Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:20
Alright, episode 99 Rob, we are back.
Rob Broadfoot 0:22
9999
Don Mock 0:24
What do you think of when you think of 99?
Rob Broadfoot 0:26
Nena. Luftballons.
Don Mock 0:28
Yeah, okay, well, that’s a good segue
Rob Broadfoot 0:30
or Jay Z. 99 problems
Don Mock 0:33
Yes. I think of it was always reserved for like the meanest NFL football defensive player feels like always. 99 was like, the badass like, I’m gonna sack the court.
Rob Broadfoot 0:47
I’m just gonna I’m gonna kill you.
Don Mock 0:49
Exactly. It feels like you can’t worn 99 on the D line, if you’re not a total badass.
Rob Broadfoot 0:54
Right, so you gotta be able to 300 pounds to wear 99.
Don Mock 0:58
Yeah, so, but 99 That’s pretty exciting. We have done 99 of these things. Yeah, Bob Barker. I’m gonna totally bungle this but I’m sure you saw it all over the socials the greatest, the greatest fun little pun, joke about the closest to $1 over
Rob Broadfoot 1:13
I mean, it’s kind of perfect.
Don Mock 1:14
It is kind of perfect. I mean, somebody’s got you know, I don’t know, a million likes on that joke. Yeah. Good. Old Bob is Price is right still going on?
Rob Broadfoot 1:23
Drew Carey? I think it’s Drew Carey which I think he is a good replacement.
Don Mock 1:30
Yeah, I’m totally fine with that. Yeah,
Rob Broadfoot 1:31
I don’t know. I don’t watch a lot of price is right now.
Don Mock 1:34
Well, we’re not young. We’re not staying home from school anymore. You know, like, I mean, it was
Rob Broadfoot 1:38
generally watching TV at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday morning.
Don Mock 1:42
I mean, you could say that Bob Barker was the sick kids stay at home king of television. Yeah. And, you know, and it was there was a lot of like, college kids on price is right. You know, a lot of like, University of California college kids whatever, you know, and then a lot of blue hairs. You know, there was, you know,
Rob Broadfoot 2:00
Who do you think had longer tenure? Pat Sajak or Bob Barker?
Don Mock 2:06
It’s a great question.
Rob Broadfoot 2:07
Sajak was Wheel of Fortune. Of course.
Don Mock 2:08
Yes. Sajak is still going strong. He announced he’s stepping down. Right? And Seacrest is taken over is that correct. I think I think probably Sajak was on longer right? I mean, I don’t know when the price is right started I don’t know.
Rob Broadfoot 2:24
Yeah. I couldn’t tell you somebody somebody call in and let us know.
Don Mock 2:27
I mean, the world is a different place Rob worlds a different place. We don’t have we don’t have
Rob Broadfoot 2:32
pencil thin microphone.
Don Mock 2:33
Yeah. Richard Dawson. So thin microphones kissing ladies on the lips. No, but I was gonna say Alex Trebek. I mean, he’s obviously passed and gone, you know, so
Rob Broadfoot 2:40
He was the best
Don Mock 2:41
The big guys are gone from all the game shows. So
Rob Broadfoot 2:46
the best game show spoof ever was Will Ferrell doing
Don Mock 2:51
on SNL. Right?
Rob Broadfoot 2:52
So good and they did get like McConaughey comes on. And it’s good. Yeah.
Don Mock 2:58
No, that’s good stuff. It’s amazing, though, that like you think about I mean, Richard Dawson, and also the back of the pencil thin mic and Bob Barker had the pencil thin mic, you know, I mean, black and white television was going on. I mean, Merv Griffin started all that stuff. I mean, it was a black and white television world. And now we’re not even in a television world anymore. We’re streamers right? And yet those game shows are still rocking.
Rob Broadfoot 3:21
Standing the test of time. simple games.
Don Mock 3:23
What was your favorite game show? Or What still is yours?
Rob Broadfoot 3:27
Well I did used to love when I was a kid I always loved let’s make a deal. Monty Hall. Because it was like you had the people dressed up in costumes and then it was like oh, if you picked on everything it would be a donkey donkey Yeah,
Don Mock 3:44
you’re the loser. Yeah, you pick the Jackass literally. Now was that the let me empty your purse if you have like a bag
Rob Broadfoot 3:52
Like a box of matches. If there was a lighter. It was always a lot of smoking stuff back in the late 70s.
Don Mock 3:59
There were a fair amount of matches involved in game shows back then. So
Rob Broadfoot 4:02
yeah, you’ve got to pack a Capris in there.
Don Mock 4:05
yeah, that’s a good one. That was Richard Dawson too, wasn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t that a Dawson or who?
Rob Broadfoot 4:14
Monty Hall. I think it was Monty Hall. I think
Don Mock 4:18
I have no idea. When I was a kid. I think my favorite was Press Your Luck, right? The big giant board thing around the perimeters. And then all they do is yell no. Whammies No. Whammies No. And stop. And then you get the little whammy illustration of the guy with lawn mower taking all your money. Yeah, all that weird you know, I don’t even remember the questions being very good. The who hosted that. I just remember the whole visual spectacle. I feel like yeah, not the greatest of game shows.
Rob Broadfoot 4:52
The dating game was pretty fun to watch sometimes. Yeah.
Don Mock 4:54
Old school dating games. Yeah, behind the curtain or whatever. Contestant number one what’s your idea of
Rob Broadfoot 4:59
You love sailing.
Don Mock 5:00
Yeah. Yeah, it was good stuff.
Rob Broadfoot 5:03
Wasn’t that the story that that the serial killer was on that show? I think it was Richard Ramirez. I don’t know why I remember that.
Don Mock 5:10
A stalker?
Rob Broadfoot 5:11
I think it was the Nightstalker
Don Mock 5:12
Was he on the show?
Rob Broadfoot 5:13
One of the serial killers was on the dating game. I think it was Richard Ramirez and it was like a contestant. I don’t think he got the gig, thankfully for the woman
Don Mock 5:26
man, that is I did not know that or maybe I did. I don’t even know. I don’t know who it was. I feel like there was a story about somebody that was on the game, but I don’t know which, which bad guy it was.
Rob Broadfoot 5:36
Family Feud. Also a fun one to play along at home.
Don Mock 5:39
Yeah, Family Feud is a good one. Yeah, it’s fine. It’s fine. I did not like the $20,000 pyramid back in the day, because I didn’t I wasn’t old enough to understand all the references and all the answers. You know What I mean? Like,
Rob Broadfoot 5:51
Is that where the two are sitting across from each other and the thing and yeah
Don Mock 5:54
And it’s things to start with a letter S? And it’s, you know, like, you’re just spouting, you can’t obviously say the question or the answer, but you’re spouting off all these weird things. And people are going bam, bam, bam.
Rob Broadfoot 6:06
Not my favorite.
Don Mock 6:06
Yeah, not my jam either. Just because I think when I was little, I didn’t really get it. You know What I mean? I didn’t
Rob Broadfoot 6:12
It was an adult. It was an adult game.
Don Mock 6:14
Yeah for sure. Speaking of adult games, actually, I have no idea how to transition to today’s topic, which is actually not board games or television shows. No game shows. We thought we would chat today a little bit about holiday marketing. We just had Labor Day. A lot of hey, free labor day sales, all sorts of things we are you know, we always joke, it’s Christmas in July. Right? Because a lot of our big packaged goods companies and a lot of sort of, you know, you’re working on things, obviously, months ahead of time, to have things ready, right? We run social media for a fair amount of clients. Right? And there’s always the
Rob Broadfoot 6:50
A lot of holiday messaging.
Don Mock 6:52
Yeah, yeah. Do we talk about this holiday? Do we, you know, is it appropriate for XYZ brand to mention this holiday? Or do you just stay away from it? You know, like, whatever, you know. So just sort of the topic of holiday marketing in general. Right. And you have a funny story
Rob Broadfoot 7:06
Well I went to Costco over the weekend. Mostly cleaning products just kidding if you’re interested.
Don Mock 7:12
Okay. Well, paper probably a lot of paper towels
Rob Broadfoot 7:14
A lot of paper towels.
Don Mock 7:15
Yeah, yeah. What other cleaning stuff? Are we getting like Spray?
Rob Broadfoot 7:20
Clorox wipes. Toilet paper also.
Don Mock 7:24
totally acceptable answer. Love it.
Rob Broadfoot 7:26
A few random things in there anyway.
Don Mock 7:28
So you’re making a Costco run.
Rob Broadfoot 7:29
Making a Costco run. That place is absolutely bonkers all the time.
Don Mock 7:33
What day of the week were you there?
Rob Broadfoot 7:34
I was there on Sunday. Well, I had to remember because it was a long weekend. holiday weekend. I was there Sunday at like 2 o’clock
Don Mock 7:45
Okay. Yeah, that feels the feels like, potentially bad timing.
Rob Broadfoot 7:49
Well, I had to go this weekend.
Don Mock 7:52
Well, that’s the window you had to go.
Rob Broadfoot 7:53
And it was like, it didn’t I didn’t it didn’t occur to me like, oh, Labor Day cookouts and things people are buying Or you know, all the other stuff anyways place was like a zoo.
Don Mock 8:02
Yeah, there’s no good time to go there. I mean,
Rob Broadfoot 8:05
No, you gotta go at like,
Don Mock 8:07
Even if you get there early. You’re there with everybody lined up.
Rob Broadfoot 8:09
Like 8 at night on a Tuesday if they’re even open that late. Anyways so I’m there at Costco and yeah, I mean, sure enough. It is what September the fifth today, I believe. Christmas trees everywhere. Like like it’s out. I mean, is out. Fake Christmas trees.
Don Mock 8:25
Inflatable Santa’s?
Rob Broadfoot 8:26
Inflatable Santa’s and everything. Yeah. And it’s it kind of dawned on me that now we’re now we’re overlapping.
Don Mock 8:33
That’s a big old F U to Halloween, by the way.
Rob Broadfoot 8:36
And Thanksgiving, arguably not a cornucopia in sight. You know, it was all sleigh bells.
Don Mock 8:43
The Horn O Plenty is filled with Christmas goods.
Rob Broadfoot 8:46
And there were a few. There definitely were some Halloween like the skeleton everybody loves, animatronics and all this kind of crazy things. Which are awesome but definitely overshadowed already by Christmas. You know, and I was gonna say that, I think in general, and we all know it’s getting earlier and earlier
Don Mock 9:12
It just kind of stresses me out, man. I mean, it’s like 100 degrees outside.
Rob Broadfoot 9:17
I don’t like it
Don Mock 9:18
and we’ve got Christmas decorations in retail. It’s crazy.
Rob Broadfoot 9:21
But I think that if you look at the past 20 years, I think the holiday that’s shown the most explosive growth would be Halloween.
Don Mock 9:32
Oh, for sure.
Rob Broadfoot 9:33
You know, just in terms of you know, it started all started I think with the styrofoam tombstones. And once somebody figured that out, then it was boom. I mean, I know at our house. I don’t know about your house but our house like our lawn is littered
Don Mock 9:50
We have one decoration.
Rob Broadfoot 9:52
You have the giant you have the giant cat. Is that climbing up the side of the house or something?
Don Mock 9:53
We have half storey tall inflatable cat it takes up The entire yard it’s tail is way above the house. I mean it is insane.
Rob Broadfoot 9:56
It sits on the yard or is the like on the house?
Don Mock 9:57
No, he’s standing on the yard takes up the entire front yard. And then we have a couple I shouldn’t say one we have a couple of ancillary mini cats. And the irony being that like we hate cats like we’re not a cat fan like everyone’s allergic to cats. I shouldn’t say we hate cats. We’re allergic to cats. But yeah on on hallows eve, we’re all about the giants magical kitty Hollow is the name of the cat get it? Because the cat is inflatable.
Rob Broadfoot 10:33
It’s a good name. It’s big. I’ve seen pictures.
Don Mock 10:35
We have hashtags people stop by and hold the sign and take pictures and # hollow the cat.
Rob Broadfoot 10:39
do you leave it inflated 24 hour? does it run 24 hours a day?
Don Mock 10:42
Yeah. We never deflate it. It’s on the whole time with its with a gigantic eyes staring at you in the darkness.
Rob Broadfoot 10:48
Our problem is
Don Mock 10:51
and it’s there like October 1.
Rob Broadfoot 10:56
I love a month of Halloween. Yeah, I’m totally good with that but then I’m also a big like, Hey, first weekend after Halloween. It’s coming down. Yeah, everything needs to come down. Do not let it linger. Our problem is that is that Ian specifically my stepson he, I mean, the dude loves Halloween. He loves He loves Halloween and I’m right there with him. I love Halloween too. All kids love Halloween. But he every year. His grandparents give him money to go buy Halloween stuff and the kid is kind of a hoarder. He doesn’t like to throw anything out. So every year he just keeps adding more. Just keep adding more to the yard. And I totally let him design it. Do it.
Don Mock 11:38
That’s cool.
Rob Broadfoot 11:39
And do it. I just stand there and smile.
Don Mock 11:44
Oh put that there. No, you gotta make the maze on the front yard.
Rob Broadfoot 11:48
Go crazy. And we’re full on fog machine and my whole jam is to sit out there and scare the crap out of kids. That’s the fun to me. Halloween has come a long way. I love the spirits store. Pop up spirits store. Oh, god.
Don Mock 12:04
Yeah, yeah. A lot of really bad makeup kits in there. But back to I mean, so. Anyway,
Rob Broadfoot 12:11
I went down.
Don Mock 12:11
We went on a tangent about our own personal holiday things. I mean, I guess for brands for companies for whatever, holiday marketing. I mean, What What do we do here? Right. And we’re always tied to. Hey, we have to do a holiday presence with a lot of our companies, but you want to be agnostic to Santa, to Christmas.
Rob Broadfoot 12:34
To religion in general. Keep it agnostic. Yeah.
Don Mock 12:38
So how do we do you know, that’s why you do get a lot of watered down Season’s Greetings. Yeah, with snowflakes. I mean, we just did an entire Christmas campaign. And it’s all basically like, snowflake related. Right, which is cool. And still can be tasteful. But, you know, it is definitely a challenge. I think now, right? Because there’s a I don’t want to say a negative about planting your flag of do you say Merry Christmas or not, you know, but I think there’s a lot of,
Rob Broadfoot 13:07
there’s a fear of alienating anybody out there.
Don Mock 13:09
Exactly. Exactly. What are your thoughts on the matter? I guess, you know, in terms of holiday marketing and whatnot
Rob Broadfoot 13:15
I think it depends on I think there’s certain things that we’ve almost come to expect that have become part of the culture and what I mean by that is, here comes the Lexus Christmas spot. Yeah, we’re always gonna see the Lexus Christmas spot. Yes. We’re always gonna see the Mercedes Christmas. We are always going to see the it’s a great spot. The Hershey’s jingle bell with Hershey’s Kisses
Don Mock 13:39
It’s been going on since the 80s.
Rob Broadfoot 13:41
Yeah, I mean, they made that thing forever ago and got so much life out of it. But it’s classic. Right? It doesn’t. And that’s that’s a great agnostic. Hey, we’re just bells.
Don Mock 13:48
Yeah, exactly.
Rob Broadfoot 13:49
There’s bells and chocolate. So I think I think holiday advertising is appropriate for certain brands and certain products and certain things. I think there’s absolutely an over use of that. And I think What I mean by that is, you know, we do a lot of social media stuff for clients. And if you go look at various calendars, everything has a day now. I mean, everything. Oh, there. You know, there was I mean, there’s international burrito day. Yeah. You know, I mean, there’s go fly a kite day
Don Mock 14:23
The 365 days we have of our Earth calendar, right? There are six things for every single day of the calendar, so it’d be like it is it is international burrito day, it’s also Talk Like a Pirate Day, and it’s, you know, Hamster relief day, or whatever, you know, like, like, there’ll be multiple holidays on every single day of the calendar. It’s insane.
Rob Broadfoot 14:44
Yeah so brands try and leverage some of that stuff, which, okay, fine. I mean, again, I don’t think there’s any, I don’t think there’s any harm in you know, people also clients also tend to leverage holidays for sales, right Labor Day sales, so they’ll push out an e blast or do whatever we do a fair amount of that? So I think, you know, in that sense, it’s fine. I don’t I don’t think there’s really any harm to doing a Happy Veterans Day. You know, I mean, a lot of people do that. Is it relevant to your brand? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly can’t hurt to show appreciation, patriotism and some of those things. I don’t know that it really buys you anything, but I don’t think it only hurts, either. You know, but again, depends on depends on who you are. Yeah, I’m,
Don Mock 15:29
we have this conversation with every client, we onboard in regards to hey, let’s take it let’s talk about the calendar of holidays. Is it specific? Is it relevant to your brand or not? Right? And then that helps I think shake out do we do a post for Memorial Day? Or we just had labor day or whatever the case might, you know? Yeah, I think when you try to force it sometimes is when it gets really awkward and strange.
Rob Broadfoot 16:01
Yeah. Or when you’re trying to sell a product on a day that you probably shouldn’t tied with your brand, you know, then then it feels kind of weird.
Don Mock 16:10
Yeah and I think you know, and again, I think this is this is a tough one too, because to your point about making sales, you know, it feels from I don’t know how you feel about this. And this may be crazy to say out loud, but I don’t feel like holidays from a commercialization perspective in terms of sales are as special as they used to be.
Rob Broadfoot 16:29
No, I think you’re right.
Don Mock 16:30
Yeah, it’s less milestones on the calendar we have so many there’s such a pervasive amount of information just thrown out at us constantly about this is on sale, and that’s on sale and discount code and get your this and that. Yeah, I don’t know, our consumers really saving up on waiting to buy that TV for one NFL season starts because that’s when TVs are on sale. I mean, no TV’s are on sale all the time. Right.
Rob Broadfoot 16:53
You’re always gonna have it around Christmas, for obvious reasons. Everybody’s got to buy their gifts. So you’re obviously that holiday is always going to drive sales. But now you have other, you know, you think about Black Friday, right. And Cyber Monday. You know, whatever. That kind of became big sale days that we’ve just sort of created. I mean, they’re not around any holiday. that I can think of, but I while you’re talking, I thought about one of the projects that we did a long time ago. And we’ll put it up on the social so we can show you but it was kind of a fun project. And we created an image for a common app, we’re gonna play a little bit of a guessing game an image for a company that had something to do eluted to Halloween, on a piece of creative
Don Mock 17:44
Are you asking me if I know What it is? It’s rock spider that’s What it must be.
Rob Broadfoot 17:48
Yeah. It’s Rock spider.
Don Mock 17:49
Yeah, of course. It was a great image.
Rob Broadfoot 17:50
Yeah, it was a great super cool image that we put together. And it was it was around Halloween time. And it was, you know, the I think the message behind it was, it’s so good it’s scary or something like that. Really, really expanding my copywriting there. No but it was this really cool image of rocks that aggregate right, that formed this sort of spider on this product that our client makes
Don Mock 17:51
Yeah. And the product itself was a mesh product that mitigated radial stress in roadways so you lay it down underneath your pavement or your whatever the case,
Rob Broadfoot 18:29
And it looked very much like that,
Don Mock 18:30
But it had a web looking field to it
Rob Broadfoot 18:33
Like a geogrid situation. So that was really cool. And if I do say so myself, that was to me, that was a cool way to leverage a holiday and get a message out without saying Happy Halloween.
Don Mock 18:48
Yeah. And for that it made sense. It wasn’t like we’re trying to shoehorn Santa or something into that weird.
Rob Broadfoot 18:57
We’re not putting Santa on a tractor for no reason.
Don Mock 19:01
That’s funny I had forgotten about that, that’s an oldie but a goodie.
Rob Broadfoot 19:04
Yep. It holds up. And yeah,
Don Mock 19:06
I think it’s I think marketing during the holidays now is definitely more challenging than ever. And I think, especially if we’re trying to do some type of sale or offer, right, because it doesn’t necessarily feel as special anymore. So so there’s no, there’s no like silver bullet for, hey, if you’re a company X or if you’re in this vertical, this is What you do. Right. You know, it really truly is. The brand, you know, and and is there a seasonality to the brand in general. Right. And then you sort of go from there. I guess
Rob Broadfoot 19:34
It’s true, you think about Labor Day sales. Big sale weekend, but like, I mean, how many labor use coupon code Labor Day. I mean, a gajillion. Everybody does it.
Don Mock 19:44
Well, and we’re splintered now to where I guess Amazon is really the last department store. I mean, you know, I mean, I know. I know. I know. There still are department stores. I get it. I mean, there still is a Macy’s out there. There still are, you know, other department stores, but it’s not like oh, it’s the labor days sale at this mega wherever and go to the mall and do whatever you know What I mean? We just go to Amazon and put it in a cart and send it along you know I mean we don’t really even go anywhere anymore. So tough. Can be tough for brands.
Rob Broadfoot 20:14
It’s true. Yeah. Trying to think What else I got
Don Mock 20:19
That’s how that’s how the podcast ends. Yeah, yeah, bringing it back to the game show see What we did there. Right. All right. Well, hey, you know, I mean, I guess you know, it’s a challenge it’s tough out there. There’s no There’s no magic answer anymore. And I don’t think there’s really a seasonality even though we have holidays, literally every single month you know
Rob Broadfoot 20:38
Don’t force it. That’s kind of the rule, I think. Just don’t don’t force it.
Don Mock 20:42
Yeah, that’s great advice.
Rob Broadfoot 20:44
And be tasteful if you do it. All right. All right. Well, that brings us to the end of today’s conversation. Where can people find us online should they be happened to look for us
Don Mock 20:54
They can find us on the interwebs www.mocktheagency.com or on many of the social platforms @mocktheagency
Rob Broadfoot 21:00
But not blue sky yet?
Don Mock 21:02
No, we do have a blue sky
Rob Broadfoot 21:03
Oh we do. We do. We do.
Don Mock 21:04
We do have a blue sky. There are not a lot of posts on that blue sky account yet but feel free to feel free to throw us a follow over there. Where the sky is blue as people say
Rob Broadfoot 21:14
That’s right. All right. All right. So episode 99
Don Mock 21:18
All right in the books in the books
Rob Broadfoot 21:20
get ready for 100
Don Mock 21:20
Big one is coming I know there will be sound effects.
Rob Broadfoot 21:23
Get ready.
Don Mock 21:25
All right, Thanks everybody.
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