Amazon One Concerns, VANS: Musicians Wanted, New Facebook CMO brings Credibility as the Election Nears and More of the Latest Marketing News!

 If you're listening to the latest Radcast News Update, here's Ryan and Riley.
 Hey guys, what's up?
 Welcome to another episode of the Radcast.
 It is our weekly news segment, sort of weekly.
 Hey, we do it as often as we can because sometimes work comes in.
 Hey, sometimes we have two or three episodes in a week, occasionally.
 But yeah, it's the week.
 Today, October 1st, actually.
 No, can you believe it's October?
 No, no.
 I'm in shock.
 So, Riley Clark, good to have you on as always.
 Thank you, I appreciate it.
 It is.
 It is.
 It's cool, cool brisk here in Greenville, South Carolina, as I was coming in today.
 Took my son to school this morning, and he is fighting the jacket thing.
 He's four years old, and he does not want to wear coat yet.
 He still thinks it's 80, because it ends up being 80 by the afternoon here.
 But nonetheless, it was a little cool in the early, in the low 50s, I would say.
 But nonetheless, a beautiful morning.
 Very beautiful.
 So, we are well into the commerce area.
 Yes, we are.
 We're five episodes in.
 Yeah.
 We have our new episode that will be coming out on Tuesday, and that's with Kaleela Wright.
 That is the founder and CEO of Mass in a Bottle.
 We recorded her earlier this week.
 How did you feel like that went?
 It was really cool, both inspiring.
 We checked the boxes.
 We're getting both the radical box and the econ box with Kaleela.
 Really inspiring, really smart.
 It's interesting.
 She started Mass in a Bottle, I don't want to give too much away, but it's a T-shirt and apparel company.
 She's expanding past the T-shirts, but really interesting, which you'll hear more about.
 I've often wondered, there are so many people, starting T-shirt companies, doing all the stuff, how you differentiate yourself.
 She found a really unique spin in the Bottle and the Messages.
 It's super simple, but she's obviously a good writer.
 Talented, the messages are really cool, and they cover a lot of gamut.
 Both in powering African American girls and business women to any entrepreneur, really.
 She's got a good thing going, and I really enjoyed the sit down.
 When I was listening to you guys record it and everything, I was like, oh, you just feel inspired.
 You just want to wear a T-shirt.
 She's just real, too.
 Her son was there.
 She was doing everything that everybody else was kids.
 Myself with E-learning at home, her son was doing homework or actually in the middle of school.
 In the class, yeah.
 But then she was real and very authentic.
 That won't come out Tuesday at noon, but definitely excited for that one.
 Then we have a couple more guests coming up, but we won't get everything away yet.
 Stay tuned, stay tuned.
 It's been good.
 There's things around the agency that have been good and busy.
 We're actually knee-deep in several e-commerce sites, so it's been interesting.
 Hearing some tidbits here and there, applying them to some real world things.
 We're launching two or three major e-commerce sites in the next week.
 It's so exciting.
 Cool.
 Well, now here's Riley with the news.
 Here is the Radcast News.
 Amazon One is something that the company launched on Tuesday of this week.
 It's a contact list way to identify your credit card with your palm.
 Right?
 But it's when you go into one of those Amazon Go stores, and essentially you're supposed to walk into the store,
 put your palm on the reader, register your credit card that way, and then essentially you don't have to keep swiping
 your credit card or register your palm and that kind of thing.
 Initial takeaways?
 You know, it's interesting.
 First, the world was going to be led by eye scans.
 Well, I guess it started with fingerprint scanning.
 Fingerprint scanning was how you open your laptop, you do anything.
 Everything's going to be fingerprint.
 Right.
 Then it was eye scans.
 You're going to use your eye and you're going to scan your eye or whatever.
 Or facial recognition.
 Yeah.
 Did you have facial recognition?
 Full facial recognition with the iPhone and another thing.
 Right.
 And then now it's the palm, and I get the goal is to be contactless.
 So, you know, fingerprints not necessarily contactless.
 And I would have thought the eyeball scan would be a contactless.
 The face is definitely contactless.
 And now the palm, it's how many, how fast do these grocery stores going to open?
 How many more are there other than like New York and one or two other cities that I haven't there yet?
 So this feels like, hey, great.
 We've got COVID going on.
 You need to be touching every surface.
 Right.
 It's the least supportive.
 But can we get one universal biometric scan?
 Is it the face?
 Is it the eye?
 Is it the palm?
 If it's going to be the palm, great.
 Let's make it the palm.
 But let's make it universal.
 But I'm doing the elbow scan today.
 And you'll be like, I don't know.
 I mean, I get what you're saying.
 Samsung's going to have the elbow, Apple's going to have the face.
 And Amazon's the palm.
 It's like, all right.
 So exactly one of the things that's kind of a concern with this
 is that it's going to create user education for how
 to then register your palm with your credit card using the palm,
 making sure everything's correct there.
 But my thing, does this not low-key creep you out?
 Yeah, it's more data that they're collecting on you.
 It's like, you know, that's the privacy concern.
 There's privacy concern.
 The other concern is where is this technology going to take us?
 Because some people were saying that Amazon was even trying
 to take this eventually into, you go into a stadium,
 read your poem, and then you go into the game.
 Like, is this going to become our way of, like, you know,
 identifying before you go into a place?
 Do you think it could go that way?
 Maybe.
 Or are we getting into, like, movies and stuff?
 We're headed in, look, it's headed that direction.
 Yeah.
 Like, all these Orwell books, I mean, it's all coming true.
 Like, it is.
 I mean, and so we're giving up a lot of privacy
 for the sake of information.
 And, you know, we talked about ads.
 And we talked about ads last week on platforms.
 Everything we give away to not have to see ads or to actually have ads.
 We give, we accept ads in favor of content and other things.
 Here, we're giving up another layer of privacy for, you know,
 the COVID is the excuse, you know, but it's really, you know,
 that's what, look, no one's saying COVID's not real,
 but it's being leveraged in any way possible to press forward
 these kind of initiatives that are one way or another for people
 to click another form of personal identifying information
 about yourself.
 Yeah.
 And so, you know, let's just streamline it.
 Make it one thing, though, I don't want it to be seven things.
 Right.
 You know, don't turn me into a robot.
 So, I wasn't going to do that.
 I'm okay with it.
 Yeah, yeah.
 Well, I guess we'll see where it goes.
 It's something I'll be following up and I'll put it in the episode notes
 as well just to see kind of where it's going to be going.
 But that was definitely an interesting one.
 Our next topic, Musicians Wanted.
 This is a virtual concert that's hosting.
 Vans is hosting.
 And the goal is to get regional musicians to be noticed,
 which I think is a really nice initiative,
 especially when a lot of concerts were obviously shut down.
 So, this is a nice way I think to create more engagement
 for the musicians.
 But I do think it's interesting as far as branding goes for Vans,
 because typically, at least from what I've always grown up around,
 it's very skater-heavy, very...
 Well, skater-heavy.
 And now I feel like they're bringing in more of a musical musician,
 kind of artist audience.
 What do you think about that?
 You know, I think Vans as a brand over time is translated
 just the skater.
 It's certainly that is the core.
 That's the original...
 Whether that skater, BMX, or biking, or whatever.
 I think it plays into the brand promise of Off the Wall.
 That's kind of their, I think, overarching statement.
 And so, I think this plays into the segment nice.
 Because when you think about skating or surfing or BMX
 and all those things, music is hand in hand.
 Oh, yeah.
 It's like, you know, you hear...
 I almost hear it when I watch a skate video.
 I hear a soundtrack in my head.
 When I watch a surf video, I hear it.
 So, it feels like a natural progression for them
 and look, they're an iconic brand now.
 Like, I am not actively.
 I did skate when I was younger.
 But like, I'm none of these things now.
 I still have a pair of bands.
 I have a pair of bands, you know, like,
 I don't wear them every day, but they're in the arsenal.
 You know, like, the very limited arsenal in the closet.
 And so, they've transcended those sports with just the brand
 and just kind of the notion of, you know, casual sportswear,
 I guess, you know, walking around gear, as I call it.
 Yeah.
 But the music play makes a ton of sense for me.
 It's great that they're using innovation
 to bring it together with COVID going on
 and you can't get people together doing the virtual side of it.
 So, I think it's a smart play for the brand.
 I agree.
 I'll put a link, again, to the musician wanted in case any of our listeners
 are like, oh, okay, I kind of want to enter into this.
 The winner, I like all the different kind of prizes you're going to get.
 The winner will get $2,500 of music, video production, and promotion.
 Share the stage with Anderson at House of Vans.
 And then, of course, it's pending COVID.
 You'll be featured on Vans, Spotify, audio ads,
 fan musicians wanted customized Fender guitar and a drum kit.
 And then there's top finalists.
 So, if you don't win, you know, there's other things you're going to get.
 A bunch of, we'll link all those.
 But I think I really like this initiative.
 And, you know, as far as, I hope, you know,
 we can all see the concert because I miss going to things like that.
 So, I like the virtual concert.
 Yeah, it's going to be interesting.
 This site, they're going to have the top five, you know,
 do like a virtual concert.
 Probably each band or musician, you know, how it plays out.
 I could see it being both, you know, individuals solo talent
 or, you know, a full band, maybe, you know, entering.
 How that kind of comes together.
 Like, a few of these, like, I thought, I watched the ACM
 or the country music, I thought it was produced really nicely.
 A few weeks ago, it was all virtual.
 Like, they played at different locations and things like that,
 the different bands.
 So, you know, it'd be interesting in a non-professional environment.
 I guess they're going to professionally produce it
 and maybe send crews out, you know, for the top five or something.
 Probably.
 But it seems like it takes a lot of coordination
 to kind of pull these things off and not feel a little janky.
 Yeah.
 You know.
 So, I mean, some of that organic stuff is great.
 But, you know, I don't know what the consumer expectations
 are for this kind of production value.
 That's fair.
 You know, so we'll see.
 But it makes tons of sense for the brand.
 Oh, yeah.
 Oh, for sure.
 New CMO at Facebook.
 And I think this is really cool in terms of Facebook
 really needing to get some better credibility out there.
 Especially, I like it in this sense.
 It's very smart for them to do this right before the election.
 Because obviously, we know four years ago there was propaganda
 pretty much everywhere, both ways.
 And it was, you know, Facebook got a lot of,
 I mean, a lot of people were upset with Facebook for, you know,
 not misinformation.
 And so, I think this, having this new CMO, Alex Schultz,
 originally was Vice President of Product Growth in analytics,
 now to be the CMO, what are your thoughts on that as well?
 I think if, you know, he's been with the company
 for a couple of years.
 He's a promotion for him.
 You know, he is a smart guy.
 I think that if he can, the biggest thing,
 the biggest opportunity for Facebook is they've been very,
 I'll call it product technology focus with, you know,
 as I've shown some of the day, you know,
 it's just gotten so complex, the app,
 and everything you could do from marketplace to groups,
 to shopping, to, you know, every time they add something,
 I can only imagine the complexity they go through because
 they can solve things all have to talk to each other.
 Now you enter, you know, they've had Instagram for how many
 I remember in years.
 So that and messenger now finally talking to each other.
 So they've been very product feature focused.
 Do you see some brand messages?
 I do see their TV ads here and there now.
 I see, you know, video that's more branded,
 but it'll be interesting if Alex can start to tell
 more of those brand stories and to soften the,
 the kind of backlash that's been out there for them
 in a meaningful way.
 So blending both the product, the innovation
 with that brand story and starting to promote more of the good.
 Because I mean, look, it's an amazing platform
 that does a lot of good.
 Oh, yeah.
 There's no question.
 Oh, yeah.
 Yeah, this isn't the hate on Facebook.
 No, I know that.
 But, but they've, you know, whether deserving or not,
 I think a lot of it has been deserved,
 have taken a hit, especially with larger brands that we got
 of them and other things like that.
 I just don't know if one hire is going to make this happen.
 It's got to be, it's got to start from the top and it's got to be,
 I think they've been in this growth that all cost modes
 in some ways with ads and technology and all those things.
 And can they slow the ship a little bit
 while staying ahead of TikTok and other competitors
 that are biting at their ankles while improving their brand,
 you know, persona and how they're viewed.
 And that's going to become, that's going to be more than a message.
 They're going to have to kind of put their money with their mouth
 is with getting misinformation off the platform
 and, you know, taking a stand and not being seen
 is just, you know, I think a lot of it, too,
 they get seen as, you know, maybe supporting one side
 or the other sometimes, too.
 Right.
 And so we'll see.
 It's not an easy task with as bloated as,
 and the number of people that are on the platform.
 But, you know, good hire.
 I like Alex.
 I like what he's done.
 I think he's smart guy.
 So we'll see.
 Yeah, yeah.
 Definitely be following up with that one as well.
 Our next topic, I love this topic because this is about, you know,
 Crocs coming into the pandemic space and they initially were following
 the initial play of COVID in March.
 They came out with free pair for healthcare
 and they ended up donating $40 million worth of free shoes to healthcare.
 And this was awesome because when I back in West Virginia,
 the couple I was living with, they're both in healthcare.
 And he had, he was a nurse and Crocs at him are free pair of shoes.
 And, like, that was so cool, you know,
 and he was, like, sporting them around the house and everything.
 But I think it's great that this is something that they are doing
 because as a result, I like how they were talking about
 by listening to customers on the onset of coronavirus.
 Crocs was unable to adapt 52.4% of growth.
 And their e-commerce space.
 That's crazy.
 Yeah, you know, when I read that stat though,
 I want to know what, what was their retail brick and mortar loss?
 With that, with the 52% increase.
 2% increase.
 2% increase.
 2% increase.
 2% increase.
 That's a good stat.
 But like, what's been the impact of their brick and mortar store sales,
 you know, any of those, they're sold everywhere.
 Right.
 You know, major retailers.
 So I love to know how that was all set.
 I love to see the total numbers.
 But with that said, it's a great cause, you know,
 in the, in the, in the, in the kind of the model of Tom's who buy a pair,
 give a pair, it makes a lot of sense.
 And look, it also makes sense for the brand.
 I'm sure they've seen some growth because people are home.
 You want to be comfortable.
 Yeah.
 Like, if you consider to desk with just your, your certain tie on
 and have your, you know, your gym shorts on below it,
 the shoes can most certainly be comfortable.
 So I think, you know, they're, it's been in proposition to leverage that.
 And, you know, you know, people were clamoring for this,
 and they delivered.
 And so, I mean, there's nothing to sneeze at.
 What was it?
 $40 million worth of shoes, at least the retail value.
 Even their cost is in the tens of millions, I'm sure.
 Right.
 So put your money where your mouth is and makes a lot of sense.
 And I know it's building brand loyalty.
 I know people want to do, um, and buy from brands that do this.
 I do want to see like, with more and more brands doing this,
 like, not because you shouldn't do it.
 You should do it because it's right.
 Right.
 But I am curious what is the net net?
 Is it, is it more karma than business?
 Or is it?
 And karma is good too.
 Don't get you wrong.
 I believe in it.
 Right, right, right.
 You know, it can be.
 It can be.
 It can be.
 Yeah.
 Good, the good time.
 Um, and so, you know, do good to do good.
 Absolutely.
 But is it, is it in, is it endearing their customer base as much as you hoped
 or would assume that it is?
 Right.
 And I'd like to see measurement on that.
 You know, not because they shouldn't have done it.
 Right.
 I'm not suggesting that, well, if they don't get the measurement,
 then they shouldn't have done it.
 Uh-huh.
 But I still, my marketing analytical side is more like, okay.
 What, but what is this, is this creating is the, I'd love to see a survey from both
 AVID and non-AVID fans.
 Uh-huh.
 You know, post six months after this.
 Right.
 If the brand affinity's gone up.
 Right.
 That's just me from a marketing standpoint wanting to understand the, uh,
 the outcomes of certain things.
 Oh, for sure.
 For sure.
 Uh-huh.
 Very interesting to follow up on, uh, as far as what that looks like.
 That's definitely something I can inquire about, maybe.
 Yeah.
 See if we can, uh, see what we can do here in the e-com, e-com series.
 Uh, last topic is our Kalei, uh, in Kevin Neal and T up, um, as, well, let me restart.
 So golf, apparently during COVID, which this makes sense.
 People have, you know, more, more golfers are going out during COVID.
 More people are getting interested in golfing during COVID.
 But at the same time, I guess more people are really struggling with this certain shot.
 The, uh, golf slice.
 There was a team effort with Kalei and Kevin Neal and, um, as they are, you know,
 I guess, showing the solution to not have this problem anymore.
 Yes.
 Um, as a golfer, uh, who actually plays a fade.
 I call it a fade, a slice is, but when I'm not playing well, it is very much a slice.
 That's, if you're right, handed golfer, this means your balls goes from left to right.
 It, it happens when your hands get ahead of the club.
 You live the club face open and impact.
 And it spins hard because you put kind of a side spin on it.
 It makes it loop right instead of like what I'm playing.
 Well, a little five to eight yard fade.
 They kind of fades in.
 A lot of the big hitters now are playing a fade on the tour.
 Mine will start going hard right if I'm not playing because I get my hands get ahead of the ball.
 There's your golf lesson for the day of what happens to the slice.
 But nonetheless, it is, it's what plays most amateur golfers, uh, more than anything.
 And I love this, uh, Kevin's hilarious.
 And, you know, it's, it's again leveraging, um, a way to create content in, in you need,
 so unusual ways, surprising and delighting, um, on, there's been countless.
 There's been thousands.
 There's been millions of articles and videos by pros on how not to hit a slice.
 I mean, as a golfer, I've googled it myself, you know, at some point, there's millions of articles.
 This is how you're not doing it.
 Every golf digest has an article on how not to do a slice.
 So how do you take something that's been talked about a lot and make it more interesting, you know, for your fan base?
 And so you bring in a comedian, uh, and you tell it through that story and that lens and make it funny.
 And it's great content.
 Mm-hmm.
 I love it.
 Yeah, I'll link the, there's an eight minute video that, you know, pokes fun at this.
 And I think if you're listening, like, and, you know, you're thinking about how to do content, how to do marketing and all those things,
 there's, we often get, uh, paralyzed by thinking, someone's already talked about this.
 Someone's already done this.
 Like I'm not going to do it.
 But how can you, it doesn't always have to be because you're a comedian or you can hire, you can afford to hire a professional comedian.
 But how can you make it more interesting?
 How can you tell it through your own lens that makes it a little different?
 And so, um, obviously Callaway has a large budget and they can hire a comedian to do this.
 But there's, if we'll think out of the box a little bit, we can tell the same stories in different ways that make it interesting to your audience.
 And people might resonate more with a different perspective anyway.
 And if you think about it, how many different types of learning are there?
 I mean, even though someone might have said it before, to your point, if you put a your perspective on it,
 I mean, you could be touching so many more people that had no idea that they could, you know, take in that information that way.
 And again, Callaway has a new set of clubs that supposedly helps people with that slice anyway.
 So, common problem, creative, funny way of telling it, and they have the solution with new clubs.
 You see, it's a winning formula.
 There you go. There you go.
 And then as far as this came out last week, what are your opinion on LinkedIn stories?
 I think it's a game changer for the platform I posted on this.
 You know, part of the cynical side of me, and I think some of the reaction that's been online has been another, oh my god, another platform.
 You know, like, yeah, it's not another platform, but another medium.
 You know, I'm already doing Instagram, I'm doing Facebook, I'm doing TikTok, if depending on who you are,
 and now I'm doing LinkedIn content, now I gotta do a LinkedIn story, oh my god.
 It is, it can be overwhelming, but when you put that aside and you go, okay, what are some of the core challenges for LinkedIn of getting more interaction?
 People are still sitting on the fence because they don't know what to post and when to post it, and a post feels very overwhelming versus a story.
 Because you feel like you have to, it's gonna live there forever, stories are 24 hours.
 It still feels like you need to, even if people have gotten better about shooting videos, people still feel, I think, that trepidation of a post.
 What am I gonna say in the caption? What am I gonna put in the video? What am I gonna put in the image?
 Like, is it smart? Is it not smart? I think it's just overall analyzation.
 Number one, stories make that easier.
 Number two, it also allows us to get to know our connections a little better, a little closer.
 I think that's what stories has done for the other platforms because, you know, you can still, in that same vein,
 you can portray a certain image, a certain thing with just posts.
 Right.
 The story aspect, especially, if videos, or people are getting on and talking more and a little more casually, you can get to know your connections on a deeper level.
 Okay.
 And if you're a recruiter and you're going after a certain talent, you can go look at stories on the people.
 You get to know them a little better than maybe their post show, or if you're someone that's looking for a job, you can showcase yourself better.
 I do think it's a game changer for the platform. I think it's positive from my side of it.
 I was gonna say, have you had the positive responses to like your stories and things like that?
 Yeah. I mean, I get pretty good engagement. I guess. I don't know what grade engagement is or isn't.
 Well, yeah. I mean, you know, I think we'll see as it goes on how it can go.
 I think initially there was a lot more fear of two of what do you put on the story that doesn't make it feel too social.
 You know what I mean? Because some people are like, okay, well, I don't want to, this is a funny example, but I don't want to go on the story and be like, yeah, I desperately need a job.
 So, you know, I mean, you know, but it's like, it's like, do you share the same things that you would put on your Instagram story?
 You know, but you're getting more towards business.
 I think it's more like, you know, and I haven't cracked this code definitively yet.
 I've been, you know, repurposing some content that we use for Instagram and other things.
 But it makes, you know, most people, even with COVID and everything else, are working, you know, yes, unemployment's high.
 But most people are still working a job for nine to five.
 And so you're, this is a natural outlet to show every day what you're doing.
 Instead of the fun lifestyle story of the moment or, you know, I'm headed in so that I'm really working on this, you know, I'm, I'm knee deep in this document and you're filming yourself.
 And or, hey, I'm looking at the, like, it gives a natural way to show more of what really happens during work.
 That makes sense.
 You know, you know, the, you know, and being someone knows a business, you don't want it like taking out your people's time too much.
 But theoretically shooting a small video here and there, I'd rather than be promoting and talking about those stuff, I support it.
 And I think, you know, again, showcasing what really happens during the work day.
 That's a good point.
 Is a natural, you know, opportunity for content.
 It could be more authentic business perspective versus purely social or supposed to be funny or whatever it is that can just be for your business.
 Exactly.
 Perfect.
 Well, honestly, those are our topics today.
 Anything else you want to discuss? Talk about.
 Close out on.
 I think that's it.
 I think that's all for this edition of the Radcast.
 Follow along at theradcast.com or on Instagram at the.rad.cast.
 And we'll see you next time.
 See you next time.
 Have a great weekend.
 To listen to full episodes or to contact us, visit us on the web at theradcast.com.
 Or follow our host, Ad Ryan offered on Instagram.
 Thanks for tuning in.
 You