Fr 4/21 - Got Wood? Plant Based Milk's New Player | Red Lobster Saves Prom | AI Makes You Money

It's Friday, April 21, 2023. Let's nerd out.

The ad nerds podcast delivers at industry news every weekday. We are the go to source for people who spend money on advertising, covering Big brands, small businesses and the latest marketing trends. It's me Spanky Moskowitz, the show's host and a nearly 40 year bet of the ad industry. I've created campaigns for Budweiser m&ms. Frito Lay the NFL and NBA have created over 100,000 ads earning hundreds of billions in client revenue. If you're in or interested in the world of advertising and want to stay up to date with the latest news. The ad nerds podcast is the perfect place to start.

This is the second time this week I'm talking about this topic. Milk a staple of American household has seen a decrease in popularity over the last few years due to the sudden rise of plant based milk alternatives such as oat soy and almond milk. In response, the dairy industry has been fighting back by challenging the plant based industries use of the word milk on their products. This tension has led to some creative and very funny marketing campaigns. The most recent one milk from milk p p features white lotus actor Aubrey Plaza, in the ad Plaza announces her role her latest role as the co founder of wood milk, the world's first and only milk made of wood. She describes her love for trees and her realization that she could drink them and she lovingly caresses the timber and then proceeds to frolic through the woods milk orchards, assuring viewers that their artisanal milk would be the only milk they'll want to drink for the rest of their lives. Plus, it then shifts to her trademark dead Pantone, announcing that word milk is in fact not real. And that only real milk is well. Real.

Have you ever looked at a tree and thought, can I drink this? I did. Hi, I'm Aubrey Plaza, co founder of wood milk, the world's first and only milk made from what? Here it would milk orchards were certain that our artisanal would milk will be the only milk you'll want to drink for the rest of your life. Why? Because I said so. Our wood milk is bottled right here in the forest where the trees had the dirt which locks in the flavors like cherry, maple and of course mahogany. And if you can't pick your favorites, that's okay. Because they all taste like wood. Here's how wood milk is born. Not born exactly. More like squished into a slime that's legal to sell. Let's give it a try

got wood? Is wood milk real? Absolutely not only real milk is real than what did I invest in?

This fun and creative had was made by agency Gail directed by Hannah Levy and CO written by Neil Casey both alums of Saturday Night Live. The milk PTP campaigns aims to highlight the benefits of dairy milk. And it's accompanied by social media broadcast and Out Of Home Marketing. Additional milk p p is partnered with the organization one tree planted committing to planting 10,000 trees and is selling wood milk merchandise on its website to support the effort. Now, you may not have the deep pockets of the dairy producers, but small businesses can learn from this campaigns creativity and humor by embracing the unique selling points and finding ways to stand out in a crowded market for your business. Right. What business are you in? Think about the things that you can do in your industry. And if you can't come up with him, just drop a comment in the podcast if you're stuck for creative ideas. I would absolutely love to help you.

It's prom season and as the father of two teenage daughters I can tell you 17 dress triathlons later. It is a big time for high schoolers. And as prom season is in full swing and high schoolers are gearing up for the big night. They're looking to combine fancy fashion and fun and Red Lobster is ready to welcome teens into their popular pre prom destination with a stylish accessory. A bib. Yes, you heard that right. A bib. Wait what at Red Lobster teamed up with independent agency Barkley to create a limited edition prom drip bib designed to save nice clothes from milk and butter, cocktail sauce or ranch dressing. The bib comes in Red Lobster red with a stylized font and a cape drape that can fully cover any outfit. The campaign is running on social media via hashtag prompt drip bib, and is being supported by Tiktok influencers. The bibble via be available trying to say that fast three times the bid will be a bit be available. on a first come first serve basis and Prom goers can claim a limited number of free drip bibs by providing their mailing address via prom drip bib website. The collaboration between Red Lobster and Barkley by the way highlights the fun side of the fancy seafood and the agency hopes the study is going to show that red lobster is a brand teens want to experience again, focusing on those Gen Z years right. The prom drip bib campaign even caught the attention of Men's Wearhouse who requested bibs of their own. Barkley, by the way, they won the Red Lobster creative business in 2022, September of 2022. So they've only been on the job now what nine months. And they were shortlisted for US agency of the year. Now you don't need to be a Red Lobster, right? You don't need to be a big brand to do something like this. A local small business can activate a really similar campaign by finding again a fun, unique and shareable aspects of its brand that you can playfully promote. For example, a local bakery could create cake bibs, to keep prom goers fancy clothes clean while they enjoy their dessert, or a local restaurant could create burger bibs to protect prom goers outfits for messy greasy burger sauces. The key here is to identify the fun part of it the shareable part of it and attach your brand to it. And then create a limited edition branded product that's functional and fun. The campaign can easily be promoted on social media just using relevant hashtags. The goal is to make your business your brand stand out and be part of the prom conversation while providing a memorable and fun experience for your customers. Okay, that's all you got to do. Coming up how AI can make your business more money and it's totally illegal. I promise. Ad nerds podcast? Are you great at running your business? Well, how about marketing it? If you're like most small business owners, you're great at the thing your business does, but not so great at figuring out how to market it. That's where we come in at zombies. We help businesses sell more ad zombies rights ads, emails, web copy sales pages, radio and video scripts. If it needs words, add zombies has them. Go to Add zombies.com today and use promo code nerds to save 20% Add zombies, words that sell anything for businesses anywhere. Podcast wunderkind, a performance marketing company did a study called the industry pulse consumer spending during economic uncertainty. I feel like I should say that with a little more authority. wunderkind, a performance marketing company did a study called the industry pulse consumer spending during economic uncertainty. And they found some pretty interesting stuff. According to their survey of 500 customers in the US and an additional 500 in the UK 52% of US consumers are cutting back on non essentials, with 37% of them cutting back on essentials as well. Here's the thing. Gen Z is a totally different story. They're not worried about the economic turndown as much as other generations, and they're planning on spending their money regardless. In fact, the survey found that only 22% of Gen Z consumers in the US feel the need to reduce discretionary spending. So why is this important? Well, for starters, Gen Z is the future of your customer base. They're going to be the ones buying your stuff for the next 50 years or so. So it's important to understand their buying habits and respect their spending decisions. By the way, the survey also found that high income US consumers are not holding back on luxury items either. So don't underestimate the customer spending habits and the power of them especially during uncertain times. You know, you keep hearing me say don't disrespect Tik Tok. You need to understand this Gen Z customers love platforms like Instagram snapchat, tick tock, tick tock and YouTube. And you need to be using those platforms to show off your products and services to more people including Gen Z Talk to your customers build relationships with them by simply answering their questions and taking their feedback. Social media can help you and your business, understand what the Gen Z customer likes and doesn't like. And this way you can make sure your message and products appeal to them. You know, we have access to data today that simply didn't exist in the times of like, yellow pay, who's old enough to remember Yellow Pages, right? And newspaper ads, newspapers are still around, but not as many. So use that data to your advantage. And finally, social media platforms are always changing and adding new things. Use these new features to make your posts more interesting and fun and engaging. And by using social media the right way. And using each platform contextually, you can show that you're cool, modern. And of course, the most important thing you care about your Gen Z customers. If you're burying your head in the sand thinking that AI isn't going away, you might be experiencing the leftover effects of yesterday's for 20 embedment. For the rest of us. Did you know that companies like Strava, Vimeo and get lab are using AI Artificial Intelligence to make more money. That's right. At a recent conference, their CMOS chief marketing officers said that AI can help companies grow their revenue faster. By using AI these companies can make their work easier and save time and money. So for example, GitLab, a company that helps people develop software uses AI to find out what customers want and to make its code writing tools better, more convenient, easier to implement. And yes, there are still some concerns around AI and people worry about their privacy and who owns the content that AI creates. There's a lot of stuff that's still has yet to be figured out. But you know, I always say version one is better than a version none. Right? This is the version one of AI and you don't need to fear AI. lean into it. Okay. You might be thinking, how can I use AI in my small business? Right? Okay, great, glad you thought of it. First, you can train the AI in what your business does. You can tell it everything. Then you can have a create a social media calendar for your business. By the way, did you know that you could train AI to speak in your brand or business voice? You totally can tell I trained Lockheed Martin. It's how I trained for Cigna Health. It's how I trained for Berkshire Hathaway. It literally can help you write some of the content after you've spent some time teaching it. Hell if you want a pizza shop, a boutique clothing shop. A pet grooming business, AI can literally help you develop toppings combinations and specialty pizzas, clothing descriptions that excite customers or tips for how to care for a specific dog breed or each dog breed if you want to go really deep. The best way to get AI to give you better answers, though, is to stop asking it for answers and do what I do. Start asking questions coming up. Everyone wants our attention, except for one advertiser.

What can a kid teach you about spending $5 million. Watch a kid pack a snowball. They squeeze out the fluff packet firm tight and hard. Whether you spent 50 bucks to advertise or 5 million take this lesson to heart the sales message you deliver better be packed firm, tight and hard all the fluff squeezed out of it. It can be the difference between a solid campaign that hits hard and sells and one that falls apart. Get words that sell anything the flagship copywriting course from add zombies and watch your words pack a punch, go to learn dot add zombies.com today use promo code nerds and save 20% on words that sell anything. Podcast have you used the calm app. I have it on my iPhone and I'm using the $70 per year paid subscription version of it. I guess you get like seven days trial and then you get to decide whether you like it. So calm. For those of you that don't know what it is. It's an app that helps people relax and gives their attention back to them. With calm you literally can choose how you want to focus your attention. You can listen to meditations, the sound of a stream a meadow. Oh, like all these cool things. Okay, well, their new ad features Canadian meditation teacher, Jeff Warren, who instead of taking your attention, gives it back to you.

Every ad you've ever seen has tried to take your attention. Let this be the first ad that attempts to give you your attention back. Maybe close the eyes. Relax the shoulders. Choose how you want to delegate your attention internally here for the next five or 10 seconds. That's your attention yours to choose how you want to allocate. That's what meditation can bring you.

What a calm way to end the week. Monday is going to be a great episode of the ad nerds podcast. I am so excited for this. It's q&a Monday, where I will answer some of the branding, advertising and marketing questions that have slid into my DMs my inbox and comments on my social media content. Subscribe to the ad nerds podcast on Apple, Spotify and whatever app you like to listen to. That's the ad nerds podcast for Friday, April 21 2023. specie out thanks for listening and have a great weekend.