Sirius Positioning

It's time for an unforgettable episode of Ad Infinitum, the only podcast that's all about how audio ads work (and how to make them work harder). This week, host Stew Redwine (Oxford Road's VP of Creative Services) welcomes unstoppable wordsmith Lucinda (co-founder and Head Hen of Moink), who is a positioning genius, Shark Tank veteran, and on a mission to save the family farm, one ethical meat box at a time. Episode 3, "Sirius Listening" isn't like the other episodes. We're seeing what makes a brand stand out from competitors and breaking down top-spending audio ads from Sofi, Ethos, Upside, and Progressive. Who's in pole position and who's trailing the pack? And of course, we're adding more power tools to our Chief Audio Officer's toolbelt.

Transcript

Audio (00:00):
Hit it. Let's go. Talk about.

Stew Redwine (00:01):
Ad Infinitum is the only podcast-

Audio (00:03):
Wait.

Stew Redwine (00:03):
... solely focused on audio ads.

Audio (00:04):
Advertising.

Stew Redwine (00:06):
The creatives who make them, the latest thinking that informs them-

Audio (00:08):
[inaudible 00:00:09]

Stew Redwine (00:09):
... how the space is evolving, and my favorite part, a roundup of recent audio ads-

Audio (00:13):
Ad campaign.

Stew Redwine (00:14):
... and analysis by yours truly, Stew Redwine, VP creative at Oxford Road, and each episode's guest. This episode's title is Sirius Positioning, and our guest is Lucinda, founder and head hen over at Moink. Welcome to the show, Lucinda.

Lucinda (00:30):
Thanks for having me, Stew.

Stew Redwine (00:31):
Lucinda is an eighth-generation farmer and founder of Moink, like I said. They ship grass-fed and grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured pork and chicken and wild-caught Alaskan salmon straight to your door from the heart of rural America. But it is more than that. I've known Lucinda for a number of years. I'm happy to say not only do we work together, but we're also friends and Lucinda is somebody who's got a really big heart that comes out in her business. That's what we're gonna be talking about 'cause Moink is doing much more than just shipping you the most delicious meat you've ever tasted, they're also fighting for the family farm.

(01:01):
And recently, Lucinda, you were on the Eric Metaxas Show and you were saying, "We be brawling."

Lucinda (01:06):
(laughs)

Stew Redwine (01:08):
That it's farmers that signed the Declaration of Independence. I think that's awesome and I think it really brings us into what we really wanna talk about which is that your whole business is about one of the nine key components of Audiolytics. One of the key components of a marketing message, which is positioning.

Audio (01:22):
Audiolytics Key Component number three, positioning.

Lucinda (01:26):
I'm fighting a fight worth fighting for, and I-

Stew Redwine (01:28):
That's what I'm talking about.

Lucinda (01:28):
And I meant what I said in that when we be brawling. Four companies control over 80% of the meat industry. Less than 2% of Americans are farmers. The average on-farm income is a loss of $11,000, so in terms of positioning, the American family farmer backs' against the wall, but we're coming up swinging. And, um, I'm here to lead that charge and put the family farm on the map.

Stew Redwine (01:49):
That's right.

Lucinda (01:49):
Mm-hmm.

Stew Redwine (01:49):
That's right. And you're doing it.

Lucinda (01:50):
Yeah, I'm doing it.

Stew Redwine (01:50):
So the last couple days we've spent together at the first Chief Audio Officer's Summit, which is really what this show, you know ... That is an expression of what Oxford Road is about, what the Media Roundtable podcast is about, what Ad Infinitum is about is there are people who are making the decisions when it comes to the dollars that are being employed in audio. The chief audio officer, this isn't a role that exists yet, but it may one day. I mean, for all intents and purposes, you know, as a founder, especially in the early days, that is the founder.

Lucinda (02:17):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (02:17):
And then at larger companies, it can be any number of different roles, but who is that person that ultimately is making this decision? We had a couple awesome days together, I thought. What was your experience of the CAO summit?

Lucinda (02:28):
Well, what I really liked about it is really putting on the map something that is very important because when you're talking about from my specific business, you know, audio has been so impactful. But you can have the best message in your mind, you can have the biggest heart, you can be on the right track, you can believe in everything you're doing, but you need sometimes help of putting that together in the right package for audio. And yeah, I, I do think that, you know, you get the right tools for the right, right thing.

Stew Redwine (02:55):
It's like what's the most important tool in the, in the toolbox? It's the one you need.

Lucinda (02:58):
Exactly. And so to dig in on something that's like, no, this is actually a tool you need, and if you're not fixing to do it, you need to get somebody that knows how to do it. You know, you either do it, or you get somebody that, that knows how to do it. It's just not something you wanna, you know ... You don't wanna skirt around it. You don't wanna skimp on something that's, like, this is impactful. It's your voice, literally and figuratively.

(03:18):
You are communicating to the world through their headphones, through their ears.

Stew Redwine (03:22):
Mm-hmm.

Lucinda (03:23):
Um, you wanna be able to kind of clean up your messaging a- and dust off some of those rough edges. So to get into that conversations about not just, like, the nuts and bolts of audio ads and audio, like, what's happening in the audio world-

Stew Redwine (03:37):
Mm-hmm.

Lucinda (03:37):
... but also more having those free-thinking conversations about, like, I like to call it the lions and the zebras in the zoo, right? You've got the lions over here and the zebras over here, and we don't know. Are we mad 'cause we see a lion? Are we mad 'cause we see a zebra? And these become, like, emotional issues about, like, what this show or that show or, like, do we agree with values?

(03:57):
And so it really kind of dug deep at this summit about ... Well, let's just talk about it. We're not assigning judgment one way or the other, but let's talk about some of these real issues because lion, zebras, but no one seems to be wanting to talk about the elephant in the room, which is what we did at this audio summit is kind of just have real conversations, not just about the nuts and bolts and tactics of audio ads, but also these bigger discussions of, like, should we be talking about, does our host align with what we think? You know, how are we deciding who is the moral police? You know, do we have a dog in that fight? Do we wanna put a dog in that fight?

(04:32):
Just having conversations around that is always very important. It's just put your cards on the table, let's talk about it for a minute.

Stew Redwine (04:37):
A- and it felt like a safe space to do that.

Lucinda (04:40):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (04:40):
Like it was this environment where there was people from all different sizes of companies, but these people that are responsible for these audio dollars and it's just sort of like can I just talk about how all of this works? And we got to hear from so many people, so-

Lucinda (04:53):
Yeah, I, I definitely did not pull my knife. I, I was willing and ready to. I was ready to throw down.

Stew Redwine (04:58):
I see it.

Lucinda (04:58):
But, uh, it wasn't like that. It's, uh, actually very much like how can we talk to each other and get in on this of, like, how does this affect our business? How does this affect the American people?

Stew Redwine (05:07):
Mm-hmm.

Lucinda (05:09):
I mean, you gotta step back sometimes and think that, like, we're very much so in the thick of not just in ads, but we are dealing ways in which we can have a voice and what voices reach the American people.

Stew Redwine (05:22):
And it matters.

Lucinda (05:23):
It really matters and it's not something you can take lightly. You need to kind of pause. So to me, the audio summit was more about, like, let's pause for a moment and let's think about this. I loved it, and I got a lot of action items out of it as well.

Stew Redwine (05:35):
That's fantastic. Yes, we need to take a pause moment. Let's think.

Lucinda (05:38):
Mm-hmm.

Stew Redwine (05:39):
Because it's special, it's rare, and it's precious.

Lucinda (05:41):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (05:41):
And audio is so intimate, inherently intimate. It is processed in the exact same part of the brain where emotion is processed. When we hear, we feel. It's the fastest of our senses. We respond to it quicker than anything else. It lasts longer.

Lucinda (05:53):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (05:53):
It is powerful. And to think that we're, like ... We're asking people to give their time or their choosing to give their time, right? Podcasts particularly, so lean in, but with all audio, really, it's intentional and it's intimate. And what I'm hearing from you that, that I love and I agree with is we need to honor that.

Lucinda (06:09):
Yes. And here's the other thing, and to use the famous words of Stew Redwine, we're never more here than we are right now. So when we think about that and we're right here, right now, then we can also say that when we are talking to someone and we don't know who they are, but we're speaking to them directly on the other end of our ads, at the other end of podcast shows, they're right here, right now with us. Wherever that is. Never more here than we are right now, as you often say to me, right?

Stew Redwine (06:33):
That's right.

Lucinda (06:34):
And so just kind of, uh, just thinking about that. Just everybody stop and think about that for a hot minute and take away from the fact of, like, you're selling this, you're selling that. Then that helps you get your clarity and your business of, like, why do I do what I do? And there's some people, like for me, it's a personal fight. I know my why. I've been knowing it my whole life.

(06:54):
But sometimes there can be businesses that just come up with a great idea, and they have to search for their why, and that's okay. But you're gonna have to step back and say, "Tell me your why," and if you don't have one, let's dig into it. Because not only is that important of, like, in terms of, like, growing your business, but it's also important in terms of the respect of the other person on the other end of the line. Because they have a why of why they tuned in to listen, so you better meet them r- right where they're at, and give them your why. And that's why have that intimacy between brands and consumers. It's 'cause we can both meet in the middle on a why.

(07:28):
Everybody's got a why for what they do in their life, they just maybe aren't conscious of it. So this last few days at the audio summit was really digging into, like, we're gonna be right here, right now. Let's talk about out why and then also talk about, honor the fact that we as audio, audio ads, audio podcasts, are meeting a consumer somewhere.

Stew Redwine (07:50):
A person.

Lucinda (07:51):
Uh-huh. Yeah. Pause. Just take a hot minute and think about that. You need a smoke break? Go take one. You need like a cup of coffee, do it, but just stop for a hot minute and be right here, right now. That's what to me what I took from it.

Stew Redwine (08:04):
That's marvelous, that's all we can ask for, and I think that's a great way to look at it. And I, I feel like that's what I experienced as well. It's like wow, yes. So we, we all took this time together, and it's serious, it's deadly serious, right? It's our, it's our livelihoods. Um, many of us have been in this for years. We've been in this for years together, but we also have fun.

Lucinda (08:21):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (08:21):
And audio [inaudible 00:08:22] and super fun medium and so we worked up a Father's Day ad that I think we had a riot making with you, um, and it's ridiculous, and so, uh, I wanna play that.

Audio (08:34):
Look, I got it on good authority that what pops really wants for Father's Day is to get Moinked. And what you really want, is to blow your siblings out of water.

(08:43):
Whoa.

(08:43):
I'm Lucinda, eighth-generation farmer and founder of Moink, moo plus oink, and I'm gonna help you be all up in dad's grill for Father's Day. Moink delivers grass-fed and grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured pork and chicken, and wild-caught Alaskan salmon straight to your door like rib-eyes to chicken breast to pork chops and much more. From the best farmers on God's green Earth.

(09:04):
Get to gettin' while the gettin' is good. Help save the family farm. Send Dad the highest-quality meat he ever did taste-

(09:11):
Mm.

(09:11):
... and totally win at the gift giving game.

(09:14):
Go to Moinkbox.com/fathersday.

Lucinda (09:14):
Yeah, we have a lot of fun with this, don't we, Stew?

Stew Redwine (09:16):
We do.

Lucinda (09:17):
We like to break rules sometimes, but they're not really breaking rules because we get into the audio, like, the system, and then we get that creative flair. I think sometimes they call us cowboys. I don't know if you knew that.

Audio (09:27):
Hyah!

Stew Redwine (09:27):
Yeah, I'm a cowboy. On a steel horse I ride.

Lucinda (09:30):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (09:31):
Yeah.

Lucinda (09:32):
Uh-huh.

Stew Redwine (09:32):
100%.

Lucinda (09:33):
Uh-huh.

Stew Redwine (09:33):
So now let's listen to some other folks' ads-

Lucinda (09:35):
Yep.

Stew Redwine (09:36):
... and we're going to respond to them, primarily about, uh, positioning. So Audiolytics, as you know, Lucinda, is composed of nine key components. That's the framework that we use to construct messages that persuade in audio at Oxford Road. Those nine key components are set-up, value prop, positioning, demonstration, substantiation, offer, scarcity, path, and execution. Today we're talking about positioning.

(10:01):
Really when it comes down to it, what is positioning? It's why is it better? Why is what you're doing better than the status quo or competitors? We want the audience to walk away with a material understanding of what you do, what you offer, and why it's better, how much money you're gonna save using their product, and what exact measurable ways their life will improve if they exchange their earnings for your product or perhaps in your case, their impact, right? Like their life is improved 'cause the impact they're having, and you wanna position that against the, the offerings that are out there from your competitors or maybe from the status quo, which they're not currently doing anything like that.

(10:34):
Um, Daniel Paint covers this in this master class, which is awesome where he talks about different persuasive frames. I can't suggest that enough. But a lot of people, unlike you, Lucinda, a lot of people don't have something that's just, like, inherently so much different, that's literally coming out as a statement against the way that business is being done in their industry.

(10:55):
So I just wanna pause on that for a second. You know, it's like so what if your company's not that different from the competition? Anybody who's watched Mad Men is familiar with, like, the ... Well, you may not be, but on Mad Men, it was awesome, there was the pitch one time with Don Draper where he positions the Lucky Strike cigarettes. I mean, it's in the pilot episode, for crying out loud, and they're presenting the concept the Lucky Strike tobacco is toasted to the client. The client replies, "But everybody else's tobacco is toasted." And Don Draper says, "No, everybody else's tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strike's is toasted."

Lucinda (11:28):
(laughs)

Stew Redwine (11:29):
And any of the cigarette companies could've made that claim, 'cause that how they all prepared their tobacco.

Lucinda (11:33):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (11:34):
It was all toasted.

Lucinda (11:35):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (11:35):
But they're the only ones that said it. So it's the real-world example of that is from one of the advertising pioneers from a hu- from 100 years ago, Claude Hopkins. He positioned Schlitz Beer by claiming that their bottles were washed with live steam.

Audio (11:48):
Our bottles are washed with live steam.

Stew Redwine (11:52):
The thing is, all beer companies were washing their bottles with live steam at that time. All of them were, but Schlitz was the only one talking about. So when people, unlike you, are having a hard time like you were talking about, they're having a hard time coming up with a way to differentiate their product or service from the competitors, sometimes you can just make the preemptive claim.

(12:11):
My favorite of all time is Jimmy John's. They have signs in their restaurant as soon as you walk in, it says, "Free smells."

Lucinda (12:17):
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Stew Redwine (12:17):
Like, any restaurant could've said that ever.

Lucinda (12:19):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (12:20):
It took us thousands of years-

Lucinda (12:21):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (12:22):
... to get to Jimmy John's. To go, "Oh, yeah, smells are free."

Lucinda (12:25):
Mm-hmm.

Stew Redwine (12:25):
"Yeah, no problem. Come on in, guys." Everybody could say that.

(12:28):
So from an advertising history standpoint evolution of, like, how we've come at, you know, messaging and persuasive messaging, this drive to differentiate I think can be inherent when it comes to a marketing message, right? It's like, "Okay, how am I different?" That's what we're talking about. We're talking about positioning.

(12:42):
Rosser Reeves, like, codified that in the 1960s with the unique selling proposition. A lot of us are familiar with the USP. What's your USP? Perfectly illustrated like back in the day like with M&M.

Audio (12:53):
They do exist.

Stew Redwine (12:54):
Melt in your mouth, not in your hand, 'cause they had a special way to make their chocolates.

Lucinda (12:57):
Mm-hmm.

Stew Redwine (12:58):
That it melted in your mouth, not in your hand. So they were positioned because they were different. But then the thinking evolved, and in 2008, a luminary of advertising, Byron Sharp in his book of How Brands Grow, he talks about how this is all meaningless, and that you just need to be distinct. But, you know, the way I look at it, and part of the reason we do this show, Ad Infinitum, to talk about marketing messages is that there's lots of intelligent people from Reeves to Sharp. They have their own lens that they're looking through to help different companies grow, and in fact, the world's large enough for all of us to get along. All the lions and the zebras.

Lucinda (13:30):
Yeah. Lions and zebras.

Stew Redwine (13:32):
We can all get along.

Lucinda (13:32):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (13:33):
Those are so distinct.

Lucinda (13:34):
As long as we talk about the elephant in the room.

Stew Redwine (13:36):
I think if I take nothing else away from this conversation, I mean, that, you have a way with words. That's definitely gonna stick in my head.

Lucinda (13:42):
(laughs)

Stew Redwine (13:43):
So okay, so positioning in Audiolytics, the way that we defined it is why is it better. You wanna talk about the failings of the current solution to the audience's problem, and that might be ... there might be competitors or it might be that there's nobody competing, but you wanna talk about those, uh, uh, failures. You wanna talk about the benefits, but, but, like, look, what we're talking about is why am I ... why is Moink better, whoever's advertising better than what you're currently doing or what you're not doing, but why is this option better?

(14:11):
What we have done is we have listened to why it's called Sirius positioning.

Lucinda (14:17):
Sirius.

Stew Redwine (14:17):
Is we've recorded, um, hours and hours of Sirius XM, nine days straight, 24-hours on the top-performing channels, and then identified the, uh, advertisers that appeared the most, 'cause it's kind of a black box. It's funny like audio in general and part of the reason we're doing Ad Infinitum is that, like, so much can be found on the internet. You know, Google, it's like there's this black hole when it comes to audio. It's incredible. I mean, it's beginning to ... I feel like we're at the beginning of maybe that's starting to get filmed, but like, you're like just regular old person out there and you go, "Hey, I wanna hear, like, Google, like, latest Home Depot radio commercial," like, good luck.

Lucinda (14:52):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (14:53):
Sirius XM, forget it. So we, we do the best that we can to do some Sirius listening and record these ads. That's what we did for this, and we picked out the four that had the most frequency over a nine-day period. Within one week, this May that we listened to with Project Sirius Listening.

Lucinda (15:08):
Very Sirius.

Stew Redwine (15:09):
One week that we listened to the top advertisers. These are the folks that are easily spending tens of thousands to hundred of thousand dollars a year, possibly more. These top spenders were Ethos, Upside, SoFi, and Progressive. And so what we wanna do is we wanna listen to their ads and see how they handled their positioning.

(15:29):
You ready to give it a shot?

Lucinda (15:31):
Yes, let's so this.

Stew Redwine (15:31):
All right.

Lucinda (15:32):
We get to be judgey.

Stew Redwine (15:33):
First ad we're gonna listen to is from Ethos.

Audio (15:40):
Let's face it, talking about life insurance is never easy, but after we watched a close friend lose her husband with no insurance, we decided that wasn't gonna happen to our family.

(15:49):
Yeah, but shopping for life insurance can be almost as difficult as talking about it.

(15:53):
But then we heard about Ethos life insurance. They're a new kind of life insurance, built for people on a busy schedule, who don't have time for unnecessary doctors visits, fine print, or hidden fees. You know, who wanna keep it simple.

(16:07):
I couldn't believe how easy it was. We answered a few basic questions, and within minutes, we had an estimate of what it would cost and what sort of policy made sense for us.

(16:16):
I never imagined life insurance could be so affordable.

(16:19):
And accessible.

(16:21):
The peace of mind knowing that our future is secure, it just removes a lot of the fear around getting older.

(16:26):
Yeah, the unexpected.

(16:28):
I'm glad we talked about it.

(16:29):
And I'm glad we went with Ethoslife.com.

(16:32):
Go to Ethoslife.com now for your free estimate. That's E-T-H-O-S life.com. Ethoslife.com

Stew Redwine (16:40):
So, Lucinda, what do you think? Primarily from a positioning standpoint.

Lucinda (16:43):
Yeah, that was good. I've actually went through Ethos before on some things. I, I have a funny story there, but nonetheless, the Ethos on the positioning that I took away from this is it's a new kind. They even say it. It's a new kind of life insurance. Why is it new? 'Cause it doesn't take any of your time.

(16:59):
So the positioning there was, uh, we're better because it's easier. Everything else is hard.

Stew Redwine (17:05):
This is positioning straight-up. We're better than the status quo.

Lucinda (17:08):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (17:08):
They are absolutely coming out, saying-

Lucinda (17:09):
Straight up, aggressive about it.

Stew Redwine (17:10):
Okay, so now as far as at ad goes, like, if you were just grading it on a scale of, like, whatever your, the Lucinda's scale of ad creative is from zero to lion. Whatever it is, how do you grade this?

Lucinda (17:21):
I-

Stew Redwine (17:21):
'Cause we're, we're gonna grade four of them, so we wanna benchmark them against each other.

Lucinda (17:24):
I mean, I feel like what is our objective there? So, uh, with the ad, did you wanna have strong positioning? It was there. You wanna make it memorable, I mean, I felt sad in there, which maybe is what they're going for, you know? Like, "You might die." But I personally would've had a lot more fun with that.

(17:39):
Yes, it's death. Like, let's just be real. Hey, I don't know if you knew this or not, everybody, but you should live like tomorrow you're dying, 'cause eventually, you will be correct. It's statistics. So let's get this on lockdown, and it doesn't have to be hard. Go to Ethos.com right now, and put in the code, "Live like you were dying."

Stew Redwine (18:02):
(laughs)

Lucinda (18:04):
(laughs) Tomorrow never comes.

Stew Redwine (18:06):
Ah, yeah.

Lucinda (18:07):
Uh, I mean, I would've been a little bit more strong about it, but, you know, I believe in being more, like, you know, hey, let's help people remember it.

Stew Redwine (18:14):
It sounded a little, you know, maybe saccharine and, uh, and too-

Lucinda (18:18):
Mah, mah, mah.

Stew Redwine (18:18):
Yep. And you're like, "Hey, let's lean into the, the-

Lucinda (18:21):
Dead part. (laughs)

Stew Redwine (18:25):
(laughs) Well.

Lucinda (18:25):
L- like let's make dead les- less sad. It was ... Might as well played funeral home music in background. (laughs)

Stew Redwine (18:32):
(laughs) So from a, from a Audiolytics standpoint, you know, which primarily we're looking at the structure and go do we have the substance right? Then we figure out the style, piece of it. But from a structural standpoint and as far as, like, from a positioning standpoint, which gives you good points. From an Audiolytics standpoint, that one came in at a 77.2%, so we've got 71 different subcomponents that are all weighted.

Lucinda (18:55):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (18:56):
And they're binary, they're present or not present, and based on that, it came in at about a 77.2. Our target's 90. And what that means when I look at that is I just go, "Okay, well there's nine key components." Roughly because our target score is actually a 90%, this thing's doing about seven-

Lucinda (19:09):
[inaudible 00:19:10]

Stew Redwine (19:10):
... almost eight out of t- ... it, it's hitting on all cylinders. There's a few things it could do to sharpen, and I think that to your point about the tone of the spot, I think that it also kind of relates to the it's not as sharp and as focused as it could be. It's not as punchy as it could be. Where it's not that it has to go all the way to where you were doing, but-

Lucinda (19:27):
But really it's, it's really kind of driving in the point of why you have a job and why we need you, right? Because those hit the components. You're telling me it's at 72% right? Like if we're-

Stew Redwine (19:37):
77%.

Lucinda (19:37):
77. So you're saying, "Hey, look, somebody could've written that. They got real close. Why do they need someone else?" And this is not me giving like an ad for Stew, but I'm s- ... what I'm saying is that's why you need a creative person to come in to say, "Yeah, you hit all the tactics, but let me, like, put some brushstrokes in here of, like ... Let me just give you a little extra oomph."

Audio (19:57):
Oh, yeah.

Stew Redwine (19:58):
Yes.

Lucinda (19:58):
To what you already got. Let's put a little icing on the cake, baby.

Stew Redwine (20:01):
Yes.

Lucinda (20:01):
That, that's what I'm saying.

Stew Redwine (20:02):
Heck, yes.

Lucinda (20:02):
So that had the cake-

Stew Redwine (20:03):
That's a cake.

Lucinda (20:03):
... but I like the icing. But, I mean, I want my cake, I wanna eat it too and I wanna eat yours.

Stew Redwine (20:07):
Okay, okay.

Lucinda (20:07):
So, like, I want all the things in the ad.

Stew Redwine (20:10):
Okay. Okay.

Lucinda (20:10):
(laughs) Okay, I want them all.

Stew Redwine (20:11):
Let's listen to the next one.

Lucinda (20:12):
All right.

Stew Redwine (20:13):
So the next one that we are going to listen to, this is Upside.

Audio (20:19):
Are you kidding me? Gas prices are up again. Somebody has to do something.

(20:23):
Well, someone did. That's why I use Upside.

(20:25):
Upside? What's that?

(20:27):
It's a free app that pays you back real money for every gallon of gas or diesel you buy. I just earned 25 cents back on every gallon of this tank.

(20:34):
Hold on, so the Upside app is free and you actually get cash back every time you use it, no strings attached?

(20:40):
Yep, it's awesome. Check it out. It only takes a couple of minutes to sign up.

(20:43):
Instead of just watching your dollars go into your tank, start putting money back into your wallet with the free app from Upside. With the price of gas today, it's big news and big money. To cash out of your Upside cash, just transfer to your bank account PayPal or a gift card. Upside users have already earned over $200 million. Now it's your turn. Download the free Upside app and get cash back on every gallon of gas. Use promo code FOOT. For an extra 25 cents a gallon on your first fill up. That's code F-O-O-T. Use code FOOT for an extra 25 cents per gallon back on your first fill up. Cash back's not available in New Jersey or Wisconsin.

Lucinda (21:18):
Oh.

Stew Redwine (21:19):
Did you catch that last part? No.

Lucinda (21:20):
(laughs)

Stew Redwine (21:20):
Oh, okay. Let's listen to it again.

Audio (21:22):
Cash back's not available in New Jersey or Wisconsin.

Stew Redwine (21:24):
Okay. (laughs)

Lucinda (21:24):
(laughs)

Stew Redwine (21:25):
All right, so positioning, first, like, from a positioning standpoint, how does it rank and then, you know, in general, you can chat about it.

Lucinda (21:31):
The positioning from that was saying if we go back to the question of what's in it for me as the consumer, what's in it for me is to save money on gas.

Stew Redwine (21:40):
Straight up.

Lucinda (21:40):
Straight up, very simple.

Stew Redwine (21:41):
So I'm positioned against higher-priced gas.

Lucinda (21:43):
Yes. Yeah.

Stew Redwine (21:44):
Save time, save money.

Lucinda (21:45):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (21:45):
All right, so from a ... the way the ad was put together, then, just judging this ad and maybe we can just start with these two, is this one better? You rank this one higher or lower than Ethos?

Lucinda (21:55):
I, I would rank it lower than the first one, 'cause I-

Stew Redwine (21:56):
Really?

Lucinda (21:57):
I really would because the first one with that real specific in the problem of you don't have time. It told you. Whereas in this one, it says, "Someone oughta do that." Instead of saying, "We did something about that." And it came in afterwards for that, but it came like that intro of, like, someone should. That's a little whiny for my taste. Whereas I'm, I'm a strong, heavy hitter, so I actually liked in the first one with Ethos where they're saying, "Look, you don't have time." I mean, they were just more strong on their positioning there where you're not sitting there ... Like, this is a strong position.

Stew Redwine (22:30):
I, I think that's good.

Lucinda (22:31):
But I don't feel the strength in it, right? Like this, they had it all throughout their ad, they had that positioning about that pricing and you're saving money, but still, there wasn't clarity in the words to be real strong where it's like straight up, you would like to save money on your gas.

Stew Redwine (22:44):
Yes.

Lucinda (22:44):
And if you don't know that you want to, I'm here to tell you you definitely want to, because over the course of your lifetime, it's gonna add up, and you know what? Baby needs new shoes. Get this frickin' app.

Stew Redwine (22:52):
I like that. Status quo competitors, right? And then where we can use specifics.

(22:58):
As we're doing more of these shows, I'm trying to do this balancing act of how deep do we get into the 71 subcomponents and how much are we just talking about the ads, but each of the key components has layers to it, as you know.

Lucinda (23:08):
Yes, yes. Yeah.

Stew Redwine (23:09):
And so a critical part of positioning as far as from through the Audiolytics lens is, you know, why is it better than the status quo or competitors?

Lucinda (23:16):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (23:16):
Okay, why is it better?

Lucinda (23:17):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (23:18):
Short, why is it better? Okay, great. Now specifics help. So, like, what you just said, that's a great positioning and it really was interesting to me just sitting here going, like, "Wow, how much gas would I save over a lifetime?"

Lucinda (23:28):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (23:28):
I bet it's a big number. All right, so that's the first two. Ethos is 77% and then Upside at 72%, uh, just a little bit lower. It's kind of the same thing you were saying before. It's hitting a lot of the key components. There's some tinkering that can be done. Any time I'm seeing a score in Audiolytics that's, like, 70-plus, uh, and then closer to 75-ish, it's like okay, yeah, I mean, it's almost like the grades in school. It's like, oh, okay, that's average. Okay, now how can we pump that up?

Audio (23:55):
You're gonna pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers.

Lucinda (23:57):
Yeah, you got some good [inaudible 00:23:58]

Stew Redwine (23:57):
And sharpen.

Lucinda (23:58):
You got some-

Stew Redwine (23:58):
You've got good ... Thank you. That's-

Lucinda (23:59):
You've got good bones there and you can really just have somebody come in and help you clean it up and dress it up and just, you know, put a little more icing on that cake.

Stew Redwine (24:07):
There we go. We're sticking with the cake metaphor. All right, here's the next one for SoFi.

Audio (24:13):
One day, Amanda realized she was in a few bad relationships, so she decided to do something about it. She got a SoFi personal loan-

(24:20):
Yeah, that's me.

(24:21):
... and had it do all of Amanda's breakups for her. So broke up with her outdated kitchen.

(24:27):
This silverware drawer, come on. See this? Deal breaker.

(24:30):
She ditched her free DJ at her wedding reception.

(24:34):
Okay, no. You might be the best man, but you're definitely the worst DJ.

(24:39):
Amanda even broke up with her high-interest credit card debt.

(24:43):
You're overbearing, you're a taker, and hey, nobody likes you.

(24:47):
If you've got some breaking up to do, like Amanda, let a low fixed-rate SoFi personal loan up to $100,000 do the breaking up for you. View your rate without affecting your credit score at SoFi.com/pl. That's S-O-F-I.com/pl.

(25:00):
And let me, your SoFi personal loan, take it from here.

(25:07):
Loans originated by SoFi bank in a member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.

Lucinda (25:13):
I'm gonna go for the positioning was low rate, but it, it was hard to, to pull the positioning out of that for me.

Stew Redwine (25:18):
What made it hard?

Lucinda (25:19):
I, I just was trying to understand where we were going with the story and I was a little confused in terms of the imagery that envisioning listening to that as driving down the road or something. And so I'm listening to the story, but I, I don't know the emotion that it's provoking or whatev ... I, I'm not following the story, so then when I finally get that it's a loan, right, then I have to catch up mentally that oh, okay, that's what we're talking about, and then I don't really hear why that's better other than, like, uh, it's a low rate.

(25:48):
I think they were trying to make the point of, like, uh, you got a guy for that, here's his personal loan, but it, still, the only thing I pulled out of that was we're better 'cause we have one low rate.

Stew Redwine (26:00):
You bring up a great point in that there's the explicit and the implicit. So you can say, "I have a low fixed rate."

Lucinda (26:06):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (26:07):
Okay. So what? Does the other guy too? Does the other person too?

Lucinda (26:10):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (26:11):
I have a lower rate.

Lucinda (26:12):
Yes.

Stew Redwine (26:12):
I have the lowest rate.

Lucinda (26:14):
Mm-hmm.

Stew Redwine (26:15):
And it's like I get it. There's a resistance or a hesitancy that I completely understand of grandstanding or using hyperbolic language, and then there's also, like, reality and the truth-

Lucinda (26:26):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (26:26):
... and honoring a person's time-

Lucinda (26:28):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (26:28):
... of going ... Like, it's economical for me to figure out where I am the first or biggest or the best-

Lucinda (26:35):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (26:35):
... what have you, to position myself to go, "They are all like this, but I am different because of this specific thing." Very specific thing so you know in your head.

(26:45):
And what you were saying, what I'm hearing on this one, and then we'll just go right into the next one is that, like, look, it came in at a 62%, well, 62.8, so we'll call it a 63% in Audiolytics and you can, as we're talking through this, I think it's like you can see why.

Lucinda (26:58):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (26:58):
It's funny these are going down, but it's like it's trading on clarity for that story it was telling.

Lucinda (27:03):
And really it, again, I'm, I'm gonna go back to, like, this is why you have to like, get the right team. I mean, we've talked about this like for a few days of, like, what are you trying to communicate and how do you effectively communicate? When you get ... dig into these nine components of an ad, there's tactics, but there's also artistic flair. But artistic flair is also about giving clarity and, like, that's respectful to a consumer. In fact, I always like to say, you know, I'm not passive-aggressive, I'm just aggressive. And that's actually not rude.

(27:35):
People, uh, you know, take it from human relationships, but then also to advertising and say, "You know, you may not like me, but you will learn to respect when you know where you stand," right? So on the other side of that, the consumer has a right to know of, like, hey, this is why we're better, this is what we do. Tell me what's happening here? Just break it down stupid-people level for me. And then just explain why you're better or why I should do it. Just tell me why I need to get this personal loan and give me clarity when you do it. Communicate effectively with me is respectful of my time as a consumer.

Stew Redwine (28:06):
So I'm not gonna say-

Lucinda (28:06):
Mean what you say and say what you mean, but don't say it mean.

Stew Redwine (28:08):
What you said. All right, and this is the last one we're gonna listen to. Let's see how it stacks up against the rest.

Audio (28:15):
Progressive presents 10 things on a contractor's to-do list that are harder than getting a commercial auto insurance quote. Bidding a new client, getting an accurate estimate, finding affordable materials, getting a client to pay you for work you already did, getting a client to pay you, period, securing permits and workers and tools, getting those workers and tools to work together, and finding the perfect pair of overall. Pockets, baby. But the easiest thing on a small business owner's to-do list? Seeing if you can save on commercial auto insurance. Get a quote in as little as six minutes on Progressivecommercial.com.

(28:42):
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Coverage subject to policy terms and conditions.

Stew Redwine (28:45):
Ad paid for by the [inaudible 00:28:47]

Lucinda (28:46):
Oh, oh. That was a lot. A lot going on in that. (laughs) So I'm gonna-

Stew Redwine (28:52):
(laughs)

Lucinda (28:53):
... I'm gonna say that the positioning was good. It was actually strong.

Stew Redwine (28:57):
All right.

Lucinda (28:58):
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna rate a strength positioning in there, right?

Stew Redwine (29:02):
Uh-huh.

Lucinda (29:02):
Six minutes or less to get your quote.

Stew Redwine (29:06):
Mm-hmm.

Lucinda (29:06):
Right? You're, you're strong because it's like it's, it's easy to get it, but I'm so overwhelmed by the rest of what's happening in that ad that I need a nap after listening to it. So again, going back to ... as far as that particular component of positioning-

Stew Redwine (29:19):
Yes. Yes.

Lucinda (29:20):
... I'm gonna rate it real strong, but the ad overall, I'm gonna say, like, I'm overwhelmed by that. I need a nap.

Stew Redwine (29:26):
Yes, that was a lot coming at us fast.

Lucinda (29:28):
Mm-hmm.

Stew Redwine (29:28):
And it came in just barely under SoFi at 62%. It was missing some stuff as well. It's kind of funny, we, like, went down on our scale here. They sort of were ... They, they ... It just happened this way that we have listened to the ... What's interesting is we have listened to these in the order of the their ... the ones that had the most spots running, and so it goes Ethos, Upside, Sofi, Progressive, and both you and Audiolytics, not only as their spot load goes down over this period of time that we listened to, their grade goes down.

Lucinda (30:00):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (30:01):
So the guys with the lowest score had the lowest frequency. The one with the highest score had the highest frequency, so good for them.

Lucinda (30:08):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (30:08):
That's a fun little correlation there that we, that we or ... we listened to them in the order or, uh, best to, uh, the one that needs the most improvement.

Lucinda (30:16):
Again, I think the funeral home one ... call it the funeral home one. But the, uh, life insurance and then the gas app, and then the other two, I don't even know. We're getting insurance, we're doing this.

Stew Redwine (30:26):
Now we're like this.

Lucinda (30:27):
I don't remember you. I need a nap. I need to get away from this.

Stew Redwine (30:31):
(laughs)

Lucinda (30:31):
Like, and it's not that, like, you're so obnoxious I remember you, right? It's not like MyPillow where you're like, "I can't stand you, but my goodness, I'll never forget you. You no good ... " Like we provoke-

Stew Redwine (30:44):
Excellent. Excellent.

Lucinda (30:45):
There's no evoking strong emotion, it's just like I'm mid-level annoyed like a bee in my ear that I wanna flick.

Stew Redwine (30:53):
You articulated it so well, because it's like that MyPillow thing, I just did the, at the CAO, I was talking to somebody else about MyPillow. Of course it comes up-

Lucinda (31:00):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (31:00):
... because we're all, like, transfixed.

Lucinda (31:02):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (31:02):
We can't look away.

Lucinda (31:03):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (31:03):
And it's like so many times where you hear this story where, "I can't stand it," or, "That's too pushy," or this is the ... And then I go, "Have you bought the pillow?" And they go, "Yeah, I have two."

Lucinda (31:12):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (31:12):
(laughs)

Lucinda (31:13):
But I get that. So when we get some of our ads, we always know when we go on Sirius or we ... then we will start getting emails and responses and people give us very strong opinions. And I'm always like, "Yes," because that's how you know they're working. You evoke a response. I mean, especially, I have learned in my life, and it comes across through my ads, in comes across in my company, I evoke strong emotions. Just my mere existence sometimes, right? But you gotta know that those are the opposite sides of the coin, so that's good, right? Like the opposite of, love is actually apathy, not hate because love and hate are both an emotion, right? So when we're talking about these ads of, like, when I go, "It's annoying," I'm not going, "Oh, my goodness, that's great, it's so freaking annoying." Because even MyPillow, if it's evoking a strong emotion from you, it's doing its job.

Stew Redwine (32:00):
For sure, for sure, and there's a whole, uh, System1 has put together this, this framework of, like, hey, let's look at what, what's an ad supposed to be doing? Or what, what are we achieving? And they have the three Fs, right? So there's all these different lenses. Fame, fluency, and feeling.

(32:14):
And it's interesting to me, and these are based on psychological principles. Fame is the available heuristic. Fluency is the processing fluency heuristic. Feeling is the affect heuristic, and what that means is fame is how easily something comes to mind. How easily does that brand come to him? Fluency is how well do you understand it, right? So, like, you ...

(32:34):
How readily would Moink come to mind, but then if somebody saw something about Moink or head something about Moink, how fluent is that to them, right? How quickly understood is it, but the feeling piece is the one I've parked on recently, and it's related to exactly what you were saying. Because in general, the way I hear feeling and the, the affect or the heuristic talking about is that a brand's job is to make a person feel good. I've arrived at ... it's to make them feel.

Lucinda (32:56):
We're never more here than we are right now, and how do you know if you're here right now? You have senses. You feel. You see. You feel. You can be right here, right now, and what you put right here? Emotion can put you there.

(33:09):
And, and not to ... And I'm gonna bring it full-circle here, 'cause we started in the beginning of this particular podcast talking about how ... I think it's even in your intro. Audio is so special because it's processed in that same part of your brain where you have these emotions, and so if you are in audio, and you're not aware of the emotions, you, you already got a front-row seat right there, so y- you're already up on that starting block. Let's make sure that we bring it all the home when we talk about that emotion, but I'm with you, Stew.

(33:38):
I don't think it needs to be this I feel good. I, I, I feel. I'm here.

Stew Redwine (33:45):
And that pulls you into the present, and that's where we wanna be, because we'll never be more here than we are.

Lucinda (33:49):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (33:50):
And I'm so grateful that you're here with me today. And for our chief audio officers, I think the thing to learn from these ads is three different things. One is when it comes to your positioning, straight up, you're positioning from, like, why am I better than the status quo or competitors? Have a good reason.

(34:08):
I think the other piece of it is what was ... what came out from analyzing these four ads is that you can actually make people not necessarily feel something that then causes them to remember, recall. You can just annoy them. So just be honest with yourself about that.

(34:22):
And then I would say the last thing from a positioning standpoint that I'm talking about is, like, what you just said is beautiful. We got a front-row seat to the emotions here with audio, so position yourself emotionally against your competitors.

Lucinda (34:34):
[inaudible 00:34:35] Yes, and if you don't know, that shouldn't stop you because what it does is give you clarity. You now know ask for help. So then in your marketing meetings and when you're coming together with the other people, you can say, "I specifically need help looking at what our positioning statement is." So there you have it.

Stew Redwine (34:53):
Thank you, Lucinda. So grateful for you. Thank you for joining Ad Infinitum when we discuss advertising and break down the ads, and this week, we were focused on Audiolytics Key Component number three, positioning. This was Sirius Positioning.

(35:06):
Props to us and everyone helping make the ads work and audio, right?

Lucinda (35:11):
Yes, definitely.

Stew Redwine (35:13):
All right. And if you've got aspects of audio advertising you'd like us to discuss or suggestion for a guest on the show or wanna be a guest, please email letmebeclearcreative@oxfordroad. That's C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E @ O-X-F-O-R-D-R-O-A-D.com. And until our next how, remember to have fun making the ads work.

Lucinda (35:35):
Get 'er done.