w/ Jacques Spitzer, Raindrop
In this episode, we're getting real with Jacques Spitzer, the advertising guru from Raindrop Agency. He's here to break down how storytelling in ads can do more than just catch your eye – it can open wallets. We're tracing Raindrop's path from its first big win with Dr. Squatch to crafting campaigns for Native. Jacques gets into the brainy side of things, explaining how emotions drive buying decisions and how that can lead to an ad being more memorable than your last birthday party.
Jacques Spitzer (04:28.467)
I love it. You're like, uh, why does why should anyone listen to this guy?
Jacques Spitzer (04:36.811)
Uhhhhhh...
Kurt (04:42.545)
Why? Maybe that's the intro, just leave it like that. Alright, you know what? We'll use this, we'll keep it raw.
Jacques Spitzer (04:45.48)
Oh my gosh.
Kurt (04:51.861)
So you're Jacques Spitzer, raindrop agency, but like the thing that people would recognize you for, of course, is your work, is your client deliverable, and you had a number one YouTube video, you had a Super Bowl ad. Give me something someone might recognize that your agency produced.
Jacques Spitzer (04:52.371)
Oh my gosh.
Jacques Spitzer (05:15.051)
Yeah.
Jacques Spitzer (05:21.267)
You know, I think that the I would say the four or five ads that people like, Oh, that one or something of that sort is, you know, for the, for the about seven years span, we created almost every single ad that create that Dr. Squatch created. So if you've seen a golden haired angel looking man named James Schrader with long blonde hair, um, on your YouTube television, Metta pretty much every single channel. I think they even do some Twitch stuff.
Bottom line is we created those ads. And so I would say most men know those ads. Most women know our ads. The last two and a half years, we've been doing a lot of work with native. So any of the ads that have like the centaur in them, any of the mythical variety creatures, those are all native. We did a famous ad for Lumi, which is a whole body deodorant.
with the founder that scaled to, you know, hundreds of millions of views as well. Laundry Sauce is a brand that we are, we've helped incubate and create from the beginning in terms of the brand. And a lot of people are seeing those ads as well. They're just all fun. They're disruptive. They're different. The current campaign, unfortunately, it's really effing good. Features Scott Eastwood, Hollywood actor and
Um, happens also be son of Clint Eastwood as well. Um, so yeah, there's a lot of stuff we. That Eastwood. Yeah. So, uh, there's a great line in it where he says, uh, make my laundry day. Um, obviously a playoff of his father's famous line, make my day. Um, so yeah, I mean, look, Oh, oh, well, I mean, you, you could YouTube it later. You could YouTube it later. It's a, yeah, it's all good.
Kurt (06:52.045)
Oh. Oh, that Eastwood.
Kurt (07:07.182)
I'm not familiar.
Kurt (07:12.321)
Y'all have to look it up
Kurt (07:16.233)
So you've generated how many views?
Jacques Spitzer (07:22.015)
You know, at this point, I mean, probably 1.5 billion, something like that. Um, but more importantly, we we've generated over a billion dollars in revenue for our clients. It's also probably close to 1.5 billion, um, which I don't know how and why that would match view number. It doesn't, but, uh, yeah, it's been, it's been an incredible journey. I'm actually 14 years into this. I think a lot of people are surprised to find that out maybe because it feels like we really splashed on the scene the last four or five years, which is accurate. I mean, you know, um,
It's, I always said that our business was like, you know, there's a point where, um, you know, music artists are gigging, you know, and they're going from small venue to small venue, small venue, and then they get their big break and they get their number one single and then they get another single. And then all of a sudden they come out with an album and everything's a hit. Right. And, um, that's how it's kind of felt for us is that, you know, first seven, eight years we were building something great. And then we had our breakouts and then we've gotten opportunities to just
keep making hits. So, you know, one Super Bowl commercial led to another, which is now probably going to lead to another, you know, it's just, that's how it all works in terms of opportunities.
Kurt (08:33.218)
So what's the pivotal moment? You said like, you know, we're grinding it out, doing the work eight years, and then big thing happens, opens up new opportunities, and then you're now, you could really just do the same work, but at an even greater, better scale. What was that moment?
Jacques Spitzer (08:50.487)
So I think many people, not just companies, but many people spend a long time trying to figure out what can I be, you know, what can I actually be the best in the world at? You know, like it's a pretty big question that I don't think I was, I wasn't asking myself that question when we started the business. And also I can't take credit for finding any of the answer. It was actually my business partner, Adam, who,
who sort of like figured it out. Kind of what could we actually be the best in the world at? Not just another marketing company, another marketing agency, which up until that point we really were. And when the first Dr. Squatch ad came out and it just, it really, it took them to another level. We had to ask ourselves, well, what did we do that connected so much with people?
You know, what was that process to get there? And is it replicable? So then we did it with William Painter sunglasses and they scaled their ad to like 70, 80 million views in like weeks, you know? I mean, they were just like, boom, like took off. And then we had the San Diego Symphony ask us, hey, we're seeing this like kind of interesting type of creative you're doing, can you do it for us? And you know, I was like, no, I, you know, you're not a CPG brand, you're.
classical music product? And my first answer was no, and here's why. And the VP of marketing, I love her, Joan, at the time said, no, I still want it, so tell me how we can do it for us. Okay. So we made an ad for the San Diego Symphony, and it was really our only ad that's ever gone viral. You know, like you hear about stuff going viral. We have billions of views behind our campaigns, but it's not because of virality. I mean, the bottom line is,
They're scalable, meaning you can put dollars behind them and they can infinitely be run and infinitely make new sales, which allows it to take up in the number of views, right? Like the platforms want their money. They're not gonna just like let your ad go viral. The days of virality on an ad is like yesteryear. And so, but it was an ad that we did. It actually went on at the time Facebook, it wasn't even met, it probably was Facebook. And...
Jacques Spitzer (11:15.291)
It went around the world. People were like, oh my gosh, have you seen this symphony ad? We actually ended up winning an Emmy for it. Like it is just So that I find that sometimes like these breakthroughs come when someone asks you to do something You're like, that's not how this works and they're like I want it anyway, and then they're like, okay So we just made this really fun ad that starts with um, you know someone James in a tattoo parlor and the lead actress in it is Nicole Amy Schreiber who's
become gone on to have incredible career as both an actress and a comedian. And she just pops up and he's about to get a tattoo. And she's like, you know, you don't have to like, go this crazy to discover something new about yourself. And he's like, what do you mean? And it's like the whole thing. And then goes on to, hey, here's everything that you didn't know about San Diego Symphony. We we keyed in on some like really fun concerts. Like, I think I don't know. I'm going on and on about the commercial. You can look at it called Old You New You San Diego Symphony. It's worth watching because that.
that ad went totally viral around the world. I met composers and people from other countries that were like, I saw that ad and I was like, holy crap, I can't believe someone went there in a classical art form. We did double the San Diego Symphony ticket sales over a five year period. And that blew my mind because it's like, that's not a new product, right? Like all that music for the most part is 100 plus years old. And so that's when I knew we could do
something special with, if you do it with classical music, then you can do it with sunglasses, water, soap. You can do it for anything. And that taught me that early in my career.
Kurt (12:57.749)
Okay, if you won an Emmy for a commercial that initially you were reluctant to make, clearly they're... we have established you as the expert. Your commercials have such... they feel like short films. They're these short vignettes. They're extremely cinematic. They look big budget. They look just... they have extraordinary production values.
Beyond just the polish, like, yeah, I could throw money at it. What is the secret sauce here?
Jacques Spitzer (13:33.855)
So, I mean, it was funny because about two or three years ago, because you asked that the first question was, how, you know, what was the unlock? What changed everything? And I was reluctant to give away the truth because I felt like, well, maybe everyone else could figure it out and do it too. And you know what, maybe they will, I don't know. Here's the bottom line. Here's what we realized was behind the hood.
of all of this and I'll kind of explain the process of how it goes from concept to reality. And I apologize in advance because it's probably a pretty long explanation, but it was a great question. So essentially where we start is and where most brands don't start, so where most brands start is they say, this is what I want people to know about. This is what I want to talk about. This is what I want my ad to be about.
And then they go and they create a script and they shoot it and they put it out there, whether it's high budget, low budget, doesn't really matter. It's just that's their approach. I mean, you get a brief, it's like the brief's done. That's it. What we did with these brands and we bake it, we have a full process that we do that some brands invest in or even if they don't, if it's just like a project, we still have to do this work to do our job well is we figure out what is the consumer's watch.
And so there's you may have heard of Simon Sinek say hey You know you need to know your brands why and that's not untrue It's just incomplete and so we had this like working theory right before we started working with dr. Squash We're like well people don't really buy Your why as a brand they buy their own why and so we got really into this thing called self-expressive benefits You can google it. It's really interesting. It's like everything I buy
everything I do or don't do says something about who I am, who I believe I am, who I believe I'm becoming. And if you do the work to figure out what those things are, you can just mirror it back to people, right? It's like, that's the first step in all of this is like creating what we call the moment in the mirror. And so in a lot of the, like in all of our work, that's something that we do.
Jacques Spitzer (15:53.607)
And we also, I think, do a good job because we've tested so many of those over the years. And we know that some of them just don't matter as much emotionally, people as others. Right. Some things that you would think would really matter, like just don't. And one of those things is like going greener, being carbon neutral. Like everyone loves that. But like it doesn't sell as hard as you think it would, even though it's such an obvious self-expressive benefit. Then once we have that and you talked about the style of the ad, we think to ourselves, how do we take that?
all of these things that are self-expressive about the consumer and create a context in which they will actually want to spend time with us. Right? We haven't written a word yet. We haven't written any scripting yet. There's no unique selling propositions yet. You know, it doesn't explain what the product does. It's just like, what is this concept in world that we are building? So we build the world, we pitch the concepts. Sometimes this is confusing to our clients because they're like, but where's the script? And we're like, we're not there yet.
Right? We put already put 100 hours of work into brainstorming where and how this message could come through, but there's no script yet. And then we write the script and we make sure that every, you know, it's like, and there is a formula to attention where we're like, I mean, if you will watch a Mr. Beast video, there's a formula to attention. There's a reason that 20 minutes go by with this content. Like he knows how to shoot and edit content. We just know people are on the internet to waste time.
to learn something new or to laugh. That's, I mean, that's pretty much it. I mean, or do something illicit, illegal or whatever else. You know, so knowing that we're creating advertising that is more compelling than the thing that you were about to watch anyway. And if that's what you're doing, you will win. And that's why we've won, is that we just keep trying to make ads that are better than the thing that you were about to see anyway. Does it matter the production value, to be honest? It's, it's.
Nice, but like it doesn't, it doesn't have to be that. But I do think that production value keys someone mentally into, Oh, this may be worth watching. And then it's a numbers game. You put it in front of a thousand people, the CPM, let's say 15 bucks, 25 bucks, whatever does one out of a thousand people buy, does two out of a thousand people buy, does one out of 10,000 people buy, you know, even if it's a more expensive product you put in front of 10,000 people, you're printing money. So that's how these brands have done that. And that's the, the formula.
Jacques Spitzer (18:22.711)
It starts with this insight and it goes through to action completion.
Kurt (18:28.981)
So we start with customer research, customer persona development. How are we doing it? Are you going surveys, phone interviews, reviews, just asking the brand what they think?
Jacques Spitzer (18:41.815)
You know, it's funny because there are times where people have sort of the wrong self-expressive benefits or maybe the wrong perception. I think what's interesting is as an outside partner, you know, as an agency coming in, we – and I mentioned it a little bit earlier, like we have, you know, we've developed brand identities for almost 100 brands. Like we have so much rich history of understanding what works and what doesn't.
by yourself, where I think most people go wrong, is they just ask the consumers directly, or they don't involve other partners or perspectives to help them navigate it. And so what they end up with is very skewed information. Let me give you an example. So Laundry Sauce. I mentioned them earlier. We helped them launch. And I think...
One of the questions I was asked was, what are you really selling? What are you really selling? Most people, they stop digging at unique selling propositions. What I mean is, if you haven't looked up laundry sauce, so I'll paint the example. Laundry sauce is a very premium, almost luxurious, fine-fragrance laundry detergent, and now a full laundry experience.
that is average order values over $100, right? Like this is not in comparison to, you know, your average laundry detergent is, it is very expensive. Nothing like it existed before this. And what was interesting, a reason that we decided to jump on and be a part of it was we knew fundamentally that they were disrupting something massive, right? Because where most people, what most people see is they go, oh, that's...
That's expensive laundry detergent. That makes me feel like if I would use it, I would feel fancy. I would feel like I'm yoloing. I'm living my life to its fullest. I've made it. Like when you look at the self-expressive benefits on a simple level, that's usually where people stop. So if we sent out a survey, I guarantee you people what they would tell you is,
Jacques Spitzer (21:04.519)
I like the way it makes my clothes smell. I like the, you know, I like the box. I like, it makes me feel accomplished, maybe, at like, at best. And so that's what they would give you back.
Kurt (21:17.637)
It's... it ends up being superficial when you do it that way.
Jacques Spitzer (21:22.303)
It's not tapping into why does this matter? Because I was talking to my mother-in-law who absolutely loves the product. And it was fascinating to me because she actually said the thing that I'm like, that's what the insight is. But I didn't think that anyone actually would consciously arrive there. She said, I've been doing laundry for over 70 years. It's the first time I've felt any joy.
doing my laundry. And I was like, there it is. That's it. That's what this product sells. It takes a mundane task and gives you a pinch of joy. And that's what Dr. Squatch does with their soap. That's all it is. Yes, it gives it get you clean. Yes. Is it all natural? Yes. But like it gives you joy in a mundane experience and a thing that you're gonna have to do anyway. And I was like, bingo, that's it. So before we even launched the brand, we're like, that's the goal.
is how do we make people feel joy in a mundane experience? Because now that's the difference between a chore and self-care, right? Like, think about that. Like, if your wife gets her nails done, it's like, is that a chore or is that self-care? If she does a facial mask, is that a chore or is it self-care?
Kurt (22:31.786)
No, it-
Kurt (22:39.733)
Both of those are self-care. And so now we're trying to.
Jacques Spitzer (22:40.127)
Sorry, I'm just going off. But you know what, as I'm saying, you could see it as a chore.
but you see it as self-care.
Kurt (22:49.065)
you're right you're right it is its context it's how we present it and uh... laundry sauce quite the name yo mowing the yard
Jacques Spitzer (22:53.215)
mowing the yard Yeah mowing the yard. It's like some people are like it's a chore. Some people like I love it It's the best part of my week. It's perspective It's perspective
Kurt (23:00.957)
I'm outdoors and it's exercise.
Kurt (23:06.025)
The okay, so our magic here is we have to know What the benefit is what the end consumers getting out of it? But it can't be superficial and ideally we want this emotional connection like the emotional part
Jacques Spitzer (23:22.199)
You need the emotional connection.
Kurt (23:24.241)
Okay, we have to have it for this to work as like a short narrative adventure in selling.
Jacques Spitzer (23:26.039)
have to have it.
Jacques Spitzer (23:29.931)
to have it. Yeah. Can I actually expand on that a little bit? I think you'll enjoy this. Have you read the book Never Split the Difference with Chris Voss? It's a book on negotiation. It became very, very popular because this guy that was basically the top negotiator in the world wrote a book about negotiation. And something that he talks about in the book, which I've stored away my brain like a little squirrel or whatever.
Kurt (23:35.425)
Please do.
Kurt (23:40.946)
No.
Jacques Spitzer (23:58.495)
like a nut in the back of my brain, was he talked about the study that they did on people who have damage to the place in their brain where emotions tend to form. So they are people who tend to be pretty emotionless. They actually have like a disorder. So they did this study on them and what they learned in the study was that those people
almost across the board were able to rationally tell you what decision they should make, but they had trouble making the decision, actually taking any sort of action. They were having trouble with, in part of the process, they could tell you all of the reasons they should do something, but they couldn't make the decision. What I realized was, you know, when everything's driven that way, it's the same way that propane floats in the air, but there's no spark. There's no, you know, nothing lights it on fire.
And so when you start paying attention, you realize like emotion drives all behavior. Like who you vote for, what car you buy, like everything is driven, even what you eat that day, in that moment, it's all driven by some sense of emotion. And so when you said, you know, is that part of it? It's like, yes, it's like, it really is. You take the self-expressive benefits and you match them to emotions.
and you make those emotions hit those self-expressive benefits. And that's the, that's literally the nuclear fusion cycle. If you will, the math, the science of having people be excited to take action and not resentful that you put an ad in front of them, but like, Oh, that ad was awesome. And I love this product. It's just that cycle.
Kurt (25:45.053)
So once we have that, now the- like that is- that's critical. That's mission critical, but now the real work begins. Like we- we're not even at concept for a commercial yet, until we've uncovered this. We uncover this. Now what?
Jacques Spitzer (25:56.331)
Correct.
Jacques Spitzer (26:02.887)
Like, and now what? Um, I think, let me, let me answer this from the context of like, because I don't want to answer it from the context of how we do something, because it's almost, it's like, I almost had to go back to like, how did we do it the very first time with like three or four people? Like, not, you know, the machine that becomes something that does it professionally. Um, you know, I think ultimately.
what we do is we start, assuming that you're trying to write a script or make a video out of it, because I think this to us applies to your website copy, your organic social account, your, I mean everything in your brand, right? I wanna be very clear, this is not like in order to make video, it's like to make photography, to make anything, it's like what is this brand conveying? What are the emotions they're hitting that's critical?
But in terms of actually writing a script, what we tend to do is we make sure that we map out what is the story? What is the story that we're trying to tell? And we map it out in a way that I would say to some extent, there is some formula to it. So I don't wanna make it sound like there's not because there's just, I think I see a lot of people try to...
imitate stylistically, you know, aspects of, I'll call it, like, educational selling. But I think if you look at, and I use this as an example, the 30-minute infomercial, like dominated television for years and years and years, this 30-minute format, you know, and you could almost realize, even in it, you could realize the formula and yet...
you still wanted to watch the whole thing. Like I remember watching those as a kid. I don't know about you, Kurt, but like you'd never watch an infomercial. Oh my gosh. Okay, all right. Yeah, well, the problem is, is that I grew up with, I grew up without cable. So like, I was just like, I'll take any content I can get. It was like you didn't even never watch. Okay, so you're telling me you never watched like a Foreman Grill commercial or like anything like that, where they're just like,
Kurt (28:03.078)
I did not.
Kurt (28:07.094)
Not all the way through. Get like a few minutes, then I'm like, oh god. What am I doing?
Kurt (28:16.711)
So did I.
Jacques Spitzer (28:26.719)
people demoing a product and you're just like, wow, that is really interesting. You never watched one.
Kurt (28:31.413)
You know, it has been a turn off my entire life. Isn't it funny?
Jacques Spitzer (28:35.199)
Okay, all right, all right, fair enough. Yeah, well, no, I think what's interesting is, this is like a bigger point, which is just because it's not something that we like, because I've been guilty of this, okay, I don't really like that form of advertising. It can work very well, right? You can reach a lot of people quickly. And so, what I realized was that,
No one, you know, people were trying to recreate the same experience that someone was having through an infomercial, but in the internet era. You know, it's because I kind of like gone are the days of the 30 minute infomercial. There are people that will watch them and buy off them. I don't I mean, somewhere out there, people are doing billions of dollars in sales with infomercials. I want to be very clear. Like, it's not dead. It's just it's a different audience. But the concept of.
I think about this all the time. Like I was talking to Hexclad about a year ago, Jason over there, and I was explaining to him, like, how many pans do you think you'd sell if you had the owner of the company and or Gordon Ramsay physically at retail stores in person demoing and explaining the product to everybody who walks in? You'd probably sell a lot of pans. You know, there's just something about that experience. You get the backstory.
You understand the technology, you understand the passion behind it, the quality behind it. Right now you walk into a store and there's just a box on the shelf, right? Maybe there's some sort of end cap display. And so what I realized was that with your advertising, you can create a scenario in which case you've put this person in front of people on the internet and they get, they spend anywhere from two to three minutes with them and they get the opportunity to make that sales pitch.
And what you what the beauty of the internet is if 99 999 out of a thousand people don't buy you don't experience the rejection in person of 999 people not buying. You don't feel those people not buying what you get the benefit of is the one out of a thousand that does. And I'm like wow that's the power of the internet. And so when it comes to like and then what like I think
Jacques Spitzer (31:02.187)
a minute with us, two minutes with us, three minutes with us. What would we want them to know and walk away with, right? So that I don't want to make it sound like we'd never do that work, but that's where most people start. And I think that that's just the fundamental difference is if you don't have a lens to see it through, if you're not writing and attaching it to something entertaining, if you're just like, let me write the story and then figure out how to make it entertaining. That's where it just never, it's hard.
get it to where you need to get to. And so we do write out the scripts. We make sure there's certain formulaic things we're looking for, like if it is longer than a minute, we wanna have a first call to action somewhere within a minute. We wanna, you know, there are some things in there that like we wanna introduce the brand, you know, before 25 seconds. I mean, there's just things in there that you're like, all right, like we gotta do because we know statistically if we don't, it just doesn't work. And so we're looking at it.
through some formulaic lenses. But I would say you could also just study, like that's what we did, was we just studied what was successful, we reverse engineered, what's the formulas, and then we did our best to write to them, and then we created our own from there. But I found that original formulation, and I'm like, wow, this is still eerily similar. And I would argue that so is everything, the hero's journey, you know, it's like, it's all, there's all a formula to what humans like in terms of form.
Kurt (32:23.867)
Right.
Jacques Spitzer (32:29.322)
storytelling.
Kurt (32:30.481)
Yeah, there's only a handful of like story formulas that we work with. So, well, you know, one thing I'm curious about is authenticity. Like authenticity is this, it's become kind of a goofy buzzword over the last 18, 24 months because of social media, because social media often, you know, feels so manufactured. And so we're just desperate for something that feels real. When you have a highly polished produced commercial,
Is does that feel inauthentic and does the success of it say prove to us like well depending You know it all depends on context, and maybe it doesn't matter
Jacques Spitzer (33:10.059)
Hmm. Um, you know, it's a good question. I would say a couple of things to that. One is, you know, I think that people get caught up in it. They certainly get caught up in production quality, meaning, I don't think it's the thing that it's a spice. It's not a core ingredient. You know, I truly believe that, you know,
me and our team should creating something in our process with an iPhone is going to be better than giving the best camera in the world to a random production company and saying make a great commercial. Right. I don't think it's a production quality thing. I do think that production quality does inherently speak to people on the L on the on the in the way of trust.
with a brand. And so what I mean by this is, you know, every brand has, unless it, you know, every brand has a variety of ways of reaching people. But if you can set the expectation that this is a great brand, this is a trusted brand, you know, you can take care of some of the objections and fears literally through the quality of the content alone. Then
you give yourself a chance to tell your story. All of our brands, for the most part, are using UGC in their formulas, right? But I would argue what most of them don't have is a way to tell their story in a more highly produced way. And I look at AG1, I think they're a great example. AG1 exploded onto the scene through
really influencer marketing. So it was like, it was just everywhere during COVID. I just like, oh my gosh, another person sponsored by AG1, blah, blah. But then I think where they really turned the corners of brand was when they started making their more highly produced commercials, putting them on connected television, and you start seeing these beautiful shots of the product and everything else, and it's like, well, there's gonna be a lot of competitors, and a lot of the competitors are gonna be way cheaper. And so, you know, now they're starting to...
Jacques Spitzer (35:35.367)
make an expectation set the bar. I think Mudwater has also done a similar path if you watch what they've done, where it's like, especially with products that are going in your body, you have to feel like you can trust them. They're supplemental, you know? And so seeing production quality, I think, is just as much as seeing something on TV or seeing something in the Super Bowl or seeing something, like, it does validate at a very high level that this is a real company.
doing real things, but it's not like every ad you ever have to do has to be high quality. And so I just want to make sure I'm making sense when I say that. Yeah.
Kurt (36:09.281)
Okay. No, I think that's a good explanation. Is, yeah, it visually, it is shorthand for, this is legitimate. But, 100% of everything does not have to have that quality. And, you know, that shorthand for this is legitimate, if the content doesn't work, it just, it doesn't work. Only now it was expensive, right? Like, there's just a lot more effort involved. You mentioned connected TV. Oh, go ahead.
Jacques Spitzer (36:19.595)
Yeah.
Jacques Spitzer (36:29.951)
Right. Yeah. Actually, Kurt, can I? Can I? No, I want to I want to do it because I think something you just said, super interesting, which is, well, that was expensive and it didn't work and.
I will say, because I think a lot of people that listen, you know, I've obviously listened to podcasts, a lot of people listen to podcasts, have a Shopify store, have a Shopify background and have some sort of e-commerce experience. And I want to say two things to that. One is I do believe you can work your way up to taking bigger swings. That absolutely is true.
However, I also believe that it's really hard to hit a home run without taking a big swing. Right, so what I mean by that is like, if you're into baseball, it's like, you gotta swing for the fences. You can't swing for contact and hope it just goes over the fence. That's just not how this shit works. Sorry for my language. I hope your six year old daughter's not listening. But I think that's the biggest thing is people want, they're like, how can I de-risk this risky thing? And you're like, well, there are ways.
Kurt (37:30.014)
We're good.
Jacques Spitzer (37:38.603)
but there's a reason it's risky, right? Like don't take the risk if you can't afford to, but a lot of people can and they're just still scared. And it's like on the other side of risk is potential big reward. And so when you shoot something at a higher quality and you put this time and energy in, it gives you the opportunity to put that content, it's now no longer just a market piece, it's an asset. So you can always augment things.
to have them work. Maybe you open the ad with some UGC that works for you and then use some of the highly polished stuff, right? We call those mashups. Or it opens up a new channel for you. Oh, I've never really gotten anything to work on YouTube. Oh, I've never really gotten anything. I've never even had anything usable for connected TV that I felt really confident in, which I know is where you're headed. I always look at it as if you view it as an asset and not as just some big liability. Oh, it didn't work. It's a waste of money. Turn it off.
If that's the way you experience it, it will be a waste of money, but it should be an investment in what you capture, your story, and also just the footage should be usable and reusable over and over again. It's now an ingredient that your brand didn't have before. So yes, let's talk about Connect Television, but I was like, oh, wait a second. I get that question all day every day from people interested in potentially working with us.
Kurt (39:02.593)
Well, so connected television is one of those things that I have wanted to talk about on this show for months to a year and Have yet to do it because I didn't know who to talk to about it And then you just brought it up organically and of course you would know But alright, I've got you know Every wall my house is plastered with smart TVs and they all have streaming services and like naturally my over-the-air antennas don't work on half of them So I have to do streaming services and you know on the free ones. They're they're ad powered those ads
Jacques Spitzer (39:12.215)
Mm.
Kurt (39:33.249)
very different often from what is on commercial television like actual cable TV and they Often their for DTC brands and I'm like this many I've heard of like I've seen loomy on there You mentioned looming I've seen it and the ad you described was founder face to camera cut with you GC It was a guy who we just described and that was on that that's connected TV. How are people getting?
What is the platform? How are we getting ads on connected TV? Just brain dump brain dump on me for three minutes about connected TV
Jacques Spitzer (40:08.099)
Yeah, no, happy to. So connected TV is, to me, it is a fascinating new frontier. And I'm gonna tell you some things I've learned that are like blow your mind, because it blew my mind. And I was like, dang, this is really interesting. So the first is, let's just start with what does connected television even mean, right? Because when you hear connected television, I don't know about you, but I'm like, over the top, OTT, connected television, my mind goes to like, what is that?
Who is that? Where is that? Like, what do you mean, right? What ad inventory are you speaking of? And then it also gets a little bit more complicated from there. So let me break it down. I'll break it down. I'll do my best to break it down real quick. Cause that was my first question. I finally got some time with someone from Mountain, which is one of the providers. I think there's a lot of agencies out there that buy connected television. We work with a few like left-hand agency and
Kurt (40:39.891)
Exactly.
Jacques Spitzer (41:06.559)
Attention, ATTN, and there's just a couple that we work with that work with a lot of dredge consumer brands that want to spend $50,000 a month, $20,000 a month, or $200,000 a month on this channel to understand it, track it, all the things. Obviously, some people spend more than that, but we'll just start there. Connected television inventory is fascinating because you have...
Netflix now which jumped onto the scene you have YouTube television and you have Hulu. Those are all their own platforms closed circuit Like that's where that ad inventory is. It's also that's all more expensive ad inventory So I just want to point that out your cost per thousand your CPM anywhere from Low end probably thirty dollars all the way up to closer to like, you know I people are complaining about the ones on Netflix saying those CPMs are like in the sixty dollars
I will tell you right now, tough CPMs. Not a good, like, I don't know who's there, but where our brands are winning on connected television is that when you now get a smart television, which I have one in every room in my house, you know, you have a smart hub and then you have all these apps. Oh, well they are because they are, every new TV comes with it baked in, right? The remote comes with these buttons.
Kurt (42:21.342)
Yeah, I swear, they're populating.
Jacques Spitzer (42:31.595)
And what I didn't realize was I'm like, okay, when I thought of connected TV, what I immediately always thought of was, oh, I thought of to be and like, fooboo and to your point, like the freebie Pluto, like the things where I'm like, oh, yes, it's free ad support is stuff. I don't spend time there. I don't. I have YouTube TV. That's where I watch my TV. Like, so I was like, I'm not really getting hit with any CTV ads. And
Kurt (42:42.709)
Freebie. Yeah, Pluto. Pluto's my favorite.
Jacques Spitzer (42:59.039)
So my mindset went to like, well, is this for people that can't afford other things? Like who's reaching them? Well, then I started realizing that almost everything else is all aggregated through these providers. What I mean is everything else. Let's say you have an MSNBC app. Let's say you have a CNN app or a Fox News app that you watch your news on, which a lot of people do. Watch it through the apps, Paramount Plus. People are like, oh, I wanna get my...
whatever show that they end up watching. All I'm pretty sure I would be surprised if it weren't the case, but like your ESPN plus like all of these things where you can almost feel it when you're on the platforms to your point, like you get a different type of ad and also you feel the, you can feel it because there's not enough ad inventory being served. Like I was watching a game. I was watching my, my Sandy was the Aztecs play. I was watching a game and it just kept getting served the same ads over and over again, and it was like, and a lot of them were from ESPN cause I'm like, they don't have.
enough to serve me. This is crazy. Like they have me as a, they have me as a captive audience. I, I'm here to watch this game. And it was, I would laugh because I'm sprouts is one of our big clients and I got a sprouts ad and I was like taking a picture of it like, oh shit, like there's a, there's a sprouts ad, um, you know, and so you could just feel though that I think.
Kurt (43:59.366)
Isn't it?
Kurt (44:16.737)
Or it'll be like, oh, we'll be right back in 30 seconds. And it's just like a countdown with stock music on it. You're like, you really couldn't find something to show me?
Jacques Spitzer (44:19.975)
Exactly. There's just like a right, right. So that's, that's how, that's how what's interesting is that, you know, there are probably billions, but millions of impressions happening every day. And a lot of brands just don't know how to reach people. And the thing that's crazy, and this is the one I said, what's mind blowing. Um, cause I want to, I want to explain this is let's say you use a provider like mountain, right? And we would probably recommend working with
an agency who also understands it on top of Mountain. But let's say you work with Mountain, and a lot of the agencies may say, I don't like Mountain, that's fine. Bottom line is, you have the ability to re-market people that come to your site as long as you have an aspect of their IP addresses. So now, you're not just like willy-nilly showing it, you're showing it, you're re-marketing, basically your television ad, to people on their televisions after they have visited your site. So that's one, that's just like low-hanging.
obvious places to be in front of them that are very high impact, high touch. But two, and this is where I was like, whoa, this is cool, is in Mountain, you can run cohort tests where you show the ads to people and they track those IP addresses. And then they also show the ads to people, or sorry, then they also don't show the ads to another cohort of people who are watching the same app at the same time. And they tag those IP addresses. And then
They go forward in time and then over like a three month period, you can see the incremental lift of, well, this cohort ended up buying $30,000 worth of product and this cohort ended up spending $350,000 worth of product, right from us. So people will still find you and they'll still buy from you online, but like you can actually see the incremental lift, which honestly, brands need that to even understand how to use this type of funnel. And
I think a lot of the CPMs are under 20 bucks, 25, 20, I've heard as low as like 18 bucks. So very comparable to somewhere between a YouTube and a Meta can be, can really unlock new viewership or just a really great remarketing channel for brands. And so I don't know anyone who's taken CTV and said, this is my number one channel, right? I've seen people do that with linear TV.
Jacques Spitzer (46:36.979)
I haven't seen that with CTV being like, this is my number one channel. But is it a great piece of the tool belt, especially for these brands doing 25 million plus? Yes. It's like a no brainer, at least on a remarketing standpoint.
Kurt (46:52.489)
No, I, absolutely. No, it sounds, it sounds like TV with like decent analytics and attribution.
Jacques Spitzer (47:00.203)
That's a great way of putting it. I mean, it really is. We do have some clients who are crushing it with more traditional cable TV. Like our partners at Goatfood, so they have chocolate.com and licorice.com and pretzels.com. We created a series of ads for them and they're running it more like 15 second ads on linear TV.
And they are just old school. They look at the incremental lift of their web traffic within a window of when those ads launch. So that is different. When you do a linear TV ad, your ad will go out and you can track it back to time periods, whereas connected television is just always on. So if someone's watching TV at 2 a.m. and they got remarketed, well then they might get, or it reaches them as a remarketing piece.
whenever so they do work differently. Whereas like linear TV is like you bought this time in this space and it just indiscriminately goes to anyone who's watching the Hallmark channel at them.
Kurt (48:09.441)
The... so... Coming to the end of our time together, I want... you're talking about Connected TV, which feels... it's been around a while, but feels very futuristic, right? It's cool. Are there other... and you've been doing this, what, 15 years now?
Jacques Spitzer (48:25.911)
14, yeah. We'll just say almost 15, yeah.
Kurt (48:27.125)
14, alright. How... How do you see video content in general as having evolved over the last decade?
Jacques Spitzer (48:39.988)
Um.
Jacques Spitzer (48:44.371)
That's such a big question. I will, here's what I'll say. I think the most disruptive piece of it is the vertical video component of consumption. And the reason I say that is before in a single hour, so one hour of your time, it would be hard to watch more than two to three
Let's say in one hour you watch one to two shows, right? How many commercial breaks are during those shows? Maybe, we'll call it, in an hour, we'll call it six commercial breaks. Maybe, I don't know, maybe four, maybe six. And during those commercial breaks, they show on average four to five ads. So in one hour, you can see about 20 ads, right? Total, that's what's possible. When you're on YouTube,
And I still think YouTube is probably the most under-tapped opportunity, period, for brands. For this reason, people are spending a lot of time there. Look it up, do the math, like see how much time people are spending on YouTube. It is crazy. It's cross-generational, it's all the things. It does skew younger, of course. Ton of time being spent there. And the number of ads people are seeing per hour probably mirror that of television.
We'll ballpark it at 15 to, anywhere from like 15 to 20 ads an hour. It was like a new metric, ads per hour. I don't know, APR or APH. I can't even get my acronym right. Yeah, yeah, APH, ads per hour. But think about vertical video. So I've noticed every third to fourth video right now is an app on my feed. And so how many videos,
Kurt (50:23.369)
I think APR is taken.
Jacques Spitzer (50:39.095)
can I consume in an hour on vertical video? Well, I mean, let's do the math. Let's say on average, I'm watching videos for 20 seconds. Well, that means it's three videos a minute times 60 is 180 videos, right? And if every fourth video is an ad, which I think it's actually every third right now, but let's say it's every fourth video. I wanna say it's like, I can't do the math. Help me.
Kurt (51:09.652)
I should have been tough writing it down
Jacques Spitzer (51:11.066)
I'm like, no it's okay. I did this math and I'm like, oh shoot. If the average is 20, I can't do the math. It's basically double.
Kurt (51:19.305)
Alright, it's 3600 seconds in an hour.
Jacques Spitzer (51:23.055)
Okay, that's not what we're looking for. Hold on. We owe the viewers answer. Okay, take 3 times 60 is 180 and then divide that by 4.
Kurt (51:33.662)
Okay. I got 45.
Jacques Spitzer (51:35.339)
45, thank you, thank you, okay. So what I'm saying is, at bare minimum, you're gonna see 45 ads per hour on vertical video. At bare minimum, it's at least two and a half times any other platform in history, in terms of ad velocity, how much you're going to see. And so I'm like, whoa, that's crazy. And not only that, how many of those things that aren't ads are actually just content.
of influencers or people talking about something that might as well be an ad, right? Which you could say for YouTube too, of course. But I'm like, wow. Like that's what's changed is now the amount, it's like we are in an era where the amount of ads people are seeing has gone up drastically, which only to me says the bar for making better advertising has to go even higher because you are just gonna be like, skip, skip.
You really have like 45 times an hour and some people are spending two hours a day. They're getting 90 plus ads, you know, just on one platform. That's a lot different than the television days of, you know, we're getting 20 in an hour and very concrete blocks. And so when you say what's changed, that's what's changed the most. And it needs to change people's contact content strategies, not just now, but in the future, because.
to win, it's a whole different game.
Kurt (53:08.157)
My fear, and I think what happens here, is just like our attention spans are fried, man. Just what it takes to get someone to stop, to get the thumb stopped, to get them to actually like look at something. Yeah, the bar keeps getting higher because we're faced with essentially infinite choice of colors to put in my eyeballs. And my requirement for stopping just keeps getting worse. If you want like, you know,
Jacques Spitzer (53:28.8)
Hmm.
Kurt (53:35.985)
You watch just a random person on the train or whatever, like swipe through their phone. Just look over their shoulder, be real creepy. Most people, they're just like speeding through it. It's like you better, that first tenth of a second frame better look right or they're not stopping. It's just mad, Nick.
Jacques Spitzer (53:51.711)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, one, yes. Two, I will say, people have always had short attention span, or short consideration spans, and they're getting shorter. But I wouldn't say they have short attention spans. Yeah, yeah. It's something that I've been harping on with people because I'm like, no, the most popular videos in the world on YouTube right now are MrBeast's 20-minute video.
Kurt (54:07.949)
Oh, good point. That is an important difference.
Jacques Spitzer (54:21.287)
It's not like people don't want to spend time with something of quality, but to your point, their consideration spans are incredibly small. And so the goal, I feel like as a brand should be to create advertising that people want to stop and watch. Right? Like, how do you create content so good that people know it's an ad and they don't care? They're like, yes, the next Dr. Squatch ad is out. I want to see it. Oh, wow. The next Liquid Death ad is out. I want to see it.
Kurt (54:48.23)
That's... Well, that's your secret sauce.
Jacques Spitzer (54:50.887)
Yeah, I mean, that's always been the case attention. I mean, without it, we got nothing
Kurt (54:56.101)
That is that is the true currency. Okay, you're a smart guy. You've been around the block What's this my last question? What's the best advice you've received in your career that you know may be applicable for us?
Jacques Spitzer (55:13.547)
You know, I mean, this is, I'm just gonna give you, I don't know if this is helpful for anyone out there, but this is just the truth. I have an incredible business partner, Adam Wagner. And when I first was trying to decide, I was three years in the business, trying to decide if I'm gonna introduce a partner and do these things, I talked to somebody and who had some business partners, and they said the best decision they ever made was, you know, finding someone who was equally invested and partnered in the same values as them.
And that was not a plus, but like a multiplicative factor of their success. And it's certainly been the case in mine. I wouldn't be on this podcast right now if it weren't for the work Adam's done to structure what we do, to mastermind what we do. And obviously like any marriage or anything, partnerships can go awry. They can be the worst thing too, but when they go well, they could be the best thing in the world and that advice changed my life.
Kurt (56:13.485)
Oh, I love it. Yeah, I have been the beneficiary of a great business relationship, and I've also had them blow up in my face. But I like the marriage analogy. I think it's quite apt. So where can people go to learn more about you? What if I want one of these fabulous commercials? Where do I go?
Jacques Spitzer (56:37.183)
I love it. Well, raindrop.agency is our website. And then I'm very active on Twitter, LinkedIn, and what else? Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok. I'm everywhere. You can't miss me. Just like yourself, Kurt, you're everywhere. And I love it. I love it. I consume your content everywhere I go.
Kurt (56:58.101)
Ehh
Thank you. So I see you're still calling it Twitter. It's 2024. It's still not X yet.
Jacques Spitzer (57:07.387)
I mean, I'll be one of those people. It's bad, it's bad. It's bad for, I mean, it's a bad habit. Yeah, I'm not doing it out of protest. I'm just like, never called it X in my life.
Kurt (57:11.942)
As for me, it's still Twitter.
Kurt (57:19.849)
Yeah, I'm not I'm not about to jump on that right. I'm doing Elon the favor right He's really tanked the brand value here like you're welcome, buddy You know what what's after I just Then I got away from me all right Jacques Spitzer. This is this has been fabulous. Thank you so much for giving me Well, I'm not gonna watch commercials the same way now
Jacques Spitzer (57:43.88)
What an honor, what an honor to be with you. Hey, ooh, ooh. That's the best compliment I've received all week.
Kurt (57:54.308)
you put that on your whole page at the bottom. Not gonna watch commercials the same.
Jacques Spitzer (57:56.775)
Yeah, the same way. That's right. All right, man. Thanks for having me on.
Kurt (58:02.229)
Chuck Spitzer, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Jacques Spitzer (58:06.391)
I don't know, I write by, like is that how you end a podcast?