Jeff Rosenblum launched and leads one of the most innovative brand agencies in the world: Questus. In this episode one of the world’s top advertising executives tells us how iconic brands win new customers and build armies of evangelists, and guides us through to the other side with his new book Exponential: Transform Your Brand by Empowering Instead of Interrupting
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Jeff Rosenblum launched and leads one of the most innovative brand agencies in the world: Questus.
In this episode one of the world’s top advertising executives tells us how iconic brands win new customers and build armies of evangelists, and guides us through to the other side with his new book Exponential: Transform Your Brand by Empowering Instead of Interrupting
Jeff tells that great brands stand for more than just cool products and clever advertisements. They inspire audiences. They enrich communities. They energize people. They move people’s lives forward.
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven’t already, be sure and click subscribe on your favourite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week, and check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and the Food Professor podcast. Last but not least, if you are into BBQ, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbeque, with new episodes each and every week!
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co! Have a safe week everyone!
About Jeff
Jeff Rosenblum is an advertising agency founder, documentary filmmaker and an admitted pain in the ass. He is widely regarded as one of the leading innovators in the field of digital marketing and has worked on teams that have helped revolutionize market research, publishing, sports broadcasting and interactive advertising.
He is the Founding Partner of Questus, a digital marketing agency that has worked with some of the world’s most influential brands including American Express, Bloomberg, Capital One, Discovery Channel, Disney, Driscoll’s, General Mills, Ford, ESPN, Suzuki Motorcycles, The NFL, Universal Orlando, Verizon and more.
Jeff was the co-writer and director of a groundbreaking documentary about the future of the advertising industry, The Naked Brand. It revealed the surprising story about the industry’s ability to create breakthrough brands by empowering consumers.
In his free time, Jeff is addicted to learning new skills, including telemark skiing, fly fishing, kite surfing, screen writing and funk guitar. His guitar instructor summarizes these efforts best, describing his playing as “mediocre, at best.”
When he’s not driving his team and his clients crazy, Jeff is on an Advisory Board for the Make-A-Wish Foundation as well as an Advisory Board for Special Spectators. He and his family built a school in a remote village in Nepal while working with the BuildOn organization. He lives in New York City with his wife and two kids, who are much cooler and better looking then he is.
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide. Michael was recently added to ReThink Retail’s prestigious Top 100 Global Retail Influencers for a second year in 2022.
Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Most recently, Michael launched Conversations with CommerceNext, a podcast focussed on retail eCommerce, digital marketing and retail careers - all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and all major podcast platforms. Michael is also the producer and host of the “Last Request Barbeque” channel on YouTube where he cooks meals to die for and influencer riches.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Jeff Rosenblum launched and leads one of the most innovative brand agencies in the world, Questus. In this episode, one of the world's top advertising executives tells us how iconic brands win new customers and build armies of evangelists, and guides us through to the other side, with his new book "Exponential: Transform Your Brand by Empowering Instead of Interrupting".
Michael LeBlanc 00:31
Jeff tells us that great brands stand for more than just cool products and clever advertisements, they inspire audiences, enrich communities, they energize people, and they move people's lives forward.
Jeff Rosenblum 00:43
The issue is a lot of people saw this and thought it was a green story. It's not a green story, it's an empowerment story. People do not wake up in the morning expecting every brand to hug the trees and save the manatees. It would be nice, but it's unrealistic. What people are really looking for is to be empowered in a very narrow and meaningful way, a way that improves their own life, one small step at a time.
Michael LeBlanc 01:11
Let's listen in now. Jeff, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing this afternoon?
Jeff Rosenblum 01:17
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on.
Michael LeBlanc 01:19
Well, it's my pleasure. Where am I finding you today in the wide world?
Jeff Rosenblum 01:23
I am in snowy New England. I was a New York City guy and then COVID sent me up to New England, and it's turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done.
Michael LeBlanc 01:31
Wow. And, and is that a permanent choice for you, whatever permanent means these days. But is that, kind of, like, I, I love it here. I'm not going to go back, or how are you, how are you thinking about that?
Jeff Rosenblum 01:41
I am here as long as they'll have me. Until they throw me out of New England I'm staying here.
Michael LeBlanc 01:46
There's been a lot of change in the COVID-era. We're going to scratch the surface on that a little bit. But you've got a great new book out, we're going to talk all about that, learn about your background. So, why don't we jump right in. Tell us about yourself, and your origin story, and, and what you do for a living.
Jeff Rosenblum 02:02
Oh, wow. Great question. So, my name is Jeff Rosenblum, I'm the founding partner of an agency called Questus. We specialize in building advertising for the modern consumer journey. And we've done it for some of the most iconic brands in the world. You name it, Apple, Amazon, Disney, Capital One, the NFL, ESPN, Wyndham, Verizon, the list goes on and on.
Jeff Rosenblum 02:24
Really my role there, I'm really proud to say and, is, is I'm the LVP. I'm the least valuable player. We've really focused in on building great team and great culture. And it's, kind of, the secret to our success. And I cover that a little bit in the book that you mentioned, it's called “Exponential”, it just hit The Wall Street Journal bestseller list.
Michael LeBlanc 02:43
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I've had the opportunity to read, read through the book. It's "Exponential: Transform Your Brand by Empowering Instead of Interrupting". So, I got a lot of questions about that. Let me just take a step back. So, how did you find yourself where you are today? I mean, did you always want to be, and you talk about it a little bit in the book, we'll get to it, your, a little bit of the background.
Michael LeBlanc 03:02
But, you know, that's an impressive roster of clients. It's a nice NASCAR page, so to speak, to put up in the client pitches. But how did you, you know, how did you come to that? I mean, was it, were you, at one point, going to be something else and you switched? Give me a bit of that context for how you found yourself in what you're doing today.
Jeff Rosenblum 03:19
Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm 100% an outsider to the industry. But at the same time, I was, kind of, born and raised for it. My father was a salesperson. So, his job was to convince people to buy different products, and my mother was a shrink. So, her job was to understand the human psyche, and how to manipulate the brain in, in positive ways.
Jeff Rosenblum 03:42
And if, if you really think about that, that's, kind of, the perfect DNA for an advertising person. And in fact, you know, I come from a family of dorks. And they, kind of, trained me to be an advertising person. In the evening, my father would run different experiments in, so for example, he would do the Pepsi Challenge at home.
Jeff Rosenblum 04:03
And what that meant is he would take Coke and Pepsi, and then he would take, like, generic cola brands and, and pour it into cups. And then we would taste it, and obviously, they all basically tasted the same.
Michael LeBlanc 04:13
Yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 04:13
And then he would show us the actual brands behind it. And his whole thinking was to teach us not to trust brands, and not to trust advertising. He was showing us that, you know, we're really manipulated by the shiny logos on the sides of the cans. But the funny thing is, it, kind of, backfired, because he was trying to push me away from advertising as a consumer. But I, I remember sitting at the table and just—
Michael LeBlanc 04:38
I love this, I love this, I want to do more of this.
Jeff Rosenblum 04:40
Totally, I was like, this is awesome, I want to manipulate the human brain in this way. I think this is so cool. And the truth of the matter is my father is probably the most morally sound human being on planet earth, and in the way he described his sales career is he never actually sold anything. He did it all just through customer service and taking care of people.
Jeff Rosenblum 05:00
And I think that, sort of, DNA, hit me. Which is, I really wanted to be part of this, this brain manipulation, this brand storytelling, but figure out the most moral way to do it. So, fast forward, you know, 20 years later, and we covered it in the book, but I was, I was an absolute troublemaker. I was one of the worst students on planet earth. I barely graduated high school, I barely graduated college. There was certainly not an army of brands lining up to try to recruit me and my 2.8 GPA.
Jeff Rosenblum 05:32
So, I went through the yellow pages, I cold called. But amazingly, I wound up at a research and strategy firm, run by a couple of Harvard Business School graduates. Some of the greatest human beings ever, they taught me everything I know. But I happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Jeff Rosenblum 05:46
I had a motorcycle, not because I was cool, but because I was broke. And when you put on the helmet, you know, it gives you a lot of clarity of thought, it breaks you away from the day to day stress and the distractions. And I realized, you know, hey, the whole world is shifting towards the internet. That's how old I was, the internet was just starting up.
Michael LeBlanc 06:02
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 06:03
And all of the data that we're collecting through traditional mechanisms, surveys, phone calls, mail, mall, all of that's going to shift into the internet. So, what can we do, you know, to, to take advantage of that. So, I happened to be in the right place at the right time. And I helped pioneer the field of internet research. But quickly, I got bored of it, because a lot of clients didn't just want internet data.
Jeff Rosenblum 06:25
What they really wanted was to understand what is this data saying. And what I learned is people want a lot more from brands than just interruptions and superficial messages. What they're looking for from brands is to take all of their creativity and intellectual firepower, and actually empower them and improve their lives.
Jeff Rosenblum 06:42
So, that's when I called my business partner and I was like, dude, let's go start an agency. And he was like, have you ever been in an agency? And I'm like, absolutely not, have you, and he's like, nope, we're like, eff it, let's go do it. So, we started an agency with the idea of being outsiders that wanted to redefine what advertising is all about.
Michael LeBlanc 06:59
What a journey. And, and let's get into the book, because I talk to a lot of authors, and I, I like to start out, first about your journey of actually writing the book. Because at some point, you had to say, well, I want to write a book. And that's for even veteran authors, you know. I talked to Dan Pink, who just got, has a new book out, and it's his seventh.
Michael LeBlanc 07:19
And I'm like, I guess you got it all figured out how to write a book. He goes no, no, every one of them is hard. Talk about your process to me. I mean, some authors, you know, they have it all in their heads, and they just spend days and days getting it out. Others, kind of, put a structure together. And, and tell me about your process for writing the book and what drove you to put pen to paper, or keys to keyboard.
Jeff Rosenblum 07:41
Yeah, absolutely. I, I love that question because I've been meaning to put together a, a video about it, because I think I can bring some value and sanity to people. So, scratch the video and we'll point everyone towards your podcast. But, you know, there was one expression that came to my mind every day when I was writing the book. And the expression was this, this is a nightmare of epic proportions.
Jeff Rosenblum 08:05
It is not fun writing a book. And I think if you're listening to this podcast and wondering what it's like, you know, you're not a full time author, you're not Malcolm Gladwell, you're probably a business person, a consultant, etc. And, you know, you've got a lot of information to add, but you're not trained to be an author.
Michael LeBlanc 08:05
Yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 08:22
And the best advice I can give is attained out of one simple thing. I set my alarm clock for 4:15am, every single day, seven days a week. And it was the only way I could get it done. Because there was, you know, the only way I could actually focus. And the thing is—
Michael LeBlanc 08:41
Yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 08:41
If I woke up at 4:15 and was writing by 4:17. If at any point, whether it was 4:22 or 8:22, I looked at my email, I, I checked my voicemail, I looked at a browser, I checked my messages, the whole thing would shut down. Like—
Michael LeBlanc 08:57
Yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 08:57
My brain would instantly go into work, in client service, in taking care of the team mode, and my ability to write, and focus, and be creative, completely shut off. So, you know the, we work—
Michael LeBlanc 09:09
Did you set a word count for yourself, to say every, Dan Pink was telling me, again, his, his approach is like, I set a word count every day. I may not keep them all, but I, I'm not going to leave the office till I, you know, I get something accomplished. Much harder than, even for veteran authors, it's harder than it looks.
Jeff Rosenblum 09:25
Yeah. I, I, I love that, I love people have different processes. I remember reading about Charles Bukowski's process, where he would drink a whole, a whole bottle of bourbon and he wouldn't remember anything. And then the next morning he would wake up half sober and clean up what he wrote. You know, I like to think I wrote a good book and I'm getting great reviews, but I'm, I'm no Daniel Pink.
Jeff Rosenblum 09:45
He's a true professional in this realm. My thing was more about time than word count. Like, can I sit down and focus myself for at least an hour each day and, you know, sometimes I would write, sometimes I would record, sometimes I'd just go for a long walk and, and record my thoughts and, you know, that's a pretty powerful way to do it.
Jeff Rosenblum 10:07
Writing isn't the hard part. It's the after you get your first draft, and you have to make it cohesive. And then you get to the fourth, fifth, sixth draft, where you have to dot the I's and cross the T's. That's where the nightmare kicks in. But the first draft, that's actually pretty fun.
Michael LeBlanc 10:22
Well, let's talk about the book. I mean you, you know, I got the, I got a copy of the book, early copy of the book. And I found it's not, let's just say it's not a conventional opening to a business book on advertising and marketing. Yeah, I mean, you opened with a pretty startling story.
Michael LeBlanc 10:35
You talk about your, your family a couple of generations back and how you learned from it, and how it made you who you are, but also formed your perspectives around the rest of the book. And you've already talked about that. So, take, take the listeners through a little bit about how you open the book, and, and take me inside why you wanted to open the book in that, that way.
Jeff Rosenblum 10:53
Yeah, the book opens with my earliest memory, and I'm about 10 years old, and I'm in the kitchen. And I've got a 10 inch steak knife in my hand, a serrated knife, and it has two tips at the end for picking up big hunks of meat. And I've got this knife pointed right at my brother's torso.
Jeff Rosenblum 11:17
My brother has a 10 inch chef's knife in his hand, and he's got it pointed right at my torso. And I jab at him with my knife and he jabs at me with his knife. And we go back and forth. While my babysitter is right next to us. And I really liked this babysitter, he didn't smell weird, like our previous babysitter.
Michael LeBlanc 11:37
Freaking out, freaking out as you described as—
Jeff Rosenblum 11:40
Freaking out, scared shitless and he screams no. And what he didn't realize is my brother and I were just up way past our bedtime. We're totally hyperactive. We're still in our pajamas. We're just having a good time. Nobody's going to stab each other.
Jeff Rosenblum 11:56
Nobody's about to die. But he doesn't know this, right. So, he screams no, and I scream yes, and that crazy, past-your-bedtime laughter. And he goes to grab my arm, and that's what he should have done, but instead he grabbed the blade of the knife.
Michael LeBlanc 12:10
Yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 12:10
And I pulled the blade out, and it cuts right through his thumb down to the bone. Next thing you know his thumb is dangling there, blood is dripping all the way down his arm, off his elbow, drip, drip, drip, making a giant puddle on the floor. We call the ambulance. We went through rolls and rolls of paper towels. The ambulance comes, takes him away. We never saw him again. And I just, I remember everything. I remember—
Michael LeBlanc 12:35
Yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 12:35
The drawer. I remember my knife. I remember his knife. I remember the exact pajamas I was wearing. I remember the blood dripping down his arm, the pool of blood at the bottom. But the crazy thing I don't remember is the punishment when my parents came home, because there was no punishment. As soon as they bundled him up, everyone acted like it never happened.
Jeff Rosenblum 12:59
Because my father was actually the son of a gangster. My grandfather was in the Jewish mafia. They were affiliated with Murder, Inc., which was known to have been responsible for thousands of murders around New York City, coming out of the prohibition. And really cool stories, like my Uncle Max or my Great Uncle Max was hit in the head with a hatchet. Somehow he survived.
Jeff Rosenblum 13:21
He used to take the butt end of a cigarette and stick it in the divot in his forehead to entertain the kids, like, the stories go on and on. There's like, like Goodfellas stories, Jewish style. But the truth of the matter is he was a monster. He was a horrible monster, he used to punch my dad in the face, kick him in the face. At one point my dad talks about time moving in slow motion when he hit the ceiling.
Jeff Rosenblum 13:43
And the reason he hit the ceiling is his own father picked them up and threw him across the room. And he realized in that slow motion moment, it was gonna be a large drop to the ground. So, what happened is my father, and normally this violence is passed on, he was like, look, it stops with me. So, not only was my father not violent, like I never got punished for anything, and the prime example being like, dude, I took a knife and cut my babysitter's thumb off, right.
Jeff Rosenblum 14:09
And there was no punishment. And the reason I start the book with this story is this was the single greatest gift my parents ever gave me. Because the world has changed so dramatically. Every industry around the globe, in particular, advertising has been completely disrupted by technology. And we need to embrace change. We need to be comfortable taking risks.
Jeff Rosenblum 14:36
And I've always been extraordinarily comfortable taking risks. Because there's never been a downside for me. I could do anything, like cutting off my babysitter's thumb and not get punished. And I really just wanted to start that story to set the table because when I did finally get that research job, I walked into my boss's room and said dude, everything you're doing, Mr. Harvard Business School, is broken.
Jeff Rosenblum 14:59
Me and my UVM 2.8 GPA, I've seen a better way. Like, that's a big risk to tell your boss he's a dingdong, right. And then to start an agency, when you have virtually never stepped in one, but it was the greatest gift and we use it over, and over, and over again, to push our clients to embrace change, because the old way of doing things simply isn't working.
Michael LeBlanc 15:19
Well, let's talk about, let's talk about exponential growth and transformation. I mean, you make a, a great point that, you know, many, many times the eulogy has been written for advertising or marketing. But it's, it's always, you know, it, it goes back even to, I remember a book by Coke CMO, Sergio Zyman, who wrote "The End of Advertising as We Know It".
Michael LeBlanc 15:39
So, you're on, in one way you're on familiar ground. But you're, you're, you're, you bring up new concepts here. So, take us through, kind of, a central thesis of the book beyond your ability to take risk and have a certain perspective. What is it that you want the listeners to understand about how you think they should be thinking differently about their brands?
Jeff Rosenblum 15:58
Yeah, I can get it in three words. It's empowerment over interruptions. And what I mean by that, is, everybody wakes up in the morning, wanting one thing, they want to be better than they were the day before. It's at the heart of the human experience. It's what drives capitalism. So, when brands seek to empower people, they're drafting off of thousands of years of evolution.
Jeff Rosenblum 16:29
Now, when people talk about the death of advertising, that false eulogy has been written before, we're just asking traditional interruptive advertising to do way too much. It's still an important tool, it's still something that brands need to do. And it's still something that we do a hell of a lot of, at our agency Questus.
Jeff Rosenblum 16:49
But if you really want to grow exponentially, if you really want to dominate the competition, you have to move beyond exclusively focusing in on interruptions, and you need to invest in content, in tools, and experiences that empower people, that improve people's lives. One small step at a time.
Michael LeBlanc 17:11
Now, these are, these are big words, big concepts, unpack one of them for me. So, if I was a client, prospective client or existing client, you know, how, where do I start on this journey. I mean, you're saying, these are fantastic concepts. And part of the book is, is actually walking the reader through actually how to, you know, as, so to speak, unpack these big ideas that you have.
Michael LeBlanc 17:33
But just take a few minutes and unpack one for us. Maybe use a, a client example, or if you've seen something, you know, if you're running, you know, if you're running Peloton, today, who, you know, has just got a new CEO and has run into some chop. You know, how would you approach, you know, that brand, or any brand that, that is not, whether they're challenged, or whatever. Give us, give us a sense of that trade craft.
Jeff Rosenblum 17:55
Sure. Let's, let's go through three examples. Go through two of my, two favorites, and then we'll talk about Peloton. So, you know, I think the poster child for all of this is Patagonia. What Patagonia realized is for people to enjoy their outdoor gear and apparel, we need a healthy outdoors. So, rather than investing in a lot of TV, and print, and digital, and social advertising to talk about how great Patagonia is, they take those same dollars and they invested in content.
Jeff Rosenblum 18:26
In tools that empower people and educate people how to have a healthier environment. So, they have events, they make content. They have multiple full-blown documentaries. At one point, they took over the homepage of their website with a giant message that said, 'don't buy this jacket', talking people into buying less.
Jeff Rosenblum 18:50
And the idea there is to give people the information they need about what happens to manufacturing byproducts, and what happens with the garbage created with consumerism. The issue is a lot of people saw this and thought it was a green story. It's not a green story. It's an empowerment story. People do not wake up in the morning expecting every brand to hug the trees and save the manatees.
Jeff Rosenblum 19:14
It would be nice, but it's unrealistic. What people are really looking for is to be empowered in a very narrow and meaningful way. A way that improves their own life, one small step at a time. So, the one example that I love, and this is not something that I've been part of, I just think it's an amazing example, is Fender Guitar. Fender Guitar realized that there's a lot of pressure on their entire category.
Jeff Rosenblum 19:39
Kids are less likely to play guitar because they can make incredible music just using their computer nowadays. So, what they wanted to do is help people get over that hurdle, and teach them how to play guitar. Whether you're beginner, intermediate, advanced, whether you love jazz, rock, blues, country, you can go up on Fender Play.
Jeff Rosenblum 20:00
And you can get lessons on a one-to-one basis. They teach you how to play the song, they teach you how to grow along in your skill set, they teach you how to learn different genres in different styles. And yes, you can get great lessons on YouTube. But they're using their assets of the guitar players that they know in their studios and technology, to give you pretty much the best lessons possible, in teaching you on a one-to-one basis.
Jeff Rosenblum 20:28
Now, here's what makes all of this stuff so powerful. What makes empowerment so powerful, is it shifts the relationship that brands have with consumers, from transactional to emotional. Most brands have a transactional brand, they have a nice product, they make some clever advertising, they charge a fair price. The audience conducts some research, they buy, some of them are loyal, they virtually never recommend.
Jeff Rosenblum 20:55
That's the typical, rational relationship that people have, very transactional. Emotional relationships are completely irrational. Irrational in the most positive of ways. People go, they, they ignore the competition, they pay a higher price, they go out of their way to recommend the brand to friends, they go out of the way to leave ratings and reviews, talk about it on social media, they wear hats, and they wear t-shirts, turning themselves into walking billboards.
Jeff Rosenblum 21:22
Now we all want that irrational relationship. And one of the action items in there is to act, kind of, irrational as a brand. It's very rational to have a nice ad campaign and put it at the right place at the right time. But it's very irrational when Patagonia doesn't even talk about their products, but they educate people about the environment. It's really irrational when they take over their website with a message that says, don't buy this jacket.
Jeff Rosenblum 21:48
For Fender, you don't need a Fender guitar to actually use the Fender Play platform. You can use a Gibson or any other brand of guitar. That's really irrational. But if you want the irrational result of an, an emotional relationship, in a lot of ways you have to act irrational, or at least in a way that seems irrational at face value.
Michael LeBlanc 22:09
So, let's talk about the hyper-rational, on the other side of that coin. Because you talk about in the book, the data, the influence of technology, you know, we, it's a very dynamic environment today with everything from first party data concerns to privacy, kind of, Apple's decisions around their iOS that knocks out cookies.
Michael LeBlanc 22:28
And, and on the other side, you've got tremendous platforms that are enabling influencers and social media. How do you, how do you put all that together when you think about brands, and how they can, you know, maximize the formula that you're articulating.
Jeff Rosenblum 22:42
Well look, I think all that stuff is basically table stakes, right. You know, everyone should have a great website, a great search campaign, a social, a great social campaign, like, I think people are expecting that to be table stakes. So, if, if you're not there, you're in big trouble. But, so you have to get there quickly.
Jeff Rosenblum 23:01
But if you think you're going to dominate the competition, just through a strong social presence, strong website, strong search presence, you're not going to get there. You're not going to dominate the competition. You can have a very good brand, you can have a very good career, that's absolutely cool. But I'm obsessed with this concept of great brands, brands that grow exponentially.
Jeff Rosenblum 23:22
Brands that dominate the competition. In those brands, do everything that you talked about, but recognize that's just table stakes. And on top of that, they're investing heavily in content and experiences. Those content and experiences are immersive, they're meaningful, and they're empowering.
Michael LeBlanc 23:41
So, for you, those are the differentiators versus the table stakes. That last component, right. That's what's going to take you to be remarkable, over the top, right. Literally be remarked upon.
Jeff Rosenblum 23:52
Exactly. And that's how you get exponential results. Exponential is not an adjective. It's, it's a mathematical term, right. So, if you have all the table stakes stuff, you're going to have customers, in every dollar you spend, you're going to try to get X customers. But if you focus in on empowerment, you're going to get X number of evangelists.
Jeff Rosenblum 24:12
But the cool thing about evangelists is they talk to other people for you. And it's like that old Wella Balsam campaign, right. They told two friends and they told him friends.
Michael LeBlanc 24:21
They told two friends.
Jeff Rosenblum 24:21
It literally grows exponentially.
Michael LeBlanc 24:24
Yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 24:24
And if you look at the stock charts for the world's most successful companies, and you step far enough back, they all sit on that exponential curve, right. They, it's pretty flat in the beginning, and then it starts to skyrocket upwards.
Michael LeBlanc 24:39
What do you think, and how would you apply this to Peloton, I mean, it's just front of mind. Today we're recording mid-February and, and they've had a bunch of changes and their stocks up, down and sideways. And, and, you know, how do you apply something like that. I'm just, kind of, looking for take, taking, taking the model out for a little bit of a test drive. You know, you're sitting in front of someone at Peloton, what would you do differently, or what, what's, what do they do next to, to come back from this.
Jeff Rosenblum 25:06
Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks for returning to that because I think Peloton is a tale of two cities, and they both center around this concept of empowerment. So, let's talk about the rise of Peloton. And I think virtually anyone would be ecstatic to be the person who started Peloton, or work at Peloton, or be at a division that's a similar type of Peloton growth. And what they did is they, they took two fairly mundane products, one streaming media, and two stationary bikes.
Jeff Rosenblum 25:39
And they focused in on empowerment, how do we empower all these instructors, and, and more importantly, how do we empower all of these customers to get this incredible one-to-one lessons and this notion of community? How do we bring exercise right into people's homes? That's incredibly powerful, like they were improving people's lives in the most authentic of ways.
Jeff Rosenblum 26:03
The issue is, they stopped playing offense with their brand. They were able to get all of that low hanging fruit. All the people who want to get healthy, who can afford these products. But once they had all the low hanging fruit, they were missing some empowerment in regard to how they communicate their brand. So, the great manifestation of this, and I think it's a wonderful example of what's wrong with the advertising industry, is there was that episode in the reboot of Sex and the City.
Michael LeBlanc 26:34
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 26:35
Very few people actually saw this episode.
Michael LeBlanc 26:38
Yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 26:39
In fact, very few people were even aware of the reboot. But one of the main characters gets on a Peloton bike, has a heart attack, and dies. And next thing you know, the stock dropped, it was either four points or 4%, the very next day. There is no reason, no reason why a brand with a multi-billion dollar valuation should get impacted like 4% from a small scene in a TV show that most people haven't even watched or even heard of.
Michael LeBlanc 27:08
Yeah.
Jeff Rosenblum 27:08
But here's where it gets pretty bananas. Next thing you know, they run their own campaign. They get Ryan Reynolds in the campaign, two days later. And they've got this whole thing going back about, you know, how healthy it is and how people didn't die, ha ha ha, if you're in on the joke. And that's the problem with the advertising industry right now, is we think it's going to be about a 30-second spot.
Jeff Rosenblum 27:30
We think it's going to be about creativity, and everyone on Ad Age, and all the other publications were like, oh my god, look how nimble Peloton is, and look how creative they are. And look how they brought Ryan Reynolds in. Well, we know how this story ends, the stock absolutely got pummeled in the following weeks, because the issue is in that campaign they're playing defense.
Jeff Rosenblum 27:52
What they should have been doing is playing offense. Continuing to reinforce what makes that product different, what makes that product better, and how do we bring it to life in a, in an immersive and meaningful way. Not just in a little social media post, and not just in a 30-second TV spot.
Michael LeBlanc 28:08
Last question for you. Okay, tempted because I, I, you've got such a rich background of understanding and thinking, helping brands understand consumers, I want to just touch on the COVID-era. And I don't want to dwell on it, it's not a history lesson podcast. But I am trying to sort out in my own mind, as I think many of us are, the changes in consumers that, the difference between those that were just an accommodation to a really weird time in our lives versus any permanent changes.
Michael LeBlanc 28:36
I mean, there's been some research starting to come out that people are a little more focused on thoughtful consumption, for example, but for, for a minute or two, what do you, how are you thinking about the post COVID-era, and how consumers may or may not behave, and we need to think about them differently.
Jeff Rosenblum 28:51
You know, my philosophy about the COVID-era is that COVID actually didn't change anything for brands or for consumers. What it did is it expedited the process. It advanced us, I'm making this up, probably about seven years forward. So, all of these things that we're seeing, our reliance upon Zoom, our reliance upon more cloud based communication, our reliance upon ratings and reviews and other information that we can get digitally.
Jeff Rosenblum 29:23
Our shift away from certain social media platforms like Facebook, which are not really bringing value, but are bringing divisiveness. All of this stuff was going to happen. So, if you're seeing certain trends, in your own business, if you're seeing certain trends in your own metrics, I don't think this is a short term COVID blip.
Jeff Rosenblum 29:41
I think we've just advanced the process. We need to look really carefully at the changes that are taking place and the relationship that businesses have with their customers. And think of this as a permanent shift in that entire relationship.
Michael LeBlanc 29:56
Well, my guest is Jeff Rosenblum. The book is "Exponential: Transform Your Brand by Empowering Instead of Interrupting". I'm, it's out now, I think, it's, I've just checked. It's available wherever you buy, find books on both sides of the border here in Canada and in the US. Jeff, if somebody wants to get a hold of you or learn more about your agency, how do they do that?
Jeff Rosenblum 30:16
Yeah, the best way to learn more about us is at Questus.com. Q-U-E-S-T-U-S.com
Michael LeBlanc 30:24
All right. And are you a, a LinkedIn guy, are you reachable? Are you, are you in the social media meilleur?
Jeff Rosenblum 30:29
I'm on all of it, most actively on LinkedIn. So, you can just do a quick search for Jeff Rosenblum. I'm on Instagram at djeffrosenblum, and I'm on Twitter @jrquestus.
Michael LeBlanc 30:40
Well, very good. Well, Jeff, thanks so much for making some time. Congratulations on the book, I wish you continued success in everything you're doing and, and once again, thanks for making time to join me on The Voice of Retail.
Jeff Rosenblum 30:51
Thanks for having me on. I do appreciate it.
Michael LeBlanc 30:53
Thanks for tuning in to this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and click and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, so new episodes will land automatically twice a week. And check out my other retail industry media properties, the Remarkable Retail podcast, Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and The Food Professor podcast, with Dr. Sylvian Charlebois.
Michael LeBlanc 31:13
Last but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbecue, with new episodes each and every week.
I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E LeBlanc & Company and Maven Media. And if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Have a safe week everyone.