Antoniolytics™

In Season 3 Episode 7 of Ad Infinitum, Stew Redwine is joined by Antonio Coronado—aka Agent 004, aka Antoniolytics™—and together, they delve a critical point in the history of Audiolytics™ - the proprietary ad grading and devopment framework developed and used by OXFORd - the early days of human grading, and what happens when AI takes the wheel.

As the ad industry hits an inflection point—with AI tools being mandated at major platforms like Spotify—Antonio and Stew unpack what machines can do well, what they still miss, and where the soul of a great message resides. They discuss the importance of Audiolytics™ Key Components like Setup, Positioning, Substantiation, and that elusive “unifying principle” behind emotional resonance. 

And, of course, Antoniolytics™ goes head-to-head with Audiolytics™, evaluating top ads from T-Mobile, BetterHelp, Toyota, and Mint Mobile to pit man against machine and find out if their grades are wildly different and who is the harsher critic, the one with or without a beating heart?

This episode is a time capsule, a tribute, and a turning point in the evolution of creative optimization, marking the end of the hand-graded era and the beginning of something new.

Real Talk About Marketing

An Acxiom podcast where we discuss marketing made better, bringing you real...

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Everyday AI: Your daily guide to grown with Generative AI
Can't keep up with AI? We've got you. Everyday AI helps you keep up and get ahead.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Chapters

• 9:51 [Ad] Real Talk About Marketing
• 10:39 (Cont.) Antoniolytics™
• 28:10 [Ad] Everyday AI: Your daily guide to grown with Generative AI
• 28:58 (Cont.) Antoniolytics™

Transcript

Stew Redwine (00:00):
This is Ad Infinitum.

(00:18):
Ad Infinitum is the award-winning podcast solely focused on audio ads, the creatives who make them and or the latest thinking that informs them how the space is evolving. And my favorite part, a roundup of recent audio ads with Analysis by yours truly, stew Redwine, and each episode's guest. This is season three, episode seven of Ad Infinitum titled Antonio Ly. Today's guest knows more about what makes ads work than just about anyone I know. Specifically what makes audio ads work. And that is Antonio Coronado, agent oh oh four of Oxford Road. Antonio, welcome to Add Infinitum.

Antonio Coronado (00:58):
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. This is a long time in the making.

Stew Redwine (01:02):
Yes.

Antonio Coronado (01:03):
Yeah, it's this honor to be on the podcast. It's exciting times, you know, exciting times for our organization and just the world at large. So

Stew Redwine (01:11):
What, why is that what happened?

Antonio Coronado (01:12):
We are now one mega organization. Now we're Oxford Road and Veritone one Combined. Combined, yeah.

Stew Redwine (01:18):
What is your title now these days? Antonio, special Agent oh oh four Antonio Lytics.

Antonio Coronado (01:23):
My title now is Ad Operations Specialist.

Stew Redwine (01:26):
Okay. Ad operations Specialist. So for you, chief audio officers that are listening, Antonio, why he's a particularly special guest with this is that he's not a creative, so to speak, from the beginning, at least not professionally. He's in ad operations and we call him Antonio Lytics around the Oxford Road office because when it comes to refining our audio lytics system, the framework we use to grade and optimize audio ads, Antonio brought this incredible combination of creative sensibility and analytical rigor. I would say it was about four or five years ago when we really dug in and like optimized audio lytics that final time.

Antonio Coronado (02:05):
That sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. I was part of this initial crew of certified graders and I kinda stuck it out and in a way found a calling. Great. In the ad. So,

Stew Redwine (02:13):
Well you and I were having lunch the other day talking about this in advance. I think it is so interesting that you weren't a creative coming in to help build this tool to optimize creative. Like can you tell me about that?

Antonio Coronado (02:24):
Yeah, so I initially had a desire to get into copywriting early on, but then I sort of segued into this alytics thing, this framework of grading ads. And I sort of found a place there. You know, what I realized from some of the copywriting that I'd done is that it's largely like a collaborative effort. So this is just like another way that I'm kind of adding value to the end result. The ad and really what drew me to it is just, it's sort of kind of our secret sauce. You know, it's the only thing that Oxford Road does that nobody else does, that I'm aware of. So

Stew Redwine (02:53):
It's one of several things we do that no one else does.

Antonio Coronado (02:55):
Yeah. But one of several

Stew Redwine (02:56):
Things, I think there's some other things we do Yeah. That nobody else does. So I'm trying to remember like you were in traffic at the time, like how did we even get you into audio lytics?

Antonio Coronado (03:07):
So from what I recall, there was a sort of like an open call to just anybody in the company to learn audio lytics and become a certified grader. I remember there was a course, a rigorous course that you took us through, but it was good. It was, I think about maybe I wanna say around at least six people in the beginning. Yeah. And then I think people sort of, you know, they faded out. Faded out for a little bit. It held pretty strong. We had a team of like about three or four people for about a year. And then as things happen, you know, people move in different directions. But this was something I just always enjoyed doing. So whether I was in traffic or in my current role in I had operations, I always, you know, like to just kind of come back to it and like find some time to contribute in some way. So

Stew Redwine (03:44):
I mean you're the one and only Antonio Lenox? Antonio ly. Ly. I'm just looking at the uh, certified grader number. So Dan Granger, our founder is agent oh oh zero. So triple zero then I'm oh oh one. Then Erica was oh oh two Sierra was oh oh three, Antonio Coronado. Oh oh four, Paige, Melissa and Mason. Like that was the first class Mason. Melissa, Paige, Antonio Sierra.

Antonio Coronado (04:10):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (04:10):
Like I think that was that core group that you're talking about. So now I remember we're like, hey, we're gonna train folks on this 'cause we'd only been doing it in creative and I think we'd like lost some people. And so you came into it and yeah, you really had a knack for it. Which I think is so fascinating. I think it's so fascinating because there's like different ways to come at creativity and there's this guy, Walter Merch wrote a book in the Blink of an Eye. It's about film editing and he breaks it down and this has stuck with me and it's like kind of the age old, there's two kinds of people in the world. You know those that like yacht rock and those that don't. But he talked about like the idea of somebody that's making something out of clay, like where they're adding and they're intentionally, you know, making it out of clay one piece at a time, moving towards that objective and then there's like a carver making something outta stone.

(04:55):
They're chipping stuff away and they're revealing it. I take that to be like the intuitive kind of creative types as opposed to the intentional I'm gonna structure it all out. So what I think of for me in fiction is Stephen King's, the Dark Tower series he wrote over like 40 years and if you read his book on writing he and hear stuff that he said about it, like he used the force, the Force is with you Young Sky Walker. Like he just wrote the book and then wrote the next one. He did not have it mapped out to end in the seventh, but I think it's seven books, something like that where the Harry Potter series, JK Rowling took a very different approach where it was all mapped out.

Antonio Coronado (05:29):
Yeah. She had a whole blueprint for how the thing was gonna end and yeah.

Stew Redwine (05:31):
Yeah. And so when I think about investing dollars in audio advertising, I agree with Sir Martin Sorel that advertising is a solution to a problem fundamentally a business problem. And it's to get more people to transact with you, it tends to lend itself, I feel like on the face of it, towards that building brick by brick approach. 'cause you're building towards this very specific action that you're trying to get someone to take.

Antonio Coronado (05:53):
Yeah, I would agree. And that's really what I love about Audio lytics. It's kinda just asked those fundamental questions about, you know, when somebody's interested in a product, like you know, what are the things they're gonna want to know? You know, that framework just really answers all of those things. So,

Stew Redwine (06:05):
So let's do this. We know the nine key components, right?

Antonio Coronado (06:08):
Yes.

Stew Redwine (06:08):
So we'll do 'em without looking at anything. I'll start set up

Antonio Coronado (06:12):
Value prop,

Stew Redwine (06:13):
Positioning, demonstration, substantiation, offer scarcity, path execution. There we go. It's so rad to me it's so simple. I believe in it to my core and I feel like you never knew any different, I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Since you didn't come up as a creative and so you've accepted it on the face of it. Like I remember reading, there's this book Diary of an Ad Man and I read it during the pandemic and what was so wild about it was written like in 19 44, 19 45 and the days and the date matched in like 20 20, 20 21. So if I would open Diary of an Ad Man and read June 7th, like Tuesday, June 7th, it was Tuesday, June 7th in the year I was reading it. So that was just kind of cool, like a cool little thing. But he had this story where he was talking about, he was kind of perplexed by this minister friend of his and he is like, how is it that you can believe this stuff? And the minister's response was by preaching it. And I feel like with you with like audio lytics, you didn't know any different. So you're a true convert. You're like, well yeah, this is obviously the way that persuasion works.

Antonio Coronado (07:15):
Exactly. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. Because I really didn't know, I never really reviewed ads, much less audio ads when I kind of came into this. So this was really just like that course we were just talking about was just really like my actual introduction to ads and just even like copywriting in a sense. Because even when I kind of dabbled in it a couple years ago, that's how I approached it. I was looking at, you know, what's the setup? What is the value proposition? What is, you know, how am I gonna substantiate this? And that was really kind of how I came at it 'cause I really didn't know any better. So I like that, you know? And it really is, you know what I turned to every time whenever I'm listening to an ad and a podcasts or watching an ad on tv. Yeah.

Stew Redwine (07:52):
So the other aspect of this and why I wanted to do Antonio Lytics was that we are at such a inflection point with AI where I really do believe, like, so Audio lytics is composed of 71 sub components, nine key components. Antonio Lytics goes into a spreadsheet and listens to an ad. This is Antonio Aly of the past goes into a spreadsheet and listens to an ad and then marks whether those 71 things are present or not present. And then we had waiting assigned to 'em based on performance and that's how we come away with the score. And now you know, we're bringing all of this stuff into AI and are able to do it with machines. And it's just so fascinating to me is like there's a lot of other jobs like that or a lot of other tasks like that where it's gonna be like, wait grandpa, you mean back in the day you used to have to do that? And you know, like Spotify you know is mandated AI tool usage. It's a big move and you're seeing it everywhere. And so that's just fascinating to me that it's like here's this thing you used to do, you used to do to so much detail a human's probably never gonna have to do again. Like what do you think about that and how do you see AI impacting what we do day in and day out?

Antonio Coronado (08:57):
Yeah, it's definitely a major turning point. Just the fact that it's being mandated and I think we're definitely gonna see more of that just across the board. I mean I was trying to think earlier like what industry couldn't benefit from AI in some way, even if it's just down to creating a schedule for employees or trying to you know, bounce some kind of budget in some fashion. I think we're definitely gonna see more of this and it's, you know, being prioritized differently across different organizations. Of course this is a case where they're obviously very adamant about having their employees use it. I think ultimately that's where it's gonna end up.

Stew Redwine (09:28):
So like maybe a plumber plumbing is not gonna be done by ai

Antonio Coronado (09:32):
Right? But I think there are aspects of a plumbing business that could be facilitated by AI in some way.

Stew Redwine (09:37):
Plumbing lytics lytics,

Antonio Coronado (09:39):
Right?

Stew Redwine (09:40):
I think you're right. What's wild to me is that I think of all the time and energy that went into audio lytics.

Antonio Coronado (09:46):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (09:46):
And Antonio Lytic and it's like oh wow, that's just

Antonio Coronado (09:50):
Poof. Yeah. It is hard not to have a personal connection to that. Like those are hours of my time that I spent doing that. And in a way it is like, yeah, wait a minute, this <laugh>, this thing comes in overnight and it just knows how to do everything. And but you know, again I think like kind of what we're getting at is there are aspects of it that I would trust it to do fully and not miss a beat on. There are other parts of it where I think it's gonna at least take some time to catch up. And more specifically, I think, you know, a lot of the conversations we used to have around audio lytics were what's being said, like we were like really concerned with like the explicit versus the implicit.

Stew Redwine (10:23):
Yes. I was just talking to somebody about that yesterday.

Antonio Coronado (10:25):
That's something that I think AI can, in a very general sense do pretty well just be very explicit about things.

Stew Redwine (10:32):
So this is what's happening, we're working on an AI module right now like with our own training data and all this stuff. And the scores are off from the human scores by a consistent amount. There's a couple of things at work. One is we very carefully guard the weighting and the formula, which is all proprietary. Simply put, it's as you approach the speed of light, which for us you know, is a 90% approved score for all end market creative, it gets increasingly difficult to leave the Earth's atmosphere. Like it gets increasingly difficult to get to 90 as you get closer and closer to 90. And that's all done with this formula. And then there's a couple other aspects to it that it's all proprietary to make it be as accurate as possible. So when we're doing it with the ai, we're just being very careful with that aspect of it.

(11:14):
So it's kind of doing its own thing so to speak, based on what we've shared publicly. So that's like where we've been very careful is that we're sticking to things we've said or like articles I've written about audio lytics publicly as like the training data for the model. So with this said, it seems to be what's happening is what you're talking about, it's taking a very literal definition of all the key components and it's grading accordingly and it's grading lower than humans. And the very thing I was talking with someone else at the agency about yesterday was like, I think it's this implicit explicit thing in that humans are inherently, no matter how much we train 'em with audio lytics more likely to be gracious for instance, with a statement like let's say we're here at Head Gum Studios, thank you Head Gum studios for hosting an ad infinitum. Woohoo head gum Studios is 50% cheaper and the best place to record. Okay. You know as Antonio Lytics that the missing piece there is, it doesn't say 50% cheaper than the competition and the best place to record when compared to all the other options. And that's what I think you're talking about where a grader's gonna go, oh well that was positioning and the robot goes, no it wasn't.

Antonio Coronado (12:21):
Yeah, I mean even with all the experience I'd had grading for all those years, grading several scripts, I still ran into that problem several times. I would just find myself being lenient when it comes to the implicit and I'd have to kind of go back and reread things multiple times. Yeah. To just ultimately say, okay, it actually isn't there. I have to do a lot of brain work to actually get there and my brain is filling in the gaps. Whereas the typical listener or audience member wouldn't really know that off the bat. Yeah. I think that's a really important piece that I think AI is going to have play a big part in. It's gonna be able to kind of pick up on that. So

Stew Redwine (12:52):
No question it's gonna be less accommodating. And I also think, you know, fundamentally the human brain is a storytelling pattern. Recognizing survival machine piloted by a spirit and eternal spirit. Let it be known. But like you're saying, like we look to wanna resolve, we wanna fill in the gaps and we wanna resolve. It doesn't, the machine doesn't have to do that. We like fundamentally have to do that. We want to make it make sense.

Antonio Coronado (13:18):
Right. Yeah. And I think the fact that there's a person, you know, on the other end of it, the multiple copywriters are working on this piece, there's kind of this communication that you have just, you know, when you're speaking to somebody that we kind of get what we're saying. We don't have to use all the words every time. So you kind of definitely wanna complete the sentence in a sense,

Stew Redwine (13:33):
Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Antonio Coronado (13:35):
Yeah, exactly.

Stew Redwine (13:36):
I agree. So Antonio, you've reviewed thousands of spots through the audio lytics lens and so something I want to ask you, is AI generated or not, what are the key components you see as the biggest blind spots for advertisers?

Antonio Coronado (13:49):
Yeah, so from my experience, you know, grading all those scripts, it tends to be the, you know, kinda like we were saying, just the most seemingly obvious parts of an ad, what you'd think, you know, it's pretty clear. But what I mean is just a very simple summary of the product that we're advertising a one line saying this is what the product is. And a lot of times you don't see that either it's missing in the copy or maybe there are so many hands in it that it gets lost somewhere. So I think that's usually the biggest miss that I can see.

Stew Redwine (14:17):
Well let me do this setup. It seems like most of 'em have a setup of some kind, right?

Antonio Coronado (14:21):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (14:22):
Value prop, you're basically calling out value, value prop positioning. I feel like that was always a gap. That's consistently a gap is positioning people not wanting to come out and say this is how I'm better than the other options specifically.

Antonio Coronado (14:34):
Yeah. And not a quantifiable way. Yes. It almost doesn't, you can say that you're better, but when you actually put a number behind it, you know that's what really kind of makes it mean anything. So yeah, it's definitely that. Yeah.

Stew Redwine (14:44):
Yeah. And folks will b that and then I'll say like, let's say we're in a meeting, there's 10 people. I'm like, well what if you knew that AI was rating all of us during this call is the, who's the most charming

The Evil Queen (14:54):
Magic mirror on the wall?

Stew Redwine (14:56):
Would you wanna see that list? And everyone of course wants to see the list. It's ridiculous if you think about it.

Antonio Coronado (15:00):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (15:01):
But relative value is what it's all about. This is good, this is bad. So that's a gap I see demonstration. Most ads seem to do this. The thing is, I was just up late last night working on a bunch of scripts prepping 'em to do this human verse AI comparison that we're doing with audio lytics right now as we're onboarding it into the matrix. So I was looking at all those scores and it was like the ones that I see and I feel like this holds up are always the gaps is positioning substantiation and scarcity.

Antonio Coronado (15:29):
Yeah. 'cause I mean those really are just the most black and white pieces.

Stew Redwine (15:33):
One, I feel like people don't wanna do it, they don't want to say. But what I notice is, for instance, like you walk into Walmart in Santa Clarita where I live and they have banners in their store that are like number one retailer or number one grocer in California. Think about that. They know what they're doing but for some reason you'll get these smaller advertisers that we're working with. I mean not as big as Walmart. And it's like, well I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna beat my own chest or I don't wanna for some reason, you know, and you'll see that gap in the scripts where it's like you need to somehow provide some social proof or something.

Antonio Coronado (16:02):
Yeah. I mean that's one of your major selling points. I mean if you can kind of have that as we say in Audioly, like that onlyness factor or just

Stew Redwine (16:09):
Yes

Antonio Coronado (16:10):
Being the first and foremost

Stew Redwine (16:11):
Onlyness.

Antonio Coronado (16:12):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (16:13):
My heart is warm to hear you talk about Onlyness.

Antonio Coronado (16:15):
Yeah. I mean you know again this is like how I learned about ads. So I have those all locked in, they're etched in my mind. And the power words. The power words. Yeah.

Stew Redwine (16:22):
Do you remember 'em?

Antonio Coronado (16:23):
I think I remember most of 'em. It's you free now. Uhhuh now new because

Stew Redwine (16:28):
Easy. That's all of 'em. You knew free now because easy.

Antonio Coronado (16:31):
Yep.

Stew Redwine (16:31):
You answer those. The way I look at audio lytics, the 71 sub components in the nine key components is like it doesn't hurt to have a great answer for all of them. It'll never hurt you.

Antonio Coronado (16:40):
No. Yeah. I don't know if I've ever seen a great answer for all of them but yeah of course that's the ideal. Just have it you know, satisfy every one of those 71 components.

Stew Redwine (16:48):
This feels so like detailed and yet it feels special, you know, especially as we're going into with the merger and we have the CAO summit this summer and I don't know about you but like with the merger and stuff, like ever since the fall and then like our 10 year anniversary for Oxford Road was last summer. Like all this nostalgia and then you combine that with like you're the physical representation of John Henry and the machine. What's nice is you're in ad ops now so it's not like you're doing Antonio Lytics but like spiritually you represent human powered alytics at this point. Oh yeah. Where it's like that chapter's

Antonio Coronado (17:23):
Closing. I know it's, yeah there's definitely nostalgia there. I would be lying if I said there wasn't like a little bit sad about it going

Antonio Coronado & Sergeant Slaughter (17:30):
Yeah

Antonio Coronado (17:30):
I'm glad that it's growing. I feel like uh, in a way a parent or a older brother I'd say and just kinda seeing it grow and kind of move on to better things. But I definitely will miss those times where it's spent with it and just kind of thinking about it and applying it in different ways. It's yeah.

Stew Redwine (17:43):
Yeah. It's wild.

Antonio Coronado (17:44):
It is. Yeah.

Stew Redwine (17:45):
Little brother audio lytics of big Antonio Lytics. Yeah,

Antonio Coronado (17:51):
That's a great way to put it.

Stew Redwine (17:52):
I think the implicit explicit, like that's so interesting because that came up yesterday as we are doing the official like John Henry verse the machine test, remember we had all the components that are in the scorecard, they're highlighted in maroon for some reason. Yeah. Remember I highlighted 'em all in maroon and remember it 'cause we identified with that training group. 'cause as you guys were getting trained it was like these are the most subjective ones.

Antonio Coronado (18:14):
Right.

Stew Redwine (18:15):
And I can't remember how many it was but I mean it ended up being of the 71, I want to say at least probably 20 or so where those were the most difficult ones to make a judgment call on. Do you have memory of that?

Antonio Coronado (18:26):
I do, yeah. And to that point, I dunno if this is where you're going with it but I think those more subjective parts are where AI's gonna have a more difficult time kind of nailing, at least at this point where it's at now. You know at some point in the future when it's more sophisticated it can maybe make those calls. But I remember setup is one where we had a lot of those sub components highlighted in Maroon.

Stew Redwine (18:46):
So for your chief audio officers that are listening, setup is the first key component and it is comprised of several sub components. And so what I'm hearing you say is that that one in particular, there was a few that were highlighted in Maroon 'cause they were subjective.

Antonio Coronado (18:58):
Yeah, yeah they're subjective. And where I was going with it was there's like a lot of emotional aspects to that.

Stew Redwine (19:03):
I actually was surprised to hear you say that you think AI is gonna have a hard time with the maroon ones. My viewpoint hear me out is I think AI is gonna actually resolve those because I think we're going to be able to layer in what we tried to do with human graders and we're not always able to do because sometimes we're doing competitive sets or you don't have access to enough information. Well what does AI have access to? Hopefully more information to go like what you're talking about in the setup is like we can speak about it in general is how is that speaking to hey you Right? We're basically going hey you, how is that? Speaking specifically to our audience? Well I'm gonna be able to who give the AI that information about the audience to better answer that. I feel like in a one-to-one like why did you grade up this? Let's just keep it general like set up key component. Why did you grade it this way based on this audience information or would you grade it differently based on this audio information? And I feel like that'll be a lot easier and less subjective than even you as Antonio Lytics. If I were to give you the brief for let's say head gum studios and who their target audience is to get people to come record here let's say I don't think I would trust Antonio Lytics interpretation of that as much as I would trust AI's interpretation.

Antonio Coronado (20:16):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (20:17):
In mapping it back to the sub components. You get what I'm saying? Yeah.

Antonio Coronado (20:20):
Okay.

Stew Redwine (20:21):
Do you agree or do you dissent?

Antonio Coronado (20:23):
I would say I agree to a certain level.

Stew Redwine (20:25):
I wanna get at the heart of it. Why is it you think that AI won't be able to handle the subjective maroon sub components?

Antonio Coronado (20:33):
I guess I'll kind of go back to just the emotional aspect of it. It's kind of harder to nail that with what I've seen AI do up until this point.

Stew Redwine (20:40):
Okay, that's fair. Yeah. And that's what I think that it's like it can do the pieces right but it's like what is the centralizing principle? And this is something that I've been thinking about. I've been listening to Jordan Peterson's we to Wrestle With God and something that he says in there has stuck with me and he talks about how a message has a soul and when there's this like unifying principle that aligns intent and action in a message like we can feel

Rich Davis from Covino and Rich (21:05):
It. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward

Stew Redwine (21:09):
When someone speaks from the center of who they are aiming at something real and true, their words have weight, they connect. And so that's where I think I connect that to what you're talking about. It's where like yes letter of the law, this is right and if I go in sequence it's all right but it, what's the heart of it? It's something Joe tka, the commercial director talks about where he was known for reworking the creative that was given to him. But what was really cool is I saw him in an interview talking about how he believed there's a good idea at the heart of it. And that's again Peterson's idea of this unifying principle at the heart of it. And I'm linking that to what you're talking about. Whereas like if you don't have that emotional truth and that unifying thing down at the very center of the thing, yes we can grade all the pieces in the Lego blocks individually as Lego blocks, but like what is the like Hmm. That's at the center.

Antonio Coronado (21:56):
Yeah, I would echo that. And sometimes it's even hard to articulate that like what that is even. But the fact that you know, that commercial director you just referenced is able to do that. You know, I feel like that's a skill that I don't know if AI could do without the right prompts or

Stew Redwine (22:09):
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how you do that. I just thought it was so cool 'cause it was so charitable.

Antonio Coronado (22:13):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (22:13):
That it was like, you know, it gets covered by a lot of CYA stuff. It gets covered by committee work and then you get this jumbled thing that's this kind of monstrosity that's a racehorse, you know, designed by committees a camel. What I liked about it is that he's like, I'm not gonna throw the baby out with the bath water. I'm gonna try to find the thing at the heart of it. And I think that might be behind what we're talking about when we talk about subjectivity.

Antonio Coronado (22:37):
I would even see that sometimes with just human generated copy.

Stew Redwine (22:41):
Yeah.

Antonio Coronado (22:41):
You know, so many hands have touched it that that original idea, that intention, it's there in some sense, but it kind of gets lost when so many people are making adjustments to it or they have their own ideas about what it should be. So if AI can figure that part out of how to find out what that through line is or what that emotion is at the core that what we're trying to get at and it starts there rather than just kind of, for lack of a better word, frankensteining something together based off of, you know, these are all technically what should exist in a piece of copy then you know, I think that's kind of where it'll eventually kind of find the most success. So

Stew Redwine (23:15):
I think it will handle the maroon five. It would be cool if there was five of them, the maroon 50, whatever it is. Go go. I think it will. I think it's a way to solve for that and I think it will handle the implicit and the explicit and beyond that I think it's like, you know as you go through the grade card, it's like you get to the execution section, which we were very intentional in the way that we structured it, that those first eight components before execution are like what said in this order that it's important that it's in that order, in order persuade someone. And what I talk about is like this idea of like the Gettysburg address has a very high audio lytic score. It's got all the pieces or if you were trying to get somebody to buy knives from you, you know, kitchen knives, door to door, I absolutely believe it's these eight in this order. Great answers to each of them. You got the best chance of selling those knives. And then execution is how you say it. So it doesn't matter, the premise that we've operated from is, it doesn't matter how you say something unless you got something to say. So we figure out, you know, what are we gonna say? And then it's how we say it. What I'm getting at is I think some decision fatigue sets in by the time you get to the execution section. You know what I'm talking about?

Antonio Coronado (24:18):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (24:19):
Because you think really hard through those first eight and then like you get to execution, it's kinda like, did it do that? Did it not do that? Did it do this? And it's like, oh you know, 'cause you know how some of those are nuanced in execution where AI is not gonna get fatigued, it doesn't get fatigued,

Antonio Coronado (24:32):
It doesn't, right. Yeah. And that was always the thing when you kind of get through that scorecard and you're at the bottom, you kind of have to almost go back in a way, redo the brain work of kind of going through and just to make sure that it meets all of those final components. Just 'cause it's like it's all about tone.

Stew Redwine (24:45):
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean it's how it's said. So it's like tone of voice. You're exactly right. Like if you're gonna do it right, it's like you go through the A in detail and then you gotta almost do it again for execution and you know, whereas a person out

Antonio Coronado (24:57):
Yeah it does <laugh>. If you're doing a few of those it's like yeah you're kind of, we wanna get to the end of it. But yeah, in our sort of framework it's like you were saying it's really the most important part. 'cause the fact that those all exist is critical but then they also have to follow that order and if they don't it's sort of,

Stew Redwine (25:12):
Which was always a big thing actually.

Antonio Coronado (25:14):
Yeah

Stew Redwine (25:15):
That's always a big one. I remember that was that stuff would not be in the right order. That was one of the most common ones I feel like early on. 'cause I mean we were really grading our own homework.

Antonio Coronado (25:23):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (25:23):
And it was like, oh no, I need to get this in the right order.

Antonio Coronado (25:26):
Right. And that's the thing too, most of the time I'd grade a piece of copy that where somebody didn't really approach it from that audio lytics lens. So I kinda have to, you know, there's a lot obviously overlap here. You know, something can satisfy a demonstration and then also have maybe some substantiation in there or some value proposition and it's not always in the right order so you kinda have to rearrange it. And a lot of times it's just about deciding, okay, what am I gonna give it this point for? To me does this sound more like a demonstration of how this product works or is this more, you know, the value proposition? Is it explaining to me what this product is? And those were two that always kind of felt like interchangeable in a way in many ads I've heard. So

Stew Redwine (26:05):
Yeah I always think of like a tight line, like 15 minutes will save you 15% or more on car insurance and it's like that's doing a lot.

Rich Davis from Covino and Rich (26:10):
15 minutes could save you 15% or more.

Stew Redwine (26:12):
There's actually a lot of key components in there, you know?

Antonio Coronado (26:14):
Yeah.

Stew Redwine (26:15):
And they can be on top of each other and still get the job done. Like we've used audio lytics to grade billboards and that's something that I think AI is gonna help with as well is like locking in the model. Locking in the waiting and then it's gonna have no problem going, give it a static image and go grade this with audio lytics. Like AI will make that leap where a human might be resistant to that idea. Alright, well it's been fun making Audio lytics work with you. Now let's see what Antonio Lytics says here. Live with audio lytics. Now it's time for the main event. We've got the top spenders from Magellan Yee Mighty CAOs who are listening. You can get a free demo of Magellan at magellan.ai/add infinitum. And what I've got Antonio Lytics are the top spenders from March, 2025. That's T-Mobile Better Help and Toyota. And I'm breaking T-Mobile in two because we've got a lot of spend I was seeing against T-Mobile, I wanna say it was around two or 3 million. I man about four times that amount against Mint Mobile. So that's gonna be the four that we listened to. Are you ready to create some ads?

Antonio Coronado (27:18):
I am ready.

Stew Redwine (27:19):
Alright, let's go. First one up is T-Mobile.

Rich Davis from Covino and Rich (27:24):
Today at T-Mobile I'm joined by a special co-anchor. What up everybody? It's your boy Big Snoop deal. Double G Snoop. Where can people go to find great deals? Hand to T-Mobile dot com and get

Stew Redwine (27:33):
Four iPhone sixteens with Apple intelligence on US. Plus four lines for 25 bucks.

Rich Davis from Covino and Rich (27:38):
That's quite a deal Snoop. And when you switch to T-Mobile, you can save versus the other big guys comparable plans plus streaming respect only up outta

Darth Vader (27:47):
Here. See how you can save on wireless and streaming versus the other big guys at T-Mobile dot com slash switch. Echo intelligence requires iost.

Stew Redwine (27:53):
All right, the game is afoot. All right, let's see. Uh, on that T-Mobile spot on the

Antonio Coronado (27:58):
Antonio Lytics scale, I would give that like about a 65%.

Stew Redwine (28:03):
65% in that range. Yeah. Wait, what's the range

Antonio Coronado (28:06):
Between 60 and 70?

Stew Redwine (28:08):
Okay, let's see what audio Lytics gave it. Oh this is interesting. Okay, audio Lytics gave it an 80%. Why the low

Antonio Coronado (28:16):
Score

Stew Redwine (28:16):
Antonio

Antonio Coronado (28:17):
Lytics? To be honest, I think I usually go into it with kind of very hesitant to kind of give it the high

Stew Redwine (28:22):
Score. For those of you listening, he didn't break out the 71 point checklist here. This was off the dome.

Antonio Coronado (28:26):
Yeah. Yeah.

Stew Redwine (28:27):
So you're saying you're a harsh critic at first.

Antonio Coronado (28:29):
I'm a harsh critic.

Stew Redwine (28:30):
So maybe if you went and did the scorecard it would be higher.

Antonio Coronado (28:32):
Yeah, most likely.

Stew Redwine (28:33):
Okay, fair enough. Why don't we listen to another one?

Antonio Coronado (28:35):
Okay.

Stew Redwine (28:35):
And see what happens. Okay. So the next one up is, do you make your bet every morning? I do. Good. Jordan Peterson is proud. <laugh> Next one up is better help.

The Evil Queen (28:50):
It's a new year. So what might get in your way of making this the year that you ask for help with some problem you're having feelings that you don't understand or a conflict that you can't seem to fix. Here's a thought. What if asking for help meant that you wouldn't let anything get in your way of solving an issue? Finding out an answer or discovering a better direction? Asking for help is much more about your determination and your commitment to making your life and the lives of others who love you healthier and more fulfilling. Even if it means asking for an outside perspective. Better help. The number one online therapy provider makes reaching out about as easy as it can get. Within 48 hours, you'll have a professional licensed therapist whom you can text, email, or talk with to guide you and you're not having to comb through therapist websites or drive to appointments. It's convenient, inexpensive, and readily available. Now you can find a therapist that fits your needs with better help and if you use the code or link better help.com/ self-work, you'll get 10% off your first month of sessions. Just do it. You'll be glad you did that. Link again is better. help.com/ self-work to get 10% off your first month of services.

Stew Redwine (30:08):
Mm. Pleasant music it is. Does that give it any extra points?

Antonio Coronado (30:12):
Well,

Stew Redwine (30:12):
Uh, not for me. <laugh>. Probably not. <laugh>, what's Antonio Lytics give that one.

Antonio Coronado (30:17):
I would probably give it a 60.

Stew Redwine (30:20):
Alright. I like that you're staying consistent with your harshness.

Antonio Coronado (30:25):
Yeah. You know again, that's kind of something I always kind of go into it hesitantly until I kind of can spend a little more time on it. But with that one specifically, what stood out to me the most as one of the components that was missing was the substantiation. I didn't really hear anything about you know, any sort of clear evidence or at least anything communicated that was backing up why this solution was a success. Better. Yeah. Better than exactly why it is better help. Yeah,

Stew Redwine (30:46):
It's just help.

Antonio Coronado (30:47):
Yeah, it's just help. Right?

Stew Redwine (30:48):
So Audio lytics gave it a 78. Here's what's interesting. It's lower than the other one. So T-Mobile Antonio Lytics 70 better help. Antonio Lytics 60 Audio Lytics 80 audio Lytics 78. So they're tracking. It's just your initial is a lot harsher. It is. Which is interesting, especially in light of our conversation earlier that it's like I'm kind of hearing you beat yourself into submission <laugh> to be so explicit that actually you're like even less gracious than the machine. Now with your initial grade, what would be interesting is to have you grade these with the full grade card and see hey, they came out but we're just gonna take 'em for what they are right now. And why don't we do the next one, which is from Toyota.

Rich Davis from Covino and Rich (31:30):
Hey, it's Rich Davis from Covino and Rich. The Toyota Tundra and Tacoma are designed to outlast and outlive, combining raw power with precision engineering, all backed by Toyota's legendary reputation for reliability climate side of tundra and experience the uncompromising strength with its available I force Max Engine and Tundra delivers exceptional power, torque and towing capacity. Plus the spacious and high-tech cabin keeps you connected on the run. Or check out a Tacoma Agile, dependable, and unstoppable. The Tacoma's designed for those who go beyond the trails. Stay ahead of the pack with available off-road features like crawl control or break out your tunes with the available portable JBL Speaker. Toyota trucks are built to last year after year mile after mile. So outlast every adventure and outlive the moment. Buy a Tundra or Tacoma today visit buy a toyota.com. Toyota's official website for deals or stop by your local Toyota dealer to find out more. Toyota, let's go places.

Stew Redwine (32:33):
Antonio Lytics. Let's grade advertisements.

Antonio Coronado (32:36):
I'm gonna probably say it 60% on one too. Possibly even lower. Why? Well I didn't really hear a very clear setup. It went straight to the solution. You know it might have been a little bit attention grabbing but I didn't really hear anything that set up anything. It's Covino from Covino and Rich. Hey it's Covino

Stew Redwine (32:55):
From Covino and Rich. Right? It's one way to do it. It's kind of hamfisted. So you're gonna give it sub 60? Yeah, I'm gonna give it a, I'll say 60. You're gonna stick with 60. Okay. I'm gonna say it's like a low 60 and the other one was a high 60 because this is what's interesting. Audio Lytics got it at a 72. So right now, even though the scores are different between Audio Lytics and Antonio Lytics, the ranking is the same. Wow. If that's a low 60,

Antonio Coronado (33:20):
Yeah

Stew Redwine (33:21):
That's a lower 60 than the 60. You gave better

Antonio Coronado (33:23):
Help. Yeah, I almost was gonna say like 55 like in that range. Again this is like where there's a lot of this like, you know, it could be bias or just the fact that I'm aware that I'm giving it low scores. It might even be influencing this decision to not give it that 55. I'm like, oh I'm kind of getting a little too harsh. But really I think 55 is probably like my gut reaction when I first heard it so.

Stew Redwine (33:41):
Well what's always so fascinating to me is like we hold these truths to be self-evident when it comes to persuasion. We can get into our heads, but what audio lytics externalizes is what I believe we know and have experienced as people on this planet working to persuade each other of how to persuade. Sell me this pen. And so regardless of the rubric somebody brings to the show, it almost without fail their rank, order mirrors, audio lytics. Even if like their score is slightly different. Like the 1, 2, 3, 4 spot is almost always the same. Wow. Which is really fascinating to me. Okay, so the last one, here we go and then we'll wrap up is Mint Mobile.

Mint Mobile Ad (34:19):
This episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile. Do you say data or data? Well I say data and for the longest time I thought paying a fortune on my monthly data plan was just normal. That wasn't until I found out about Mint Mobile and their premium wireless plans that start at just 15 bucks a month. With Mint Mobile, I use the exact same network on the exact same cell towers I used before with the exact same phone and exact same phone number. The only thing that isn't the same are the monthly fees. All plans come with high speeded data or high-speed data. Your choice as well as unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. No matter how you say it, don't overpay for it. Shop data plans@mintmobile.com slash eed. That's mint mobile.com/eed. Upfront payment of $45 for a three month five gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for the first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

Stew Redwine (35:18):
All right, this is gonna be interesting where you come down on this one because of where I know the audio lytics score is in compared to some to the others. No pressure.

Antonio Coronado (35:27):
No I'm gonna actually, I'm gonna go even lower this time.

Stew Redwine (35:30):
How low can you go? Can you go?

Antonio Coronado (35:32):
I'm gonna give it, I would say between 50 and 55. Whoa

Stew Redwine (35:36):
Man. Okay. I didn't know I was coming in with dark Antonio Lytics

Darth Vader (35:41):
If you only knew the power of the Dark

Stew Redwine (35:43):
Side <laugh>. All right. Audio Lytics gave it a 76. So for the most part you tracked right there along with audio lytics, which is what we typically see. You did give this last one the lowest score. Turns out that Audio Lytics was more gracious with Mint Mobile than Antonio Lytics, but when you think of all four of these and the grades you just gave them, I got two questions so we can wrap it up. One is this what you were used to seeing back when you were fully Antonio Lytics And two, what advice would you give to the CAOs that are listening that invested millions of dollars in putting these messages on podcast?

Antonio Coronado (36:18):
To answer the first question, yeah, the typical range was I would say between a 60 and a a 70 on the first go. When I first, you know, listened to an ad or created a script. So I'd say these are probably like a little bit lower and that's, I guess maybe again it's just where my head's at today. You know, it can be that that sort of thing where it's just like uh, you know, I'm coming at it from a different angle or for whatever reason. Uh, thinking about it in a different way.

Stew Redwine (36:40):
And it sounds like you've trained yourself to be hypercritical when you're off scorecard to sort of protect against being too gracious.

Antonio Coronado (36:47):
Right. And that's just from the experience of just having, when I started I was just very, you know, easily giving things higher scores than maybe I should have. So I kind of learned to kinda not be as gracious to begin with and then kinda have it earn that higher score. Yeah, I tend to just be a little bit critical when I first kind of go through it like at a first pass. So,

Stew Redwine (37:05):
Okay, regardless, where did these ads miss and what could they do better for those chief audio officers that are listening?

Antonio Coronado (37:11):
I guess one component that was missing from a lot of 'em was just the substantiation that accounts for kind of a big portion of this framework. It's, you know, we want to be able to back up all these claims with, you know, some pretty solid evidence, whether that's facts and figures or just a host kind of giving a personal endorsement or testimonial. Yes. And so that's where I see a lot of these kind of missed and it's difficult to do, but another part is the setup. You know, the setup is really key. You can argue that's maybe the most important part. 'cause if you don't get past that, then you're not gonna be able to almost everything else after that doesn't matter. So at least <laugh> today when I heard those ads, I didn't really feel putting myself in the shoes of a listener. I wouldn't feel compelled to listen.

Stew Redwine (37:46):
They're all kind of snoozers. But I am on a comfortable couch here at Head Gum Studios. But like the temperature in this room and like the vibe and this chair and those ads. I wanna go to sleep. I don't know about you.

Antonio Coronado (37:58):
Yeah,

Stew Redwine (37:58):
Like I tuned out on the Better Help one I just checked out.

Antonio Coronado (38:01):
I mean for me I meant Mobile one was, maybe it was just the delivery that kind of, he was kind of just

Antonio Coronado & Sergeant Slaughter (38:06):
Flat like this. Yeah. Do you say data or data? I say data <laugh>. Yeah. Do you pay for data? Right. Hey, it's Rich from Rich and Covino. You should drive Toyota.

Stew Redwine (38:16):
So what it could have done better was, I love my Toyota. I've been driving Toyota since 1997, got my first Tacoma. This is Rich From Rich and Rich Covino. I gotta tell you about these screaming deals Toyota's got going on right now. Unbelievable Truth is I don't drive a Toyota right now, but I'm thinking about it. Especially when you hear what they got going on, right? Like that's the thing they can, they don't even have to endorse in the moment, but like personalize it, talk about it.

Antonio Coronado (38:40):
Yeah. It's always those, the way they kind of customize things and just kind of put things in their voice. That's what makes me wanna listen. Usually when I hear an ad,

Stew Redwine (38:47):
I can't even remember the T-Mobile one,

Antonio Coronado (38:48):
I can't either. Snoop Dogg. Yeah, I know one of 'em had Snoop Dogg and that's really all that I remember about it. So

Stew Redwine (38:56):
Would you have remembered that it was T-Mobile if

Antonio Coronado (38:57):
No, I mean Snoop Dogg has like so many products he endorses that. Yeah. Unless there was something about like that personal endorsement. I mean,

Stew Redwine (39:03):
You know what they need to bring back. Did you play with GI Joe's as a kid?

Antonio Coronado & Sergeant Slaughter (39:06):
No.

Stew Redwine (39:07):
Okay. Well I did and you could call and you could talk to Sergeant Slaughter.

Antonio Coronado & Sergeant Slaughter (39:10):
My name is Sergeant Slaughter.

Stew Redwine (39:11):
It'd be cool like do a Spot T-Mobile. Like you could call and you can talk to. It's like a automated Snoop Dog. My name is Snoop.

Antonio Coronado (39:18):
Yeah, that'd be awesome.

Stew Redwine (39:19):
Yeah, maybe, I don't know. You bring up a good point with the celebrity endorsement where it's like if it's Kevin Hart or Snoop, you're sort of like, I don't know. Like sometimes when I look at Ryan Reynolds and maximum effort, on the one hand I really like what they say about advertising. Okay. And I agree. On the other hand, a lot of times it's, Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Yeah. They put Ryan Reynolds in it. It's like, well okay, well who doesn't want the charming awesome actor that'll grab my attention. But you gotta think about like you're saying, it's interesting you remember it's Snoop but you can't remember who it was for.

Antonio Coronado (39:50):
Yeah. I mean any of those, maybe with the exception of like better help, I guess if I had to like look at a list and see what are the products that Snoop Dogg would most likely endorse, I could maybe guess that it would be like T-Mobile, but just kind of hearing that it's, yeah, unless I did that, I wouldn't really remember. You know, like he didn't say anything about T-Mobile that maybe remember it was a T-Mobile ad.

Stew Redwine (40:08):
Okay. So for the CAOs that are listening, CS may get degrees, but they don't work well in audio Lytics, it's easy to become forgettable. There is a sea of sameness. These are things that are as old as advertising. And two key areas to think about are substantiation. Like we talked about. You gotta give, you know, facts and figures or you can, you don't have to, but give facts and figures. Most people aren't. Why should they trust you? Give that personal endorsement. I mean that's like 1 0 1 is particularly in audio. And that's interesting 'cause that links to both substantiation and the setup. You've gotta get their attention and then keep their attention throughout the ad. Antonio Lytics, this has been a very special episode. Thank you. It's a moment in time and I feel like we're like putting it in the time capsule.

Antonio Coronado (40:48):
Yeah. It's kind of, we're almost in a way marking this end of this chapter and kind of moving on. Yeah, it was an honor to kind of be a part of it for so long and it'll always be, I'll be linked to it in some regard. So yeah, I thank you for that. That's awesome man.

Stew Redwine (40:59):
Well, Antonio Lytics, it is very special thank you for today and for all of the years of making the ads work and honestly for being a true believer. 'cause I gotta say, my personal part of this is I'd get tired, you know, my life quote has been Franklin's energy and persistence, conquer all things. I believe that. But man, with audio lytics, it's been a slog. Yeah. And it was tough when folks were kind of not on board. You know, it's okay to be skeptical, but the fact you've always been died in the wool and I know I can talk to you about it and you're a true believer has been wind in my sails on this audio lytics journey. So thank you and thanks again for coming on the show. Where can folks connect with you? You can find me on LinkedIn, Antonio Coronado. Okay. And maybe we'll see antonio

Antonio Coronado (41:42):
Lytics.com. Yeah, pop up maybe. Yeah,

Stew Redwine (41:44):
Hopefully that could be cool.

Antonio Coronado (41:45):
That would be awesome. Yeah.

Stew Redwine (41:46):
And then we'd like memorialize the whole thing at the official Oxford Road Museum. All right. That's a wrap on another episode of Ad Infinitum. If you found this helpful, insightful, or just made you think about audio advertising a little differently, please let us know and leave an honest five star review. And if you've got an idea for something about audio advertising or an ad or campaign you want us to look at, please email me. It's stew@oxfordroad.com. And don't forget to check out the latest ad rankings and get a free demo at magellan.ai/ad infinitum. And remember, until next time, to have fun making the ads work.