Agencies Deliver When Clients Share Goals and Give Campaigns Time

We talk a lot about agencies on this show, but are they really as bad as we say they are? Well, let's ask one and find out. In this episode, we sit down and talk with Charlie Legg of Blue Sky, a local agency, to get his side of the story. We also talk about future trends, how agencies have changed, and how you can best use one and not listen to our advice. All that and more today on the Marketing MadMen podcast. They say marketing is a madman's game. So now we turn it over to the Marketing MadMen with Nick Constantino and Trip Jobe.

Happy Saturday. Welcome to the Marketing MadMen, Trip Jobe with my co-host Nick Constantino of 680 The Fan and the Atlanta Braves Radio Network. Good to see you again, Nick.

Good to see you, Trip. Hey, you know, we've kind of gravitated from our discussions the last month or so about the different sides of marketing and how do we bring that together? So if you're a business owner out there or in the marketing field, maybe you have thought about using a marketing agency, maybe use a digital specialized agency. So we're going to take over the next few weeks and we're going to bring in some agencies and really talk about what is the experience working with a marketing agency. how it is done well, how it can blow up, and some of the things behind that.

And I think that's music to my ears. I mean, after 30 years in corporate America, I'm not even sure I can count all the agencies I've worked with, all the different types from the broadest of broad to the very narrow And then also, my three years having spent at a strategic agency, which I think was a great insight for me on the other side of the table, but now that I'm back in corporate America, I think it's an area that enough people don't really understand how to get the most out of agencies.

Yeah, I would say we probably have had different experiences in that realm, right? You were the one that was hiring the agency to do the buying. I was the one on the other side who was getting that information relayed via the agency. So whatever you said went down to your people, went to their people, went to my people, then went from me to my programming team. See something potentially wrong there?

Yeah, we already have hit one of the biggest problems. So if you are working with an agency, it's communication. And I think that, as we get into this and we're going to have guests on the next couple weeks from the agency world, I think that level of communication is one of the challenges. And so I said, from the breadth, there are times, when I was at Kimberly-Clark, Nina, Oldcastle, we would have three to four agencies, but we would have a core strategic agency. their responsibility was the overall brand. So whatever your business is, They are helping you direct your marketing, your advertising, et cetera, around that brand. All right, then we might have specific agencies. We might get into the digital tactics. We might have PR. We might have a PR firm that we're working with. But the brand strategy, that agency, we wanted not in every discussion, but they needed to be in every high level discussion with those other agencies. To your point, and then you get into media and the media outlets you're doing, are you bringing all of them together so that you're not getting the old El Paso story? And by the time you get to El Paso, wait a second, are we going to Utah or are we going to El Paso?

At least you can just go north from there if you're going to Utah. You can pull a quick turn and go through the mountains and go up north. Well, look, you know, part of this show is have guests on and part of the show is to not let Trip and I sit here and let our machinations explain the agency business because that would not go well. So we are proud to have Mr. Charlie Legg from Blue Sky here with us. And you know, we're going to hear it from the horse's mouth, man. We're going to let Charlie kind of explain at least from his standpoint, where the agency value is, what him and his team do, what services they provide. And I'm also, he's probably seen some horror stories of what went wrong, what's gone wrong as many times as what's gone right. So without further ado, Mr. Charlie Legg. Charlie, how you doing?

I'm doing great. Thank you, gentlemen, for having me.

Yeah, no, Charlie, it's great to have you here. So.

You know, this is fantastic. And yeah, let's get it all out there.

Yeah, there we go.

I mean, I'm a 20 year vet in the industry, currently over at Blue Sky here, a legacy agency in the market, has represented a lot of the top local brands and sports teams in the market over the last 28 years. We're A full service agency from creative media, analytics, performance media, you name it. We do it all. We're a smaller bunch. We're about 30 currently at the agency and growing by the day. But Overall, I'm really excited to be here and talk shop today.

Yeah, we love it. And Blue Sky, this is a great example because we're talking local here and it's important to delineate between the big mega shops and look, they're still gobbling people up. You still see analytic firms being bought. You still see some of the advanced AI, even these firms are being bought by your big ones. So that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about local community, been around, the relationships are there, the network is built. And a lot of times the business you guys get is based on those networks and being small and agile, which I think is a competitive advantage for most. And I think my bet would be a lot of accounts you and similar agencies get are because they try to go with the big guys. It does not go well because there's not a local person and there's no accountability. So they come down to you who's that kind of sweet spot, that Goldilocks, if you will, agencies, not too small that you can't execute don't have the cloud to execute, but not too big where you're a number and all of a sudden a bigger account comes in and all of that resource is allocated that way.

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. And really what we can deliver on that the big agencies can't is that agility, even collaboration. I've been in this business, like I said, 20 years, five different agencies, both big and small, independent, corporate. And I think really the advantage that an agency like Blue Sky has is ultimately at the end of the day, the effect of internal collaboration, I'm a creative guy at heart who got himself into media and numbers and analytics and pushed myself to learn a lot more. And by doing that, certainly opened up a lot of doors for me personally and ultimately, the type of integrated campaigns that we've been able to deliver on for clients as an agency and I have at other agencies over my career. But ultimately, coming to somewhere like Blue Sky, I can go have a conversation with my creative team. Media is in that conversation from the start, which is so critical. a lot of shops I've been at, creative drives the process. The idea is born, it's baked. And then media, hey guys, what do we do with this?

I think that's a great point. And you said before, you know, as a full service agency, you know, all the things you can do. Maybe give the listeners a sense of the individuals, the type of individuals on your team and their expertise. Because I think, you know, with a smaller local full service agency, you do have experts in different areas. And I think that's a critical differentiation versus a small local agency who asks someone to do four different things from e-mail to social media to maybe even media buying. How would you break that out at Blue Sky and as far as the experts you have on your team?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think at the end of the day, our business has changed so much and it's going to change even more within the next three months than it probably did in the last two years, right? So having those subject matter experts on board and people that we can tap into for that dedicated expertise, because it's not just about spots and dots, not just putting a buy together. You know, really at the end of the day, it's about the data and the story that we need to tell post-campaign and how are we delivering on our clients' objectives and their KPIs. And ultimately, it all starts with just understanding what is the business challenge we're trying to solve for. And that needs to happen across all disciplines, all departments within the agency walls. And everyone needs to be a part of that conversation to start. But as far as the team structure goes, it's really making sure that our planning team and our media team is really, everybody is a strategic mind and comes from a strategic background that we're fully integrated across channels and disciplines and that we're proactively going out there and sourcing the change that's happening in the market. And with that, it's also making sure that we have those digital investment capabilities, performance media, advanced analytics, so that once we get the data, We know what to do with it in real time we're optimizing campaigns in real time for the best performance at the end of the day, and then ultimately post-campaign being able to go back to our clients and show them that something worked, and sometimes something doesn't work right, and we need to really assess that and dig in and dive into. what we can do better next time?

On average, how often do you think you're reviewing those KPIs? This is an annual process. This is a quarterly. This is a three-year duration. So you said, get a set of KPIs. What would you say the average time to reviewing the success of those KPIs, different per every client? What do you think it looks like, that time frame of what you're talking about.

I think really the reality for media right now and analytics is that there is so much opportunity for attribution modeling and getting to an attribution story across channels, right? So I've heard you talk, Nick, on the show previously about the mix and channel mix for clients. But ultimately, it's really, as we're defining that mix, like what is the attribution story or do those channels pay off in the end, right? Were we successful? And so those KPIs can be twofold, right? Like we all talk about click-through, we all talk about the standard media KPIs, but at the end of the day, what is the business KPI? And how do we take attribution tools that we have at our disposal to get to more advanced KPIs that are more…

Follow them all the way through the possible. Are they buying, can we see a lift here? And that's one of the things we always talk about. And look, a lot of times we're talking to very unsophisticated marketers, but your impressions don't mean anything. Even your engagement rate to an extent, unless you're trying to build brand presence, it is your return on investment. What are these driving to? What's your conversion rate of these people? And I think that the majority of businesses that I think we talk to and we've been meeting with don't even have those funnels set all the way up. So you're talking big companies that are very clearly defined. They have their own internal teams that are setting up these channels and they're following through the process. which I think is really important. One of the things that, only caveats I would throw there is we do a lot of attribution, right? We have a full system that's tracking the radio campaign to Google Analytics and people sometimes move too quickly, right? Like, oh, a month it's not working. Like, no, that's not enough data. This is some of the fundamentals of sample size don't change, right? You'll learn way more in three months. It'll count for more anomalies. It'll count for more supply and demand than just doing it over a short time frame. Do you see that? people rely on it too much and they're trying to change too quickly and they don't want these things take hold.

I think for the bigger brands, the more nationalized brands, absolutely. I think at the local level and the smaller clients and the more localized clients, we're more in education mode. So they're much more open and receptive to hearing, okay, just tell us Help us learn about this. Tell us what we need to be doing, which is such an advantage, right? And so they're more flexible in giving that runway as far as, okay, if you're telling me it takes 3 months to stabilize the data and get to a true story, they're a little bit more flexible. Whereas if you're talking about a much larger 52-week advertiser brand, I would have been…

The opposite, to be honest. I thought that the big guys would be the ones that were the most flexible and the little guys would be. That's crazy.

Yeah, no. So you mentioned one thing earlier, Charlie, and that was, start with the business KPIs. And I think that's one of the things, if you're out there listening, And I'm curious your take, but most people don't share with their agencies what their business goals are. And I think that is one of the starts of the big mistake. I don't know how often you get, hey, here's what we're trying to accomplish this year, this quarter, whatever, from your clients.

Yeah, I think ultimately the more data that's shared, obviously the more an agency and stakeholders can ultimately pay off the story, right? So it all starts, with the brief. It all starts with kind of what is the business problem we're trying to solve for. And you guys are absolutely correct. There's a lot of times we don't have access to that. There's, I always joke that if I wanted to get into another business, I would go out and work on a client marketing team and as a brief writer, because, you know, so often we don't even get a brief, right? But it all starts with that briefing in and knowing what success is. And if we're not starting there, we're already a step behind, if not more. Right.

So that's a great point. And I want to, when we come back from the break, I want to kind of start there about ways to set up for success and what does that success look like. So we have Charlie Legg from Blue Sky on with us and you are listening to the Marketing MadMen on Xtra 106.3. We'll be right back.

Now back to the Marketing MadMen on Xtra 106.3 FM.

Welcome back to the Marketing MadMen. Trip Jobe and Nick Constantino here with Charlie Legg with Blue Sky Agency. And we were talking right before the break about making sure that we've got that communication of business goals. And you were kind of talking a little bit about the brief and making sure that when you're thinking about that, you really understand what your client's trying to accomplish so that A, you can develop your KPIs and hopefully they have their own KPIs, which I can get into a minute. But I know, Nick, from your standpoint, a lot of times you're on the back end and how does that come across? Do you even understand what's trying to be accomplished in total?

Yeah, it's a great point. And before the break, what you guys were talking about got me thinking, one of the other reasons why length of time on a campaign with a marketer is important. Look, this is not a scam. I'm not saying market for six months. It's because that's how long it takes for these things to really get going in any level, right? You can always fake it up front. And there's a lot of digital agencies that are really turn the switches on fast to try to start off high, but then it eventually goes backwards. But one of the other reasons is it takes time to build rapport with people on a one-on-one relationship. I mean, I can count on my hand the amount of times I met somebody and immediately it was just that instant rapport. Like you're like, oh my God, how do we trust each other? Like that kindred spirits thing. Most of the times it takes 2 years of a business relationship to get a feel for somebody. So in those two years, imagine what you can accomplish with all that information that you now have, where they really tell you their KPIs, where maybe even their margins and which items have their margins. How much easier would a campaign be to make money for somebody if they told you what their highest margin item was, right? Do business owners reveal that? Not right away, not to some schmuck that they don't know really. So that was the correlation I drew. I want to hear what Charlie thinks about it, but I think that sets up exactly what we're talking about is why these long-term relationships They are so important.

And that frustration, I can imagine how your world and living that daily. But at the same time, I think, and part of this, I think is putting each of ourselves in each other's shoes and putting ourselves as an agency in our client's shoes. And that's why we're doing this podcast right now, right?

Because you're going to hear from everyone's mouth exactly the challenges we have.

Yeah. And I think a lot of times, and for clients and certain clients, you're trying to develop that rapport, the agency person might not know. The agency person might be struggling to get that information from their clients and trying to get to what success looks like. So I think really solidifying that partnership and making sure as an agency we're accountable not just to our clients but to our partners in making sure that we're passing on data and insights and all the information that's valuable for you guys to go out and activate. against our campaigns most successfully.

Sure. And I wasn't even talking about the agencies. I'm even talking about direct clients that own an $8 million business. I mean, you just don't build rapport that quickly. Now, look, luckily, I have Braves tickets. We have things where you, know, you get a couple beers and you're watching a game. These rapport building things are a much easier process. I can only imagine a terrestrial radio station or cable news. Like, how are you building those relationships? I mean, it's really hard to. I'm just saying in general that if more time was put into these things and built into it, these campaigns will go longer. And I see right now a lot of switching, a lot of moving, a lot of agencies. And I can always tell when agencies are going through this, when I get lots of phone calls from people pretty much asking me, hey, you have any clients that we can work with? I always feel it that way. So that's why I bring it up.

Yeah, I never had Braves tickets to give away, but I'll throw out something that was kind of the way I operated. in most of the businesses I had, and I'm curious how this stands, but you mentioned that, okay, you'll have specific people might be working with my person responsible for all media, right? They're working together weekly. They set the KPIs, but they're talking every week, but that's at their level, okay? Monthly, you would be issuing us, you know, kind of a report on those KPIs, and that would get passed around the organization. But then on a quarterly basis, our key agencies, whether it's that strategic agency that might be doing digital and media. We would have, in the old days, face-to-face, now it might be Zoom, but we'd have a quarterly review where I'd have my entire marketing team or a smaller business, maybe the business owner. and we would be going through those discussions. So because I wanted even a person responsible for PR, I still wanted them in the media, on the media, right? And so it was, but that's how we started to get that relationship and understand where we where we're going on a quarterly basis. And then back to your point, you're not going to make a decision quarterly, but if you started doing some AB testing, for the next quarter, then it's like, okay, we agreed how long we're gonna wait. And we might say, look, if you find something out on this AB testing in four weeks, six weeks, 8 weeks, you know, you guys have the ability to start making those changes. That's how we tried to do it. I don't know how that fits with you and what you've seen success or otherwise.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's been an ongoing challenge for agencies and it's just become more complex as the fragmentation of those relationships have evolved. It's not just the fragmentation of the landscape and consumer behavior. There's more cooks in the kitchen than ever before, right? And the demand to be speed to market, get to market has never been more important, more critical. And then you talk about the social space that's changing more than any space every day, right? And then there's different content strategies for social and it's more real time and in the moment. And then you've got a content shop that's specialized for that. maybe isn't talking to the primary agency and the brand campaign that's going on at the same time that's augmenting that. So it's a challenge that I don't have an answer for to solve because I'd be raking it in. But it's an ongoing challenge and it's a really great, you know, proposing that question and thought around this because ultimately that collaboration, we're all at the end of the day in this for the client's business, right? And the clients need the agencies and their partners across the board more so than ever before. But it is really, it's that dynamic of being quick, moving fast, and then making sure everyone's in the conversation and that collaboration is truly effective and meaningful across the agency partners.

And that's a good point too. And it's also what's the business cycle? So speed, all right? Let's say you work with sports teams, right? a quarterly big picture review may not be appropriate because the season may only be 5 months long, right? So when you've got a different type of client, that quarterly holistic review may be great, but you may have to be doing this on a monthly or bi-weekly basis, if there's seasonal type issues.

Fiscal year probably has a lot to do with it also, what your fiscal is. You offset some people do them beginning of January, some people start in May. It's all over the place.

Yeah, and I think the reality is really the starting point. If you ask, where do we start to fix this? How do we make this better? I think it's really about getting to a cadence and holding partners accountable, but then also holding clients accountable if they're not hitting their marks and milestones for when we need information to deliver on. Everyone's got to be accountable in the process at the end of the day.

And that's, we talk about this all the time. Complacency is the enemy of marketing. And if all of a sudden, if that client is missing your deadlines, you run what runs. And that's when you get a situation where you run the same copy for a year and a half, right? The inventory doesn't change. And the worst part is like the Braves win the World Series, Georgia wins the national championship. The copy points at what should change should change, but you're running the same copy from two years ago, which also brings us to a great point. We're talking about how fast the agencies have changed and your space has changed. I want to get into that in detail, but I want to start by saying one of the things that I've noticed is the advent and the amount of money that digital advertising has made in a quick span has really thrown a lot of this off. Because when I hear people complaining about agencies, it is very rarely their media placing agency. It is almost always their digital agency. And that's another one. When I know they come to me and say, hey, why don't you guys start a digital agency? I know that there's problems in the marketplace. And look, two things at play here. One, it is in Google's advantage to change their algorithm as quickly as possible to make sure they are maximizing the amount of money in which they make. Same with Facebook, same with all these guys. They control that dynamic into which they can say something with, so all of a sudden an agency getting too much power, tweak. All of a sudden they pull power away. Or, okay, we'll let you make that money, but be certified, pay us a cut back this way. So what have you seen is over the past couple years that has really changed the space the most? It can be specific things. It can be examples of clients, moments. What do you think has driven a lot of change in the agency space and also in the marketing space?

Yeah, I think, and that's a great point. The whole digital is its own beast and animal, right? And there's so many tentacles and things that kind of spawn off of that from your targeting and optimizing towards results in real time. And that requires agility in its own, right? And the staff behind it to support that. But it's also, you know, I think the realities of the market, right, are the realities of the market. And the realities of the Googles and the walled gardens and what they pay to play data, right? Like, and how many clients are doing organic and pushing out organic content, not realizing the limited reach behind that without paid amplification. So I think really the connectivity of performance media, digital teams, and analytics team together and working collectively. I think I see a lot of times analytics working in a silo, digital working more on its own and, hey, we're managing the programmatic buy and we're making sure everything's working as advertised, right? But I think what's kind of missing in that space that I see as a gap is so much of success hinges upon real-time execution on the agency side, that there's not necessarily the rigor that needed at moments in time to kind of.

That's exhausting if you're doing this always in real time, I mean, that's exhausting for the company, for you guys, for the partners, but you're saying it's necessary that it has to be done because of the way data flows these days, because of real-time analytics, because of the nature of how business is, it's necessary. So it may be exhausting, and that's something to keep in mind when you're dealing with your partners is it is an exhausting, it is rigorous, and you probably have to hire more people with different, you know, different areas of expertise to cover all these things.

So I'm going to try to dumb that down a little bit, which is my contribution to the show. So really what I hear you saying is for those that aren't as familiar with some of the programmatic and the digital is when you have your media agency going out and placing your media and they're not connecting to, let's say you've got a digital agency that's working on your SEO and your paid ads, Getting out of sync, not talking, all of a sudden basically can be counterproductive. What you really want is to be able to make sure that the SEO side of things is going to be maximized by the ads you're placing. And if you're not talking, you're not working together, basically 1 + 1 equals 1.4. And if you're doing it together, 1 + 1 should equal 2 1/2.

And I think it's the dynamic of the lift on what's required to do, steward a campaign most effectively and get the most out of it and get the most out of data and get the most out of making those changes together and also communicate with your other IAT partners or interagency teams of what's going on in that moment and be able to have that all happen. The reality is we've just gone to this real-time model in everything we do. And on the agency side, it really is an expansion that continues to need to happen across teams and resources to make sure that there's someone there to pull those levers. But I think the one gap, again, is it's not just having someone there to pull the lever, having someone there that maybe is stewarding and fostering cross-communication across the organizations.

Yeah, it's a great point. One of the things we talked about last week especially was When you are heading towards time of economic uncertainty, marketing industry has contracted as a whole. When you're heading to those times, leaning on your partner is the thing that you should do the most. You should be communicating more, not less. You should be leaning. You should be saying, look, This is not a I need something. This is a what else can you do for me? What else can you make sure someone is overlooking this? Maybe it is you overlook it once every two weeks instead of once every month because right now you got to be better with your dollars. Everyone's got to use their dollars better. You got to target better. Maybe what was working for targeting even six months ago is not working for targeting anymore, right? I tell people all the time in my experience when you go towards recession the bottom of the funnel alleviates a little bit or you lose some of that, right? Not everyone's searching for want to get new windows in my house because nobody's got 40 grand just sitting in their bank account. So it's maybe it's time to go back to the top of the funnel, reinvest in brand, really build that so when the next upswing comes, you're ahead of your competitors. Now, you know, that's not the easiest thing to have a conversation with somebody who just saw their numbers cut by 30% from the previous year, but at the same time, those are marketing fundamentals that I think are important. So, you know, my advice and the same advice we've shared is, you know, this is probably a good time. I don't think a client coming to you saying, let's talk should ever be a bad thing, right? Those are things where, yeah, let's talk, because if we can get on the same page, then it's going to really help everybody. That being said, don't just give me a set of tasks page and then just turn your eye, you've got to be constantly in contact.

Yeah, absolutely. And we encourage that. And we really see ourselves as an extension of their marketing team. We have to, right? We have to be immersed in their business. But sometimes there isn't control over a conversation they're having with another partner or a meeting or being involved. And so we have to be better at making sure we're assertive and making sure we have a seat at the table in those conversations.

Yeah, and I think right now, if an agency comes to a CMO or a business owner and says, hey, here's what we're seeing in the marketplace. we really think you ought to slow back, slow down for the next 6 to 8 weeks because of something so that you've got more budget to spend. When we think things are going to be more advantageous to you in May, June, July, that's pretty valuable to a leader, right? But there aren't a lot of agencies that do that. They kind of take the orders and run with them.

Yeah, and again, I think it really depends. I've been, like I said, at five different agencies and the people around you and the setup, but ultimately I think you're absolutely right. There needs to be a proactiveness to communicating with clients about, hey, I've signed off on the dollars, the authorization signed, you're good for the year, but you know, what best use of funds? And that's absolutely something we strive for at Blue Sky and as I mentor my team and team members at the agency ultimately to be accountable for. it is picking up a phone and something that's not necessarily as easy to do with the younger generations, as we all know, but ultimately any form of communication to make sure, hey, we're good stewards of your business. We care about your business and we're here to drive results on your behalf.

Sure.

For me, it's almost being pushy. Yes, I'm pushing you because this is your money at hand, right? I shouldn't be the one pushing you. should be the one pushing me. We deal with it often. I do have a question. So let's set up a hypothetical scenario. You have a medium-sized client. Great. You set up the campaigns. Let's talk about the end, the recap. So one of the things that I've found is the more data you present, the more kind of looks of I don't know what you're talking about that you receive back. To what level when you present a recap to a client, do you share the data points? Do you share recaps? Do you share just highlights? Most times, are you going into the weeds and showing these things? Are you showing attribution modeling? Are you showing lifts? Are you showing how funnel goes through on Google Analytics. To what extent are you sharing that or is it on a case-by-case basis? And I ask because one of the things we really do, I share my work. It's like math class back in the day, right? You can go on your calculator. We used to have our TI-86s and when I wasn't playing Drug Wars or something on my phone, I was just running the numbers. So show your work. So I show, I'm like, here's the lift, but here's the actual analytics report. I go, just look at it. I don't think anybody looks at it, but it's the same thing as like when I was in high school and I would cut class, I would send a note saying I was going to be out and I would sign my mother's name and put the phone number on. Nobody ever called because I put the phone number on. So it's the same thing. But to what level do you share that information? To what level is your job to really break it down to something they understand? I'm curious about that recapping how that works.

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm glad you asked that because I think at the end of the day it is unique to the client and ultimately what they need, right? I would say this, I think from any analytics team and partnering with an analytics group, A little bit of a gap is you find people that are passionate about data, people that cultivate data, they love being in the numbers, but may not be as effective storytellers of data, right? So really what clients want is someone that can come into a room and tell an effective story around data. So it's really kind of making sure as an agency we staff and have the right players on our side that can do both. And so, I think certain clients, I'll give you an example of ours, we may be doing monthly reporting and we're gonna continue to share monthly insights, but the value is in a quarterly read where you can really see change, right? A lot of times, you obviously can't distinguish a huge learning curve month to month that you might be able to do in 1/4. Things like attribution and modeling like that, those tend to be more partnerships and things that we sign on in the beginning if there is a specific campaign or an opportunity to really get to more granular and deeper into insights.

And that's the diversity of expertise. I think that's so important as you start to work with an agency. And I remember once, this actually was an agency, but it was another service provider that had some great young, sharp talent looking at the data. And then they came to me and they said, well, hey, We're trying to understand why you had this huge 50% revenue lift that started second quarter of last year. And I was like, we acquired a company. And as a case of, look, they could mine the data, but they didn't have the expertise to really understand, well, what's going on in the business? This one wasn't that hard. But I think we see that sometimes with certain specialty companies that they can do the work, but they don't necessarily understand what it means all the time between the lines.

And that's where the accountability falls on the agency to make sure, I mean, you're bringing more junior level people that are entering the agency because they're passionate about data, but we need to be bringing them along on their journey and their career path to make sure that they're understanding the output of the results, what the results mean, and they become effective storytellers of the data themselves, right?

Yeah, that storytelling part. I saw this great, I mean, it was all over LinkedIn, but it was and it was just Legos thrown on the floor. And then it was the Legos were sorted. And this is like when you sort data, this is, and then here's the storytelling. You build the house out of Legos. And it is a, you know, there's software that does it. You have mapping and Tableau and things that can map this stuff. But again, you're still talking a pretty, as graphically, if you're not data inclined, it still means nothing to you. So that storytelling is important. The thing I think is important is that it cannot be anecdotal. And that's where we have switched. What used to be anecdotal, and a lot of this is because of the flaws in Nielsen, but it used to be, hey, yeah, we reach a wealthy white guy in the suburbs, right? That used to be our story. And now we have 100 million sessions that are saying that that's exactly the story. But now with nuance, like one of the nuances is like, I would say our audience never fast food, okay? just it's they're too hoity-toity for fast food. Well, #4 on our segment. You know why? Because they're busy as can be. And when you eat fast food, so I joke. And the other thing is salons, okay? You ask any dude you know, not one will say they go to a salon, okay? You ask in a classroom, you're in our sales pit, who goes to a salon? Everyone's like, me. So it's things they do. They just might not tell their buddies that they do them. So getting that data story, but being able to tell it in a story. And it's not reading off Google. And it's because no one even knows what the heck half that stuff means. It's that storytelling that I think you're right. And I think One thing you and I are similar at, which is actually going to make me rip up segment 3's complete segment and redo it, is I pride myself on being a good mix of creative and analytic. And that is a broken model. It's different sides of the brain. It's not very, and when you can combine those two things to have the insights to understand, look, this may not show the analytics, but I promise you this worked. This sparked something and it's that emotional connection, right? You think back to your favorite ads. You don't think with data. You think of something that just stood out in your head because you remembered it. And that's important also. So We got some time left. Let's talk a little bit about future, what we see going forward, where we see future change. We were going to do in segment 3, but again, I'm ripping that up. We're starting something else. So let's talk future change. Let's talk about some things you see maybe in the next three months, maybe the next year.

Yeah, no, overall, I mean, I think some of the things that have been talked about the last couple of years are still kind of those hot topics, right? So, you know, a cookieless world, right? And you know, obviously that timeline has changed and you know many times, and it could change again, right? So.

Google being down the way they are in their stocks makes me think that they're not rushing to get rid of their primary money maker until they have a strategic plan.

And so we got about 90 seconds before the break. Why don't you just tackle, tell people a little bit about what eventually happens the cookieless world may mean for them?

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, you know, right now through cookies and the use of cookies, we're able to, you know, get, you know, extremely granular as far as our audience targeting, our audience first capabilities, understanding not just somebody that's been on a site and what they've been doing in a moment, but within a look back window, right? So the data is invaluable because it really informs behaviors and affinities, right? So, you know, there's a lot of talk about things like contextual and attention metrics and different things and a lot of buzzwords and we'll see where they go. But, you know, I think the long-term, you know, kind of where we're headed is an unknown. And really what's going to be that currency when cookies go away or if cookies go away is TBD?

Yeah, do you find it creepy that the first party data is actually creepier than the cookie data? Like I have seen some first party data that gets way more granular than anything that Google Analytics or Adobe or any of those guys get. And that's what freaks me. And I also think they have very little background to actually say where they're getting it from. Like, well, it's a CRMs in and we're mining this out or matching these things together and this is coming back or pinging this. I go, that's not an answer.

Yeah, no, I think it's a smoke and mirrors, because it can be scary what's out there and what you think you fill out this.

Trip has an 803 credit score. I'm just guessing.

Hey, great. All right. But well, this has been great. When we come back, we'll dive in a little more to what does the future look like. You are listening to the Marketing MadMen on Xtra 106.3 and we'll be right back.

Now back to the Marketing MadMen on Xtra 106.3 FM.

Welcome back, Trip Jobe and Nick Constantino here with the Marketing MadMen and our special guest from Blue Sky, Charlie Legg. We were talking a little bit about what the future holds, and I think maybe the best way to do this in the last segment here is let's talk about… the mediums you see, and maybe a sense of what you think's going on right now, what your thoughts are for the future. And this can also include rants, not that Nick will have a rant here and there.

Anything under 30 seconds is not a rant, by the way. And I'll get under 30. I'll time myself on each one.

Okay, so why don't we start off, since we're on radio format, why don't we start, Charlie, with you and your thoughts around radio?

Yeah, I mean, radio always been a proponent, you know, a pure influencer channel from the beginning, connectivity, dynamic, obviously change is happening. You can look at radio two ways, right? Radio is a distribution channel or radio is a format. Radio is a format is thriving, even if distribution is going down, right? across different, whether it's podcasting or different audio portals.

Yeah, my quick two cents is there's very few mediums that you control the content, the production, the advertising, everything from the ground up. Consolidators, the big guys have destroyed it. They've made it about local. They think I've written of local. It's about national. They're syndicating, which gets rid of the personal connection that radio had to the community. But if you find the right radio partner that's willing to do it and they exist in markets and they're going to come out of the woodwork as some of these guys go bankrupt. I think it's a really powerful medium. Don't look at it as just radio, look at it as a connection to the community.

All right. So we talked a little bit before about programmatic. What's your take on those trends?

Precision, audience first. but also dynamic, getting to the most qualified audience in the most efficient way.

Yeah, same thing. I think if you have a very strong brand, programmatic works really well. If you have clear KPIs and a strong brand, you can AB test. You're flooding data in the right place. You're getting at the right thing. I think most people don't understand how to use it. They're being sold a fake bill of goods right now, and they're just being told to do it at incredibly high CPMs.

It's fun, by the way. Yeah, I know. So it's like the, I'm waiting to buzz. And well, when you said you were going to have a quick two cents of like, the only thing quick is your speed of voice. We're going to slow it down by 15%. So a lot of people are focusing on podcasting these days. What do you think about it with your clients?

Yeah, absolutely. I think the challenge out the gate with podcasting was scaling and some of the limitations from my creative production side, right? It was a lot of advanced timing needed to get a message to market, but that's all changed. It's more dynamic now. And looking at podcasting is not just the distribution of podcasting, but what is the greater content opportunity that can surround podcasting with the connection to social?

Yeah, I think there's the big ones do a really good job of it. I think that there's too many podcasts are starting to wean themselves out. And I think it's different than radio and a lot of other mediums where the pre-roll is the important thing, where the mid-roll is the important thing. Because if you listen to the first 12 minutes, you're certainly going to listen to the last 12 minutes.

Super. All right, let's hit social, but let's focus on, you know, kind of an area that probably would hit most of our listeners and you work on, you know, the B2C space. Let's do Facebook first, and then we'll come back and do Instagram after that.

Yeah, I mean, scale. Obviously older, still effective for obviously one of the most efficient channels that you can purchase, right? And more dynamic and in the moment. I think the challenge for any social, not just Facebook, has always been for any advertising where if you're watching TV and you're seeing a commercial, You're conditioned to watch that commercial potentially, right? Whereas if you're on social, you're not there to interact with brands, right? You're there for other reasons. So the brands have to work much harder to break through on platforms.

Yeah, by work hard, much harder. It's tricky when checking on that. And I have always been told it's that first three seconds. If you don't click on it in the first three seconds, you're probably not clicking on it. And that's why it's always ridiculous things that almost have nothing to do with the product that they're clicking on. I'm very, very, very similar here. I think the only problem that you have with social is that it works best for visual images when someone's looking into buy something and conduct that transaction quickly. I think as a brand builder and what people were trying to do within the beginning is not as effective. And if you look at your Facebook feed nowadays, which I only look at because I have to do it for work, it is just selling garbage products one after another that they want you to buy right there.

Yeah, right. Okay, so let's move on to another good one from a consumer perspective, and that's Instagram.

Yeah, I mean, just complimentary to Facebook, different audience verticals, more of that pure influencer environment, right? Just, I think for brands, it's a real opportunity for them to show up in a much bolder way from a brand perspective. and really kind of give line of sight to their products and services in a different way.

I think Meta's going to destroy it, so if you like Instagram, use it now. Because I think they're losing money so fast, someone's going to pull a trigger and say, we've got to figure out how to make more money, and they're going to bleed Insta.

For all it's worth. Yeah, I think that would be a shame, because I think, you know, I've dealt with a lot of lifestyle brands and then home improvement brands, and I think Instagram's probably underutilized and is a better source for those categories.

They'll find a way to destroy it, I promise.

All right, television.

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, we all know the story there, right? People, our advertisers continue to invest there, CPMs are high and less people are watching. So you're building more frequency with the same people than you have been ever before. This is the year where those streams are crossing as far as people that will engage through connected channels versus those that have paid subscriptions. So we're finally there. And ultimately I think it's more of that localized television that will remain current ultimately and that localization and your newses and just kind of that more community aspect that local TV can provide.

Yeah, happy to be in sports because that will thrive. Every time I thought a sport was going to be down, it's not the case. So happy to be in sports. That's something people have to watch live. You can't hear about it after the fact. Happy to be in sports. The other thing I think about TV, one of the problems I have with Hulu and connected TV is the repetitiveness of the ads. There's no surprise. There's nothing new. There's no discovery as to where you watch a TV broadcast. You're like, oh, that was cool. That was new. I mean, my Hulu is the exact same commercial over and over and over again, which is actually a detriment to the brand. I personally think might be what I watch might be those. I'm watching an hour a day, but it is so repetitive. It's almost gotten to the point of obnoxiousness and I almost want to go back to old TV.

I should have come in with the buzzer there. I think you're over time.

That's a great point. I think, connected TV is still a little bit of the Wild West, right? So it's, while the hardware and smart TVs and, the consumer behaviors there, the quality of inventory, where your ad's showing up, that's a great point. You know, frequency caps, right? Things like that are just so critical to make sure we're not hitting people over the head with the same message are ultra critical. And I think that's a big opportunity for the connected space to improve upon, which hopefully is.

Let's keep this one going after. Let's just keep going. So let's cut it off for the radio show. We'll keep going on the podcast. You know, I think that's absolutely a great point. And I think as, you know, Roku and Apple and Netflix enter this space, there's going to be influx of tech. And I think it's also going to drive CPMs up, unfortunately. You think more people running a marketplace will drive them down. I think it's going to drive them up because the tech is going to get more expensive. So I think over the next six months, OTT, if you will, on connected TV is going to change faster than just about anything else also. we're even in that space. And the ability to get on-demand content and for any content creator to put it out there, I mean, we're being begged to do a Roku channel. We're being begged to be on Comcast television because everyone wants this content. I find it fascinating because if you look at the TV, I don't know what 100 of the 250 channels are on television and why are they asking us to have it. I just don't understand it. But I really think out of all the ones that are going to change, this is the one that is going to change the fastest and drive a lot of change in other places.

No, I think there's so many new entrants on, as you said, the distribution side, but also the analytics side. I mean, I think that's where it's night and day, who's coming in with the next level of analytics to your point. So.

Right, absolutely. Hey, real quick before we wrap up on the show here, why don't Charlie just give a quick 30 second again about Blue Sky and then we'll wrap up and get back into the connected TV discussion?

Yeah, I appreciate the free ads here. Yeah, no, Blue Sky, I'm excited. I joined Blue Sky back in May, almost been there a year, and we're building something really great there. From the legacy Blue Sky relationships we've had over the years in market to just the ways we're ramping up and guiding the agency through a digital transformation to where we're going. So Ultimately, excited to be at Blue Sky. We've got an amazing culture, and that's something we didn't talk about much on this pod, but culture is everything at an agency. And we've got a great one at Blue Sky.

Welcome back to the Marketing MadMen podcast with Trip Jobe and Nick Constantino and our special guest, Charlie Legg with Blue Sky. You know, at the last segment, we were talking a lot about connected TV, and I think we probably hit it pretty well as far as everything that's changing. It is going to change the industry. We didn't talk about, I guess there still exists, cable TV out there. But compare it a little bit. What are your thoughts on cable TV these days?

Yeah, I mean, I think overall cable, you know, as we see with all these mergers and consolidation, right? Like it's really what's the output of those and what's happening. And even just with Discovery and Turner and everything that's going on, it's I think that there's moments in time where brands can be absolutely opportunistic, whether it's seasonal. You know, we've executed a few campaigns for clients this year around the holidays where there's just some really high engagement quality program around the holidays on certain networks that ultimately is their, you know, kind of their Super Bowl, right? So I think it's really just being more agile and placing those funds and really understanding at the end of the day, like where the opportunity is from programming. you brought it up, ultimately there's 250 channels and most people are watching 5 or less.

Yeah, My quick two cents is this all goes back to creative. If you have a good creative agency, creative good, if you're good at it, you're putting out good creative content, I think cable's an absolute benefit. The problem with cable is when you watch these crappy home improvement commercials from companies that have no business making commercials that just destroy it. And you're watching on a widescreen TV, they all of a sudden letterbox, they go to a small thing and it just ruins the entire experience. And again, look, I'm a marketer I've been my whole life. It may just be me sitting there being like, oh my God, and I changed the channel because of it. But I think that's one of the problems, the quality control is much less because there's. No barrier to entry.

I actually have good friends that have done cable ads over the years and I just saw, I haven't seen it, but I saw their link to their new ad last night on Facebook. So it's going to remind me to go take a look, but I'm kind of cringing already.

Which is a shame you can do an ad on an iPhone.

I mean, you shoot 4K on your phone. These are not super advanced things. It used to cost what to produce a commercial? 50 grand? 40 grand? I mean, I can't imagine people charging that these days. Any equipment can do the exact same as what used to be. You used to need an avid system. A laptop can produce these videos now.

Yeah, and everyone is, I'm sure, is a big fan of the bookend 15s where you're seeing the same message back-to-back in a pod, right?

Yeah, that's called. They didn't have copy and they had 15 and they're making you run 15s back-to-back because I played that game before. It's not a fun one.

A little bit. Let's go to some other areas such as Pandora and some of the other key audio type channels that are obviously big focus, I would say, for younger audiences and young and mid-adult.

Yeah, and digital audio overall is projected to grow 13% next year, right? It's going to continue to grow and time spent with audio is continuing to grow overall. It's that journey through audio that's changed, right? It's the moment from getting in my car to being at the office or being at home and how I'm listening to when I'm working out, right? And what device and at what time and what moment. So that's a great thing for audio because audio usage is increasing. But for platforms, it's really kind of the, you've got those pure players and you've, you know, your Spotify's and your Pandora's, but you've also got the terrestrial folks, right? And really folks are listening to terrestrial radio. So I think it's for any client, it's continued investment in those platforms and digital audio as a channel. And the targetability and the data accountability that you can put on those channels is just invaluable at the end of the day.

Yeah, I think from someone who sees it from the back end, who's able to place those ads on our digital streams, there's a couple of important things here. One, it's just getting it in people's hands when they want it, right? So it used to be a radio show, it used to be linear. Now all of a sudden you can listen on demand. So if you missed it, you check it the next day. You have these pod, you have all these different forms of content, of audio content, which is really important. The other thing is just the relationship with the car, I think is important to point out here. You know, you watch TV, I am the I'm on my phone, I'm chasing a kid, but when I'm in my car driving, like you're not allowed by law to do anything else. You can't be playing on your phone, so you are hyper-focused, and that's where that audio really resonates, which makes that brand very powerful.

I'm a Sirius user. I mean, that's where I spend 80% of my car time.

He listens to 680 The Fan all the time.

I said 80%. I still have the 20% of those socials.

Look, I think you're right. I think I've seen our listenership skew almost 30, 35% going over to the app and to the stream. A lot of that is intellectual property. We played the Braves games, the tech I don't think they're as actively engaged, but on a Saturday morning, they're like, how to get the tech game? And they'll grab our audio stream because it's hard to find it on TV. So I think one of the things we've changed is we've become a little bit more aware of our surroundings. It's hard to get the Braves games, right? So doing an SEM ad that says, stream Braves, it's an audio stream, but it's still a stream. And all of a sudden, if you capture somebody, you'd be surprised how quickly they stick with things if it's content that they like. So I think we always used to think of it as it's a detriment to the radio station. And now we finally look at it as like, look, Get them in your ecosystem. Whether that be a podcast, a stream, it's all you need.

I want to add one more question to this subject, then we'll go to the next medium. But what would you tell people that are concerned with, oh yeah, but you've got the ability on some of these subscription services to be ad-free, you know, Pandora and others. How would you respond to that?

Yeah, I mean, the reality is the subscription rate and adoption rate of free services is at very small scale. Obviously, if that changes, it creates a whole another dynamic to the sales model, right? And I think the reason that these platforms offer that is because it isn't necessarily going to take away from an advertiser saying we're not getting people at scale, right? But if that were to occur, it becomes a different conversation.

Yeah, one thing's a question about programmatic is if you dealt with it. So this radio station has its own digital audio stream and we control some pre-roll, okay? So we actually mimic our ads on our stream because our advertiser of this radio station is what keeps us in business. We're very good at making money. We outbill everybody in town for those advertisers. But we run some pre-rolls and some out of market stuff. The #1 advertiser on Xtra 106.3, a conservative talk station with Stacey Abrams. Number one. And my question is, Does the content know that it's a conservative station or is it just picking up that it is a certain age demographic? And why would Stacey Abrams spend so much money on a station that is so far right that they would never vote for her?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think sometimes, I mean, data's not a perfect science either, right? There's times, I mean, I've seen programmatic work in a capacity that there was a tragic situation with a client and they had a product that was named after something that happened, an animal that was part of that story unfortunately, and it showed up and it almost made like the ad as a proponent of what had happened and we had to pull it. So programmatic at the end of the day, it's not a perfect science by any means. Neither is attribution, right? Even attribution model.

Thank God, I'm glad he said it. I was going to try to get it out of it. I'm going to highlight that one, bold that one.

But it is the most targeted way we can get to the right eyeballs or ears in a moment.

I think 70%, I think it's a 70% model, right? I think there's still 30% to go, and I think it gets all the way up to 85, 90%. But again, ultimately, it's cross-channel attribution, right? Are you really going to be able to follow somebody from their computer to their cell phone into a store? And I think the people that are leaning on that are thinking wrong. The technology is not there. It is almost impossible, especially when you talk VPNs and the concerns about privacy and the trust in Google and Facebook. I mean, I'm on a VPN all the time. For all you know, I'm in Scandinavia. That's where I usually reside. So like, I get it, but also I think the people most likely to be oblivious to those things are the less with the less propensity to spend, right? The people who are the people who you think have the most money are the ones that are being very protective of their identity and where they go and what they do. So it's almost like those modeling that you're talking about is going to the lowest common denominator in a simplified form. But that's one of the issues I have.

A couple more real quick. Let's hit out of home. So billboards, digital billboards, digital signage, which we see a lot more on the retail side of things. What's your view there?

Yeah, I think that's obviously, a pandemic as most channels were impacted. you saw a big impact out of home for sure. And I think, out of home as a mass channel will always have a role. I think I personally over my career have gotten excited about campaigns and programs where we've been able to deliver more integration around out of home and activation on the ground and do things that are fun and exciting at events. But I think programmatic plays a role here, right? Like programmatic is now, out of home is now programmatic. It's audience first. There's retargeting off of out of home, digital out of home of somebody whose device has been within placement of an ad. It's more dynamic, right? And it's not just freeways and mass reach anymore. It's getting into gyms, it's getting into grocery stores, it's getting into places where there's an opportunity to be more dynamic with the message in that moment. be more relevant to a consumer.

Yeah, I think that industry has done a good job of reinventing itself and making itself sexy. And unfortunately, I don't think radio has gone through that resurgence yet. I don't think that, you know, my buddy worked for a company called Rapify. It's Inc. 5000. And he was on the show and he was talking about those things, the attribution model. And I was like, how do you do that? And I still don't completely believe it's done the right way. But regardless, they had that resurgence. Tech invested money and reinvented that. The radio industry has still yet to see that resurgence, right? Like we may be here out preaching about radio, but ultimately we're an events company. We hold intellectual property to the Braves and the Georgia. We have all these other arms. I think radio is due for a reinvention. I just don't know where it's gonna come from.

Yeah, so you both mentioned it. Let's hit, I'll have the big topic, experiential, which includes events. Your take there.

Yeah, I think obviously we're seeing a resurgence coming out of COVID. Obviously COVID had a significant impact on that, but I think We can talk about events, but I think of it more in the form of integration, right? Because it's the, and when I was talking about radio being more dynamic, that's a big part of it. It's the sum of the parts that a radio partnership can deliver, right? So it's not just the reach and scale, but it's also what's the on the ground experience that's going to get somebody engaged and excited. And how do we give consumers experiences that are unique and special and something that they can take away with them that they're going to just, their friends might not be able to experience at the end of the day?

And it's getting harder and harder to do that. One of the things I saw at Live Nation, so I was a sponsor director in Live Nation for two years before I came here. And that audience is very hard to reach. So they had to go through great lengths to create some content that they would like. The problem with that is you're still reaching an audience that has a short attention span because they're here, they're about the music. One of the things about tailgates I find fascinating. Radio people have a relationship with advertisers. They understand that those advertisers is why the content exists. So we did a Super Bowl party. We had Drivin N Cryin playing. The people would go and talk to every single sponsor booth, like unsolicited, because they understand that relationship. We have an audience now that is being grown by almost having to being tricked into taking these ads that doesn't have that same relationship. They want instant gratification. They want things for free, which I think is going to be the hard part for experiential. I also think the days of the festivals are dwindling and everything is going to get much more intimate and smaller because Coachella had $44 hot dogs. I mean, it's just broken. The model is not there anymore. I think there's security concerns. I think we're going to get much more smaller and intimate with our events, which I'm very happy for because I think that's where we should be.

I agree. And I think that intimacy is valuable. I think that intimacy that's going to drive the sale at the end of the day.

Yeah, no, and it's really targeting that customer. So I'm going to skip print and e-mail and a few others.

Let's do sports marketing and let's do sports marketing.

Well, I was going to throw two more social if you want to do. So we'll come back and we'll end on sports marketing. But let's do 2 quick social. One that I, Nick, can't wait to hear my, see my reaction, and that is TikTok.

Yeah, I mean, it's the shiny thing, right? And, you know, it has a role and I know every, it's kind of the nature of our business. Like, everyone wants to be involved when something new comes out. It's exciting and engaging, mass scale. I think it really depends on the marketer. I think if you're a marketer that is out there saying, I need to be on TikTok just because it's the shiny thing, but it's not an authentic connection to content, then that's a miss, right? But if you're a marketer where you can really benefit, maybe you don't have the big budgets or big spend and use it as the pure influencer channel it is and use it as a content hub, there's a huge benefit and efficiency there, right?

Yeah, I think you got to be smarter with how you do it and just don't think about TikTok. Think of a short-term video, short-form video. And if you're going to build TikTok, but you're going to also use short-form video for other mediums, then invest the heck out of it because short-term video is not going anywhere. Our attention spans, you know, Trip and I talk over each other every show because our attention span is almost nothing. So you need short-form video. So if TikTok is part of your short-form video strategy, invest the crap out of it because it already doesn't exist in the state of Alabama. So who knows what's going to happen anyway?

Well, no, I love what you said and not only connect. it to your content, make sure you're connected to your target audience. That's where I see the problem. Too many people think it's that shiny object you said and therefore they need to do it and their audience is not on TikTok. Last social media shifting a little to B2B is LinkedIn.

Yeah, I mean LinkedIn as a B2B platform and just the targetability opportunity is it's second to none to any other social platform. It's obviously more premium and you're going to pay more to get to that most qualified audience. But I think LinkedIn is invaluable to B2B marketing approach.

Yeah, the same thing. You need a content strategy. LinkedIn is a piece of your content strategy. If you go in thinking you're just going to do LinkedIn, you're missing an opportunity to have the real fully developed content strategy.

Yeah, but if you're B2B, it's table stakes. You need to have a strategy.

But he's very expensive. It's very expensive and every mechanism you target further, it gets more expensive. So Just be careful and don't just show your company.

Don't just do it. Have a plan?

And the one thing I'll just add on that quickly is I think understand the tactics on LinkedIn because they are full funnel. They're constantly evolving their tactics and there's ultimately, whether it's webinars or different things they can offer to a brand, there's a lot more range in their offering than some other platforms.

Absolutely. Okay, last one. Good one to end on here. Sports marketing.

Yeah, one I'm obviously passionate about, starting my career in the sports sponsorship world. I actually was gonna ask Nick a question here and put it back on Nick, but I wanted to kind of bring it back. You had mentioned about live TV and sports. Where do you see live sports? just seeing some of the change we're already seeing with Amazon and knowing these big digital companies are sitting on so much cash and the cost of sports rights.

Yeah, I think the best way to say this is what's about to happen. What they say is going to happen with Bally's is a great example, right? They bought a lot. They spent a lot of money on it. All of a sudden people are leaving the TV platform and go to connected TV. Major League Baseball and the NBA and the NHL are thinking of buying Bally's just to rip up the old contracts to change the intellectual property so they can air their own games. Put it this way, Liberty Media should not be paying somebody to air the Braves games. Liberty Media is a media company. They want direct control. They want to do direct to consumer. I think the one biggest thing that's going to change is you're not going to have to buy the Braves season. I think you'll be able to buy a game if you want to for 99 cents. You'll be able to buy the Friday package. I think they're going to make it easier to consume so it's easier for people to get what they want. I don't the Red Zone model is going to continue to work because that whip around coverage hurts the teams. I think it helps the brand.

Well, the whole NFL direct, you know, directv package is gone. I mean, it's going, it's moving, everything's going to change.

And it's going to be part of intellectual property, right? It's a value to YouTube TV to own those rights. But it's going to also be, if you look at Amazon, that isn't, they don't just have Thursday Night Football. They are on Red Zone. They are, that's the one thing that's going to change that the internet offers that TV does not, is those fully integrated events. I bet you Amazon's throwing NFL themed events. I bet you they proposal that includes all these other things. And I think TV did a bad job of that. They are very much, man, we're TV. We have our commercials. That's the end of it. And I think most marketers don't want to end there.

And we bought the whole thing. And what I'd love to see them do, and they do it here at Georgia Tech, my son's up at Clemson and I get it all the time is, hey, here's a four-game package. If with the new, you know, direct or not directv, but the new NFL package, if they came out and said, here's a subscription and it's an 8 game and you can pick the 8 games during the season That is the way to capture the new audience, in my opinion.

Yeah, and it's hard to negotiate that because what percentage does a team get? There are teams that are going to be more popular. That's the one thing about the NFL is parity, and they've tried very hard, which is why at any time anyone could beat anybody. That's why the gamblers don't bet NFL because any team could beat any team because of that parity. That's what makes that challenge. Look, we're talking about nuance that a lot of people don't know because we're so involved with the teams, but I think you will see a push towards social media channels integrating with apps, integrating with this. And when that happens, it will be a better experience for the fans. And also, you cannot still understate how important sports betting will be to these platforms. That live sports betting, that window, whether it comes here or not, which I've been told a million times it's coming and I always get my hopes up in a dozen, it is going to change how sports are bet, done, and activated on it.

And it will also impact the advertising medium because there's already a lot of money. We already see it. But that kind of like politics, that's going to throw even more money into the advertising media from the betting.

Because it's going to consolidate and you'll have two or three players, which is the opposite of what we want as a country. But every time we think we're going to have all this beautiful competition, it always comes down to four or five people who have the money to weather the storm, which is a good place to end.

All right. Well, hey, Charlie Legg, Blue Sky Agency. Thanks for joining us on the Marketing MadMen show and podcast. Trip Jobe and Nick Constantino signing off till next week.

Take care, guys.