Tuesday Brain Dump: We're doing it live!

Hello party people!

With so many of you now on board, I couldn’t wait ‘til the weekend to fire off some thoughts to get you through the rest of the week.

Welcome to your first Tuesday Brain Dump (TM). This might become a thing, and we’re looking for sponsors.

For the price of $1.20, your brand could be front and center to a wide variety of media professionals, and my Dad.

(If you can guess the # of subscribers and CPM I used to get to $1.20, I’ll give you the first sticker we get in stock).

Oh and one more thing - if you can help me design a logo, you can also win a (theoretical) sticker.

Onto the thoughts! Lots of medium-sized thoughts today…

TUESDAY BRAIN DUMP

You are a slowpoke. Elon Musk has officially entered Donald Trump territory for marketers - I’ve never seen someone drum up so much hysteria and hatred than him.

Everyone is coming out with their take on why Elon is an idiot for rebranding to X, because the Twitter brand meant so much…

…so much that all of the marketers complaining about this never spent a dime on Twitter advertising, hence why there were in a precarious position for Elon to buy them a year ago.

I’m especially amused by this Digiday article, specifically this section:

Brian Chevalier-Jordan, CMO at National Business Capital, said he has been really put off. While his company doesn’t advertise on Twitter, or X, right now, his team was considering an ad buy in the coming months as part of a broader paid social media campaign.

“Although his company was probably never going to run on Twitter, he is DEFINITELY not going to run on it now!”

What is this? Why are we doing this? Another tweet from Amanda Goetz, whose takes I generally like, wrote an entire thread on how she would have launched the new brand.

It all sounds good in theory, but it also sounds like a 2 year process.

And that’s the thing about marketers. To quote David Ogilvy, we are “natural slowpokes scared of making mistakes” and “frightened people.” When colleagues run, we tell them to walk. We get scared. Partially because we know failing comes at a heavy cost, both in the public eye and in the boardroom.

But I admire Elon’s speed in trying new things, especially for a brand that did need a complete makeover (I get into Elon’s rebrand decision in my emergency thought from Sunday, while recognizing the makeover need is partially his fault).

People just can’t take that, as Ben Thompson pointed out, X is merely Elon’s playground - it’s a fraction of his net worth, and it’s a place for him to try new things, like the experimental budget of a $1B brand advertiser.

Who watches Tubi? No, seriously, who watches it? Everywhere I look, I see another stat about the rise of FAST, but I’m increasingly skeptical about who brands are actually reaching on these platforms. Set aside the massive fraud that’s going underreported, and let’s assume these are, after all, real people watching on Tubi.

Tubi in particular has made a lot of waves recently for their wonderful marketing, including their strong Super Bowl ad and Cannes activations. They now make up 1.4% of total TV time now in Nielsen’s Gauge, ahead of any other FAST channels like Pluto TV or Roku.

But per YouGov, their viewers overindex for having <$50k HHI, and their viewers are 30% more likely to have a lower than US median HHI. This isn’t because these people are younger and / or students - they actually underindex for 18-24 year olds!

I’ll say the elephant in the room. These are platforms not necessarily for chord cutters, but for people with less means. That doesn’t make them bad, but too many premium, wealthy DTC brands are pummeling $ into FAST CTV, when their audiences just aren’t there.

Side note (and media planning idea): whenever Tubi has a big marketing push, run media with them.

They get so much attention from their marketing, and my hunch is that’s what’s fueling momentum vs. their product features or content. So when their next big activation happens, light up the spend, because they’ll likely see a sub or viewership growth.

No more secondary KPIs. I’m reading Eat the Big Fish by Adam Morgan, which I highly recommend. One of his points is that challenger brands shouldn’t have secondary KPIs, they need to focus on the ultimate goal of disrupting the status quo.

I agree - secondary KPIs are a sign that you’re not confident in your main objective. Instead of adding more KPIs, just get more confident or reframe what you’re up against.

MLS still sucks. Why? Because Messi’s team hadn’t won a game since May 23rd before his debut game. When the conversation migrates from Messi to Inter Miami snapping their losing streak, then it’ll be a real league. Until then, it’s merely a showcase for Messi.

Meanwhile, what’s a CPM for Inter Miami’s games on Apple TV+ moving forward? No seriously, I’m asking you. If someone knows tell me, I’m genuinely curious.

Everyone just wants different. The SAG president is not an elite Hollywood actor, but the Nanny, and she’s the apple of the public’s eye. Vivek Ramaswamy is surging in the Republican presidential polls, and RFK Jr. has made his own waves in the Democratic Party. People respond most to different right now. It’s the same in marketing.

Do people on your team see the ads they buy? If not, force them too. Too much of our industry plans and buys ads, and never sees their finished product in the world. They should have to consume it just like the people they’re trying to reach, and if the experience sucks, they should have to suffer just as much as them.

I got more thoughts but trying to save up enough in the tank for a weekend edition. But one more thing… wanted to give a shoutout to Charles Benaiah, a LinkedIn buddy of mine, with this great post about how much attention vs. media spend goes to digital platforms.

Some of this is skewed by the CPMs of each platform, but you have to think - maybe, ya know, diversify?

Stay thinkin!