Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:20
Alright episode 29, everyone. 29 and feeling fine. I don’t even know if that rhymes. But we’ve got a special guest here. My dear old friend Matt Rogers, welcome. Say Hello, Matt.
Matt Rogers 0:31
Hello, Don, thank you for having me on today.
Don Mock 0:33
Yeah, you are more than welcome. It’s exciting to have a guest here in the palatial studio that we built out just for this visit, right?
Matt Rogers 0:40
This studio is spectacular.
Don Mock 0:42
It’s incredible, right? It’s the Stormtrooper in the corner that does it for you, you know.
Matt Rogers 0:45
I’m a little anxious about that, because he’s got a big a big gun.
Don Mock 0:49
He’s coming at you.
Matt Rogers 0:49
He is.
Don Mock 0:51
So Matt is here, as I just said, and Matt has a history in education. You’ve been in education most of your life. Is that a correct statement?
Matt Rogers 0:59
That is true. Yeah. Even my mother and my father, were both in education.
Don Mock 1:02
Were they? Okay, okay. And so we’re talking principal working at district, working on campus, I believe, like a guidance counselor at one point?
Matt Rogers 1:10
Yeah. All those things.
Don Mock 1:11
You want to run us through a little bit of a different things you’ve done?
Matt Rogers 1:13
Sure. Yeah. I started out as a classroom teacher. Elementary.
Don Mock 1:18
Okay, I love it.
Matt Rogers 1:18
Working with upper grade students fifth grade, and moved into school counseling. And did that work at the elementary and middle school level. Quite a change, elementary to middle school. You know, you have kids.
Don Mock 1:29
I do have children.
Matt Rogers 1:30
Yes. Then moved and did that for a while. Fun job.
Don Mock 1:35
Yeah.
Matt Rogers 1:35
Very fun job.
Don Mock 1:36
What’s the best part of the job? Is it the kids or the parents are neither?
Matt Rogers 1:39
Oh, its the kids (laughter).
Don Mock 1:42
Im just kidding.
Matt Rogers 1:42
It’s the kids. I mean, the parents are awesome. The ones that are your ally, and you should really help you do the right way. They’re incredible.
Don Mock 1:50
Absolutely.
Matt Rogers 1:51
Ya, but the kids are awesome. And the teachers as well.
Don Mock 1:55
Yeah, of course. Gotta have a great staff.
Matt Rogers 1:57
Yeah.
Don Mock 1:58
It takes a village they say.
Matt Rogers 1:59
It does take a village. It really does. And then just moved into administration. Did that for a while at middle school and then principal for a while at elementary. Yeah, and now I’m doing human resource work. At School District.
Don Mock 2:17
So I think it’s safe to say, I think you’ve got credentials and skills to pay the bills as it relates to all things education, which is pretty exciting.
Matt Rogers 2:26
Yeah.
Don Mock 2:26
So the reason why I wanted to, and everyone’s listening to this wondering what in the world is like, an elementary school guy or middle school, or whatever the case may be? What are they doing talking about advertising and marketing? And I thought it might be an interesting idea to pick a subject matter experts brain on marketing as it relates to children.
Matt Rogers 2:44
Okay.
Don Mock 2:45
So early in my career, and I can name drop most of the time, we don’t name drop, you know, clients and things and whatnot. But I have mentioned in the past that I worked on Kellogg’s many, many moons ago, I worked on Kellogg’s for years and years. And you think about breakfast cereal. You know, you’ve got all sorts of cartoon characters. Snap, Crackle, Pop, right? You’ve got Tony the Tiger. You’ve got all these different sort of mascots, right?
Matt Rogers 3:05
Absolutely.
Don Mock 3:07
And I would say that’s direct. Hey, we’re running Saturday morning cartoons during commercials or during cartoons and whatever and thinking, “hey, kids, ask your mom to buy rice krispies.” That is, you know, is that innocent? I have no idea. Is that direct marketing to children? Sure. Sure. So it’s kind of an interesting thought about marketing to kids, quasi good, bad, you know, indifferent? I don’t know? And, you know, I’ve got some initial thoughts I wrote down here. I did some show prep. But as I bring the topic up to you, and I know that I’m kind of sneak attacking you, as you popped into the office for a visit, and said, hey, surprise you’re on the pod. You know, any initial thoughts as it relates to sort of marketing for kids? I mean, obviously, you work with businesses that work into the education space. I’ve worked on, suppliers that supply equipment to schools won’t name those names. But I mean, I’ve circled around that as well, in terms of, you know, trying to sell products and or services into district.But any thoughts related to marketing kids anything?
Matt Rogers 4:13
Yeah. Well, I mean, just kind of your intro about Kellogg’s and just my own life experience as a kid, right. So growing up in the South, and you know, watching Saturday morning cartoons. That was everything.
Don Mock 4:23
Yeah, for sure.
Matt Rogers 4:23
Everything. Yeah. And the first thing that comes to mind as it relates to like marketing to kids, and then the whole realm of kids learning is Schoolhouse Rock.
Don Mock 4:34
Oh, yeah, totally.
Matt Rogers 4:35
I mean…
Don Mock 4:35
Conjunction Junction. What’s your function?
Matt Rogers 4:37
Yeah totally. I mean, an inner planet, Janet. She’s a galaxy girl. I mean, you could, like that was so fun to actually have those Schoolhouse Rock come on. Then you go to school and you like, sing it together. And the teacher is like, wow, you know?
Don Mock 4:54
Yeah.
Matt Rogers 4:54
And it’s pretty interesting because even, you know, 20 years later when I started teaching thing. Schoolhouse Rock was still a resource.
Don Mock 5:04
Yeah, that is fascinating. Yeah.
Matt Rogers 5:06
And so that’s a great way that, you could take what interests kids and integrate it into direct content or direct direct learning and instruction.
Don Mock 5:16
Totally, that’s a really interesting positive observation. You know what I mean? Of like, you know, making it fun for kids. Learning is fun. I think learning is fun. You didn’t have the benefit. But we recorded a podcast earlier about what’s the best part about your job. And one of the things I mentioned actually was the learning and here I am way removed from school, but the fact that I get to learn all these different things about all these different businesses and travel around and do all these different things, I still totally get a kick out of that. That’s the most interesting part of the job, right? So yeah, you know, learning is Hey, learning is fundamental, you know, read a book. It’s good times, right?
Matt Rogers 5:49
Yeah. I mean, we teach kids to be lifelong learners. And we try to model that as well. So when you look at a lot of the instructional materials from Scholastic, just different textbook companies, huge entities.
Don Mock 6:04
Yeah. McGraw Hill dare I say.
Matt Rogers 6:05
Yeah. I mean, in just the conversion from print text to digital text and engagement with devices like iPads and things. You’re opening… You’re making that written page come alive. In ways that we’d never even dreamed of when we were kids.
Don Mock 6:14
Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Rogers 6:23
So there are opportunities for marketing. Big time.
Don Mock 6:26
Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure.
Matt Rogers 6:27
Like Scholastic, they have the the monopoly on on the bookstore.
Don Mock 6:36
The school book fair?
Matt Rogers 6:38
Oh, yeah. And I gotta say they do it. So well.
Don Mock 6:43
I’m gonna call that a positive then.
Matt Rogers 6:45
Very positive. It inspires kids to read the love of reading, sharing that with their peers with their family. It’s just, it’s great.
Don Mock 6:53
Yeah. Any other sort of topical things come to mind? Maybe even the flip side of things. Like, oh, companies that want to get into schools or want to get into district where you’re like, oh, no, no, no, this is not an appropriate situation, or is that hard to judge? Because it’s kind of, you know, education around the United States is obviously such a local thing, right? There’s no national like, hey, this is what you do.
Matt Rogers 7:16
Yeah. And there are different rules and guidelines that dictate who has access. So you might, go to one school district in one state, and they allow, you know, Coke machines in their high schools.
Don Mock 7:27
Yeah, yeah.
Matt Rogers 7:28
And snack machines and another school would say, oh, no, there’s not gonna be any of that. So, different locations have different rules around who has access .
Don Mock 7:37
Interesting. Yeah I mean, for me, a personal experience of that ground up marketing. And there definitely is a strategy, especially on college campuses, where, you know, the studies show if you start getting college aged kids brand allegiance, right? Where it’s like, oh, I drink Mountain Dew or whatever. You know, whatever they get, I don’t want to say addicted to that sounds bad. But whatever they get familiar with and love the branding for in their formative years is what they’re going to carry for the next 2030 years right? So there definitely is a strategy of college ambassadorship you know, hey, get them used to XYZ something and then when they start making money, they’ll keep those sort of allegiances going. Takis, the chip Takis never heard of those things ever, until they were in like every elementary school. And then suddenly, every kid is like, I gotta get Takis, I gotta get Takis. And they’re not at the grocery store, right? Because it was like a foodservice thing. And then now all of a sudden, it’s a retail brand. And you can buy your Takis everywhere, right? So that’s a funny, interesting, just personal anecdote of like, the pull through strategy of like, had never heard of these things until the kids, you know, they loved them and wanted them.
Matt Rogers 8:48
Exactly. Yeah. And I think if you think about just the different areas that kids learn within a school. Just whether it’s social learning or academic learning. Like you think about sports in the way that different brands try to get their advertising, get their imagery in front of kids in high school, middle school and high school. You think about in the lunchroom. You know, if it’s, you know, Oscar Meyer, you know, Lunchables or whatever. All of that comes in and gets kids interest, you know? So that’s kind of interesting. So you have some marketing that tries to get into the actual classroom. Another example would be like Minecraft.
Don Mock 9:33
Oh, here we go.
Matt Rogers 9:34
Okay, so that’s a game. That is now an amazing instructional tool.
Don Mock 9:37
Yeah. Well talk to me more about that instructional tool in terms of building or in terms of the way you have to craft? Because I’m familiar with Minecraft through my kids as well. I am shocked at the level of the depth I guess, of how you have to combine different elements to create whatever you’re trying to create, the crafting aspect of Minecraft. I think it’s fascinating.
Matt Rogers 9:59
It is and and all the strategy and the thinking that goes into being successful in that game. And I don’t know the game extremely well. But I know that there’s a whole branch of it that has started an education world.
Don Mock 10:14
Yeah, for sure. I think there are multiple versions of the game. And one of them is the educational version. And I think that there’s a way to like, set your school server up. And then everybody can play either on premise or remote, and do their crafting and all sorts of different things. But it truly is down to like, the, and I don’t want to say a periodic table of elements, but it’s like you have the, you have iron, you have wood, you have all these different types of wood, you have sands, and you have all these sort of building blocks. And then the different combinations of putting them together is how you get better and better. You know, armament or toys, or whatever the case may be. So there is a scientific like, oh, yeah, like, you know, hydrogen goes with us to create a new, you know, whatever the case may be, it’s pretty funny.
Matt Rogers 11:00
So like, take it back to when we were kids, and I’m a little older than you, but in no way did Pong on Atari help me prepare for science class (laughter).
Don Mock 11:10
No. Yeah, absolutely not. Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s a really good point. Well, and I think that there’s a lot of educational, you know, gaming too, in terms of like, just math games, and all sorts, which is pretty cool.
Matt Rogers 11:23
I mean, that actually helps a lot. All the apps that have come out just to remediate learning for kids. If they’re struggling. A game format that they can do independently.
Don Mock 11:34
Well, there’s the competitive aspect too, of wanting to level up, right? Like, hey, I did this simple equation. But now it slowly gets harder, but you don’t even know that you’re learning, right? And then it’s getting harder, but you gotta get the high score, whatever the case may be. So I think it’s cool. I think we’re talking more about the positive aspects of marketing for children. And a lot of that actually, still is kind of the pull through adults, right? Like, kids don’t have the money and the resources to buy things directly. So it’s that Saturday morning, and for us that Saturday morning, GI Joe commercial or toy commercial or whatever, clearly was aimed at us. But it was Hey, Mom and Dad, I want to get that Star Wars action figure. You know what I mean? Like, it was, you know, I gotta mow lawns to get the money to do that type of thing. I think the opposite end of the spectrum, that maybe people thinking about marketing for kids always gets the negative press is really more than nicotine products and things like that, right? So 30 years ago, we had Joe Camel, right? For those of those of us listening that aren’t familiar with that, but Joe Camel was obviously Camel Cigarettes. And Joe Camel was like a, an illustrative version of a camel. Who was it’s kind of weird to say out loud, actually, but like, you know, a drawing of a camel. And he was like, you know, swanky and sexy and always in these positions, always smoking, right? But he’s cool. He’s not 007, but he’s a cool camel, right? And that, you know, I think there was a lawsuit in 92, beginning of the 90s of like, hey, this is, you know, targeted to kids and making smoking cool and making kids want to smoke. And I was like, oh, oh, okay. I mean, I’m not that old. But I remember bubblegum cigarettes.
Matt Rogers 13:15
Absolutely.
Don Mock 13:15
You know what I mean? Candies, candy cigarettes and all that stuff, right?
Matt Rogers 13:18
Yeah.
Don Mock 13:18
So I know, Joe Camel gotten a bunch of trouble for that. And then the modern day version of Joe Camel. It’s weird how history repeats itself and 30 year loops, right? You know what I’m gonna say, right?
Matt Rogers 13:28
Yeah,
Joule.
Don Mock 13:29
Joule, right. So, you know, they there were over. I didn’t realize this until I looked this up. There were over 5000 individual lawsuits, against
Joule for marketing to kids. Wow. Right. And it was well, you know, are they marketed to kids? I don’t know. I mean, I’m not gonna go into the nuances in the specificity of it. But it’s Hey, yeah, there’s young people smoking mango, you know, electronic cigarettes or whatever.
Matt Rogers 13:57
Cotton candy.
Don Mock 13:58
Yeah, exactly, right. So you know, there are 5000 individual lawsuits that basically got packaged up into a $1.7 billion financial settlement.
Wow!
For marketing to kids, right? And so, you know, I don’t you know, they said, Young models, social media, they were giving away free samples. So that’ll get you in trouble. Now. That is, you know, there is a, I guess it needs to be pointed out, there is a big bodily harm difference between smoking a nicotine product and buying a plastic action figure. You know what I mean? In terms of marketing for kids. So I mean, they’re not the same.
Matt Rogers 14:32
Right.
Don Mock 14:34
But it is interesting that, you know, I mean, they lost they lost a lawsuit saying marking to kids, right?
Matt Rogers 14:40
Well, that makes me think about some of the toys that were marketed to us when we were young that are now no longer around. Because they’re so damn dangerous.
Don Mock 14:48
Oh, yeah. Well, we had a lot of spring loaded blaster things, right.
Matt Rogers 14:52
Pogo sticks.
Don Mock 14:53
Yeah. Pogo sticks?
Matt Rogers 14:54
Don’t you remember pogo sticks?
Don Mock 14:55
Yeah, I remember that. Is that not a thing anymore?
Matt Rogers 14:57
I don’t think so.
Don Mock 14:58
Oh, wow. Okay.
Matt Rogers 14:59
And then did Do you ever play yard darts with the metal tip?
Don Mock 15:02
Oh, yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. Lawn Darts. Yeah, that seems like a horrible idea.
Matt Rogers 15:06
You can’t find those anymore.
Don Mock 15:07
Those are probably worth some money, actually, because there are so illegal. Yeah, let’s throw this giant metal spike in the air and hope the javelin doesn’t hit Little Timmy right?
Matt Rogers 15:15
I mean, brothers are gonna throw them directly at each other, right?
Don Mock 15:18
Well, we are a litigious society now more so than ever, I think. I mean, we sue everybody for everything. I mean, you know, I bought a cup of coffee and spilled it all over myself and sued McDonald’s and made 20 million. You know what I mean? Like, that’s kind of where we’re at, right?
Matt Rogers 15:33
That’s true.
Don Mock 15:33
I mean, I’m astonished that my some of my shirts, you know, say have a tag on the inside that say do not iron while wearing, right? Now that wouldn’t exist, that label wouldn’t exist, right?
Matt Rogers 15:44
If it weren’t for that lawsuit.
Don Mock 15:45
Yeah, exactly. So somewhere along the line that happened. So, I don’t know, it’s just an interesting sort of topic I think. You know, marketing for kids. Most of the time the product that I’ve worked on in my career, for 30 years, is working on a company that might have a product for kids, but we’re not marketing directly to the kids. You know, it’s the grown-ups that are buying the stroller, for example. You know what I mean? It’s the grownups that are deciding where to go to dinner, right. But the kids are asking for, you know, to go to XYZ restaurant because they’re familiar with it, things like that.
Matt Rogers 16:12
Right. I mean, maybe cereal. That’s something that’s still very geared towards kids. I mean, what else is there in the grocery store geared toward kids beyond candy?
Don Mock 16:31
Well, you got all these…
Matt Rogers 16:33
Ice cream?
Don Mock 16:33
Yeah, ice cream. You got, I was gonna say yogurt squeezers.
Matt Rogers 16:36
Oh yeah.
Don Mock 16:36
Then they’re the Danimals. I mean, they’re is still very much. You know, you go down different aisles, and there are kind of things that are, definitely geared graphically, packaged design wise and everything for family stuff. So I mean, I still have all those and even though they’re geared for kids, I maybe, I may eat a fruit snack or two, late at night.
Matt Rogers 16:56
Or cheese sticks. I noticed that.
Don Mock 16:59
For sure. So, I feel like I’ve been doing all the talking any weird stories you’ve got from your history in terms of walking the halls of school? You know, posters that are hanging up? I’m thinking of, you know, for me, it was DARE right to keep kids off drugs. I don’t know, if that’s marketing for kids. But it kind of really is marketing for kids. It was a big nationwide campaign.
Matt Rogers 17:19
I mean, I think about the NFL. A couple of things that come to mind for me are some of the contests. Like I was at a school, and the NFL had a big contest like, the school with the most school spirit. You know, about, their NFL team.
Don Mock 17:36
Interesting.
Matt Rogers 17:36
And the winner got and we won, $25,000.
Don Mock 17:40
Wow! That’s legit.
Matt Rogers 17:42
Legit.
Don Mock 17:43
Now that’s $25,000 scholarship for the school?
Matt Rogers 17:45
Straight to the school.
Don Mock 17:46
Ok, Perfect.
Matt Rogers 17:46
Yeah. And so it’s a great marketing campaign for NFL. NBA does the same thing.
Don Mock 17:53
Really? Okay.
Matt Rogers 17:54
Yeah. I mean, they’ve set up different marketing campaigns to build their fan base.
Don Mock 18:00
Yeah, that’s cool.
Matt Rogers 18:01
Especially from the kids in that, you know, in that zone or the region. Yeah. So I’ve seen a lot of that, from the sports coming into play, which is, I don’t see that as a negative.
Don Mock 18:13
Yeah, I was gonna say it’s probably a tax write off for those guys. But it’s also good will. I mean, hey, $25 grand is $25 grand.
Matt Rogers 18:20
Give it to a school who has a lot of school spirit for your team? And then yeah, players came out to give the check and everything. And it promotes kids, you know, really getting into physical exercise and things like that.
Don Mock 18:32
Well, I know that the NFL at one point had, Play 60.
Matt Rogers 18:35
Yeah that’s it.
Don Mock 18:35
Someone was trying to get kids to move and groove.
Matt Rogers 18:38
There was a whole package a whole, like, a whole instructional unit that that schools could adopt, and inbed within. And I mean, they’re smart. You know, it’s in the PE class. There’s reading, there’s texts associated so you can pull it into the reading block. There’s mathematics associated when you like, figure out, how many yards you go.
Don Mock 19:00
Yeah.
Matt Rogers 19:01
I mean, there’s so much you can do with it. So I’ve seen a lot of that. I think also, one thing that comes to mind was, I don’t know if it’s marketing, but it’s more about imagery in the message, the overt message or the covert message.
Don Mock 19:16
Okay.
Matt Rogers 19:17
So when I was in middle school, one of the big things about middle school is dress code.
Don Mock 19:23
Okay. Oh, yeah. I’m living at right now.
Matt Rogers 19:25
Yeah. And so this was in the early 2000s.
Don Mock 19:29
Okay.
Matt Rogers 19:30
Like 2000, 2001.
Don Mock 19:34
Do people still call that the aughts?
Matt Rogers 19:36
I don’t even know.
Don Mock 19:37
I don’t know either.
Matt Rogers 19:37
I have no idea.
Don Mock 19:38
(Laughter) All right I interrupted you. Keep going.
Matt Rogers 19:42
But a teacher came to me and we had made these posters about dresscode. And the boy in the poster was dressed correctly, but girl in the poster was not
Don Mock 19:53
Okay.
Matt Rogers 19:54
I didn’t think anything of it. Well, my teachers came to me and she said, What message is that sending about Girls?
Don Mock 20:00
Yeah, there’s a kerfuffle brewing.
Matt Rogers 20:02
I said, what do you mean? She’s like, why does a girl have to be dressed inappropriately?
Don Mock 20:06
Yeah.
Matt Rogers 20:07
I said, I had never thought about that. She’s like, if you want to be equitable, have a boy dressed appropriately and a boy dressed inappropriately and, do the same for girls.
Don Mock 20:15
Yeah.
Matt Rogers 20:15
And for me, that was a moment I’ll always remember, and I thanked the teacher for it. Because, I didn’t look at it from that perspective. But I always did after that.
Don Mock 20:24
Yeah, that’s interesting.
Matt Rogers 20:25
So that’s a little bit more about imagery that is put in front of kids and the message it may send and you don’t even know.
Don Mock 20:32
No, I have a middle aged, middle aged? That’s not right. I have a middle school daughter right now. And I have an older daughter that went through middle school. So I’m very familiar with the discrepancy of dress code, if that makes any sense. But I think that’s a great example of just, you don’t really think about something until you think about something. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s not a malicious thing. It’s not purposeful, you know, but it’s it is important to have representation for, you know, young developing curious minds.
Matt Rogers 21:02
Yeah. And I think like, with the whole negative side of marketing that could… You know, I would say that schools are pretty protective of what’s allowed in their schools. Now, if you go to smaller districts with less oversight. You never know what’s gonna get in front of kids.
Don Mock 21:21
Anything goes.
Matt Rogers 21:22
Yeah, I mean, in metro Atlanta areas, there’s pretty rigid guidelines around what gets put in from the kids.
Don Mock 21:29
That’s cool. That’s cool. All right. Well, thanks for coming on the pod man. I super enjoyed it.
Matt Rogers 21:33
Yeah.
Don Mock 21:33
Before we let you go, let me ask you a couple random questions. You’re on the hot seat right now.
Matt Rogers 21:37
Ok.
Don Mock 21:37
So favorite ad, or anything from from your life? I’m just I’m just riffing right now and freeform this. Any any favorite ad or anything from the past? Like, oh that always makes me chuckle or oh my god that car commercial jingle drove me crazy. You know what I mean? Like, just anything off the top of your head.
Matt Rogers 21:57
Mentos Freshness.
Don Mock 21:59
Hey, those were fun.
Matt Rogers 22:00
That was fun.
Don Mock 22:01
The fresh maker or whatever. Yeah. Okay. All right. And then favorite brand, give a brand that you love? I think I’ll ask all of our guests that come on. I think I’ll give them these two questions.
Matt Rogers 22:12
I mean, honestly, I’m from Atlanta. So Coca Cola. Coca Cola is a big brand for me. I mean, because I’m from that era where Coca Cola clothes were really big. You know when they had that minute where they were doing Coca Cola clothing.
Don Mock 22:24
In the 80s. Oh yeah, for sure for sure. All right, cool. Mentos and Coke and you know what happens when you mix those together?
Matt Rogers 22:31
Something special.
Don Mock 22:32
Fireworks my friends (laughter). All right, everybody go home and do a science experiment of Mentos and Coke. It’s funny how that worked out. Great job, Matt.
Matt Rogers 22:38
Yeah. Sure.
Don Mock 22:39
All right. Well, everybody can find us online at Mocktheagency.com. You can search us on the socials @MOCKtheagency. Drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you. All right, thanks everybody.
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