Episode Transcript
Rob (00:00)
They were the first ones to create, you know, these super boards that had three dimensional cows either on top of them or hanging over the side of them or climbing up the pole, you know, all this stuff with just very, very fundamental messaging with that great campaign of the cows, you know, promoting promoting chicken.
Don (00:13)
Yeah. Eat more chicken.
No, no, no, no. All right, episode one seventy one. We're back, Rob. We should have named the podcast we're back. Yeah, we're back. ⁓ but but it's too late. We've already we've already talked about Rush on like a previous podcast, you know.
Rob (00:42)
Back.
We're back. ⁓ just like Rush is back, slapping the bass.
I'm we can't can you
ever talk about Russia too much? I'm not sure that you can.
Don (00:56)
⁓ well, if this was a rush podcast, then yeah, you never can. But I don't know that everybody wants to to hear about the rush. So otherwise I'm gonna start start talking about Iron Maiden and nobody wants to hear about that because I'm getting fired up. So a buddy of mine ⁓ saw them at Hellfest in France. it's literally called Hellfest. It's like a three day ⁓ only made more hilarious by the fact that France is having the hottest yeah.
Rob (01:03)
All are all are female.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
The hardest yeah.
Don (01:25)
It it is
it is the hottest it has ever been in the recorded like the government is putting out notices like do not drink outside, do not drink alcohol anymore, like stop drinking wine that like you need to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Like people are dying. I mean, like it's it's like a hundred and thirteen.
Rob (01:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
People are dying from
their drown. I w I heard like eighteen people have drowned because they were so hot that they had to go swimming and and drown. It's not funny, but it's it's crazy.
Don (01:44)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so yeah. Meanwhile,
my buddy is sending me Instagram posts of Bruce Dickinson, like d doing the whole deal, right? At at Hellfest, you know. dude, everybody's there. I mean Megadeth was there. ⁓ I mean all these other crazy cannibal corpse style type bands. I don't
Rob (01:58)
I wonder who else is on the lineup of Hell Fest?
You could probably
only read ⁓ half the names of the bands on the on the lineup poster because they're all just death metal death metal.
Don (02:11)
⁓ Yeah, death metal logos. Yeah. I've never
understood that thing. I t I mean, it it it it like why why make it so hard to read the name of your own band? You know, like
Rob (02:22)
Well,
Don, half of these bands you can't understand any of the lyrics 'cause they're just grunting. So I think universally it's we don't want we they it's just noise.
Don (02:25)
You can't understand what they're Yeah. Yeah. Well, you got me.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
⁓ well, I guess I don't know how to speaking of making things hard to read, but actually that should be easy to read, right? Things that you want to be consumed very, very quickly. We thought we'd take a break from all the AI and SEO and dah dah dah dah dah and kick it old school, man. Let's talk outdoor boards, you know. I know, like the long lost tactic, right? That you could say ⁓ there are brands out there that only did outdoor boards to literally get
Rob (02:41)
Yeah.
Outdoor boards or billboards is there.
Don (03:00)
you know, up and running and things like that. I don't, you know, you can't necessarily say it's the cheapest methodology, right? Because it is kind of a re it's it's would you agree it's kind of a real estate play? I mean, different markets, different costs for boards and availability and, you know, exposure and traffic patterns and things like that, right? So
Rob (03:17)
Yeah, and it's kind of, you know, it the way that the billboard companies, you know, give you their metrics, it's ⁓ I'll call them inflated metrics to a certain degree. Meaning meaning meaning it's okay, well, you know, ⁓ in Atlanta, for example, you know, you got your prime, you know, along eighty five, let's say, right? High traffic area. And, you know, they'll they'll put together pricing on, you know, however many millions of cars pass by it in a in a day. And
Don (03:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Rob (03:46)
And
that's how they sell you on the numbers, which is factually accurate. but you know, one would venture to guess that probably only twenty five percent of those people are actually
Don (03:49)
Sure, sure.
Yeah. But don't put your death metal band
don't put your death metal band logo up there for eight million people to drive by at ninety miles an hour and not being able to read it, right? Is is
Rob (04:03)
No,
but funny you say that because do you remember right at the corner of the connector, 7585 and 14th Street, ⁓ local Atlanta company that's gone on to do big things, MailChimp ⁓ put up a ⁓ billboard that was there mail MailChimp in in a death metal style logo. Do you remember that? Do you remember that? it was awesome. I remember driving to work one day because I passed right at that intersection. It was like, wait a minute.
Don (04:16)
Yeah.
⁓ I do remember that. I do remember that. Yeah.
⁓
okay, I'm Yeah, okay, I'm totally full of it because it's totally happened and it was totally badass. You're right. You're right.
Rob (04:33)
And I was like, what does that say? And it took me a minute again.
Yeah. And
I always I always say like, you know, it the great ads make you make you work for it for just a second. And that was a perfect example of that done well on an outdoor board. It was like, what is that? mailchip.
Don (04:47)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you recall if
that was pre intuit purchase or or post? I don't remember.
Rob (04:59)
I th I don't know, but I if I had to guess I would say pre.
Don (05:02)
Yeah, me too. Me too. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ super fun. But I think, you know, I think ⁓ I you know, there's definitely a place in the world for outdoor boards, you know, for fun brands and branding. And we've had the pleasure of working on a couple ⁓ kick-ass brands, I'd say, that we got to do a ton of outdoor board for. You obviously started SPSU and doing all that outdoor board stuff way back in the day. And then we carried that forward, you know, before they were ⁓
Rob (05:04)
'Cause they used to do just awesome, cool stuff. They their billboard was great around town. ⁓ that was cool stuff.
yeah.
Yeah.
Don (05:32)
unceremoniously put together with with Kennesaw State for by the border regents, I think, right? Or something like that. So but but yeah, a lot of fun old SPSU stuff. And then yeah, I mean just I'll I'll I love it.
Rob (05:37)
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, well then and then you had so you had traditional boards, which are again, for those who don't know, it's actually vinyl. They're just giant vinyl banners wrapped around to make the board. And so you had those. ⁓ and obviously production on those is ⁓ kind of a pain. It's expensive, you gotta go install it, do all the things. So then I don't I don't remember when ⁓ digital came along, right? But then you had the digital influence on the boards, which, you know, from a buying perspective is great because now you can
Don (06:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rob (06:15)
Now they just sell rotations, right? So you'll have eight advertisers on a on a board ⁓ and they'll just rotate out every ten seconds. ⁓ so I would say that was a huge leap for the for the billboard industry.
Don (06:23)
Yeah, yeah. Well, but Rob, you're you're missing
the step of that horrible triangular thing that would k chunk rotate, right? Be like it's it wasn't a lenticular because lenticular is like you look at it from this side, it's one way, you look at it from that side, it's the remember that there was that there was that circular one up on top of that building on peace. It's like, ⁓ I and Verizon had that one triple, like, ⁓ God. On like I hated those things.
Rob (06:33)
that's right.
Right. Right.
Yeah, no bueno.
Don (06:51)
'Cause from a design
Rob (06:51)
No
Don (06:52)
perspective, there's these giant gutters in between every one of those vertical like blinds. And then when it flips, it looks so bad, you know. And they never worked right. One of them was always like not doing the right thing or something. my God, so funny. So
Rob (06:59)
It didn't look it didn't look good.
Yeah.
But I think that so that allowed the that allowed people to to have you know, I would say spend less and have a more effective outdoor buy because they could bounce all around the city, you know, and not have to commit to this one board which ⁓ was ridiculously expensive back in the day. So that was that technology I think applied to billboards was interesting. And not only did it, you know, from a from a media standpoint and a and a media savings standpoint, but it opened up
you know what I would say is creative opportunities for people. We took advantage of that. We did a campaign for Rood, which is the H V A C ⁓ manufacturer, right? And so the for that what we did ⁓ was it was great. It was great. We came up with this, we did we did the digital buy and on our boards at we tied them to the actual temperature outside, right? And as the temperature climbed, ⁓ you know, in a bid to
Don (07:47)
I love this campaign. It's one of my faves.
Rob (08:02)
talk to people about entertaining way about air conditioning. ⁓ as the temperature rise with each degree, the messaging would change. So when it hit ninety degrees, it would say, and I'm trying to remember some of the lines, but you know, at ninety degrees it would say it's, you know, it's cats can't wait to go swimming hot, right? Little lines like that. It's, you know.
Don (08:08)
Totally.
Yeah. Yeah. I think one
of them was like your sweat is sweating or something. Like Yeah, yeah.
Rob (08:23)
Yeah, it's e even your sweat is sweating. ⁓
and I think we ran I think it was from ninety to a hundred degrees or something. It's you know, it's spontaneous combustion hot, ⁓ things like that. And so ⁓ that was a fun, I feel like use of of digital and you know, mm technology. what what seemed like advanced technology at the time. We're dating ourselves, but ⁓ but a nice way to just creative messaging and a creative tactic ⁓ on outdoor boards. But yeah.
Don (08:32)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, that I
mean that's a great confluence of technology with what you would consider an old school, you know, method or tactic, right? Of like outdoor boards, what? But it's like, to your point, yeah, it's not just one outdoor board printed and stuck on the side of the road for the next six weeks, right? It's, you know, 15 different pieces of creative that are all, you know, weather trigger activated, right? And makes that drive time experience, you know.
Rob (08:58)
Yeah.
Don (09:17)
⁓ may maybe a little bit more interesting for people, right? Because they're not seeing the same thing over and over and over again, right? But we designed it in a manner where there is that brand consistency and then it's just, hey, what temperature it is, and then what the message is, which I think is really, really cool. Like just message forward, right? ⁓ I think didn't we didn't we did it for the winter too, didn't we? Didn't we flip it? And we did like when things are cold as well, you know what I mean? Like, you know, so and these ran in Atlanta, they ran in Charlotte, I think. Was there another market that we ran these things in? Okay, okay.
Rob (09:36)
I think we did. I think we did.
I think it was Atlanta and Charlotte. I think that's right.
You know, it was someone, yeah, it's someone please spill coffee on me cold, right? It's cows are making ice cream cold. you know, even polar bears are shivering cold. So yeah, we did it for the for the opposite as well. So a fun campaign, good use of outdoor. I'm looking at this cup on my desk. ⁓ for lunch, I had that, right? Speaking of iconic outdoor campaigns, we were talking a little bit earlier about.
Don (09:51)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Rob (10:12)
That's kinda how they started, right? With Outdoor. And and it wasn't just messaging. I mean they they were
They were the first ones to create, you know, these super boards that had three dimensional cows either on top of them or hanging over the side of them or climbing up the pole, you know, all this stuff with just very, very fundamental messaging with that great campaign of the cows, you know, promoting promoting chicken. ⁓ and they're still they're still around today.
Don (10:33)
Yeah. Eat more chicken.
Yeah, and they and they would
they would tie things in seasonal, right? So it'd be there'd be like a springtime message, there'd always be like a football message, you know, every once in a while. I th I think I remember there being like it's not left wing or right wing, and it was like one of the presidential elections or whatever, and it was eat more chicken, or I could be making that up. ⁓ but you know, they had some good evergreen scenarios, but then they would bring in, but keep those same dimensional cows where they were, right?
Rob (10:42)
Yeah.
Don (11:03)
And they were always like, you know, painting the board, right? So it had the bad grammar or the backwards letter or whatever like that. I love that. And you could, you know, you could definitely make that argument. I mean, pre, you know, for for years, I mean, for 20 years at least, they didn't do any television at all, Chick-fil-A, right? I mean, it was all outdoor boards and it was all like ⁓ local grand ⁓ activation, you know, the grand store openings and things like that, right? It was kind of more you know.
I don't want say traditional, but it was it was simp it was a little bit w simpler, right? It wasn't just sponsorship and on TV all the time, right? It was more local marketing, which I thought was really interesting.
Rob (11:38)
That may be
that may be the longest running outdoor campaign in ever. I mean, it's still those boards are still still alive and kitchen. still running. So I'd be curious to know to think about when those launched. I mean
Don (11:43)
Ever? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, they're still around.
How do you feel
about their TV? I mean, I know we're not talking about, you know, TV and stuff like that, but like do you like do you like the campaign the people centric campaign and what I like about Chick fil things like that?
Rob (12:01)
i it doesn't really do a whole lot for me. I you know, it doesn't do anything for me. I mean, honestly, this is one of those like and I get you gotta refresh campaigns and things, but honestly, the the cows was done so well and it can just go on forever and ever and ever and ever that I get people want to switch things up and new CMOs come in and I you know, a all this kind of stuff. Like I get the politics of it, but what
Don (12:17)
I know, I know.
Yeah, just keep the cows. Yeah.
Rob (12:29)
Why you would abandon that and and they haven't abandoned that. They still run the cow, they still do the cows and things like that. ⁓ but no, the new the new people centric stuff doesn't really do a whole lot for me. For them.
Don (12:32)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm totally with you. I'm totally with
you. So I guess, you know, it's it's interesting. I mean, here's this giant brand, right? That that you could make the argument really started because I mean not started because, but was supported all really by outdoor, right? I mean, just forever, right? And, you know, outdoors not necessarily for everybody, I don't think, right? I mean, there aren't I mean it's interesting. You go to San Francisco and like
It's all outdoor traditional boards for AI and and all the and all tech stuff, right? Which to me is like a w what what we you know? So like y it's just because it's, you know, up the bay shore and driving around and it's exposure. It's eyeballs. That's all it is, right? ⁓ but I think, you know, it's it's interesting for marketing directors to like not necessarily just immediately assume you need to do a Google Ad words can't like are there other things you can do that are kind of more traditional, like, you know, like, you know
Rob (13:07)
It's cool. Yeah.
Don (13:29)
Sometimes, man, direct mail tactile things in the mail still totally works. You know what I mean? I I'm a I'm a fan of the, you know, ⁓ don't necessarily do what everybody else is doing, you know? So
Rob (13:39)
Yeah. I mean, and
a lot of it has to do, quite frankly, with, you know, there are metrics tied to everything. There just are. And with digital, you're you can literally ROI can be directly tied to how many people clicked on a specific ad on a specific website and they spent a specific amount of money and I mean, which is great. ⁓ but I think it makes people nervous, right? This idea of like, I'm gonna throw a board up there and not really know what the what the monetary return.
Don (13:45)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Here's that Toyota Tundra billboard up there. Did that sell more tundras? Yeah. I I don't you know. Yeah, I mean it it's
Rob (14:08)
Yeah.
That's sell a car. You're right, right. And and
I mean, as you and I know, the billboards aren't really about the selling of the car. It's more about when it comes time for me to buy a car, I Toyota's gonna be in my brain. It's gonna be in the mindset somewhere. ⁓ you know who outdoor boards are for? They're for attorneys. And I don't really know why that is.
Don (14:28)
gonna be in the it's gonna be in in the mindset because it's yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
⁓ God. The strong
arm. Yeah. Motlick. Yeah. Morgan and Morgan. How many billions of dollars did Morgan and Morgan get for people? You know?
Rob (14:41)
But yeah, John Foy, the strong arm, Morgan and Morgan, Mont Lake and a Yeah.
It is
it and I don't know why they I don't know why that industry really adopted billboards as as passionately as they have.
Don (14:58)
I don't know. Well
that and bus ⁓ bus transit advertising. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ now do you think people know that those businesses are just aggregators though? Or do you think that they think that they're hiring Motlick, you know, an associate? You know, you know what I mean? Like it's
Rob (15:00)
Bus wraps. yeah. Yeah.
No, I
think most people don't know that th they're just aggregators. No.
Don (15:19)
Yeah.
I mean, maybe that's why Bill I mean, it it has to be because cause they do a lot of don't they do a lot of drive time radio and stuff too? They do a lot of that. Yeah. So I mean it has to be just it's a it's a scatter shot approach and it's a it's a for the media itself, it's you know, it it can be cost effective, right? If you if you buy so much of it, right? I mean, you get you you can negotiate good deals, I think, right? But but yeah, you do bring up a really good point that ⁓ you know, injury law.
Rob (15:27)
Lot of radio. Lotta radio.
Don (15:48)
You know, but even like now that you got me thinking about it, it it's you got those three big guys, John Foy and Morgan, you know, but like you've also got the my bald lawyer going up eighty five you you got you got the onesie twosies, you know. You got the guy that's like I speak Spanish, you know what I mean? You got the guy like all those, you know, ⁓ you know, yeah, it's w that that is a weird one, man. I
Rob (15:58)
yeah. absolutely.
That's right. That's right.
It's maybe it's the same reason that not to knock realtors, but realtors decided at some point in time collectively we have to put our headshots on all of our ads. Like we we have to put our headshots. That's right. That's right. And I don't that's another phenomenon that I I I don't I don't know why that is. I can't
Don (16:22)
Yeah. We have to put our face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean they have their headshots like on their business cards that they're like handing to you, you know? Yeah.
I am a real person, you know. I yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Well, I guess this is a if this is a funny meandering podcast to just maybe remind marketing directors that hey, some traditional methods, you know, keep them in the back of the mind. They still absolutely work. And then just like the example you provided with Rude, you know, you can you can use a traditional method in a new and exciting manner.
Rob (16:37)
Yeah, like it's it's strange, you know? ⁓ it it's it's it's a it's a weird thing. I don't understand.
Don (17:01)
Right. And and and do something creative with sh with it, which I think is pretty neat. So
Rob (17:06)
⁓ yeah, I think it's I think it's great. ⁓ I think it's good stuff. And there's a lot of too, ⁓ if you're so inclined, go look up just just creative outdoor boards. And there's a host of examples of just really cool stuff that people have done throughout the throughout the years, including ourselves. all right, outdoor, go for it. Well, ⁓ if people don't see our outdoor board by chance, ⁓ where else can the people find us? Don.
Don (17:08)
Yeah.
yeah.
They can
find us on all the socials and they can find us online at mock the agency dot com, you know.
Rob (17:36)
That's right. And we
can track them and know exactly where they came from.
Don (17:39)
Exactly. Exactly. We're we're ⁓ we're dropping cookies on people for what we're doing. So chocolate chip, please. Chuck a chip. So I'll take a peanut butter, you know.
Rob (17:44)
We're dropping we're dropping cookies. All right, everybody, that wraps
up ⁓ one seventy-one and we will we will see you next
Don (17:52)
One seventy one. We'll s all right. We'll see you next time.
