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Ep 44 - The Evolution of Digital Strategy: Then and Now Podcast and Video Transcript

[Disclaimer: This transcription was written by AI using a tool called Descript, and has not been edited for content.]

Dave Dougherty: All right, and welcome to the latest episode of Enterprise Mines, Dave and Alex are here. Thanks for tuning in, checking it out. We are going to do a little bit of then and now today. Talking about digital strategy and how it's changed from when we were just out of school or you know, working on the agency side and, you know, what's happened over the last 10, 15 or more years.

You know, especially with how things have changed in the last couple of years. So Alex, what are your opening statements, opening thoughts debate style things?

Alex Pokorny: Yeah. It's, it's also a mix of what hasn't changed. That's the important kind of thread that we're gonna kind of keep on touching her as we kind of keep this conversation going.

Evolution of Email Marketing

Alex Pokorny: One interesting one that hit me was thinking about how email marketing has changed throughout time. And there was certain kind of like friends and pickups and changes that I think actually start to illustrate some of digital marketing fairly well throughout the time period I'm going to start with back to 2005 to today.

And broad strokes, basically very beginning, it was HTML based difficult. Programming intensive more than the user experience side of things. So think about more from a tech side than a front end side. And that changed rapidly. So systems got better. Things got more complex. It also became a lot more important for businesses because it worked.

It sold things. It got sales to be nurtured, you know, pipelines to happen. So it became fairly important. And there was a point I was thinking about it. I worked at an agency that had a fantastic email team. And I think it was seven people to send a really good email. So we've reached this complexity level.

You're not just your one website person who did everything. Now it's specialized skill sets. The complexity has grown significantly. And to do it well, you have these specialists in these different areas. So you have a copywriter. A front end developer who creates the Photoshop files, a back end developer then counts that back into CSS, HTML, whatever you're sending it actually as.

If your database administrator, who basically is actually doing the send, if a project manager over the entire thing, if an analytics person on the report out, Missing one. There's probably one more that is in that mix too, but those are just different career types. Those people don't necessarily even overlap.

They could be like the backend developer is not the copywriter. These are very different folks. So to do that really well suddenly becomes this Huge burden to get to that level.

The Rise of User-Friendly Email Systems

Alex Pokorny: Add a couple more years, and we start to see more user friendly MailChimp sort of systems are out. Complexity drops down. We can use templates from HubSpot.

We can just basically send some real basic stuff and as long as you can write an email or write a document of any type, you can write a not great, but you can write an email. And you can send it out yourself. You can do it yourself. You don't have to have the programming knowledge anymore. That burden is gone.

Mm hmm. Use preset templates, that burden is gone. The system has its own analytics, that burden is gone, like things are shifting, right? move it forward a little bit more.

Legal Complexities in Email Marketing

Alex Pokorny: Now we've got the canned spam act. We've got the different black lists and gray lists from the different email providers. It's complex as heck.

I mean, there's how you're handling people's data nowadays. If you got their email address, great, but what, how do you store it? What do you do with it? What are you allowed to do with it? What country are they from region, you know, So suddenly the complexity jumps up from a legal standpoint, and now you're back to those email specialists, basically being like the people who know all the little gritty details that might be giant liability.

So important to have. So you get this kind of push and pull thing, basically from the base technology, you've got a camera, you can have a YouTube channel to, I have a massive production team with full on directors, specialists, editors, copywriters, everybody else, special effects artists, you name it. And I'm basically making like a mini movie for my YouTube channel now.

Like complexity suddenly jumps up again. Pills get better, drops down again. Like, it kind of keeps going, but there's this push and pull. Have you seen something similar with that? Like, do you see that same kind of thread in other areas?

Dave Dougherty: Oh, absolutely.

Specialization in Digital Marketing

Dave Dougherty: I think you know, what you talk, the thing that jumps out the way you describe it and which is something I think we've talked about before is the fact that there's this like window of specialization where each new tactic or even if it's not too new, it gets a little bit of a spotlight more, right?

That happens for a little bit and then it goes away and it happens a little bit again. It goes away. And yeah, I think the, the piece of the marketing technology and, and those things changing always has the promise of, you know, we're going to make it easier. So now you can do this tactic that's converting really, really well.

And you can do, you know, yada, yada. So then it just becomes another thing on the to do list, which just means you're doing more things less. Well, you know, and I feel like that that's something with the, the more recent things with AI that you're starting to see where it's like, yeah, it could do, you know, My LinkedIn posts, it could do my emails.

It could do this, that, and the other, but all of them are still just because they're average, you know, crap. So if you were a really crappy email writer, AI might be helping you now. But then also I think the, the specialization, we've gone really deep into that over the last like 10, 15 years, right?

Cause it's now, it's no longer just, oh, I'm an email specialist. It's I'm an email specialist for mass consumer. Designer clothes and makeup. I'm an email specialist for the automotive industry, right? Cause now each one has their own feel. They have their own full pause. They have like all of these things.

Yeah. And it's, it is interesting how things are shifting and the skill sets get transferable, but I think we've seen that. A lot. The other thing to call out are the platform changes, you know, not specific to email marketing, but they that is representative of that one particular channel.

Platform Changes and Social Media

Dave Dougherty: But if you look at social media, right.

When, when we first started, you know doing marketing in 2008, 2009, you still had the possibility of posting something and people actually finding it. You know, like I think Ruthie and I talked about this a while back where it was like doing when I was doing music at that time bands were having honest discussions about do I not have a website or do I only have a Facebook page?

Because the barrier to entry on the Facebook page was so much cheaper. It was zero. Right. Other than rather than get registering the domain and figuring out how to build a website and doing all that stuff. That that's what they were doing. And then all of a sudden it was, you know, surprise.

Facebook pages are no longer going to be this, that, you know, we're not going to prioritize them. Yeah. And now, okay, crap. Now what do we do? You know those platform changes are the biggest thing. You know, that I've been thinking of, especially recently, because there's been a number of updates recently with that kind of thing.

Alex Pokorny: Yeah. I mean, I consistently see those shifts. What are some things that you see as kind of dropped off or that time?

Decline of Organic Social Reach

Alex Pokorny: So organic social posting is actually a great one or something that has dropped off. You just don't get the visibility in the reach anymore. If you promote it. Yes, there's a chance there's some chance of virality still with organic content.

However, it's pretty designed and tailored, and it's also very difficult to do repeatedly. Some have been able to handle it, but still with gigantic costs up front of still the production value and the rest. So still difficult to kind of hit that. What's something that's kind of, what else is something, something that's dropped off?

Dave Dougherty: Or something that's The thing that jumps out to me is mass communications, the idea, fundamental idea of mass communications.

Mass Communications and Audience Targeting

Dave Dougherty: You know, it used to be that, you know, when I, when I first started doing some PR work and audience targeting and doing that kind of stuff, it was, okay, I can go to NBC and get this type of audience.

I can go to this magazine and get, you know, this type of audience, you know, broad, broad brushes. Now that is. So much more specialized where it's like, okay, there's no longer that crossover of NBC, Fox, CBS, you know, ABC news people. They are very distinct audiences. And if you're getting your news from Instagram, but Instagram has these algorithm changes that won't promote voting or won't promote local news or won't, you know, whatever else It makes reaching audiences much, much, much, much harder.

Local News and PR Evolution

Dave Dougherty: Actually local news is one that people don't often think about, but that has died hard. And I know that's kind of hyperbole, but not really.

Alex Pokorny: Yeah. Or to none. It failed. And

Dave Dougherty: that

Alex Pokorny: was it.

Dave Dougherty: Mhm. I mean, there is an opportunity for local content. I do think that there's there's some opportunity there. It's going to be harder and you're gonna have to put a flag in the ground for that. But I do think there are some opportunities there. But Between then and now, yeah, one of the first things I did back then was reach out to the local newspapers because I was more likely to get coverage in those newspapers so that I could then ladder that up to be like, hey, we've already been covered in these papers.

You don't have to worry about, you know, launching us or talking about us because we've already been in, you the papers and the magazines or whatever else. I think PR changed a lot too. I've been out of the game for a while, but just kind of keep an eye on, on that. You have. You know, fewer media people being pitched by more people because the pitches can be automated.

Now, you know, you get the distribution lists and the templated emails, and now it's harder to find the real thing. So yeah, those, those cold email pitches are less and less and less effective because why would you, when you have 20, 000 emails that you have to, you know, that you're being pitched on? And like, I even get that from, from this podcast.

I get these emails going, Hey, I love your show. We want to pitch you this person. It's like, if you actually listened, you would know we've never had a guest on. So why just you've just shown to me that you don't even pay attention you just I'm on like we're on some list of podcasts and then you know, yeah,

sorry Ruthie. It's going to jump in late. Yay. Last minute change to the episode. Bring it

Alex Pokorny: on.

Dave Dougherty: So yeah, those are things that, that jumped out to me once we first pitched this pitch the idea of talking about this, I, I do think that organic piece and that the one mindset that. Used to work, but just completely doesn't.

Now is the, if you build it, they will come that field of dreams mentality. It was amazing when it lasted and it has not lasted.

Alex Pokorny: I think some of these different platforms especially the ones where it's a content platform, there's a trend with it. Basically it comes out and it's free. Then they eventually get their advertising, you know, together enough to basically offer advertising for the first time and you start seeing that.

And then basically those advertising prices, if you watch those prices, they also start to rise significantly over a period of time as well, especially for whatever the kind of core audiences are. So actually from an outside observer, you can still watch some of these systems and say, you know, the rise of Pinterest, the rise of LinkedIn.

The kind of realize, you know, the second life of LinkedIn that's going on right now, or the death of second life, speaking of their social one but you start to look at those different values. I mean, you can track that stuff. Like, there was a point where I was doing a Facebook campaign that was targeting college kids.

A core Facebook audience during basically Facebook's peak with that audience and you're paying 15 cents a click.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah.

Alex Pokorny: Now that's insane. The idea that you get 15 cents a click on anything on their entire network because the demand is outgrown and the advertising network is there and they're pushing it.

There's their reps. I mean they're, they've got that system set up so you can see those numbers. I mean you can see that kind of trend with those platforms as well.

Disruptive Technologies and Platforms

Alex Pokorny: Yeah, there's one other one that I guess we haven't talked about yet is disruptive technologies and disruptive platforms. So speaking of Not just new platforms, kind of variations of mass media and new forms of advertising, new places to basically throw the same ad in a different, slightly different format.

It's billboard. Now it's cut up. Let's be honest. It hasn't changed that much. And basically kind of shifting that inventory around. But yeah, like things like Uber. And it's massive increase and it saw the loss of taxi fleets, but now there's fleets on Uber. I mean, things have changed significantly with those platforms, too.

There's been other disruptive ones out there, too. Ruthie, you're going to mention Airbnb. That's kind of another one that comes to mind.

Ruthi Corcoran: Yeah, so as I think about it, you know, 10 years ago, when I was doing much more when I had much more of a marketing focus, it was a lot of the things that I've heard Alex, you mentioned.

And we used to work with college students as well as there was a number of on On campus events, and there was a number of, you know, sort of larger conferences types events, but it was always you had the in person and then you had the online and they were separated. But there was always discussion about how you're going to connect them and you start to see QR codes and URLs being listed.

But. Still, it was, this was one thing and this was the other.

Blurring the Lines Between Online and Offline Marketing

Ruthi Corcoran: And the thought that occurred to me is you guys were introducing the topic whereas the, the shifts in technology via the Ubers, the Airbnbs as prime examples of the last five, 10 years have created new space for different connections with online.

So you go to Airbnb's homepage today and they're not just showcasing really cool places around the world. So they do that. They're showcasing the events. You can go rent the Beetlejuice house right now. That's, that event is still live. You could do Polly Pocket's house a few weeks ago. These are very different ways of reaching audiences that are bridging the gap between that online and real world in new ways.

And then you amplify that with the number of cameras and everybody's voice. Pockets that are showing up on Instagram and all of a sudden that that line is blurred drastically in a way that it wasn't before. And sure, you can just do offline marketing and just create the various real world experiences and you can just do online.

But I think the ones that are most interesting are where those start to, to blur in a way they didn't a number of years ago. And it's harder to pull off to write. That takes a lot of takes infrastructure. It takes a lot of planning logistics. In a way that if you're just going to do an offline, that takes time.

If you're going to do online, you can be sort of quick. And with the moment that boring of the two is I don't know. It's curious. It's got both. Quick, quick turnaround, but also there can be a lot of planning going into those.

Alex Pokorny: That's an example. I was just thinking the, the Polly Pocket one. I hadn't heard of that.

That surprised me. I missed my news feed. For some reason, I don't, I don't know why. Maybe it wasn't in the target demographic on that one. But just thinking if there was a local hotel organization who put together something like that, and they wanted to spread information about that, that's local highway interstate billboards.

That's local news. That's, I mean, basically try to hit that, you know, as much as possible. And who eventually is going to rent that? A local person or somebody who's just slightly outside of that, who heard about it because somebody called up their best friend who knows, man, this person loves this. They're going to love it.

But that's about it. I mean, your geographic area of impact is small.

Dave Dougherty: I challenge you on that because with the other things that we talked about with the kind of the bifurcation of the the audiences and the mass media, like one of the biggest things that was promised to us with the social media things was you can let your freak flag fly and you can find people who are like you, even though you're trapped in Kalamazoo.

If you're into my little pony, my God, there's some people for you to hang out with, right? Like that was, I'd say no, a number of them, right? Like whatever you're into, you know, you can, you can find people for. So now that interest based targeting became such a big thing. Right. And in order to serve experiences to those interest based people, right.

I mean, think of the rise of common con. That was not a thing until all of a sudden. San Diego was like a complete takeover, right? Yeah. And he's kind of died down, but I mean, maybe not. I'm not in that audience. So you could do the Polly Pocket targeting with your digital and actually spur some spur some thing, you know, spur some tourism.

That's got my

Alex Pokorny: point though. I mean, like old media would be stuck to local. You have an online version to it, and then suddenly now you've spread this message far and wide, but also very thin, very thin application far and wide. You're not just doing a billboard like a mass media like anybody on the interstate.

By the way, instead, you've got a much thinner spread of media across a much, much larger geographic area is you're doing that interest based targeting. You are hitting those individuals who would only be interested in this particular kind of experience. Maybe they'll push it along a little bit and it's a little bit more broad or just people who are want fascinating, fun experiences.

Maybe it's influencers who need new content and man, they would love to have that house so that they could get some videos done. Like. Okay. There's a certain little pocket markets that you have that availability kind of spread out to now with digital marketing that you really didn't have prior to that.

That's a cool technology. I mean, there's cool stuff there.

Dave Dougherty: I have a funny poly pocket story, but that's for after the recording. You know, the, the thing.

Real-Time Marketing and Campaign Speed

Dave Dougherty: That came to mind when I was listening to you, Ruthie, was the the speed at which you can do campaigns. That's definitely something that's changed.

I think the, the really famous one at, at least that got, A lot of people thinking of this like real time marketing was the super bowl in new Orleans where the power went out and within like half an hour, Oreo had a dunk in the dark advertisement, which was amazing. Still one of my favorite things.

But then last year, you know, a local example for us when the timber wolves got to the Western conference finals and Anthony Edwards was interviewed by TNT. Charles Barkley was like, I haven't been there in 20 years. Anthony Edwards said, bring your ass. And that became the Minnesota tourism board slogan within like an hour.

It was great.

Creative Campaigns and Marketing Examples

Dave Dougherty: It was wonderful. The fact that people are paying that close of attention and have the ability to say yes on, you know, creative and launching things. And like, that is a wonderful world. Now, granted that campaign doesn't stay very long. Right? The exception to that is what Sweden has done with their tourism advertisement when President Biden had a gaffe and he missed messed up Switzerland and Sweden.

So then the tourism minister of Sweden put together this whole campaign on what's Swedish, what's Swiss and basically they've done. A bunch of different campaigns on that. And it's great. It is one of my favorite things, at least from marketing.

The Rise of Micro Conversations

Ruthi Corcoran: Some of the examples that you just described reminded me of another big shift that has occurred.

I'll be it subtly and I'm going to call it the rise of micro conversations. I don't, it might have a name and I just don't know what it is. And what I'm thinking about is you've got all of these different conversations happening and you've got brands engaging with these different conversations. And there's that idea of like, be there in the moment, be there, part of the conversation, stay relevant, but.

Part of that is you are not talking to the wide audience. You're not casting a wide net, you're talking to a very specific audience who is paying attention at that time and place. Like that Timberwolves example, never heard of it. Wouldn't be on my radar, it's not within my bubbles. You're targeting people who are in specific bubbles.

Whereas as I, you know, think back that started maybe 10 years ago, like it was there because of course the internet was sort of opening all the conversations that were happening. But I think there was much more of a likelihood that people were watching the exact same video across, right? There was a smaller set of things that were more widely seen, whereas now you have a much wider set of things seen by smaller audiences which makes room for very, very cool, very specific conversations, like the Polly Pocket thing.

Great example. It's not going to be a wide audience who's super excited about the Polly Pocket house, but if you get your niche You're you're good to go and that flourishing I think is definitely a shift that's happened You have to be much more targeted and in doing so you've got to be much more relevant to the conversation at the time

Influencer Marketing and Audience Targeting

Alex Pokorny: Yeah, the full time versus happenstance influencer rise is quite the change.

I mean look at YouTube videos today even some of the creators who are around And during the original kind of rise of it, their videos used to have millions of views, and it was the same kind of content that's being produced, same category of content they're producing today. And now it's hundreds of thousands at best.

I mean, if they're doing really well, it's still hundreds of thousands or it's maybe even less. Because of so many new entrants into that same category on YouTube, there's just that many more options. And while they've improved heavily, their Quality of filming, their knowledge of filming, their knowledge of, you know, what makes a good short versus the long form video and all the rest of that.

Others have to, I mean, that, that rise still happened and that, you know, spread and diversity happened as well. So, ah, that's a very difficult place to play in right now.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah, I do think.

Paid Advertising and Organic Presence

Dave Dougherty: If the way things have changed that when I, when I mentioned the you know, the field of dreams mentality of, you know, you build your audience, you build your website, you build your social profiles and, you know, it'll be magically there for Probably the last five, six years, I've been saying in most conversations, like, all right, if you want to do this, if you want to have that organic presence, you also need to have some paid behind it.

Like if you really want it to perform. Unless you're this, you know, crazy large established brand already, you're going to have to have some ad dollars to support what you're doing, because that's going to be one of the only ways you can break through unless you do some sort of like crazy guerrilla marketing, which is really fun and exciting, but to Ruthie's point takes a lot of pre planning.

Which, you know, how many businesses or people in business, do you know that a have that level of creativity or take the time in order to have that level of creativity, right? Cause with all of the tools that we've had, I think each employee is expected to do more and more and more, which has just led to more and more and more mediocrity.

Like we talked about in the average age of marketing show.

Alex Pokorny: Yeah. I would say even big media or big, big brands still have to do advertising as well. My favorite example of that is Nesquik Nestle's chocolate powder drink. It has two large audiences. There's an audience in their thirties and forties, and there's an audience who is around 12 and they stopped advertising in between.

So they lost the entire basically middle spectrum, but you had this group that basically grew up with it. And it's the nostalgic still thing that they do. And then at this young audience, that's basically as their primary target that hits that, and then they gapped for this big section in between because they did put money toward it product that's available in all the stores, not moving.

Dave Dougherty: That's interesting. Cause that's actually, that's very similar to the life cycle of a lot of bands. You will see this like steady rise and then they're good. And then their audience. Ages out because they have kids and jobs and they're exhausted and they don't really want to go downtown You know for a 9 p.

m. Show and then then you have the comeback tours Because the kids are grown and people have expendable cash now, and they're ready to revisit what they you know used to listen to So you get all those reunion tours when it's like 45 50, you know Yeah, yeah, that's funny. Ruthie, you're thinking hard.

What are you

Ruthi Corcoran: thinking about? Alex, you guys have thought thoughts about paid advertising and that just being a constant and the thought that comes to mind is just that the numbers of ways that we reach our audiences or rather. Not the number of ways, but the variations in the ways that you might go about reaching your audience has just expanded and paid advertising continues to be one continued, way of reaching your audience.

It's not the only way. Dave, to your point, you can do the guerrilla marketing and that takes a whole bunch of new forms because we have new technologies available. As does the paid advertising. That might be one way that the shift has happened of how you ran paid advertising, depending on what your product was 10 years ago, is quite different than where you pay for that advertising today.

And perhaps that's the shift, not so much More paid advertising or less, just where and how wide up an audience you can reach.

Alex Pokorny: There's a piece of it that still is true. I mean, just a more general statement as before to now, which is if there is an audience that you want to guarantee or expand the reach of, and it's worth money to you to do so.

And advertising makes sense. If it's an audience that may or may not care, you're probably not going to want to put money toward it. That hasn't changed ever. So it's a question of, do you want that audience? And is that the right audience for you? Which there's still a whole bunch of scattering of that that's happened.

I mean, yes, we don't have yellow pages ads anymore because that book isn't even sent out anymore. I mean, like that's entirely shifted and changed. You have now Google Maps advertisements though. Yes.

Dave Dougherty: Or

Alex Pokorny: just had a patent for their infotainment center to now list ads and listen to you at all times to say that if someone says they're hungry, they'll play an ad for a local restaurant.

Real fun. I'm sure the distracted driving lawsuits will just pile up. It'll be great, but there's opportunities there. If you really want to hit that audience, you know, you can pay for it. You can find an option to do so. If otherwise, yeah, I think, I mean, both of you are still talking about this idea that there is an organic method out there.

It's high creativity to break through. It's knowing your audience really well. Like Dave, you mentioned the, the NBA version that works with some audiences, but that phrase won't work for the other audiences. I mean, it'll be like, you're going to have to hit that line in between and for kind of state approved budget.

Maybe you got somebody who is going to approve that and somebody who won't. I mean, that's the line there. Same thing with Oreo to be able to turn that thing around and actually make that footage that mean that photography that fast. I, they knew their audience. They wanted that audience. They went for it and they had the creativity to basically kind of push through and be a part of that audience.

It still is an option there. I,

Maintaining Audience Engagement

Dave Dougherty: yeah, the, well, I was just thinking with that, cause we've talked a lot about audience generation and finding an audience and building it, right. That's one of the, the favorite things to talk about, but the really hard thing to do is to maintain the audience. I don't think a lot of businesses have a lot of conversations around that, even though we know all the statistics that show, you know, maintaining your customers are, is much better and cost effective than not.

The flip side of that though, is Oreo, I think is another good example of this, where it's like, if I want an Oreo, I just want double stuffed because that's the right ratio You know frosting to cookie, right? If you do thins, forget it. No. But then what Oreo has done with the audience piece has, you know, you get 20,000 flavor combinations where it's like, please don't take a good thing and, and cheapen it.

Like, now have I tried 80% of 'em? Yeah. You're amazing day. Yeah, I have. But what, what's amazing? The

Ruthi Corcoran: combinations. The combinations. They're great.

Dave Dougherty: Some of them are, yeah. Others are like, who doesn't have taste buds on their tongue?

Alex Pokorny: Dave, there's a Malcolm Gladwell Franco. Anybody who's interested, you can look at that.

It's also called Pepsi versus, or Pepsi's not Pepsi. Yeah. And it's basically a, long and short is why on earth are there so many different spaghetti sauce flavors of the same company, same brand. There's a ton of different jars, all different flavors. Why? Anyway. Why do you need all this different stuff?

And it basically is you have a groupings of audiences. There's the Pepsi thing. It's just because the number amount of sweetener and a diet Pepsi and their nationwide study turns out there was no, there was no answer. There is no Pepsi. There's no perfect one. There's a bunch and there's some pretty large groupings that hit each one of them.

So really you need like six and same thing with the pasta sauces. You need like 12 or so of your groupings that are out there.

Dave Dougherty: With basil, not, no, I mean, I get the, the taste preferences is a unique thing for specifically food. However, however

I don't think it's necessary to ruin a good thing. You know, it's very good

Ruthi Corcoran: thing to who, Dave? Good thing to who?

Alex Pokorny: This is something I wanted to bring up. It's kind of just a little bit of a raw thought for me. I haven't really fully formed it yet.

Specialization of Solutions and Consumer Choices

Alex Pokorny: But the thing that I've been kind of amazed by also, if we're talking about this same period of time is the increase of specialization of solutions. Yeah. So what I mean by that is I recently bought a piece of furniture today.

I have tens of thousands of options for this exact same piece of furniture. And even I found the one that I wanted, even did a Google lens photo of it and found two dozen different sellers with pricing ranging up to a hundred percent more than the lowest. With the exact same product, obviously shipped from the exact same manufacturer from the exact same location, but all these are in sellers with all these different price points on all these different platforms for all available to me to buy today.

And if I buy it and it's the wrong size, the fault is mine. If I buy it and the color is a little off, I feel like the fault is mine because I had options. And before I didn't have options, it was whatever was available at Target, is it, and I'm done. There's no other options, therefore, that's it. They only had a white one, I wanted black.

I guess I get a white one today because there's no choice. I blame target. Now I blame myself.

Dave Dougherty: NPR had an interesting show on, or an interesting segment on white labeling and the rise of that. And the reporter had the same thing where we needed to buy a table. We found this one table. At a certain their preferred store, but because the reporter was doing this piece looked into it and found the man, the manufacturer was like white labeling it for the store and if you bought it from this other store online, it was 40 percent cheaper.

Yep. Same table, just a different distributor, totally different pricing. And at that point, it's like, well, the system feels rigged. This

Ruthi Corcoran: is like when you learn that Abercrombie and Hot Topic are owned by the same parent company in high school. And you go, well, screw it. We're done.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah. I mean, we can get a log, the jocks and the goths and the

Ruthi Corcoran: Capitalism makes use of it all.

Alex Pokorny: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Well, to kind of further that piece, think about the manufacturer from 10 years ago versus today. The manufacturer from 10 years ago had one product and was able to capture a larger audience because there was those who wanted it and those who wanted things that were like it, but there wasn't an available option.

So they bought it too. Now, I mean, I've got two dozen different sellers who may or may not actually be different companies. They might actually help be one company with, you know, two different, two dozen listings. Let's be honest, but I have so many more options now. So my audience that that manufacturer can reach is now a much smaller segment as well.

So you're still trying to break through and gain that audience, but the specialization and the ability to search for these finite things. And if my particular plumber doesn't have the phrase that I'm looking for on their website, I go with the other one who does. Or it was just a list of plumbers and it called and that was it.

Dave Dougherty: Well, the manufacturing thing is an interesting example too, because the volumes of the production runs have changed over the last, right? Because as the, each audience gets more specialized and each audience gets smaller and smaller because of that specialization, you can no longer do these like crazy, huge production runs of whatever it is.

You need to be much more nimble in your manufacturing processes, which obviously changes the, the yeah, the pricing and the, yeah, the

Alex Pokorny: shine landfills like fast fashion and the massive landfills. Basically they're just filled with unworn, unpurchased clothing because they did a production run and didn't sell or some sold and the rest didn't and they threw away the rest.

There was profitable at some point to do that

and you won't have that before because your inventory just wouldn't be that diverse. And replaceable.

Ruthi Corcoran: I think that this is a topic we should explore more. And it's been something that has been lingering in the back of my head. Alice, your point of being sort of an unformed thought. It's definitely a shift. You can see it. Wayfarer and its ilk didn't exist. 10 years ago or so, or they were much smaller. Now they're pervasive, right?

If you're, if you're online furniture shopping, that's one of the many things that you're going to see. And you're going to see the same table on Wayfair as you do on three other websites that all have a similar idea, but might be skinned with slightly different theming on them. And that's, that's been a dramatic change.

And part of it is the online technologies that enable it. But a huge piece of it is the manufacturing infrastructure behind it. which has sort of grown in its ability to find different ways of making similar furniture at lower costs so that they can enable all these different variations. Similar deal with fast fashion, you can recreate the same garment but you can take little shortcuts in the types of fabrics or the types of stitching you do to make it less expensive and all of a sudden you can see that same garment at target but it's a completely different level of quality even if it looks very similar.

And I, I haven't quite. Formed many opinions. Just it's an observation. It's something that's definitely a difference in our world today than it was before. There's some things that certainly are beneficial and there's a lot of things that I go, huh, I don't know if I like that so much. And perhaps it doesn't matter if I like it or not.

That's just how things are shifting. But it's a, it's a good one to explore.

Alex Pokorny: There'll be some of those shipping logistics as well. And I don't know if necessarily the pricing really has dropped all that much or. Does the profit margins have eroded away to basically fit the customer demand of free shipping or what appears to be free shipping?

I mean, we all kind of know that's a false notion because you are still paying for the product and you're paying for shipping in some direction. But the speed of shipping as well, I mean, there's so many other kinds of pieces there too. So could have so much delivered so quickly. I think

Ruthi Corcoran: the piece that gets me is like, to what extent are we better off?

As individuals, there's, there's certainly a case to be made in a number of different areas where having a greater amount of choices is good. Right? If you're, if your foot's super weirdly shaped, it doesn't benefit you to have a very small variety of shoes to choose from because you just get left in foot pain.

Right? And for those who are particularly interested in interior designing, finding that perfectly shaped table to fit that weird spot can be a real benefit. So there's a ton of benefits when we think about very niche cases. But then I think about your, your example of like, oh, now it's my fault.

Wouldn't it have been better if there was just sort of a generic Yeah,

The Impact of Online Reviews and Consumer Research

Alex Pokorny: it gets funny because there's this weird kind of purchase and research side of things where it used to be very word of mouth focused of what people mentioned and what your friends and family members didn't like. Now we have online reviews, so I don't need to talk to my friends and family for reviews anymore.

So that conversation is kind of dead. There's actually, that was the funnest part. Funny one that came up recently was a little bit of a side, but it was giving directions. I was talking to some family members of mine and they were trying to give me directions to a place. And I was like, I put in my phone, I don't need directions.

They were like debating whether or not to take this highway or this highway. I'm like, Whatever Google Maps tells me is what I'm gonna be taking. Let's be honest. I go where it tells me what I thought

Dave Dougherty: How else do you kill an afternoon though, Alex? Like Yeah,

Alex Pokorny: yeah Consumer research side of it there is you know, of course Fake reviews and that, like out there too, there's consumer reports and other sites that try to contain a somewhat reviewed set of products as well.

And it's a small, smaller selection. I mean, I was going to get this kind of like push and pull atmosphere to that as well, where you can research it to death. You can just buy it. Maybe we're better off because we're not buying inferior products as often, but let's be honest, the person who left the one star review bought it.

So it still was bought. Maybe it just wasn't bought as many times.

Dave Dougherty: You know, I think this, this has been a really fun conversation. I think one of the things that I would like to explore further, but it's probably a next episode, honestly. With this specialization and continued look at specialization, one of the things that I've noticed in search marketing, content marketing, that sort of organic piece, like whatever's left of that there is more and more importance on expertise.

Thanks. And what are the robots think you are an expert in? And are you going in and out of your expertise? Because I don't know, maybe you think about other things than just the one thing you're known for, right? Like that I think would be a fun thing to unpack much like this conversation was, was fun.

So if you've enjoyed this, give us a light, give us a share. Give us the word of mouth. Let your friends know what rate and review. Cause we do look at those and look for those and that will help shape what we do. So thanks for listening. We will see you next time. Cheers.