The digital trends agency owners need to be tracking with Tom Webster

Speaker 1:

Are you tired of feeling like the lonely lighthouse keeper as you run your agency? Welcome to the Agency Management Institute Community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of what you make. The Build A Better Agency podcast is now in our third year of sharing insights, and how small to mid-sized agencies survive and thrive in today’s market. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultants, please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Drew McLellan:

Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here with another episode of Build A Better Agency. I think one of the challenges, but also I think one of the more exciting parts of our world is that everything is constantly changing. And as we’ve talked about many times on this show, when I think about my 37-year career in agency life, but not a gray hair, the truth of the matter is that the speed of change is so dramatic now compared to what it was when I started, and I don’t think that’s going to slow down. I think everything is evolving.

And so, what that means is, whatever we know today to be true, we also know that tomorrow, it might be slightly different. And that’s one of the reasons why research is so important. It’s also one of the reasons why these new channels keep cropping up and old channels are evolving. And so, that’s the topic in the broadest sense of the word topic that I want to dig into today. And it starts with having a really brilliant thinking partner on this. And so, I was super excited when Tom Webster from Edison Research agreed to be on the show. I’ve known Tom for years.

One of the coolest things about my world and my job is I get to meet super smart people, and Tom is one of the most thoughtful and articulate thinkers that I know. So many of you probably recognize Tom’s name. He is the Senior Vice President of Edison Research. They do all kinds of custom research. They’re probably best known outside of our world for being the sole providers of exit poll data during the US elections, and they work with all of the major news networks.

But inside the marketing and agency world, they’re actually known for research that they do around technology and around communications, and probably most famously known for the Infinite Dial, which is the America’s longest running research series on digital media consumption. So, since the ’90s, they’ve been talking to consumers about how they are using digital media, what they value, what is turning passe for them. And so, they just came out in early 2019 with the look at 2018, the Infinite Dial, and we certainly will have a link for that inside the show notes.

But Tom and I are going to talk about that research, but also some other research that they do. And I promise we’ll give you plenty of links in the show notes, so make sure you head over to agencymanagementinstitute.com and under the podcast tab, you’ll find the show notes for the show. But what I’m really want to talk to Tom about is, is sort of what does all of this mean behind the data they capture? And specifically, what does it mean for us, as we try and create a voice and a brand, not only for our clients, but for our own agencies as well?

And how can we use some of these channels to better do that? And also, what’s trending? What is hot right now? What is not? So, we’re going to get into all of that. And I will get into it as much detail and channeling you and the questions I know that you’re thinking about as you’re on the treadmill or walking your dog or on the golf course with me. So, sit tight. And let’s dig into this conversation with Tom. So, without further ado, Tom, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Tom Webster:

Thanks, Drew. Thanks for having me. I’m glad we could both find a mutually agreeable time with our schedules.

Drew McLellan:

Me too. It took us a while, but it’ll be worth it. So, I have so many things I want to talk about. I’m not quite sure where to jump in, but I think let’s start with the research that you guys just launched earlier this year, the Infinite Dial, and I know that’s a project that you’ve done for many years. So, tell the listeners a little bit of the history of that project, and then what were the aha moments for you. If you’re looking through the lens of you’re an agency owner or a leader inside an agency, what would be the aha takeaways for you from that research?

Tom Webster:

Sure. So, the flagship public facing study that Edison Research does is called the Infinite Dial and we’ve done it since 1998, believe it or not. And as best we can tell, it’s the longest running study of consumer media and technology habits in America, and it’s covered everything from social media to streaming video to digital audio over the years. And I’ve been the voice of it for the last 15 years now, which is, I was just a boy then when you started, I think.

Drew McLellan:

You were on probation back then, right?

Tom Webster:

I was. I was just a child. And it’s really intended to be a currency study, a survey of record for any number of things. And it’s done every year to the highest research standards, the most ridiculously expensive way we can do it, which is an increasingly mobile phone heavy telephone survey. It’s still really the gold standard in survey research. And so, as a result of doing this since 1998, we’ve been able to track all of these different media consumption habits and behaviors and technologies over long periods of time.

And when you do a trending study like that, really, it’s the trend is what you’re looking at. And so, when you do see something that jumps the rails a little bit, it is a genuine aha moment. And I think there were a few of those this year. I think, certainly, one of the more newsworthy things that came out of this study related to social media where we showed a decline in Facebook usage for the second year in a row.

Drew McLellan:

And a pretty significant decline.

Tom Webster:

Yeah. And the interesting thing about this, Facebook themselves will tell you, we were adding users, we’re adding users, because what they’re telling you is that they have added user accounts and that people aren’t going through the onerous process of deleting their accounts. But what a survey like this can show you are the people who just say, well, I just stopped using it. And with over two years now, that number is about 15 million. And what that number masks is, is actually the fact that Facebook usage has gone up 55 plus, and it’s an even greater loss 12 to 34. If you look at that youngest end of the age demo, that’s been a loss actually of 17 million over two years. So, it ain’t nothing. That’s certainly, I think, one of the bigger aha moments.

Drew McLellan:

And from that data, though, but I also recall, though, it’s still the kingpin of social media in terms of activity level and user accounts and all of that, though, right?

Tom Webster:

Yeah, definitely. And I think, especially if you’re looking at an older audience, it does continue to grow. It’s at least flat in those middle years, and it does grow a little bit, 55 plus. It is still the 10-ton gorilla of social media. So, if you look at those numbers and you deduce that you should not be on Facebook with your brand, I think you’re reading it wrong. But if you’re a youth oriented brand, increasingly, we have compelling evidence that maybe it shouldn’t be your first stop.

Drew McLellan:

Right. And what should be my first stop if I’m looking for, let’s say, college aged kids?

Tom Webster:

Yeah. Well, it’s a three-way tie, which, again, given the fact that Facebook is still the dominant brand in social media, the fact that it’s a three-way tie, 12 to 34, is in and of itself, a pretty phenomenal result. And it’s essentially a three-way tie between Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. And if, in fact, there’s a question that we love to ask, we’ve asked it for the past five or six years, and it’s the social media brand you use most often your, your putative favorite social media brand. Back in 2015, in the 12 to 34 demo, Facebook had 58% of that, and Instagram 15%.

And if your Face book and you see those numbers start to decline, your strategy was, of course, to buy Instagram and start to collect the young in that way. But today, on that question, social media brand use most often, 12 to 34, the percentage of 12 to 34s who said Facebook combined with Instagram is less than Facebook was in 2015. And Snapchat is what’s really taken up a lot of the slack there. So, there are definite warning signs with Facebook, the brand, and Face book, the company, with 12 to 34.

Drew McLellan:

For lots of reasons, beyond usage, certainly, all the other issues that they’ve had suggests that they’re struggling.

Tom Webster:

Yeah. And we actually, because we were so curious about this finding, we have gone back into the fields to do some qualitative and quantitative research. And I believe either at the very end of May or in early June, we’re going to be coming out with a new report called the social habit. And one of the things it’s going to look at are the reasons why and having had a sneak peek at some of the early qual data on that, I think it’s not what everybody necessarily thinks or at least what the mainstream print journalists are reporting. So, should be some interesting findings there.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, that’ll be good. So, we’ll make sure we include a link to both the Infinite Dial in that new research in the show notes. What were some other takeaways? I know that a lot, and maybe this is my own bias, because I’m a podcaster, but I know that there were some pretty significant boosts in numbers on the podcast side of things, too, right?

Tom Webster:

Yeah, absolutely, and we’ve been tracking podcasting since 2006. So, really back early days of podcasting, and we’ve looked at it continuously since then. And throughout that 14 year history so far that we’ve tracked it, it’s never really been a fast growing medium. It’s never shut up to the same extent that online video did, with the exception of this past year. And that’s actually another one of the real aha moments, I think, in terms of our Infinite Dial research. We’d like to track the percentage of people who say they’ve ever listened, monthly listeners and weekly listeners.

And in terms of people who say they’ve ever listened for the first time that crested the 50% mark, in fact, that’s 51% of Americans 12 plus. So, for the first time, you can actually call podcasting a true majority activity. And then certainly, I think you can call it a mainstream activity. And in terms of monthly listening, it’s grown from 26% of Americans 12 plus to 32% of Americans 12 plus, and that’s the largest single percentage point gain.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So, given that you’ve been around the block for a little while, when you watch the evolution of podcasting, do you think that’s just merely a … It’s a slow, but steady increase and is going to continue to climb? Did you think something happened, then all of a sudden, pushed it over this podcast content shifting? I certainly think there’s more storytelling and podcasts and more things that are not so business or just talk radio-esque podcast? So, what were some of the contributing factors from your perspective that caused that jump?

Tom Webster:

Yeah. I think the first thing that really happened was, I think, really three years ago, when Cereal really entered the parlance of at least agency life and the chattering classes, if you will. I mean, certainly, you wouldn’t call Cereal a hit and like a Super Bowl hit. But it became a hit in podcasting, and certainly, it became a shared experience for people who listen to podcasts to finally have a show that they listened to in common, much in the same way that people watched Mad Men in common. And so, as a result, podcasting started to get more press.

And now it didn’t necessarily show in user growth, because that continued to be slow and steady, but more attention was paid to the space. And as more attention was paid to the space, money entered the space. And really, the single biggest change that we’ve seen in the past two or three years is the influx of capital into podcasting. Where previously, we’d seen capital on the technology side. Now there’s capital being invested on the content development side.

And so, what you’re getting now, or podcasting has always benefited from the storytelling capabilities and skill, narrative skill, of public media producers, for example. NPR is one of our clients. But that content is of a type, it’s reasonably highbrow. And if you looked at the charts for most popular podcasts, even today, it looks nothing like the Nielsen top 10 TV shows. But that’s changing, and you’re starting to get companies, I think, Wondery is a really good example here, putting out a mass appeal, kind of middlebrow content that I think is really enjoyable by a wide range of people.

And that’s starting to bring more people to this space. Because ultimately, people don’t become interested in a technology not to a large scale. You can’t educate them to care about it, but what they do care about is a show. And we’re starting to get great shows, and those great shows are really promoting medium.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, yeah. I think it’s an exciting time to think about the medium as a viable option. I know a lot of my listeners are either they have a podcast around a core niche or expertise, or maybe they’re producing them for clients. So, I think it becomes a much bigger opportunity for agencies as they look forward. Because if their clients do have a subject matter expertise who have really unique story to tell or some interesting clients that tell a compelling connective tissue story, I think now, all of a sudden, the audience is starting to present itself in a more unified way.

Tom Webster:

Yeah, I would agree with that. But I would caution agency creative, that doing great audio is really, really difficult. It is much more difficult than great video. And really, to maintain that theater of the mind and that narrative thread with an audio only medium, it’s really hard to do. And I think that’s why you’ve seen some leaders in the space, in terms of the content space, get some capital, get some investment, because they’re demonstrating a skill that is actually more uncommon than you might think. And it’s one thing, I think, to put together an interview or a show about something, but actually putting on a show, a show with a capital S is not the easiest thing to do well.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. It makes me think of old school radio, and even the great radio spots of when radio was the powerhouse that it used to be, and it really was theater of the mind. And people were very deliberate about telling the story and weaving all of the elements into it. And so, they really was producing, as you said, a capital S show. So, I’m hoping that that’s what we start to see, is more of that commitment and deliberation, as opposed to people thinking of it as more of a throwaway.

Tom Webster:

Yeah, and I think a lot of the people who maybe have heard the term podcasting, but have yet to really investigate it, mistakenly equate it with talk radio. And of course, talk radio in this country is largely syndicated a lot of political talk. And frankly, it’s a lot of ad lib. And sometimes it’s okay, and sometimes it’s not very okay. But, really, what you and I are both talking about here, it goes back to the genius of Paul Harvey, who could tell a number, any number of great stories in just four or five minutes, wrapped around a compelling advertisement or two that you actually cared about.

Because he scripted everything with great care, one of the great rhetoricians, I think, of broadcast radio history. Everything was scripted with great care to lead you to want to know more and to keep you interested. You can’t just turn on the mic and do that. It’s a real skill.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. I can remember listening to him, and this ages me a little bit, but I wouldn’t get out of the car until I heard the end of the story. You wouldn’t walk away in the middle. Whereas I think a lot of mediocre content, you’re like, okay, well, I’ll catch that later or I don’t really care. But you’re right, the way he told the story, the way he did create theater of the mind compelled you to stay until the very end.

Tom Webster:

Yeah. And I love that moment that you just talked about that, the moment where you wouldn’t get out of the car. And even in broadcast radio, that’s a very uncommon skill. I mean, I think, Howard Stern, believe it or not, I think has always had that skill, one of the greatest interviewers in broadcast radio history, could disarm an interview subject in seconds and lead them down a path that even they didn’t want to go down. You wouldn’t leave your car. And I think my only point here is that it’s an uncommon skill. And the companies that I think do that really well, they’re starting to get snapped up.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So, it’s fertile ground for agencies. I mean, certainly, they have a huge history in telling stories in a compelling way. And so, hopefully, they can grab that challenge and create something magical about it. Because I think the opportunity is there.

Tom Webster:

I do, too. And the great thing about podcasts, I think, and why they have intrigued me as a medium for as long as they have is you are almost nothing else, except a movie theater advertising, preshow cinema screen advertising, or a truly captive audience. I mean, podcasting is a very lean forward medium that demands your attention. You can’t really listen to a podcast while you’re working or trying to concentrate on something else very well. So, when you are listening to a spoken word podcast, it’s got your full attention.

And to date, we haven’t ruined podcasting with advertising. We’re nibbling around the edges of that. But to date, I think because it remains a fairly ad Spartan environment and in a lot of cases, the advertising and sponsorship messages are integrated by the hosts themselves and are part of the content, it’s an extremely compelling medium to transmit a message of any kind.

Drew McLellan:

Let’s talk about that a little bit. Let’s talk about the idea of placing ads in podcasts, because I hear a lot of agencies struggling to guide their clients through that and there’s no equivalent way to buy it. The audiences aren’t big. I mean, they talk about super niche unless you’re going to some of the top 10 podcasts around. But for most part, most podcasts are relatively niche, they have smaller audiences and in a lot of cases, the ability to insert a finished 32nd radio spots would seem weird.

So, what’s your take on the whole idea of, is there a smart way to infuse promotional messages, sponsorships ads into podcasts? I know you had mentioned just a second ago that a lot of them feel a little homegrown, like the host is just talking about something that they are a believer in, or a user of, or a fan of. But what are you seeing that’s actually working? Because I think there’s a lot of stuff that’s not working.

Tom Webster:

I think there’s a lot of stuff that’s not working too. And the one thing I think I’d want your listeners to understand from the get-go, is that apples to apples, the same ad on the radio versus the same ad in a podcast, there’s no halo effect for being in a podcast. If it’s a bad ad, it’s a bad ad. And the fact that it’s in your favorite podcast, is not going to grant it any magical unicorn lift because it was in a podcast, as opposed to being on the radio, so …

Drew McLellan:

And in fact, I think people react to it worse when it’s in podcasts.

Tom Webster:

I think they react to it worse as well, Drew. And I also think, in some ways, because there aren’t as many ads and podcasts as we have in broadcast radio, that if you’re an advertiser who saturates that market, that can work against you as well, I think, just from people getting fatigued from your messaging. Generally, host read ads performed better than a pre-produced spot. But having said that, I think you need to have some guidelines when you’re working with the host.

Because I’ve heard plenty of host read ads on podcasts that have rambled on for four minutes, and they’re terrible. You want to skip them, and they’re terrible. But I think that the white knight here, in all of this, is the continuing prevalence and development of just great dynamic ad insertion technology. And I think if you think about dynamic ad insertion as programmatic and delivering remnants and things like that, it’s a failure of the imagination. Dynamic ad insertion can deliver spots that are read by the host, that are read by the host in the style of the show, that integrate well with the content, can still be pre-produced to some extent.

Drew McLellan:

Sure.

Tom Webster:

I think if you think about dynamic ad insertion, is just a way to put a stick a Home Depot ad in the middle of your podcast, it’s a failure of the imagination. So, I think as people get more facile with the technology, that’s going to get better, in the same way that your Facebook ads are a lot better today than they were five or six years ago when they were all one weird trick. We’ve just gotten smarter about that, and those smarts are being applied to podcasts now.

Drew McLellan:

I think I’m curious what you … It seems to me that there’s an intimacy between the podcast host and the listener, that … I know that if I meet someone who happens to have listened to this podcast before, there’s a sense of that, from their side, that they know me, and they know what I’m about, and they feel like I’ve been talking to them. I had somebody once say to me, it’s really weird to actually be in a room with you while you’re talking to me. So, I think then when you insert something that’s foreign into that intimate connection, that podcast host have with their listeners, I think it’s even more jarring than when we hear it on the radio or see it on TV.

Tom Webster:

I agree with that. I mean, I think we do a lot of brand lift research on behalf of agencies and brands. And so, we do dozens of brand lift studies a year for larger brands that are trying to see the need to podcasting in its past really been a direct response ad, enter this code or use the shorter …

Drew McLellan:

Sure, right.

Tom Webster:

… use this URL. But a lot of larger advertisers are now being associated with the medium and we’re tracking the lift before and after of running ad campaigns. You take an advertiser like GEICO. On the one hand, GEICO has a very playful brand. They play with a lot of different characters. They’ve had a lot of different takes and a lot of different treatments. It’s not just the get-go, but that’s also a brand that ultimately has to be 100% consumed by brand safety. And if you’re a podcast and you’re not willing to take the get-go, if you think you’re just going to let the host go on there and start rambling about insurance, that ain’t going to happen.

So, you do need to have good execution and good treatment. But on the other hand, I think brands also need to be open minded to relationships with podcasts, and we’ve seen some great stories there. You look at a brand like Casper mattresses, has built quite a brand on the basis of podcast advertising by doing something that, frankly, is 50 years old, and that’s just celebrity host endorsements on the radio with DJs on broadcast radio get paid for those kinds of endorsements. We know they work. They’ve worked for decades, and they work great in podcasts, too.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, yeah. The trusted advisor role, right?

Tom Webster:

Yeah. And it’s, again, I think when you listen to a podcast, it’s really different from reading a blog post. You might have 100,000, people read a blog post or an article you wrote on medium, and maybe you’ll only have 5000 people listened to a podcast about the same thing. But those 5000 have self-selected to give you 100% of their time, not to just skim something for five seconds, but to take the most inefficient means of information transfer and listen to a 30-minute podcast. Those people are gold. And so, when you treat them like gold, when you understand that those 5000 are worth a lot more than the 100,000 who might have skimmed your blog post, then you don’t violate that trust.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, yeah, I think you’re right. So, you mentioned that brand lift studies you do. Can you just tell us a little bit about what that looks like and why a client would hire you to do that and what kind of data they get out of that? I think that’s probably a research methodology that some of my listeners may not be as familiar with.

Tom Webster:

Yeah, we do any number of things here. So, a lot of our clients are the larger podcast networks, and those podcast networks are taking big buys from brands. I mean, there’s a lot of … GEICO is in the space now. There are other insurance companies in the space, big box retailers are in the space. And they’re looking for an apples to apples way to determine if this is an effective use of their advertising dollars. And so, we have various means to survey the audiences of these podcasts and networks prior to a campaign.

We then survey them after the campaign is run or after some predetermined length of time. And we’ll look at a variety of measures, not just awareness. But also, did the treatment itself work? Did the messaging worked? Did people feel differently about the brand? And we’ve been able to do some fairly clever things, I think. One of the brand lift studies that we did was for a very popular, let’s call it a restaurant chain that focuses on watching sports in their bar/restaurant. And it’s a ubiquitous brand. They’re all over TV.

But for the podcast, we focused on a new message, a new message that they hadn’t really launched before. And so, we did before and after campaign study within the podcast network for this brand. And we tested that new message along with two other messages that they had run before in the past. And the difference was incredible, in terms of the one that people remembered and recalled as being part of the ad. So, again, it’s a very captive, attentive place to be in a podcast.

And I think even for brands that are ubiquitous and are extremely well known, if you want to get across some small aspect of your brand, like some brand attribute about caring or concern or trust, and it’s a good treatment, it’s a good fit for the audience of that podcast, you’re going to have their attention. Having said that, we’ve done some brand lift studies where there’s been no lift whatsoever, because they’re just stuck in the same screaming broadcast ad that they would have done on the radio. It’s not a good ad. Being in a podcast is not going to save it.

Drew McLellan:

Right, yeah, so true. I want to talk to you a little bit about the Infinite Dial and some of the other work you do and all around … There’s a business reason for you doing all of that, and I want to talk a little bit about how you’ve merchandised that thought leadership and what it’s done for Edison Research and all of that. But, first, let’s take a quick break. I wanted to take just a quick second and remind you about one of the core offerings of Agency Management Institute, and that is our peer networks.

So, we offer them both for agency owners and also what we call key executives. So, if you’re a traction follower, these would be for your integrators. These are your right hand people who help you run the business day in and day out. So, from the owner’s perspective, imagine a Vistage group or an EO group, only everyone around the table owns an agency. And these folks become like your board of advisors, they become trusted friends that you learn a lot about their business, and they learn a lot about yours.

So, not only do you learn from us, the facilitators, but you’re constantly learning from your peer group as well. And the same thing happens in the key executive groups. We bring them together and we help them learn how to help you bring your vision to life as an agency owner. If you want to check out either of these peer groups, you can go over to the AMI website and look under the network’s tab. And there you will find information on both our live and our virtual agency owner peer groups, and also our key executive group. Check it out. And if you’re interested, let us know, we’re happy to have a conversation. Okay, let’s get back to the episode.

All right, welcome back. I’m here with Tom Webster, who is the Senior Vice-President of Edison Research. And right before the break, I was saying that one of the things that Edison Research does, is they produce these amazing research studies like the Infinite Dial. And obviously, they’ve made a huge commitment to it, because they’ve been doing it since the ’90s. And some of you have heard me talk about sort of the value of thought leadership and the lift that you get when you give something away that demonstrate, not only demonstrates your smarts, but helps your audience be smarter.

And so, Tom, I just want you to talk a little bit about sort of how you guys have constructed that strategy and what the outcomes have been like for you guys?

Tom Webster:

Well, we’re very lucky with the Infinite Dial to have a partner in Triton Digital and Triton really does a lot of the financing, frankly, of this project. It’s a very expensive project to do mobile phone sampling, especially and to do it right would make you cringe to see.

Drew McLellan:

I have no doubt.

Tom Webster:

And so, just thinking that, I think to establish this kind of thought leadership by throwing up a do-it-yourself survey and linking to it on Twitter, people aren’t going to take that seriously and the data journalists at that the Times and the Posts and some of the other sources that quote us, they’re not going to give that stuff a second thought. And so, I think the first thing it takes is a commitment to actually provide something of lasting value. And there’s two beneficiaries-

Drew McLellan:

Right and do it well.

Tom Webster:

Well, you know what? Do it right and do it well, but also to do it with the thought in mind that this has to be actually useful.

Drew McLellan:

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Tom Webster:

To the stakeholders, and not just the way to get your name out there, it has to be actually useful. And if what we’re doing when we’re producing thought leadership is not actually useful from a day-to-day standpoint for the people that are interested in this, then it’s going to be discarded. And there’s a very distinct and defined strategy behind the Infinite Dial, which and for both of us, Triton Digital uses it for market development to provide a safe currency for advertisers and agencies to talk about the space, so that they feel comfortable buying the space. They do it in streaming audio, and a number of other digital media. We’re just about to, in fact, I’m going to Toronto this week to premiere the Infinite Dial in Canada. So, it’s a market development tool, in that a market can’t really begin to develop in a thing unless there is a stable and consistent currency for that. And so that’s, that’s part of it.

But then, of course, there’s the value for Edison. And we have built a seven-figure business just in digital audio and that’s really sort of the streaming audio like Pandora and Spotify and also podcasting. On the back of this kind of thought leadership and being consistent about it, being in it for the long haul, and not the quick headline. And it’s now, it’s more than just a flagship property. It’s a pillar that we draw many, many things from throughout the course of the year. And we don’t have to write much about it anymore. Frankly, it’s sort of, it’s kind of a self-sustaining thing. So it’s a critical part of our thought leadership strategy, but also, in this case for Triton, the company that also hopes to benefit from that.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and I think there’s a couple of critical elements there. And the first and foremost, which we talk about a lot here on this show, is that you do have to start with the audience in mind. And if it’s not of benefit to them, genuine benefit to them, then going through all the motions, going through all the expense, at the end of the day, consumers are smarter than that today and they know. They see, they get bait and switch, and they get all of those things and so, but equally, I think, because they’re so used to being sort of duped, that when you actually give them something of value, and you do it on a regular basis, the connection that they have with you and your brand can be pretty potent.

Tom Webster:

Well, and the great thing about the Infinite Dial is over the years the webinar, the live event has really become its own thing. And that’s been the source of great enjoyment for me and for all of us at both Edison and Triton. In the past couple of years, we’ve done it as a live video, a really well-produced live video, myself and John Russo from Triton where we’ve had the dad joke banter that Russo and I always have and interspersed with the slides and kind of genuine insight. And we just get hundreds and thousands of tweets and messages and letters and everything else that people have viewing parties.

So, even though we might get 1000 people registered for the webinar, we have no idea how many people watch it because my agencies will have viewing parties for it. And it’s become an event. I’m sure we jumped the shark a long time ago. But, in terms of actually making the data delivery, something people look forward to, as opposed to the cod liver oil approach, that’s actually had a lot of benefits for us as well.

Drew McLellan:

Well, I think one of the things and this surrogate harkens back to some of the podcasts conversation, too, is I think part of it is because you guys have been consistently the ones delivering that message. I also think people have a connection. They can see you, they can hear you, so I also think they have a connection and trust in the delivery, not only the mechanism, but the partners who are delivering that information, which I also has to think is good for both of the brands.

Tom Webster:

Yeah. And it’s something that’s really helped us over the years. I think, I don’t know that we ever had a defined social media strategy, at least not when we first started. But at the very least, we were willing to be out there to answer questions. And when people would post something about our data and either not understand something about it or challenge something about it rightly or wrongly, we’re at least answering. We’re at least out there and we’re going to continue to do that. And I think that helps people see that whether or not we have a dog in the fight about the exact number we’re reporting, we do have a dog in the fight of being accurate and credible, and doing the best we can to represent the population that we’re describing.

Drew McLellan:

Well, I think it also says you actually care about the audience you’re delivering the content to and you want them to be able to really understand it, and to know how to use it. And also equally important, how not to misinterpret it and make bad decisions.

Tom Webster:

Yeah. I mean, we do a lot of thought leadership research at Edison and sometimes it works great. And sometimes it doesn’t and anytime an agency or a brand through an agency, or the brand itself approaches us, and wants to do a study like this, they often come at it like this, “We want to do a study that proves X.” And usually on those calls, I try to spend as much of the call as possible talking them out of it because if you try to do a study that will prove X and you know this from our mutual friend, Susan Byers as well, of course you can do it. If you want me to prove something, I will design a study that proves it.

But if you want to design a study that actually gets to the truth, you have to be prepared to hear a truth you didn’t want to hear. And that’s not, often I think people come to us under the guise of producing a thought leadership research, but they should have come to us much, much sooner, like when the product was being developed to actually really get a sense of the voice of the consumer and if this is really solving a market need as opposed to, “Okay, we’ve solved this problem that we think people have. Now, we want you to prove it.”

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, yeah, you’re right. You got to start with the right end in mind, for sure. I know that in the work that Susan and I do every year for the Agency Edge series, we always go into it saying, “Here are the things we’re wondering about and curious about,” but we’re always surprised at what we learn. And I think part of what makes her so good at what she does, and I know that it’s a trait that you guys share, is that curiosity of discovering the unknown. And then sort of looking at that and seeing what the implications are of that.

Tom Webster:

Yeah, and one thing that Susan and I both share, we’ve both done work for Jay Baer for his last couple of books, and we did the research for Hug Your Haters. And to Jay’s infinite credit, when he came to us, he really came to us with that kind of curiosity. He had some theories. He had a dream headliner, too and when we executed the research, that’s not what we found. We found a different thing. And again, to Jay’s infinite credit, he rewrote the book. He rewrote his thoughts about it and he worked. It was very much research driven.

And I think if you’re prepared to do that, if you’re prepared not to use research like a drunk or like a drunkard uses a lamppost for support rather than illumination, then you’re going to find success. But again, if you come to it, thinking you know the answer and you’re looking for a study to prove it, we’re probably not the company for that.

Drew McLellan:

And probably research isn’t the right tool anyway, so.

Tom Webster:

No. I think, if I can point out something that I think agencies and brands could do better when they consider doing thought leadership research, because I think thought leadership research, again, it puts food on my family, true. It’s some kind of bread and butter for us, and I enjoy it. But you also, and this is a common refrain I think amongst really good professional content marketers, you have to be prepared to market your marketing.

One of the things from the Infinite Dial and some other research that we’ve done on Smart Speakers, we have a partnership with NPR for the past several years now where we’ve put out a series of reports. We’ve put out five now called the Smart Audio Report, which is co-branded with Edison and NPR. And NPR, again, to their credit, they don’t just do the study and put it out there and assume that people will flock to a better mousetrap, they put in the work, to market the study. To put in the work to brand it, to design it, to get on the right stages. And they’ve been a wonderful partner, because they understand that the study might cost X. It’s going to cost you 3x, maybe, all said and done to get it out there. But the rewards could be 10 or 20x.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Well, I think that’s also a commitment of, again, educating your audience and wanting to make sure that they know what you know and putting the effort in to do that, so I agree. Actually, Smart Speakers was actually where I was just headed next, so your timing is fortuitous. That seems to me, and I know this, I know you talked about this in the Infinite Dial research. It seems like that is fertile ground for brands and agencies, potentially, but I don’t see very many people using it well.

In the conversations you’ve had and the research that you’ve done, where do you think the opportunities lie for agencies and brands when it comes to Smart Speakers? And where are they going to stub their toe, because we’re going to?

Tom Webster:

I think, the thing about Smart Speakers, Drew, is that they are just by very nature of having them in the house, there’s a shaky trust relationship. You’re always listening. You can go to alexa.amazon.com and you can see snippets of your voice recorded for everything you’ve ever said that it’s captured and not deleted, which we’re told it does, and we’ll see. So, there already is, there are trust issues and there are plenty of millions of people in America that have explicitly not bought them because of those trust issues.

Drew McLellan:

Absolutely.

Tom Webster:

So, I know that-

Drew McLellan:

And they have their cell phones in their house, but that’s a different story.

Tom Webster:

Well, yeah, look, if you can be listening to a streaming audio service, walking into Home Depot, and they can tell what aisle you’re in and that’s not a joke, so yeah, so there’s that. But I do know, especially with the development teams at both Amazon and with Google, with the Google Assistant and Google Home that maintaining that trust is job number one. It’s why they’re very consistent in the voice. That’s why you can’t really… I mean, you can stream your content, but you’re not going to monkey with the voice of Alexa and maintaining that trust is paramount.

So, I think if you are a brand looking to really make a dent in that space or you’re an agency that’s looking to do something creative in that space, job number one is to maintain that trust. Job number two is to maintain that trust and job number three, is to be genuinely helpful, genuinely helpful. And I think, I look at the skills that I use and trust and think are great. One of them is the Zyrtec AllergyCast, which gives you great detail about allergens that you didn’t even know about and tells you, “Am I going to need my allergy medicine today? Am I going to need an inhaler or whatever?” And there’s no overt messaging for Zyrtec other than it’s the Zyrtec AllergyCast. There’s no minute-long ad in there because that’s not what people want.

What people appreciate from Smart Speakers are short, contextually helpful things that don’t violate that trust. And so, if you think about that short contextually helpful and trustworthy, then it actually puts some very helpful and very limiting constraints around what I think a brand or an agency could do to not ruin those things with advertising either. But where things are going, I think and where agencies can start to put resources and be clever, things are starting to become more interactive with these devices as opposed to ask it to fire off a static skill, developing logic and conversation trees and real sort of branded experiences around that, that keep you immersed in the skill a little bit longer without violating that trust. There’s some interesting stuff being done there as well.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. I think it’s such a brave new world of opportunity, but I have not seen a lot of folks really nail it down. And I think you’re right. It’s all about are you willing to give more than you get, meaning that you’re not going to get to run a 60-second spot or do something else that this has to be a place where you just show up to be Uber helpful and get the credit for that in a more subtle way.

Tom Webster:

Yeah. And I think just to continue making this the oldest podcast, the oldest sounding podcast yet, Drew, since we started with Paul Harvey, to me, all the inspiration you need is I think, to go back to the original great voice skill. And that’s the Butterball Turkey Hotline. For me, the Butterball Turkey Hotline is the model to which any Smart Speaker skill should aspire. It should be interactive, help you in the moment in the context of doing a thing where your hands are full and you really need help. And you don’t want a bunch of messaging, you don’t want a bunch of jive, you just want to fix your medium rare turkey. And if you keep that model in the back of your mind, you won’t screw it up.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Well, I think that’s probably a good message for podcasting, too. I mean, I think, I suspect what it really is, is the reality for marketing today is I don’t care what the channel is. I think that’s at the end of the day, what consumers want is, “Just help me. And literally or figuratively, my hands are full. Don’t make me wait 10 minutes, just give me what I need. And I will appreciate you for that.”

Tom Webster:

Yeah, that’s, I mean, that’s exactly right. I mean, that’s behind things like Run-P and Squat or sit, and some of the other great apps that are out there. And having that mindset in the Smart Speaker and sort of doubling down on that, because these are really being invited into your home.

One of the more fascinating findings from the most recent Infinite Dial research to me was that not just the growth of penetration, but the growth in the number of devices in the home. And now, the average Smart Speaker owner owns at least two and about a third on three or more. So, they’re starting to, we’ve done lots of research where the number of radios in homes is declining, especially 18 to 34, about half of 18 to 34s say they don’t have a radio in their home.

And yet, people are putting Smart Speakers just $30 Amazon dots and Google minis in their bathrooms, in their garages, and what that’s doing is it’s opening up opportunities for consuming audio in environments and times and places where it wasn’t being consumed before. So, there’s almost a real renaissance in audio and in a particular spoken word audio that smart speakers are helping to power.

Drew McLellan:

The old is new again, right?

Tom Webster:

Yeah. The new never kills the old. It kills some of the old and makes the rest of the old better and that’s I think what we’re seeing now.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. I think it’s an exciting time to be thinking about how to use these tools and how to connect with audiences in new ways. And I think we have covered the gamut of them today, so I have to thank you for carving out the time to do this. I know you’re super busy and being willing to hop around on all these topics with me, it was a great conversation. Thank you.

Tom Webster:

Absolutely, Drew. I think you did a fine interviewing job, so.

Drew McLellan:

Thank you, sir.

Tom Webster:

Well done.

Drew McLellan:

I appreciate that very much from you. So, if folks want to learn more about Edison Research, if they want to track down you and some of your thought leadership, where are the best places for them to find you?

Tom Webster:

Well, the home base for all of our publicly available research is edisonresearch.com. And there’s a wide variety of things. They are not just on podcasting and audio, we also do the exit polls for the network’s during elections, which is not a thing they allow me to touch through, but it’s something we do. And that’s, so edisonresearch.com.

Probably the best place to find me, not there, is on Twitter, Webby 2001 on Twitter. And I’ve got a just a quick sort of speaker page up at tomwebster.net. And I write a bunch of stuff on Medium, too. Medium is where I put a lot of my really long-form thought pieces these days.

Drew McLellan:

Well, we will include links to all of that in the show notes, so folks can track you down. Thanks again, Tom. This was a fascinating conversation and I know that it’s going to get people’s brains cooking, so I appreciate it.

Tom Webster:

Thank you, sir.

Drew McLellan:

All right, guys, this wraps up another episode of Build a Better Agency. I gave you ample opportunity to, through me, pick Tom’s brain and give you all kinds of things to think about. This is not a sit back and ponder sort of episode. This is a play this for your leadership team, play this for your creatives, be thinking about how can you use these new channels and ways to serve your clients and frankly, to serve your own agency because I think there’s lots of opportunity here for you. And I think Tom teed up not only some great ideas in terms of where, but also more importantly, how. So, give it some thought, and I would love to hear what you do with it.

I will be back next week with another guest, who will get you thinking about your agency in a little bit of a different way. In the meantime, you can always track me down at agencymanagementinstitute.com.

Just a reminder, we are as always, super grateful to get those ratings and reviews. And remember, if you leave one, take a screenshot and shoot me an email with it because we do a drawing every month where somebody gets a free seat at one of our live workshops or one of our on-demand workshops. So, happy to reward you for that and happy to encourage you to do that, so we can spread the word, we get more folks listening. I’ll be back next week. Talk to you soon.

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