 1: Sam did, but replicate an interview show that's very authentic
Speaker 1: to us and what we think about in the way
Speaker 1: our brains work, which is a lot of vulnerability and honesty.
Speaker 1: Those are kind of the main tenants. And you know,
Speaker 1: decks coming from a a so focused on progress not perfection, Um,
Speaker 1: the journey, not the result. You know, all of those things,
Speaker 1: and any aligned with all those things too, just cause,
Speaker 1: and so that has always been what we've been been
Speaker 1: interested in talking about. Like you know, we always say
Speaker 1: we're not interested in the day you won the Emmy,
Speaker 1: but the two weeks after when you're out of work
Speaker 1: and you don't know what to do, because that's the
Speaker 1: thing we can all relate to. So um. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we always knew, like intellectually this is the show, but
Speaker 1: we didn't really, of course, know what the show was
Speaker 1: until we started it, until we started testing it out
Speaker 1: and doing it, We didn't know what we were doing
Speaker 1: at all. Um. The first episode was with Kristen and
Speaker 1: I didn't say anything. I sat there, I had no words, like,
Speaker 1: I didn't know, We didn't know, We didn't know what
Speaker 1: it was going to be. And we had Chris Hardwick
Speaker 1: on pretty early on in the show and he gave
Speaker 1: some great advice which was like, yeah, do a little research,
Speaker 1: but don't be afraid to not not look at it,
Speaker 1: because that for our first few were like a little
Speaker 1: bit more regimented in that way because it was like
Speaker 1: real question. You know THATX had a list of questions
Speaker 1: and he wanted to get to them and it felt
Speaker 1: a little more confined planned. Yeah, and I think us
Speaker 1: doing the fact check kind of helped with that because
Speaker 1: that is a space where we could really be us
Speaker 1: and not even could really be us. We had to
Speaker 1: be like we just didn't even have an option. We're
Speaker 1: just the two of us in a room. It's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: We're gonna argue, we're gonna laugh, we're gonna make jokes. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get mad at each other. Like you know,
Speaker 1: these are all just the realities of our friendship. And
Speaker 1: there's no We're not good at hiding it or making
Speaker 1: it look pretty. I mean you can tell, you can
Speaker 1: really tell on our fact checks the ones where we
Speaker 1: have just had a fight. Um, we tried to be
Speaker 1: We try to put it aside and be professional and
Speaker 1: have fun on on the factor. But I mean, we're
Speaker 1: just not good at it. Like we are very much
Speaker 1: um animals of our emotional state, which is normally good
Speaker 1: and fun, but you know, we have our moments. So
Speaker 1: so anyway, once we started doing that, which was I
Speaker 1: think off the first episode, but once we started to realize, oh,
Speaker 1: this is fun, like this organic chatter is where the
Speaker 1: as you say, magic is, we started incorporating that a
Speaker 1: little bit more into the actual interviews and just realizing, like,
Speaker 1: organic is the way to go. How did you guys
Speaker 1: go from okay? So episode one right now you have
Speaker 1: like over twenty million listeners. That's a monthly number. It's bloggers,
Speaker 1: it is, I know. So my question is, what was
Speaker 1: the trajectory, if you know, like generally right, like what
Speaker 1: was the trajectory? And could you guys feel astride from okay?
Speaker 1: This feels good to us programming wise, cadence, our cadence,
Speaker 1: our relationship and the show downloads and success. That's so
Speaker 1: funny that you bring all this up because as you're
Speaker 1: saying those numbers, there's a part of me that wants
Speaker 1: to like put my fingers in my ears. And not
Speaker 1: hear it, because I really think the reason our show
Speaker 1: works is that it's very intimate. And the reason it
Speaker 1: is is again, like I said, like we're best friends,
Speaker 1: so when we're when we're together, we just feel like
Speaker 1: it's us and the person. Definitely not thinking about numbers
Speaker 1: like twenty millions. None of that is in our heads
Speaker 1: at all. It's three three people, me, him and our guest.
Speaker 1: And again, to give everyone their due credit, we launched
Speaker 1: our show with Kristen, as I just said, And so
Speaker 1: you know that people want to hear Dax and Kristen.
Speaker 1: That's that is a truth. So it was not lost
Speaker 1: on us that that would probably have like a fair
Speaker 1: amount of people come to see us. But the fact
Speaker 1: that they stuck around, um was a shock to us.
Speaker 1: We were so thrilled and excited by it, and um grateful,
Speaker 1: so grateful for it. But really we just want to
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds so cliche, like I wish there
Speaker 1: was a not cliche way to say, you just got
Speaker 1: to do what you like doing, But it's the truth.
Speaker 1: Like the reason we wanted to do this is because
Speaker 1: it's just fun to talk to people and learn from people.
Speaker 1: We both always say that we in our retirement, we
Speaker 1: want to go back to college. UM. And this in
Speaker 1: a way is that is just like learning from each
Speaker 1: person without the you know, final exam, which is you know,
Speaker 1: it's just the best part of all those things, especially
Speaker 1: our Thursdays. Those are always my favorite. UM. We have
Speaker 1: like professors on and the most you know, scientists, the
Speaker 1: most insane insane people. Bill Gates like, why are you
Speaker 1: talking to us? Bill Gates? Laura and I are in
Speaker 1: the in the business right of creative, the commercial side
Speaker 1: of creative, and all the time people ask us, but
Speaker 1: prove prove it, prove the proof that it works. Prove
Speaker 1: that it works, prove that it works. I would love
Speaker 1: to see We talk about metrics all the time, like
Speaker 1: how are you measuring it? Why does it matter? I
Speaker 1: would love to see a metric that said. Bill Gates
Speaker 1: asked the two people right to have a conversation about humanity,
Speaker 1: the future of humanity. Yeah, Monica, was there a point
Speaker 1: in the journey since this started that you knew this
Speaker 1: was going to go from having these debates that sounds
Speaker 1: like you were normally having off the mic anyway, to
Speaker 1: like full fledged business platform. Was there that moment for
Speaker 1: you I can't say there was an exact moment so
Speaker 1: much as in fact, I am sort of slow, like
Speaker 1: you know, at the beginning, like I'm very scared to
Speaker 1: be like let's do this this, this, this, this and
Speaker 1: this and this, and you know, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: let's let's slow down. Let's do this for a bit,
Speaker 1: let's make this amazing, let's bring people in with this,
Speaker 1: and then let's talk about the next thing, and then
Speaker 1: let's do that for a bit, and let's and it's scary,
Speaker 1: you know, because everyone feels like their time is limited.
Speaker 1: Um and but but I feel it's really important to
Speaker 1: like take the time to build and earned people's trust
Speaker 1: before you move on to the next thing. So there
Speaker 1: was a lot of talk at the beginning about like
Speaker 1: and let's do this also and this and this, and
Speaker 1: I was like a big voice of I think we
Speaker 1: need to go slower than that. And then you, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you just feel it, like I think there's
Speaker 1: a moment where you're like this is steady, this feels steady,
Speaker 1: let's add something to the list. Or if someone comes
Speaker 1: to us and and the opportunity feels really special, chal
Speaker 1: or fun, really it's that it's like, oh, is this
Speaker 1: something we are going to like doing right now, Let's
Speaker 1: let's pursue it. Um. And like with our live shows
Speaker 1: that that happened fairly early on, and it because mainly
Speaker 1: we were like, oh yeah, traveling to places and getting
Speaker 1: to do this like on a stage. How fun. UM.
Speaker 1: I always felt like this, how cool would it be
Speaker 1: if we could be a gimblet where there's lots of
Speaker 1: shows and we're not on all the shows or on
Speaker 1: some of the shows, and we get to produce them
Speaker 1: and we get to have a platform for really cool voices.
Speaker 1: Like I've always thought about that, and we've we've slowly
Speaker 1: grown more and more and more towards it, and hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll continue to UM. So that was kind of just
Speaker 1: like an overall thing I had it in floating around,
Speaker 1: but it definitely wasn't like a main focus until Pieza
Speaker 1: started to fall into place a little bit. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about how do you choose your guests? Sometimes, Lauren,
Speaker 1: I have a method to our medness and sometimes we're like,
Speaker 1: just like you were, like that person is freaking cool
Speaker 1: and they need to they need to come on the show.
Speaker 1: They need to be known or we need to talk
Speaker 1: to them about something different that they don't actually talk
Speaker 1: about publicly, like you know those types of things. Do
Speaker 1: you have like a method or a creative brief so
Speaker 1: to speak, on who you bring on the show. No, actually,
Speaker 1: we are really open. In fact, we would just want
Speaker 1: to talk to as many uh, just diverse people, people
Speaker 1: from different backgrounds, different experiences and and and that's why
Speaker 1: even on Mondays, you know, we have a ton of
Speaker 1: obviously actors and musicians and those celebrities, and but we
Speaker 1: don't ask them about their movies or we don't ask
Speaker 1: them about their celebrity. You know, we asked them about
Speaker 1: their childhood, the relationship with their parents, you know, things
Speaker 1: that that make them different and interesting because everyone is
Speaker 1: so we we do not have a method. We reach
Speaker 1: out to people that we like or we find interesting
Speaker 1: or you know, we watch we watch something on TV
Speaker 1: and we're like, that person is awesome, let's reach out
Speaker 1: to them. We have people reach out to us at
Speaker 1: this point for projects. You know, that's been a nice
Speaker 1: alignment for promotion for people. Um. But yeah, we have
Speaker 1: no like, we have no rules about who we will
Speaker 1: or won't have on And again, like I said, In fact,
Speaker 1: we like to have everyone on, even people who you know.
Speaker 1: It's We've had some guests where some of our audience
Speaker 1: is like, why do you have that person on there
Speaker 1: in trouble or you know those types of things that
Speaker 1: we're like, yeah, but they're still a person and we
Speaker 1: want to know their story and and maybe their story
Speaker 1: will inform whatever decision they made. You know, we're just
Speaker 1: interested in those those nitty gritties. But yeah, no, there
Speaker 1: really isn't a h a method. There is a method
Speaker 1: to the shows we put under our umbrella. It's important
Speaker 1: to us to have shows that kind of fit in
Speaker 1: with our ethos, which is like vulnerability working on oneself,
Speaker 1: like nurture versus Nurture is the family therapy show where
Speaker 1: Dr Wendy Mogul talks to parents and she is a
Speaker 1: family therapist, so she gives them a therapy session. You
Speaker 1: get to listen in on it, and it is incredible.
Speaker 1: I don't have kids, and I it's like my favorite thing.
Speaker 1: I look forward to editing um because you know, and
Speaker 1: I've been saying this a lot lately, I just think
Speaker 1: it's increasingly true. The more specific you get, the more
Speaker 1: universal it is. And I think that's in marketing big
Speaker 1: time as well, because I think there's a thought of like,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta reach the masses, you gotta reach everybody,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, actually you're reaching everybody by
Speaker 1: by honing in on this very specific detail because weirdly,
Speaker 1: the details are what our brain can connect to. And
Speaker 1: I also learned that in improv. It was like one
Speaker 1: of the first rules I learned was like, don't call
Speaker 1: it um a basketball, call it a Spalding basketball, so
Speaker 1: that the audience can literally pick they know exactly what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. They can smell the Spalding basketball. Yes,
Speaker 1: and everyone is immediately on the same page. It's not
Speaker 1: like I'm thinking of the basketball from my house and
Speaker 1: never the end of the basketball from your house. It's
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, now we're we all know um.
Speaker 1: And and so again it's universal. You know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: when you talk about the specificity. At the top of
Speaker 1: the show, Alexa said, you know, if your program for everyone,
Speaker 1: you program for no one. Can you click in on
Speaker 1: that a bit further? So, are there shows or examples
Speaker 1: you can give us where the universal, you know, element
Speaker 1: of it was? That was a proven thesis well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think the biggest one is Monica and
Speaker 1: Jessla Boys. So when when I started that podcast, I
Speaker 1: was really hesitant. You know. Well, of course I was
Speaker 1: hesitant because it's it's me and my love life, which
Speaker 1: is so so scary what am I doing? But but
Speaker 1: I was also like, who is going to relate to this?
Speaker 1: Like this is so bizarre. This is because that was
Speaker 1: you know, me and my friend Jess and and I,
Speaker 1: you know, serially under date and he serially overdates, and
Speaker 1: he's gay and I'm straight and we're just opposites, but
Speaker 1: you know, and we approached dating in a completely different way.
Speaker 1: And it was like, let's and we're single and we
Speaker 1: don't want you know, we we eventually want to find
Speaker 1: a a partner, and so it was like, let's talk
Speaker 1: about that and let's have experts on to help us
Speaker 1: through basically our issues. And we did, and we had
Speaker 1: challenges at the end of each episode that we had
Speaker 1: to then uh complete by the following episode. It was
Speaker 1: it was so fun, but it felt really specific. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we were talking to estro Perel and she's telling,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about the moment when I was
Speaker 1: well at the swimming pool and the boys said this
Speaker 1: to me, you know, it's all like it's me and
Speaker 1: it's just and it's not universal at all. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, nobody is going to relate
Speaker 1: to this, like is anyone gonna listen? And then of
Speaker 1: course what you learn is like I mean, really, what
Speaker 1: you learn is like you're not unique. Everyone experiences the
Speaker 1: same stuff and everyone was like, oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: me or I connect with this, and even like so
Speaker 1: many married people, which that was like the most flattering
Speaker 1: what was learned. It's like, oh god, like people can
Speaker 1: really relate to this thing that feels so deeply personal
Speaker 1: and that was really eye opening for me and just
Speaker 1: made me feel like, oh yeah, And that's why Wendy
Speaker 1: show you Know again, same thing. It's two parents talking
Speaker 1: about they're very specific children and growing up in Sweden
Speaker 1: one of the episodes, and then when you hear it
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh my gosh, like I can learn
Speaker 1: from that because I know that it's just beauty. It's
Speaker 1: kind of it's beautiful, like it's beautiful to know we
Speaker 1: really are all way more connected than we think. M hmm.
Speaker 1: I love that. What is the experience of um bringing
Speaker 1: brands into the fold, and are there things we might
Speaker 1: be surprised as marketers to know that on your end
Speaker 1: as creators, you're open to our not. Yeah, so our
Speaker 1: revenue is solely on ads, so we you know, we
Speaker 1: have to do We approve all the ones that we
Speaker 1: read obviously UM, and we we don't approve a lot
Speaker 1: of them UM that come to us. And then we
Speaker 1: really have to feel like, oh, this is something I
Speaker 1: believe in or this is something I can get behind
Speaker 1: and everyone's really awesome. Did they send us the product?
Speaker 1: We get to like really get tactile with it and
Speaker 1: know it. We do some integrated sponsorships in the fact checks.
Speaker 1: Those are a little bit more and uh, what's intense?
Speaker 1: I guess not really, but we just get a little deeper.
Speaker 1: And especially for those, we have to make sure it's
Speaker 1: like it's a company we like and we believe in
Speaker 1: their product, and we just talk really honestly about it.
Speaker 1: And I also think that's part of it. The advertisers
Speaker 1: we work with know that our ads are gonna be
Speaker 1: organic and very specific to us. If we can read
Speaker 1: a copy point for you if you'd like, but it's
Speaker 1: not gonna connect like what connects are, like the fun stories.
Speaker 1: There was this whole saga with Dax in this raccoon
Speaker 1: like real thing that was happening nightly, and you know,
Speaker 1: we were able to tie that into Ring because it
Speaker 1: Ring was up of this story. And so the more
Speaker 1: opportunities we have to do that, the better the advertising
Speaker 1: is for everyone, for us, for them, And like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we didn't integrated add with Google home um for
Speaker 1: a while. We did it over a bunch of fact
Speaker 1: checks and it was really fun because we would ask
Speaker 1: Google facts um and it was just it just led
Speaker 1: us so much fun. And once that ended, we were
Speaker 1: both like, I missed that. Well. I was listening to
Speaker 1: the episode you did with Brad and you were doing
Speaker 1: a host read um for door Dash I believe, but
Speaker 1: you were talking about your Christmas Eve Eve ritual of
Speaker 1: McDonald and I'm like, well, I understand this was an
Speaker 1: ad for door Dash. I'm going like, where's McDonald's with
Speaker 1: the Christmas Eve Eve special? Exactly? Well, Well, that's really
Speaker 1: funny because what must have happened is and I don't remember,
Speaker 1: but my guess is we did a door Dash ad
Speaker 1: totally regular, in which we talked about getting McDonald's um.
Speaker 1: And then after that we did do a McDonald's integration
Speaker 1: and we expounded on our Christmas Eve ritual, but none
Speaker 1: of it was made up, Like I think the door
Speaker 1: Dash ad it must have been where we came up
Speaker 1: with the idea to do it, and then the McDonald's
Speaker 1: ad was the like full through we did it. I
Speaker 1: love Laura's point of the reasons you're saying, like the intimacy,
Speaker 1: the personality, the perspective, all this stuff, but also to
Speaker 1: start to like even launch new kind of products and
Speaker 1: collapse and fun stuff like that totally. And it depends
Speaker 1: on the show, like if it's a cooking show or something,
Speaker 1: or the or the host love cooking. I mean even
Speaker 1: even us. So I got really into cooking this year,
Speaker 1: and um, we talked about it a lot on the
Speaker 1: fact checks and and there was this whole debacle where
Speaker 1: my apartment ended up smelling like fish for like a week,
Speaker 1: and we talked about that. It was a whole thing
Speaker 1: like did Monica's apartment smell like fish or not? Like
Speaker 1: you know, and that that is an opportunity anytime you
Speaker 1: have something on your in your show that people are
Speaker 1: commenting on. I think brands need to pay attention to
Speaker 1: that and be like whatever, if there's like a deodorant
Speaker 1: spray that is following that thread, that's an opportunity for
Speaker 1: them to be like we want to get involved, we
Speaker 1: want to send some product, we want Monica to talk
Speaker 1: about it. Did they get to hurt the fish? Smell out?
Speaker 1: You know, little things like that. Just paying attention to
Speaker 1: the hooks of these different shows where people are laughing
Speaker 1: and are interested, Like I think writing those waves is
Speaker 1: the best. So question is there a place And Ryan,
Speaker 1: our producer, and I were talking about this, and I
Speaker 1: love this question where armchair umbrella turns into a dare
Speaker 1: I say a products is but a product that's tangible
Speaker 1: or something outside of audio, something outside of and not
Speaker 1: merch right like right now you guys are doing and
Speaker 1: I love your merch ps. And I definitely think the
Speaker 1: Monica shirts probably the best. Um and also like the
Speaker 1: hot dogs from the Live show. But um, but but
Speaker 1: you know, is it does it become something where people
Speaker 1: can touch it, feel it, experience it, you know, in
Speaker 1: a in a different way? Yeah, I mean, uh, currently
Speaker 1: the Live show, as you as you just brought up,
Speaker 1: is the version of that is the different thing that
Speaker 1: you can get close to, UM and it feels different,
Speaker 1: like those shows are are different. There's a Q and
Speaker 1: a you know, and it's different energy. So that's us
Speaker 1: like kind of connecting a little bit more directly with
Speaker 1: our audience. UM. And again we move on to the
Speaker 1: next step when we feel we're ready to or we
Speaker 1: feel like our audience wants it, or there's a space
Speaker 1: for us. And so yes, I guess is the is
Speaker 1: the overall answer is yes, I can see expansion in
Speaker 1: different realms perhaps down the road. UM. But and you know,
Speaker 1: we we've had discussions about some other putting our hands
Speaker 1: in some other pots um that are fun and organic
Speaker 1: to us. But it's um, nothing set in stone right now.
Speaker 1: But we yeah, we keep you know, we're keeping everything
Speaker 1: on the horizon. Okay, three ideas ready, here, here's theater
Speaker 1: in it absolutely like I'm thinking like jobs raymore flat again,
Speaker 1: Like there has to be an actual armchair that is
Speaker 1: the armchair expert, right, Like there has to be a
Speaker 1: furniture one. So that's one second idea. I mean, there
Speaker 1: has to be a coffee table book with all of
Speaker 1: the amazing interview experts. Like I just like if I'm
Speaker 1: sitting on my armchair. That has to be the coffee
Speaker 1: table book and you know the third place i'd go.
Speaker 1: And Alex and I've been talking a lot about, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the future of education, thinking about curriculum. I
Speaker 1: feel like anywhere you turn, like especially in the tech
Speaker 1: business space, even in the media space, people are having
Speaker 1: like short form classes, right. Yeah, Like I totally imagine
Speaker 1: armchair expert curriculum, Like how do I come in and
Speaker 1: get like, you know, six classes and meeting these people?
Speaker 1: But I just think that the tone and like how
Speaker 1: you're approaching it, it's a really interesting way to think
Speaker 1: about learning um while having like edutainment, I guess is
Speaker 1: the way I'm thinking about in a way that's beyond audio.
Speaker 1: But what you said about improv hits so many things
Speaker 1: on the business side, so many things on the creative side.
Speaker 1: And the point that you hit about specificity for relationships,
Speaker 1: like point to the thing that you want them to imagine, right,
Speaker 1: be very specific and then let their imagination go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: has been actually probably a subconscious thought in everything at
Speaker 1: least I've done in my career that was creative. Right
Speaker 1: for a commercial on the commercial side, it was like
Speaker 1: I know I want this thing, and this thing is
Speaker 1: the thing that seems to be the tuning fork, but
Speaker 1: everything else, you know, it starts to become really exciting.
Speaker 1: One thing I want to I do want to add
Speaker 1: real quick. I also have been in thirty plus commercials
Speaker 1: as an actor. That really is like for the acting space,
Speaker 1: that's pretty much been my bread and butter. So I'm
Speaker 1: really really familiar with that world. To mention, I also
Speaker 1: write commercials for Kristen and I'm on set for those.
Speaker 1: So UM worked with many different ad agencies on all
Speaker 1: of those and and I um, we just did so.
Speaker 1: Kristen has a CBD skincare line called Happy Dance, and
Speaker 1: UM we worked with Wide and Kennedy on those and
Speaker 1: it was so fun and so creative and so great
Speaker 1: and they really get specificity. Um, they really understand it
Speaker 1: in a way that others don't. But you see a
Speaker 1: lot of these agencies make a lot of mistakes in
Speaker 1: that arena when you're on set, like trying to go
Speaker 1: as generic as possible when it's like no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: that's not funny. This is funny, and it's hard. It's hard.
Speaker 1: This is there's a lot of money on the table
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, and I think, going general,
Speaker 1: I feel safe, and it is, but it's not the
Speaker 1: thing that's going to make you rise above everyone else.
Speaker 1: So Monica specifically in the brand universe, let's put it
Speaker 1: out into the brand universe. Who is top three brands
Speaker 1: you would love to work with? I really want to
Speaker 1: work with a clean makeup brand that has many different
Speaker 1: shades UM. I think that's really missing in the makeup space.
Speaker 1: There are brands that do and I you know, but
Speaker 1: some brands have like four foundation colors and that's not realistic.
Speaker 1: It's just not life UM and it and it makes
Speaker 1: people feel excluded. And I connected at I really connect
Speaker 1: to feeling like, oh, I need my skin to be
Speaker 1: wider because there's not I mean because of a million reasons.
Speaker 1: But also I walk into north room and I don't
Speaker 1: see my color represented. UM. That must mean my color
Speaker 1: isn't good enough to be represented. You know, these are
Speaker 1: the things that sort of go through your head. So
Speaker 1: I personally am just like dying to be a part
Speaker 1: of a brand that UM works to negate some of that. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's say a clean, diverse makeup brand. I really want
Speaker 1: to work with a cookie brand because I'm obsessed with cookies.
Speaker 1: I am a girl Scout bomb now. But I think
Speaker 1: you would be like, Girl Scouts should come and do
Speaker 1: something with Monica for Like, I would love it, Girl
Speaker 1: Scouts of America. I really would love that. Like that's
Speaker 1: like so cool girls. You know, I have learned, like
Speaker 1: learning about themselves, skills independence exactly. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I love that. Not to stay in the beauty space,
Speaker 1: but I my hair is kind of the only thing,
Speaker 1: the only part of me that I have ever had
Speaker 1: any confidence. And of course I started out not having
Speaker 1: any compliments in it, but at some point I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: like this was something something I can work with. My
Speaker 1: first actually my first commercial ever was an herbal Lessence
Speaker 1: commercial and I was a mermaid in it with these
Speaker 1: two other girls, and it was so fun. It was
Speaker 1: like one of the craziest shoots to this day that
Speaker 1: I've ever ever been a part of. UM and uh
Speaker 1: and one of the girls they're both amazing actresses and
Speaker 1: one um is on was on Westworld and the other
Speaker 1: has her own awesome, amazing career, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, we need to remake that commercial now,
Speaker 1: um revisit these mermaids. I think that'd be so fun anyway,
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to make that happen. I'll put that
Speaker 1: out there before we go. We play a game with
Speaker 1: all of our guests. Bye bye bye. What would you
Speaker 1: get rid of? What would you buy or acquire? And
Speaker 1: what would you do yourself? God? Can I I had
Speaker 1: not to get like so deep and so political, but
Speaker 1: this is where I am right now. Can I want
Speaker 1: to say by two guns, I don't no more, no
Speaker 1: no more. Yeah, They're not for me. Guys know what
Speaker 1: would you buy acquire? Well, I'm going to I would
Speaker 1: like to buy um enough wrapping paper to fill up
Speaker 1: an entire nice size room. I want a wrapping paper room,
Speaker 1: So I'd like to buy all the stuff for that.
Speaker 1: I'd like to buy the wrapping paper. I'd like to
Speaker 1: buy all the ribbons. And you know, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: you Hallmark here is looking at you craft room, but
Speaker 1: specifically wrapping. And what would you do yourself? What would
Speaker 1: be by Monica that you haven't done or are not doing?
Speaker 1: I mean I kind of already wasted it on the
Speaker 1: other thing I just said about representing a makeup line.
Speaker 1: I would love to do that myself. I would love
Speaker 1: to be a part of a makeup line that has
Speaker 1: a lot out of diversity of color um represented in it.
Speaker 1: Sorry that's a repeat, but it is the truth. If
Speaker 1: people want to get in touch with you to build
Speaker 1: any of these ideas, talk podcasts, integrate on any of
Speaker 1: your amazing shows, how can they get in touch with you? Um?
Speaker 1: I would say Instagram is probably the best way, and
Speaker 1: then I can redirect to whoever it needs to go to,
Speaker 1: most likely will just be me at mL padmin. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, thank you, thank you. You know
Speaker 1: what I love about what Monica said around the specificity
Speaker 1: piece was not just what she said, It is a
Speaker 1: right on that actually specific is universal when you're talking
Speaker 1: to a certain group of people, when you're in a
Speaker 1: certain community. But the thing that I love of that
Speaker 1: she was saying that I think we can kind of
Speaker 1: abstract a bit is this idea of improv. So improv
Speaker 1: is this give and take. It's, you know, putting yourself
Speaker 1: in an environment with other actors or other people or
Speaker 1: the audience, and you're playing off that environment that context.
Speaker 1: Modern media is exactly that. And I even think about
Speaker 1: how yield Mo has been on the show and has
Speaker 1: been talking about context and talking about being relevant. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what they're talking about. They have the instrumentation, they
Speaker 1: have the technology to do that, and sometimes I think
Speaker 1: that conversation and ad tech gets obscured by the tech
Speaker 1: rather than this deep understanding of you have to play
Speaker 1: on the field to even be in the game. Modern
Speaker 1: media at this point is all about that, and it
Speaker 1: really it really goes back Laura to like even people
Speaker 1: talking about performance marketing. Performance marketing has been again largely
Speaker 1: this race to the bottom. But performance marketing done well
Speaker 1: and done in a way that understands today's context, is
Speaker 1: exactly about putting out MVPs of messages, putting out things
Speaker 1: for people to grab react to and then give you
Speaker 1: feedback on. And I think that that's exactly how marketers
Speaker 1: could start thinking about instead of having the typical process
Speaker 1: of brief RFP, creative concepts, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And this
Speaker 1: one shot waterfall process is really to think about how
Speaker 1: you start to improv experiment in the context and the
Speaker 1: audiences that you want to be a part of, that
Speaker 1: you want to reach, that you want to buy your product,
Speaker 1: and that that turns things from broadcast to dialogue turns
Speaker 1: things from ownership on the corporate brand side two ownership
Speaker 1: in the audience's hands. I think this line, and I've
Speaker 1: said it many times on the show, still hold. It
Speaker 1: is one thing to buy impressions, It is another thing
Speaker 1: to make one. This has got me thinking about eminem
Speaker 1: eight mile, your buyer, your marketer, lose yourself in the moment.
Speaker 1: Laura hit it with the list of all of our
Speaker 1: friends and family and my heart who have been so
Speaker 1: good to us and helped us get back on air.
Speaker 1: Big thank you to Bob Conal, Carter, Andy, Eric Gayle Val,
Speaker 1: Michael jen We appreciate you. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: this opportunity. We'll see you in two weeks.