Humans vs Technology in Branding – Digital CxO Podcast EP68

Hello, and welcome to the digital CXO podcast. I'm Amanda Ani, and I'm here with Mike Vard and our special guest, Vladimir Botz Fase. How are you doing today?

Hi, Amanda and hi Michael. It is a pleasure to be a guest on your podcast. Many thanks.

Many thanks for this ation, Mike, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Well, I'm doing great.

You know, I mean, uh, I'm very honored to be at the vanguard of marketing and AI because I currently serve on Advisory Board of United States AI Institute. And, uh, I, I'm also a mentor at Techstars, so we are so many heads firing on our cylinder, so I am, I'm delighted to make a positive impact, uh, on this, uh, business world, you know. All right.

Well, let, let's start with that particular topic then. Digital transformation has been around in various forms for a while now, and now this AI thing has come to fruition. So what do you think the ultimate impact of AI is gonna be on these digital transformation efforts that folks are having?

Should we start all over again because, well, it's a whole new ball game, or is this additive in your mind? Well, you know, uh, it's, it is, uh, nowadays much easier to create better content because of ai. Uh, it is, uh, dismal that, uh, AI has started, uh, replacing so many people's jobs.

And, uh, you know, that according to the Wealth Economic Forum, 85 million, uh, jobs will be replaced by AI next year. And, uh, because I see that, uh, nowadays 41% of code on GitHub has been written by ai, which is a tip of the iceberg for coders. And also, at the same time, uh, I see that, uh, uh, copywriters, marketers, and bloggers are being replaced by generative ai because anyone can create better content.

And if, if writing was not your upside, now writing is your upside. Because ge generative AI can, uh, uh, put you in a catbird seat because, uh, of creation, because it analyzes consumer's data. It allows you to create a better content.

And I have greatly benefited from AI and its generative powers. So to create better content. And, you know, it's from 2020, from 2014 to 2022, I built my personal brand without, uh, generative AI and, uh, all these tools, you know, so I think that, uh, our, our advantages to build emotional connections with this world, and it's not AI's, AI's a disadvantage, is that it can't build emotional connections with the world.

So we need to take a, a step forward. We need to communicate with our consumers. We need to humanize your brand.

And social media is all about reactionary business. It is a relation based marketing. So with generative ai, we can create better content.

And I'm also a, a judge at the web award, and I see, uh, and I judge more than top five, top 50 most influential podcasts, uh, in the us. So I can see that it, it is a battle for attention nowadays. And, you know, marketing is not all about winning attention.

It's, it is all about retaining attention, you know, so what, um, Peter Drer says that marketing is all about creating customers and retaining customers, you know, so those brands that truly understand lifetime value and retention are going to be the ones who are going to win in the long term. You know? So what are, what are you seeing from your experience in this area?

Where are business leaders failing in this area? And then what are some of the solutions that AI can provide? Can you share some of those tools and, and, and creation solutions that they can benefit from?

Uh, Yes. Uh, Amanda, it is a great question. Thank you.

I think, uh, nowadays, you know, 50 52% of, uh, companies, uh, have disappeared on their Fortune 500 list. Why? Since 22,000, why 52% of o organizations disappeared, you know, because they continued, uh, to, uh, depend on backward looking advertising that that no longer provided positive ROI, you know, so I think that, uh, more than $200 billion are wasted on bill on advertising, you know, and, uh, nowadays big organizations, executives treat, uh, treat social media like they treat tv, outdoor media, magazines.

So they, they send this one size fits all, um, like marketing messaging that is disrespectful for the end users across social media channels and, and social media. It is a reactionary business, and I believe that it is a best time to build a personal brand. Because, for example, the most impressive example regarding build building a personal brand is a, is Elon Musk, because Elon Musk, uh, you know, Tesla doesn't have an advertising department, and Tesla has depended on the robot personal brand of Elon Musk, whereas competitor Mercedes Benz spends, for example, $945 per car on advertising.

And, uh, uh, Tesla nowadays has a higher market value than the rest of traditional auto makers because of Elon Musk personal brand, because he directly communicates with Tesla's owners. You know, I don't think that you remember anybody from Ford, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Porsche, and the rest of the automakers where their executives are interested in humanizing their brands and directly communicating with consumers. But Elon Musk is transparent.

Elon Musk, uh, shares, uh, company's updates, product development, everything with Tesla owners. That's why he created this trust with consumers. And you know, that ev almost every follower is a brand ambassador.

They create, they share their Teslas photos, it spread like wildfire, and it creates emotional connections, you know, and the robust community. So I, I believe that real community based marketing is the most effective marketing strategy. And ev everyone who builds their businesses, they need to bring, bring cons consumers together.

And I think, uh, another great example, uh, building, uh, regarding, uh, humanizing brand is, uh, uh, Emily Weis, who built Glossier, uh, because, uh, Emily Weiss started as a blogger, and she was treating blog readers as friends and her marketing team, uh, from Instagram, uh, Facebook, and the rest of social media channels were interviewing the biggest fans on their websites. That's why through blogging, Emily turned this startup into a billion dollar business through blogging and connecting with their consumers and showing gratitude, you know, so, you know, when I also embarked on my Twitter journey, I had zero followers in 2014. But, uh, by leaps and bounds through communicating, showing gratitude and, and, uh, building up emotional connection with my followers, I built my community on Twitter.

You know, so from 2014 to 2022, I have gone from zero followers to, to 57,000 followers with sleepless nights, with hard work content creation and pro providing, uh, uh, value. Uh, uh, Amanda, I think it is very important to provide value. And because majority of brands and transactional, they are oriented on short term success, short term ROI.

But if you want to win in the long term, we need to provide value, we need to create communities, we need to build emotional connection with our followers. And, uh, when there is a, with, there is a, uh, when there is a, with, there is a way, right? Mm-Hmm.

Do you think that a lot of marketing teams are spending a lot of time on the backend creating collateral, and that's where AI will help, but will they actually, therefore spend more time creating that more human touch and engaging more directly with people as the brand ambassador? Because a lot of the times, I think, marketing people like the distance between themselves and the end customer, and maybe they're not comfortable with that, or do they have to reinvent themselves in some way? Yeah, because, you know, so many brands nowadays are very far from their consumers, you know, because, you know, it, uh, social media is a reactionary business, you know, it is, it is human based marketing, human relationship marketing, you know, you need to humanize it.

It should be two way street rather than one way street, you know? But, uh, uh, uh, so many brands, uh, are broadcasters on social media, and they, whatever they used to send, uh, like on tradit, traditional marketing channels, on tv, billboards, magazines, they are treating social media like tv, email marketing, and they don't interact with their consumers, you know? So what set me apart is that I'm very interactive with my audience.

And I used to, for example, send, uh, video messages, uh, to my followers for appreciating retweeting my stuff. And I used to build connections, you know, and if you check out my LinkedIn, uh, profile, you will see that, uh, I have more than 30 LinkedIn recommendation, more than thousands of endorsements. Why?

Because I used to, I used to put my heart and soul into building my Twitter communities. That's why, uh, they rewarded my hard work. They, uh, uh, endorsed my skills.

They also followed me across other social media channels. So Twitter has had a domino effect on my career path trajectory because, uh, when you, uh, Twitter is like a cocktail party for the business world where it is easy to connect, it's easy to, I mean, it is a Swiss army knife for business growth nowadays, you know, and I witness that so many open-minded people became billions through networking on Twitter with no excuses. And the best example is Ryan Graves, who re responded to Travis Nik, who was building Uber in 2011.

They met, they started Uber together, and Ryan Graves became a billionaire because of Twitter networking, you know? So I think, I think that internet has democratized opportunity. It doesn't matter where you come from, if you start networking, if you are open-minded, if you surround yourself with smarter people, you become a keynote speaker, you become a mentor, you become an influencer, you become entrepreneur.

So, uh, so I think that, uh, uh, anyone can stand a great change of succeeding in this day and age, you know? So it sounds like you embrace AI and other technologies, yet at the foundation, it's still the human element, and you feel that many company leaders are forgetting that human element, and it has a broad impact. Yes.

Human element, and whoever shows their hearts, their smiles, their face becomes market editor. You know, because we are in a streaming economy nowadays. We watch Netflix and we watch no ads.

We listen to Spotify, and we, we listen, no ads. We Disney, Disney plus no ads, Amazon Prime, no ads. We listen to, uh, audio books, no ads.

So consumers, uh, pay extra not to consume ads, you know? And so two third of marketing is, uh, happening without brands and marketers and consumers tell our stories. So how we can help our consumers tell our stories, you know, how we can help them, because we need to satisfy if someone is not satisfied with the product, and when they complain on Twitter, we need to res listen and respond.

Listen and respond, you know? So if those brands neglect and disregard their consumers in the digital age, they are going out of business, like, uh, blockbuster, you know, As you think that through, we see all these kinda AI bots that people are creating, and they're clearly stiff personalities and somewhat robotic, should, do those things have a role? Or are they counterproductive?

Well, I don't think that it is. Uh, it, as I mentioned, you know, AI can, uh, analyze consumer's data. It can optimize even, uh, advertising campaigns.

It can, uh, uh, analyze, uh, consumers, uh, behavior. But it is our responsibility and our advantage to build direct communication with, uh, you know, with consumers. You know?

1 billion social media users. And the question nowadays is, if you don't have online personal brand, how do you stand out in this no noisy digital marketplace? You know?

So every employee can be a brand ambassador. Uh, every executive needs to have reputation in the digital age. Uh, I, I, I bootstrap my business.

I did not have millions of dollars to invest in my personal brand building. But, uh, uh, but you know, when, when you nowadays, uh, nowadays the bridge between, uh, dream and reality is hard work. So, hard work is what can, you can set you apart.

And, uh, I love what I do. That's why I have been working 16 hours a day in the last 15 years. And, uh, my, nowadays my results speak for themselves because I humanize my brand.

And, uh, the market is a decision maker. The market decides what is good and bad. So market decided that Spotify, Uber, Netflix, uh, uh, uh, uh, and the rest of style brands are good because they solve consumers problems.

You know, You mentioned innovators such as Elon Musk. So yeah. Thinking about business leaders having an innovative mindset, what are some some key takeaways you can give them today?

Give them today? Yeah, Elon Musk said that, uh, uh, if other people work, uh, 40 hour workbooks and you work a hundred hour workbooks, you will achieve in four months what it takes for them a year to achieve. So, uh, so no excuses.

Elon has succeeded. Elon has put his heart and soul into building his ventures, and he used to, uh, uh, borrow money for rent in 2008 when he was invested his, uh, last dollars into his ventures in Tesla and SpaceX, and the rest of, uh, companies. So I think that, uh, I also, I also, uh, invested my last dollar into my website.

com is ranked number one, uh, uh, speaker website in the, on Google. Why? Because of my passion.

And it's all about, uh, it's all about, uh, caring about your consumers, creating great content, providing value. And, uh, nowadays I no longer tell my stories because my followers tell my stories. You know, that is the biggest advantage that, that I satisfy my consumers, my followers.

And, uh, word, top mouth marketing has driven my success. You know? So how do you navigate this issue where I get that it should be a person, you wanna lead with humanity, but you know, people quit, they retire, they leave, and, and, and so don't I need the brand to be kind of bigger than the person so that the brand carries on, no matter who is the spokesperson, as it were?

Yeah, branding is everything these days. Uh, uh, Michael, you know, because I think a majority of people are transactional, uh, and I have more than 30,000 followers on LinkedIn, and majority, when they connect with me, uh, they forget to create great content. They send me their sales pitch.

And I believe that, um, I mean, uh, salespeople are oriented short term success. And if anyone wants to stand out in this noisy digital marketplace, and it is easiest time in the history of mankind to be successful, to create great content, humanize your brand and directly, uh, con connect with consumers, you know, so as they say, we need to fish where the fish are, but respective fish. And, uh, uh, so I, I, I, I just, uh, consumers win, uh, 60% of consumers expect to be acknowledged by brands.

You know, 60% as, for example, Emily Glossier, Emily Wise, who, uh, who built Glossier, one of the top cosmetic brands, you know, uh, she used to treat her BLO readers as friends. You know, it is a great example that through blogging, you can build a multi-billion dollar business, you know, through blogging, connecting with consumers, showing gratitude, you know, bringing community together. You know, and I think, uh, a great example regarding community is, uh, Harley, uh, Harley David Stone, that has community Harley owners group where more than 700,000 writers go to studies to attend festivals together.

And what Harle Davidson is doing by organizing these festivals, by bringing community together, you know, it is all about building emotional connections with your f followers and with your consumers, you know, so everyone is proud of, uh, I mean, uh, having their motorcycles. Uh, they choose, uh, you know, Harle Davidson, whereas Harle Davidson co competitors are oriented on sales, shortterm short term sales. They are sending advertising, uh, campaigns.

They are selling this, they are selling that. So as you know that we are in streaming economy and consumers, no, uh, no longer see and believes those ads, you know? And so, uh, we are, I, I'm sorry, but the only, uh, only the best deal in advertising is Super Bowl ads, because almost every American watches Super Bowl ads, you know?

So I see, I think that, uh, is a digital age. It is very important to position yourself as a media company and to become the greatest publisher of information to reinvent your brand, uh, constantly. You know, Let's talk about the Super Bowl ads.

That's interesting. You mentioned that I was, um, at a summit last week, and one of the companies was talking about how they used, um, generative AI to create a Super Bowl ad within weeks rather than months. So as a tool.

Yes. Um, what do you have to say about using AI to create ads and graphics in a quicker timeframe? Well, you know, it is much easier nowadays because, you know, uh, I mean, everything is much easier, even, uh, uh, uh, creating ads co uh, writing copies, you know, uh, analyzing consumer's data, uh, uh, uh, uh, personalization segmentation much easier nowadays.

You know? So I think, uh, uh, brands strike while the iron is hot. They make hay while the sun shines, and they capitalize generative ai, uh, just to fast track their, uh, success for the best possible results, you know?

So I think that, uh, when, uh, uh, when those brands congregate at, uh, uh, Cannes advertising festivals, you know, they are proud of their TV commercials, you know, because they don't want to, uh, they don't want to connect with consumers the digital age. It is a, uh, Achilles Hill nowadays, Amanda Achi Seal, you know, big brands, because they are still going even to continue to, to depend on TV commercials instead of, uh, actually, uh, uh, to take those TV outdoor media money and to put into social media, you know? So when I start working with brands, literally they forget of I marketing channels, and they, uh, uh, invest all their money in social media marketing, you know, because it is a game ga it is a game changer, you know?

So we, I have witnessed that, uh, uh, uh, the most, uh, open-minded entrepreneurs, um, truly ed in themselves since pandemic, for example, Brian Cheque, you know, uh, has Ted Airbnb's product since 2020, since pandemic. And nowadays, uh, uh, Airbnb is a, a worth more than a hundred billion dollars because open-mindedness, open-mindedness, you know? So speed and flexibility, speed and flexibility and convenience win all the time.

So, so you, you know, since, uh, Brian, uh, uh, co co-founded Airbnb, he was very, he has been very active on Twitter. He was, uh, he was, uh, asking, uh, uh, questions, uh, to Airbnb's users. He was improving Airbnb's product by leaps and bounds through listening, you know, so, uh, Amanda, what is happening is that social media is a listening reactionary business, human, uh, human based marketing.

So Brian, uh, was smart enough just to connect with Airbnb's users to improve everything in the real time. And that resulted in the domination nowadays. So nowadays, consumers prefer, consumers prefer, uh, uh, choosing, uh, uh, Airbnb or those luxury hottest that are truly exorbitant, you know?

Mm-Hmm. Well, let me ask you something about how do I know what value I'm getting? I think if I go back in time, John Watermaker, I think once said, half of the money spent on marketing is wasted.

I just don't know which half. So the question is, is, you know, how do I measure the ROI on all this stuff? 'cause a lot of people are, you know, they get the social media thing, but they're skeptical about what the exact results are.

Yeah. It's all about, uh, how, how many people, uh, uh, uh, care and you con convert, you know? So it is all about building emotional connections, Michael.

It's all about, because so many people, many brands struggle with, uh, building emotional connections, and only few brands have emotional connections with us like Nike. Because when we, when we veer Nike, we know that we go faster. We will gain ground, go places, and move up in the world, because nothing is impossible.

Where when we, we are Nike, because Nike has emotional connection with us, because, uh, Nike just do it. Commercial has, has changed Nike's business because they used to send this motivational and galvanizing, uh, messages, uh, to their consumers by collaborating with top athletes, you know? So I also believe that Starbucks has emotional connections.

Haron has emotional connections and, and, but is a digital age. Those entrepreneurs who became more open-minded, and Elon Musk capitalize is, is, uh, excellence of personal brand building. Uh, and, uh, uh, you know, I think, uh, Elon, Elon is a greatest entrepreneur of our generation.

I'm very sorry that so many, uh, advertisers left X because, uh, because I mean, uh, you know, Twitter has pros and cons, you know, regarding of, of course, toxicity is this disadvantage of, uh, X. But, uh, uh, uh, on the other hand, uh, it is a, a God's gift to modern professionals to create great content. Content distribution is free.

Michael content distribution is free. Whereas you used to spend, uh, uh, a fortune in traditional media to reach global audiences like, uh, 20 and 30 years ago, you know, so content distribution is free. And my tweets used to reach, uh, 40 million people annually on X from year to year, you know, because I was creating great content, you know, so, but, uh, but you know, nowadays, nowadays, uh, so many, uh, executives don't use social media for professional purposes to share their company updates, uh, to connect with their consumers and to, to humanize their brands.

That's why they still depend on the outdated, uh, outdated knowledge that they, they gained, uh, at business calls. And, you know, that, uh, nowadays, uh, uh, the world is faster, uh, because of the internet. And, uh, I think nobody cares about formal degrees.

It's all about self-education. It's all about curiosity. It's all about lifelong learning.

It's all about, uh, resilience, flexibility, and, uh, and, um, agility. Agility. So agility is one of the top drivers of success.

And I, I love the quote of Zos who said that if you double the number of experiments you do per year, you are going to double your inventiveness. You know? So as, as, as we know, Amazon has always been consumer centric, whereas, whereas Amazon's Amazon competitors are competitor centric, they are focused on what Amazon is doing.

But Amazon has always been in the listening business. That's why they have, they have always listened to its consumers. You know, I'm very honored that, uh, the most successful businesses, the most successful entrepreneurs, the most successful, uh, influencers are in the listening business, not in the talking business.

So majority are in the talking business. Only tiny man, minority are in the listening business. So if you want to stand out, if you want to be heard, if you want to be noticed, we need to be in the listening business.

We need to, uh, uh, to work on our audience and to, to, to turn our audience into a strong community where they, consumers make friendships, they create stronger bonds, which, uh, create emotional connections, you know? So human empathy, human innovation, and creativity reigns supreme. Uh, thank you so much Absolutely.

For coming on the show and sharing your insights with us today. Mike, do you have any last words? I'm not sure if it's the same as it always was, but one thing for sure.

It's more often and at scale, and you gotta be involved. So there you go. All right.

You, thank you so much, Vladimir. Thank you so much. And thank you to our audience for being with us today.

Stay tuned to next week.