Welcome to issue #004 of the new and improved Mike’s Marketing Lab. As of this send, Black Friday is a little over two weeks away. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and I’m very excited to dive into this issue with you. Let’s get rolling.
Column: Story > Everything
What if I told you the best ad of the year didn’t run during the Super Bowl, doesn’t sell a product, and belongs to the genre of ads we all probably hate the most?
A political ad.
But it gets better. Any of us could have shot, edited, and posted it before lunch.
The ad comes from Scott Colom’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in Mississippi. Taking off your politics hat and putting on your marketing hat, give it a watch before you read on. See how long it takes you to get the joke.
It opens with a politician saying there are plenty of other proteins out there. Then comes the cut. “Pick another protein? Shiiii! I’d rather pick another senator, instead.” Then the music kicks in and we’re off. Ten seconds in and we’ve got the full picture.
Five clips. One end card. Music and captions. That’s the whole darn thing. Watch it again and count for yourself. I had to watch it a few times because I didn’t believe it.
So what’s the lesson here? Raise the bar on the story and lower the bar on how fancy it needs to look. Think about what you actually want to say and write it down in one sentence (no cheating). If you spend your time getting the setup, the punchline, and the narrative right, you’ll be amazed at how quickly everything else falls into place.
This ad had a 10/10 story and 4/10 production value. The lighting isn’t wonderful. It looks like it was shot on an iPhone and edited in CapCut. No CGI. No fancy graphics. Just a few simple shots, perfect music selection, and the default captions style.
And it was more memorable than any Super Bowl ad I saw this year.
Get the story right and everything after it gets easier… Not by a factor of 10 but by a factor of 100. The shots, the edit, the music, all of it falls into place because the story is doing the work. And the best part is you already have everything you need to shoot it. Your phone, a free app, an afternoon.
You don’t need a bigger budget or more production value. You need a better story.
Lab Notes: Roll the Calls
As things have gotten busier and the holiday crunch continues, I’ve found myself picking up the phone a lot more. And man, I forgot how much you can get done in one call.
I’ve been reading Ari Emanuel’s memoir Roll the Calls, which is a rare combination of laugh-out-loud funny and very insightful. My biggest takeaway so far is the guy loves to pick up the phone; so much so that he likens it to a weapon. And after a few call-heavy days, I get it.
Here’s what a good chat looks like for me now:
I text to set up a call. I dial. We talk it through. We reach an end point everyone is happy with. We both hang up with a smile on our face. And somewhere in there I get to ask how the kids are doing, hear what their family is up to, and actually catch up with someone that matters to me. All things that are genuinely important to me.
Being a good business partner starts with being a good person and being a good friend. Nothing helps with all of that like an old fashioned phone call.
My challenge to you during this holiday crunch is simple: Get out from behind the keyboard, pick up the phone, and start dialing.
Or, as Ari Emanuel would say, roll the calls.
AI Corner: Sites in ChatGPT
Sometimes I want to take a problem, ball it up like a piece of clay, and see what else I can make out of it. That’s when I reach for Sites in ChatGPT.
This week I had to put together some projections. I used Sites to build a little planning tool where I could flip between the best case, the middle case, and the not-so-great case. I could move a few pieces around, see what that did to the numbers, and then go back and try something else. Below is an illustration of this to demonstrate what I’m talking about.
That’s when it clicked for me. I could see what a certain scenario would require, pressure test it, and then run a new scenario all over again. The numbers felt like something I could get my hands on. It was a true Neo seeing the matrix moment.
If you’re curious about Sites, start with a question you can’t quite get out of your head. What’s the one thing you wish you could move around and immediately see what happens? Build that first. And if you need some more inspiration, you can find it here on OpenAI’s website. I’m excited to hear how it goes.
Black Friday Tip of the Week: Script Your Opening Drive
Before Black Friday kicks off, map out the first three or four days of your promo. When does each email go out? When do the texts go out? What’s on the homepage, and exactly when does it flip? Get it all on one calendar so everybody knows what’s supposed to happen and when.
Here’s why that matters: Something is going to happen during your Black Friday promo that will surprise you and you won’t see coming.
Maybe the product you thought would last all weekend is halfway to sold out by Friday afternoon. Maybe the offer you built the whole weekend around is barely moving. That’s when you want to be looking at what’s selling and deciding whether to move some budget, swap the creative, or change the offer.
It’s hard to see the whole field when you’re still building tomorrow’s email. Script the opening drive so you can look up, read what’s happening, and call an audible.
It can turn a good Black Friday into a great Black Friday.
Ears are Burning: The Beauty of Larry David
I was out on a run a couple weeks ago listening to Acquired’s episode on Seinfeld when I heard maybe the most Larry David thing Larry David has ever said.
Four weeks after Seinfeld moved to Thursday nights with its audience up 57 percent, here’s how Larry took the news.1
“This probably means that a catastrophe is imminent, that something terrible will emerge from this.”
I think us marketers could use a little of that. Allow me to explain. We’re in the business of growth. You have to be an optimist to do this job. You have to believe more people are going to find you, like what you do, and come back for more.
However, let’s say you’ve got a promotion you’re sure is going to crush. Great. Now channel your inner Larry David. If it sells twice what you expect, do you still make money on those orders or does playing catch-up eat into your margin, leaving you with nothing? Can you ship them when you said you would? What happens when you run out of the thing you’re still paying to advertise?
That’s the balance I’m after. Be brilliant on the creative, a little cynical on the science, and ask yourself what Larry would say if he was here.
Get Moving: Stretch It Out
You know when your brain’s in knots and you’ve read the same email three times and retained exactly none of it? That’s my cue to get out of the chair.
I’m getting on the floor, closing my eyes, taking a few deep breaths, and stretching. Maybe it’s a butterfly stretch or an attempt to touch my toes. Maybe I do a few backbends or some downward dog to get out of my head and into my muscles.
A couple minutes away from the screen paired with some slow breathing can make the whole room (and that pesky email) feel different.
Plus, it will all still be there when you get back. I’ll see you out there!
-Mike
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-04-ca-474-story.html