Don’t Stick Out, Stand Out: The Art of Being Distinctive in eCommerce | Stæven Frey

Matt: [00:00:00] Welcome to the eCommerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. Now the eCommerce Podcast is all about helping you deliver eCommerce wow. And to help us do just that, I'm chatting with Stephen Frey from Quantum Branding about how brand science works. This can help you achieve success faster. Now, let me talk about today's show sponsor and explain why I may be giggling slightly.

This show is brought to you by the eCommerce Cohort. eCommerce Cohort is our monthly group, eCommerce group where we have experts come and teach workshops and all kinds of good stuff. We're going to talk a little bit more about that for reasons that will become obvious Soon, but one of the things that we do with our podcast is we live stream the recording of it.

Uh, and we do that when Matt remembers to hit the button, which he didn't do about five minutes ago. Uh, and so I'm really sorry if you're watching the live stream on this, it's not the most professional starts. [00:01:00] If you're listening to the audio version, all of that would have been cut out. And you're straight in as normal.

You go, Matt, what are you talking about? It sounds normal. Bye. Hey, welcome to the world of podcasting. Fortunately, uh, we managed, we managed to do this with a, with a good friend of mine. Uh, who's not actually that bothered about perfect podcasts, uh, which is super, super helpful. So, Stephen is the founder and chief brand scientist at Quantum Branding.

He helps us out. Brands become authentic and memorable category leaders through the power of brand science. Yes, he does. The core of what fuels a successful brand's growth, sales, and marketing. He is passionate about helping purpose-driven brands to get to their next level, disrupt their market, and leverage the power of brand.

To become an industry authority. Uh, so again for the second time, welcome to the show, Stephen. And if we just hang on just one sec, the music is almost perfectly timed. There we go.[00:02:00]

Oh, we got there the second time. I'm really sorry about that, uh, if you are watching the live stream, but welcome to the show. And, um, and Stephen, thank you for letting me introduce you twice.

Staeven: Well, hello, and thank you for having me, and thank you, uh, for everyone who is joining on the livestream, and, uh, those who are listening to the recording, uh, you are missing fantastic shenanigans.

Matt: Such a good word. All the behind the scenes stuff that you get to see on the live stream. Uh, the shenanigans. Yes,

Staeven: You'll, you'll, and, and if you're listening for the first time, you've missed out on jokes such as, is that really water in his flask? Or is it whiskey? Emotional moments such as Stephen getting emotional during the music written by his son. You'll also miss, wait, there's more, the backstory about he is going to university for theoretical physics and wrote a [00:03:00] compelling number called Dad's Themes.

For all that and more, Stay tuned for the live broadcast of the e commerce podcast.

Matt: I tell you what, you just host it, because you're doing a much better job than I ever did, but, uh,

Staeven: No, I can only, I can only recap the things that happen.

Matt: oh, okay,

Staeven: does. Yes. So it doesn't work in the future sense. So,

Matt: fair enough, fair enough, yeah,

Staeven: have to happen first.

Matt: have to happen, so yeah, uh, so, drink, which is in your, is that a fox on your cup?

Staeven: It is a fox. It is a foxy fox. Uh, so, uh, one of the words we use around the office here, uh, is adorkable, uh, and there's just something about, yes, there's just something, you don't read it. It's in my bio and you refuse to read it. He just skips over it. He's like, what is that? I don't know.

Matt: To be honest with you, Sadaf rewrites the bio, so I don't, I don't, it's not that I'm deliberately not reading it.

Staeven: she's like, cut that out. That's not professional. No, [00:04:00] I'm kidding. Okay.

Matt: It did not pass the Sadaf test, no.

Staeven: It didn't. It didn't. That's

Matt: But it's adorkable,

Staeven: I don't pass. There's a few tests I don't pass. We call them assessments. We call them assessments. Um, you know, you know you're in trouble when you take a personality test and you fail it.

So,

Matt: wow.

Staeven: So, so that's why we call them assessments now. So you,

Matt: Yeah, you can't fail in Assessment King, I suppose.

Staeven: but yeah, the Fox, uh, cute stuff. Um, I'm the adorkable brand scientist next door. And, uh, at any given moment, there's like cute, quirky, nerdy stuff going on. I mean, I got a couple Pokemon toys, you know, I mean, I mean, wait, we've got a Pokemon toy here. Uh, found this, found this brand new in the wrapper at a gas station when I had a flat tire.

If that's not a sign from the universe, I don't know what is. Mm. Mm hmm. Mm

Matt: enough, fair enough, I've [00:05:00] got on, I've got on mine, I don't have a Pokemon, I have a slightly more serious Lego Indiana Jones, riding a horse, because I have the whole thing from the last crusade, with his dad on the motorbike, on the shelves behind me, with Apollo Creed

Staeven: I see your, I see your, uh, I see your Indiana Jones and I raise you RGB monster.

Matt: Okay, we're going like that. Hang on one second.

Where's he gone? Oh, there he is.

I see that. I'm sorry, I'm just, ladies and gentlemen, I'm just scooting across the studio here. I see that and I raise you with Apollo Creed.

Staeven: So, uh, I, I see your Apollo cream I raise you, um, 1920, uh, 1950s Florida Orange Bird.

Matt: Yeah, I'm out

Staeven: Walt Disneyland.

Matt: You win.[00:06:00]

Staeven: I actually have two of them. This is, this is a reproduction from Canada. Uh, I have the original one up there. No, it's not a game. It's not a competition. We're all fellows. We're all comrades moving forward in the game of life, trying to just move forward and go on eCommerce podcast.

Matt: yeah, yeah, absolutely, still compare eCommerce and all kinds of paraphernalia we have on our desks in front of us, which we have managed to acquire over the years.

Staeven: why, why are we here again, what are we,

Matt: don't know, it's

Staeven: I love, I love, people are gonna join this episode and be like, they're talking about toys, I'm out. that or it's gonna attract like, a whole bunch of traffic and people are gonna like, showing pictures of like, stuff that's on their desk and be like, this is the best episode ever, I

Matt: yeah, yeah,

Staeven: to these people, I also have toys on my desk.

Matt: yes, that's a good point actually, if you've got, show us the toys on your desk, put the pictures on Instagram, [00:07:00] hashtag eCommerce Podcast meets quantum branding, or I don't know, just hashtag something, and

Staeven: Hashtag toys on my desk.

Matt: hashtag toys on my desk, we would love to see them, and see if you can beat the Apollo Creed and the Pokemon that was on our respective desks.

Staeven: Just legendary, legendary stuff. Legendary toys for legendary people.

Matt: Wow, I love

Staeven: get into the Thundercats toys.

Matt: Oh, do you have Thundercats

Staeven: to leave You had to leave your desk. Mine are within arm's reach. Mine are within Because if I would have gone over there, I would have got the Thundercats, so.

Matt: No way you've got Thundercats. Do you know what I have? I don't have them here. I have them on my desk at work. I don't know what you call these, actually. You know, the toys with the big heads. Fungo Pops.

Staeven: Funko Pops.

Matt: I have the entire Goonies collection of Fungo Pops. Because I'm a bit of a Goonies fan.

Staeven: They made money off of you. [00:08:00] They're like, let's reel, they're like, let's reel this sucker in. Unleash the whole Goonies collection.

Matt: Matt'll buy it, no problem, thinking it'll be worth something in 40 years, maybe half the price of what I paid for it, if I'm lucky. Um, but yes, no, no, no, I, I, uh, I, I'm a big fan of the Goonies. Did you know, on my other podcast that we have called Push To Be More. Which you're coming on, actually, uh, Steven, uh, yeah, yeah, we're gonna have conversations on that one.

Uh, and that podcast, ladies and gentlemen, but just so you know, is where I talk to business leaders, uh, and CEOs. Um, like Steven, just about challenges in life and what kind of good stuff. But, one of the guys I had on the show is the guy that now owns the Goonies House. Which is where the movie was shot in the 1980s. Yeah, a guy called Bayman Zachary, what a legend he is. Uh, and so, um, yeah, anyway, let's talk

Staeven: I have a problem with that film though. I'm not going to lie. There is a whole freak, there's, I have a [00:09:00] problem with that movie conceptually as a child. There is a whole Pirate ship, sailing away at the end, sorry, spoiler alert, you had 30 years though, if you haven't seen it now, spoiler alert, I'm sorry, it's been 30 years,

Matt: that's so

Staeven: the actors are in retirement now, come on, don't be mad at me for ruining this, there is a, there is a pirate ship at the end, and there is all this treasure on there.

And I am like, and they all like, walk away, and they are like, save the subdivision with a bag of jewels. I'm like, I want to hop on a boat and go get more treasure. Like, I want to go, I want to take the boat for a spin. I want to commandeer this under nautical law. I want to have my own working, you know, what is, I don't even know what the type of ship is, it's, uh, what it's called, but, like, I want my own little battalion, you know.

You know, it's like, instead of the black pearl, it's the orange pearl. I don't know, uh, just, I want my own ship, and I, I would, like, We're just gonna let the ship go? Yeah, yeah. [00:10:00] Ship with treasure, you're gonna let go? Yeah, like, there's like a whole, like, movie with, uh, the kid from Spider Man, and, and, uh, it's a castaway, or a, there's a whole, there's a movie about treasure and ships like this, like, based off a video game, like, we're, we're just gonna let the, yes, we're gonna let

Matt: going to let it go.

Staeven: Okay, okay, okay,

Matt: Maybe we should get Steven Spielberg on and ask him what happened to that ship. Uh, cause you didn't actually reveal it in the movie, what happened, but you know, we'll save that for another day. For today, let's talk about eCommerce, given that's the title of the podcast, uh, and we're talking specifically about branding.

Um, now, in fact, now I

Staeven: Every time you say eCommerce, we're gonna ring the bell. Uh,

Matt: to work? Or I could just do this.

We're getting there in the end. [00:11:00] Yeah, I've got all kinds of noises on this too. Anyway, um, last time, uh, just trying to bring it back to some sense of normality. Last time we talked about, uh, the difference between marketing and branding, um, and that's kind of where we started. Um, if you remember rightly, um, and. One of the things that you said which really stuck with me was marketing is basically Anything that says hi do business with me That was it's one of the best definitions of marketing I've ever heard and then within that subsection of marketing you have something called branding And branding is the distinct stuff that helps you remember who to do business with Um, so let's pick up from where we left off, um, uh, and talk about, 'cause we did sort of like a, you called it a 30,000 foot level overview of the whole thing, right?

Staeven: Yeah. And, [00:12:00] and you're absolutely right. That's a really great, uh, definition of just, of marketing, because here's the thing. As time, time goes on, technology changes. And so the means of the delivery of our. Marketing can change, so, you know, before there used to be print, before there used to be, then there was TV, then there was radio, so like, marketing changes over time, and it's delivery, but the principle itself is still the same, you know, if you rewind back to the days of the original hanging sign in ye olde renaissance, you know, medieval, feudal, uh, kingdoms, or towns, like, You know, like back in the day, you know, in your neighborhood, Matt, you know, over

Matt: Yeah. Just around, because they're still

Staeven: um, when you go to the blacksmith, you know, everyone goes to the blacksmith, what, they had a little sign, you know, if there was a tavern, there was a picture of, you know, a beer [00:13:00] steiner, a glass, or, you know, there was, there was iconography, there was signage, um, it let people know.

And so for the most part, marketing is typically first and foremost, informational about what the thing is. So that's rooted in the category, so, uh, that it is. So if you're seeing a sign for food, then, you know, the category norms and, and the trends and the colors and all the, all those things are rooted in the category from whence that came.

So what's interesting is if you think of here in the States, I don't know what fast food restaurants you have over there, but if you, if you. If you're here in the States, um, a lot of the, the fast food places have red in their brand, from McDonald's to Arby's to Wendy's. So when you go and you get a straw, I may not actually be able to tell what brand my drink is from based on the straw alone.

The straw may be red.

Matt: Yeah.

Staeven: If it's McDonald's, it may have yellow and red on the stripe on the side. Ooh, I can maybe tell there, but if it's [00:14:00] Arby's or is it Wendy's? So the use of one color doesn't necessarily Always mean that it's the brand's prime color, the main color. So this is where we get into branding as a mnemonic device is when there's stuff that's distinctive to you and distinct, we say distinct.

I want to pause here and say, um, most people say. Different and distinct. Different is like when you show up to a baseball game wearing soccer cleats

Matt: Okay.

Staeven: a soccer kit. That's, you're not playing baseball. You need to play baseball with the right outfit. And so if we are in our category, you know, in our industry, whatever your industry is specifically, there's gonna be some norms of how that game is played, like baseball, and then there's gonna be distinctive stuff.

To your team, you know, think if you're, you know, a baseball team, you're going to have your own brand mark, [00:15:00] you're going to have your own name, you're going to have your own colors. So branding is that mnemonic system within marketing that uses these organized, they're intentional, they're organized, they're distinctive.

And remember, we said, with baseball, like, if we're showing up with a different thing, we can't play the game. We have to be just distinct. So in baseball, everyone wears a different color uniform, but they still are wearing the same equipment. And that's a really important metaphor, um, when we talk about things being distinct.

Does that track with you, um, when, when you hear that, where does your mind go?

Matt: No, I think I, I, I totally get it and I. Because one of the things that, if I bring it down to, you know, sort of e com websites, for example, one of the things that people, I've seen, I don't see them do it as much these days, mainly because everyone's on Shopify, but it used to be that you'd go, right, well the image...

It goes on the left, [00:16:00] the text goes to the right of the image, and then the buy now button goes underneath that text, right? And that's kind of the default way you would display eCommerce. And so then people started switching it around and doing all kinds of weird wonderful things and you're like, why are you doing that?

And they're like, well, we're trying to be different. And it was that age old conversation that different is not always good. Be distinctive, but don't always be. Different. Do you know what I mean? And, and, and so being different, like you say, is, is turning up in a football uniform to a baseball game,

Staeven: You know, now I may have a distinctive cup. This is a distinctive cup. It looks like a fox, but here's the interesting thing. It has a handle on it. It contains volumetric liquids. It has volume, the capability to store, and it functions. I go to drink out of it, and yeah, it still works. If I go to use something and it doesn't work, then it's too different.

Matt: Right.

Staeven: I can't redefine, in my industry, I can't redefine, um, [00:17:00] typical shopping norms. It's like, uh, it's like, uh, You know, a coffee mug, if you go to pick it up and the handle's wonky and it's uncomfortable, you don't want to use it. And the same thing with eCommerce websites, with the sales process and how people are, are trained and use.

And, and it's really interesting because it's a self referring kind of hermeneutical circle of how does this site work? How does the whole industry work? How does this site work? How does the whole industry work? So we may be used to going on sites. Like Amazon, on Etsy, on eBay. And there's some category norms of the way, you know, internet sales and eCommerce sales, eCommerce sales.

I hit the button. Our, our, I missed one earlier. Sorry. Um, stop taking my bell power. Um, so there's the industry norms that, that. Our standard that everyone's [00:18:00] expecting, and that's kind of the lay of the land, that's, that's our baseball field, and we can't get to first base with our, our customers, because, or our industry, those are kind of first and third base, our customers and our industry, and we have to play within those boundaries, because if we go to sell something that they're looking for, this And we can't make it to first base by sharing something that they're looking for in the normative ways that they're expecting to see it.

So, let's just change the metaphor. Um, I'd like to illustrate kind of some of these, these scientific principles with insights that we can all, all relate to. Um, and, and I forget, we call them cookies, but, but you call them crackers? Is that, is that?

Matt: Well, no, cookies translates, but we'd call them biscuits is, you know, in

Staeven: Biscuits! That's the word. So, if you're shopping for cookies or biscuits, you go to the aisle in the supermarket, in the grocery store, or the [00:19:00] bodega, wherever you go, and there is an aisle just based on cookies.

Matt: Mm.

Staeven: And the principle here is that there's different types of cookies. There is chocolate chip, there's, you know, butterscotch, there's white chocolate macadamia nut, there's wafers, there's chess cookies, there's shortbread, there's all different kinds of cookies. And then... That's, that's what the customer is looking for is these ingredients, these cues, these colors, you know, brown typically means chocolate chip in this world, you know.

So if you're shopping for an Oreo type cookie, sandwich cookie, there may be some off brands that may use that same color blue. But it's the combination of blue Um, with Oreo, with Nabisco in the corner, that makes it Oreo. So some of this trade dress, some of these norms, um, are, are utilized by other companies to cue some of the same memories.

And that's kind of where I want to land today [00:20:00] is, is this idea, why does branding work? We talked about kind of an understanding of what it is, but we really need to understand why is this important? Um, and so we'll get there in a little bit, hopefully, if, um, If, if we, we follow, uh, we don't get distracted with more shenanigans, but,

Matt: unlikely, but sure. Yeah,

Staeven: this, and, and. It'll be like a Netflix arc of eight episodes before we complete the story. So in, in our biscuit aisle, there are types of cookies and cues and ingredients people are looking for. There's also shared memory structures, and these are the colors.

These are the, the things that make it knockoff. Most brands are near knockoffs of each other. You know, toilet paper, for example, you know, there's red, there's yellow, there's blue, there's a soft baby or animal, you know, there's a soft animal or a baby on the front. The signage is kind of like swooshy. [00:21:00] You know, there's clear packaging.

It's this tall or it's this tall. There's bad math in the corner. You know, 10 rolls plus 12 rolls equals 4, 600 rolls. There's a reason they do that, to confuse, other than to confuse you, is they want to provide value and communicate, what, softness, strength, brand, association, because if you associate it with an animal or a baby, you associate, hmm, comfort, or softness, or strength.

So, so what, what I'm opening up this can to say, this, this can of worms here, is that this is all about something, Um, shared versus distinctive memory structures. And so some of these shared memory structures are the colors and the shapes that we all know. And then the distinctive memory structures are the ones that are unique to us.

Because at the end of the day, if I say, Hey, do business with me. The reason these assets work that are distinctive to me is [00:22:00] because of our brains and how our brains work.

Matt: yeah. No, it's really, I love this. And so if I go back to your toilet roll analogy, if I, if I may, um, what's interesting to me is every, uh, Every toilet roll, um, in the shopping, uh, center that we go to, right? Everyone in the aisle is always talking about strength and softness. The two keywords, strength and softness.

In other words, no one is distinct. You can't use that to be your distinctive, can you? You can't go, well, we're stronger or we're more soft than those people because it's like, well, or can you be distinctive in that? Is it a case of no recognizing these are the foundational things in my industry? These are the shared experiences, the shared memories, the shared, uh, theories behind all of this.

I need to therefore be distinctive in something else.

Staeven: Yeah, absolutely right. Uh, when it comes down to [00:23:00] what, what you're trying to offer, most of us think of this idea of your USP or our unique, uh, uh, service or value proposition. Um, and that's really kind of a past view of, of marketing. Um, there's kind of the old view of marketing, uh, If, if, if you're, if you're, if you think some of these things, I want to invite you to consider that there's a more empirical evidence based view.

Um, the past view that we've mostly operated in is this idea that it's based on positioning. People need to know who we are, what we do, in a very articulate way. We need to focus on how we're different. We're the fluffiest of all the fluffy things, we're the chocolatiest, we're the, um, and there's something about like, Message comprehension, like people need to understand, because if they understand, then they'll know, and the unique selling proposition, and we need to persuade these people, they need to be persuaded, and we need to [00:24:00] teach them, and it's this, the, this is the biggest faulty thing, is that these are rational, involved, actively involved, viewers, purchasers, customers, and actually, it, come to, come to, to find out, that's not the case, that's not the case, um, Our, our evidence based view of branding and, and how marketing actually works is based on distinctiveness.

These tiny little distinctive points. Um, getting noticed, creating emotional responses, um, creating relevant associations. You're not you when you're hungry. I can't believe Snickers has, has, has done, Eminem and Mars Company has done this. You know, there is, they have associated a word with a guttural human.

Uh, feeling of hunger and associated candy with hunger so that you're not you when you're hungry. I heard the word hungry, like, Oh, Hey Matt, um, I'm hungry. Oh, you're not you when you're hungry. Like [00:25:00] what? Like you, you, they have associated this idea of hunger with candy so that you think of that as brilliant.

That is that ingrained in in our psyche. Why? Because they not only have the name, they have the commercial, they have celebrities that have been in those commercials, usually poking fun at themselves, which I think is so funny. My favorite one was with Betty White and they're playing football and they're like, these guys were playing, you know, football on the field and, and someone was like acting like Betty White and you're like, dude, you're not you when you're hungry.

And then like, she gets like totally tackled. And, uh, but, and, you know, but this idea that they're We're, we are reaching, we're not teaching, we're reaching people at all times. We are trying to connect with emotional, distracted viewers, um, and, and there's a reason this all works, and it has to do with how the brain works, um, and, and, and so I want to [00:26:00] pause there to give Give, give, uh, you some, some time to, you know, tell me what you're hearing and what you're connecting.

Um, cause that's a big, that's a big shift to go from, yes, it's teaching and unique selling propositions and persuade to shift to, it's just about being known. It's about being distinct and creating relevant associations that can be really, really jarring.

Matt: Well, it can, and here's the thing, right? I was talking, um, uh, to some friends around the dinner table last night about, not about this specific topic but the stereotypical view of men of a certain age. Alright, I'm not saying this is true for all men but certainly men of a certain age. Men typically who grew up in the eighties. Um, wouldn't use words like emotions. And so it's easy, I think, for a generation of people to start thinking about USPs, as in this is what's going to make us different. I'm going to teach you about this. Um, but when marketing starts becoming about, [00:27:00] uh, emotionally distracted viewers, I think was the phrase you use.

I think it's a great phrase, emotionally distracted viewers. All of a sudden, it's not just the toilet paper that becomes fluffy. In some respects, I think people hear that and go, well, then my branding, my marketing needs to now become fluffy because I'm now dealing with irrational people who are emotional and who are distracted.

How do I, how do I deal with that? Um, and I find the whole conversation quite fascinating because I think, um, that the two types of marketing you've described appeal to two very different types of, um, people who think in two very different types of ways, if that makes sense. Mmm.

Staeven: Sure. So, so to visit kind of the old model of, of marketing, you know, The old model of marketing that's predominantly what is pervasive today, it's, it's what we've kind of taught ourselves. It's what we've learned. Um, it works, but it doesn't [00:28:00] work as effectively. So that means that we're having to spend more money trying to teach people and focus on our positioning and our USPs and persuade them.

What if there was a way for you to get more business with less work, spend less money, have simplified marketing, and get the results that you want faster? That's, that's really where this comes down. It usually comes down to like, time, quality, money, you know, the triad of, of God, you know, of the universe, like you can only have two.

Uh, but, But what's interesting is when we, when we go back, why does this work? We have to talk about why, why are these two models? And so we've got to talk about the brain. And, uh, you kind of teed it up earlier about, uh, the cohort training, and this is exactly one of the things that we talk about on that training is we need to understand how does the brain work and at a really big.

30, 000 foot view. Uh, we're not going to get into it too much. At a really big view, we [00:29:00] have two systems. It's not left brain, right brain. It's not creative versus nerdy, um, You know, uh, we don't use just 10 percent of our brain. Like, there's, there's some myths in there. Um, our brains are not like computers.

Um, you know, our brains are not hardwired. So, so for us to realize that, no, men's and women's brains are actually pretty much identical. You could not. Find the difference if we just popped open two brains of corpses. Learning styles, there may be learning preferences the way our bodies and minds have preferred to learn, but our brains at the end of the day for all Intents and purposes are the same.

And Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winning psychologist, organizes them into just two systems. Basically, 95 percent of the time we have system one. System [00:30:00] one is intuitive. It's instinctive. It's guttural. It's reactive. It's unconscious and automatic. It's why you and I could be on the phone, uh, talking and making jokes.

You could be tying your shoes. You could be driving the car. You could be doing multiple things at once. Um, hold on, mom. I can't find my phone. Hold on. Let me, I'll call you back. You know, you're, you're doing two things at once. And that may actually be the reason why you can't find your phone. Cause you forget that you're on it.

You know, so system one is fast. Most of our day is, is system 1. That's like 2 plus 2. What is 2 plus 2? Oh, yeah, 4. System 2, system 2 is rational. It's logical. It's like using all the resources of your brain to be like, Hmm, do I put 20 percent down on this house so I don't have to pay PMI insurance? Um, is this a good investment?

Um, it's that critical, conscious... Effortful decision making. Most people believe that [00:31:00] their values, uh, live in System 2. And while that is mostly true, their values actually live in System 1. So we have the things that we think we say we believe, and then we actually have our actual

Matt: yeah, yeah,

Staeven: because we're reacting.

And so this is why focus groups and studies, you can ask people questions, which one they prefer. But when we look at their habits, habits are actually what show us the data. We need to measure people without knowing they're being measured. That's kind of the idea of a double blind. Um, and if you actually know the story about double blind, this is really funny.

Long story short, there was a horse, and the horse, I forget his name, I'll type it in the show notes. Um, the horse, basically, uh, the, the Trainer of the horse could share with him a question, what is two plus two, and and he would stamp four times. Oh, and everybody thought this horse was like telepathic.

Fast forward, they [00:32:00] realized that the horse was able to pick up on the cues of the trainer. So at first they had to put on, um, it wasn't just about the The horse being blind, it was about separating them from the, him from the trainer altogether, and that we have the concept of double blind. So for things to be considered double blind, there's actually two forms of blindness.

So that's actually how things are measured. So going back to our, our model, if 95 percent of the time we're using You know, our system one in its intuition, it's effortless, it's innate skill, it's speed, it's reflex. This is where we get flow. I mean, that's, there's so many podcasts dedicated to flow. This is why, because it's, it's muscle memory.

It's you remembering. So when you go to the grocery or the supermarket, you're on what? Autopilot. And what else is on autopilot? Your senses. This is where all your [00:33:00] senses connect and are connected to. So this is so important for us to understand with your brand's marketing, with your eCommerce brand, that, that, bells are

Matt: steal your bell, I won't steal your bell thunder now, I'll keep the applause

Staeven: Okay, okay. So, if we know that our senses, our senses are literally, do you know why they're called senses? You're trying to sense make. Your sniffer is trying to, this looks like a mole rat, uh, you know, uh, go in with my hand here, uh, you know, your, your nose is trying to, like, cartoon smell the, the smells.

Your ear is trying to make sense of the world. Your eyes are trying to sense. They are trying to gather intel and information and interpret it so that you can navigate with your, your brain.

Matt: mm hmm,

Staeven: So that means all of our marketing [00:34:00] is being interacted by that system one. Now You may have some intricate sales things that, yes, people may engage system two when it comes to your sales process.

But as far as the everyday interactions of your brand, it's being initially coded and seen and interpreted with system one. So all of a sudden that disqualifies system two. So you mentioned emotional distracted viewers and and that doesn't mean you have to have fluffy marketing. What that means is we just have to understand the environment that people are in, and we have to understand that they're using system one first and foremost.

And so it's no longer going to be about them trying to understand, you know, the backstory on your about page. And the reason this color is us is periwinkle blue is because, you know, Matt's grandmom loved periwinkle blue, like all of a [00:35:00] sudden, a lot of this meaningful stuff that we're trying to jam pack into our brand.

It doesn't work anymore because we don't have time. We don't have time. So we want people to basically like a spider web of, or a network of associations, like a cluster or an atom. That's exactly what our memories are. There's little nodes of memories that the more memories they are, it's the difference between a one lane highway and a five lane highway.

Wouldn't you rather have a five lane highway in someone's brain so that when they thought of you, they thought of you first, or when they think of your category, they think of you first? That's what memories are. So all of a sudden, this transforms everything that we know about branding and marketing and how it works and completely puts the system upside down on its head.

Well, I

Matt: Wow, I, I, yeah, there's, I mean there's a lot there, but isn't there to unpack? I guess my first question is... Um, who, who do [00:36:00] you see doing this well, and why?

Staeven: think that the easiest answer for me is always kind of my, my go to favorite, honestly, is Coca Cola. Um, when you look at. A brand, there's typically two things. One, you look at kind of their, their size. Like, are they local, national, are they local, regional, national, or international? And so they're on an international level, obviously.

And what that tells us is when you're looking at your brand or any brand, there's kind of idea down at the bottom, you know, inception. Then there's traction. Oh, I'm getting validation. Then there's growth. Oh, I'm getting sales. I'm getting growth. There's scale. And then there's category authority. Uh, the reason I say category authority is because the goal is not to be the number one of a category.

That's nearly impossible. You typically need to be a conceptual, a conceptual authority. So a good example would be, uh, when I was used is, uh, Harley Davidson. Harley Davidson is the [00:37:00] only American made motorcycle company that sells a sense of, uh, identity and freedom to men and women. 35 to 55, roughly, at a time in their lives where they value their independence in the field of the open road, or possibly at a time when they feel that that's more important or under attack.

Matt: hmm,

Staeven: That's a very conceptual authority. If I want to be the number one motorcycle company, good luck. What kind and for whom? Because motorcycles, that's a large market, and also they all share the same customers. Nobody owns their customers. So, for our sake of our example, from once the rabbit trail came here, Coca Cola is really my best example.

I like using them, um, I drink, I call it Man Coke, Coke Zero, um, now they call it

Matt: that man coke,

Staeven: uh, I feel like the silver can tastes like grandma, grandma's house.

Matt: yeah, yeah, and I'm with you, I'm with you, [00:38:00] there's Coke Zero over Diet Coke every day, absolutely, I'm with

Staeven: uh, yeah, absolutely. And what's interesting is when we look at, when we look at, um, these brands, uh, I organize their brand in these sensory categories.

Uh, and the sensory categories are just the assets that they use. So if I'm looking at Coca Cola, and this is kind of a primer on another thing that, that's, that's, that's taught in the training over on the Cohort Portal, is that there's shape, there's shape assets. These could be the swoop that you see on Coca Cola.

It could be the shape of the bottle. It's actually the brand mark. And then it can be any illustrations that they use. They are always refreshing their packages. And, um, they may include, you know, football shapes during football season here in the States. They may add like summer shapes. Now they may not.

Own those shapes in the sense of like, I look at that shape and it's like, wow, I know that's Coca Cola, [00:39:00] but those shapes are creating associations. Oh, summer. Oh, football. Oh, Christmas. Oh, holidays. So those shapes are a shared memory structure. So they may not follow in the shape assets category, but if the illustration is consistently on your brand or on your package and it makes people think of you, then that's shape.

So, shape is the first thing that helps us navigate the world around us. So, we've got some shape assets that are specific to Coca Cola. Then we have some color, some color assets. So, we know there's that single color red. There's also the color combinations of the different products they have, the black.

Black also means trade dress for no sugar. Um, or zero sugar is the new terms that people are using. It's kind of like the old days it was fat free,

Matt: Yeah. Can't say that

Staeven: was the term. You know, so there's color combinations. Then there's the colorized view of the mark. So we've got shape, color, and then content.

So shape is how we navigate the world. [00:40:00] Color is how we interpret it. And then we've got content. Content is the linguistic stuff. I can't even say it. because it's linguistic. Um, so that's your tagline. Always Coca Cola, you know, it's also the typeface, that rounded typeface. Uh, anybody who's a designer or geeks out on Coke knows a few years ago, they even came up with their own typeface to use universally.

Um, and if you want to know why it's because of licensing, because they would have to pay licensing.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah.

Staeven: was a really, really smart move. So we've got shape. Color, Word, we've got Story, Story Assets. Story is, is everything from the graphic style to moments like twisting the Oreo or popping the Mentos when you're in a persnickety situation.

Persnickety and shenanigans are cousins,

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. And

Staeven: sure about those words. Um, So photography, if there's any specific type of photography, if you remember the first ads for [00:41:00] the iPod that came out, it was the people with the silhouettes, and it was like a black and white, and then there was like a pink or a blue, and well, that was a graphic style.

So if I see that ad, boom, I know exactly, um, that, that, that is a specific ad. Um, we've got shape, color, word, story. Story can even be the archetype that we tell. Coca Cola is telling the everyman in kind of a utopia. There's two kind of things. So everyone, Coca Cola is for everyone. Contrast that to Pepsi.

Pepsi is what? You know, next generation or generation next. They were always about being edgy and you know, they had Michael Jackson and you know, Cindy Crawford. And their whole thing was about being countercultural. And even if you look at how they try to use their, their, their trying to be like, well, They're not everyman, because if they are everyman, then they're telling the same story as Coca Cola.

But here's the interesting thing, Coca Cola and Pepsi have the same [00:42:00] customers. 80 percent of people who drink Coke also drink Pepsi.

Matt: Okay.

Staeven: There's no such thing as, as having your own customers. It's not true. So, so there's shape, color, word, story, and then we've got music. We've got jingles, popular songs, background music, sound assets, uh, vocal styles.

Uh, we have a hotel here in the States, uh, called Motel 6. I'm Tom Beaudet and I'll leave the light on for you. And if, if you hear that commercial, you would know that that's Tom Beaudet's voice. You would hear the jingle in the background. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And there's a little music. You know, so there's the music, there's the vocal style, and then there's also the guy, the guy's name.

So that's a human asset or a character asset. So that could be spoken people, celebrity, or characters. So now that you know that's the palette that we organize this stuff. You're like, oh, who does it good? Well, I would say Coca Cola. Why? Because I can go through each of [00:43:00] those categories of word, shape, color, sound, story, music, human, and I can say, Oh, they got polar bears.

Oh, they have Santa Claus. Oh, they have the tagline. They've got the jingle. They've got the pack. They've got the color. And I count those up and they have like 170 plus and counting. I look at Pepsi and Pepsi's lucky to have 10. They keep changing their brand mark design and they're actually not refreshing it in a way that innovates or, or reconciles the past memories.

So they, they keep refreshing and it's too different than the original. So, you know, when we think of brands that the best brands that are out there are the ones that. Update and refresh their brand, you know, before it was, you know, a diamond is forever. And then it was forever now, you know, with De Beers, with, you know, with the US army, it was be all you can be in the army.

And then it was an army of one. And then it was army strong. And the best brands evolve their brand [00:44:00] using the memories that they've given you. And then kind of zhuzh them a little bit to stay on top,

Matt: Yeah. Do you think that's where Pepsi have missed it then?

Staeven: you know, I'm, I don't know why Pepsi's missed it, um, you know, I don't have enough information to, to really, uh, have a dog in the hunt here, and, and I was actually on a podcast, uh, not in the same episode, but, uh, as the CEO of Pepsi, and I was like, yeah, I would love to have a conversation.

I would love to ask him, tell me what was going on. Tell me what you're thinking. Um, I used to teach design school and, um, spent several years and I taught an art direction class and originally the old teacher had students revamp a brand. And I was like, no, you don't have enough information to say why.

And in these students don't have, you know, they were on a quarter system. They don't have enough time to actually do the research necessary to, to come back. And so I'm like, no, we're going to create campaigns using [00:45:00] the existing archetypes, using the existing assets. So then they had to go research. And it's the same thing is it's typically best to use the assets that you have.

And then test and utilize them, and say, should we keep them? Should we add new ones? Um, the phrase, uh, in house that I use is, Use or Lose. You know, if you have a color, and somebody looks at that color, You know, the question is, does that prompt people to think of my category? Does that prompt people to think of me?

Or does that prompt people to think of my competitor? And you can kind of use those same questions of, for all the categories, color, shape, word, story. You know, if I use this type of photography, do people think of my category? Do they think of me? Do they think of my competitor? And the goal is you're trying to find out, is this shared?

Or is it distinct to me? Typically, you can figure it out. When, when I do brand research, um, I literally take these categories, color, and then I have [00:46:00] single color combination, color design. And I, and I put them in a chart. I put them in a chart. I'm so excited. I'm hitting the mic. Uh, I said spreadsheet and Steven goes ecstatic.

Uh, when I, when I'm to all our viewers and listeners at home. I hope you also celebrate when you have spreadsheets.

Matt: Yeah. Absolutely. Let's just try it, you know, it is like a bit like gratitude journaling to celebrate when you open a spreadsheet or change your life.

Staeven: spreadsheets. Um, but, but, you know, this is the best way to gather information is basically take these categories and, and this is something I teach. I teach brands and I also teach teams how to do the brand science method.

Um, it's one of the things I do. I don't have to do the work for you. I can teach you how to do this with your team. Um, but in this method, in the brand science method, you're learning how to basically assess your category and look, and you can be like, Oh, everybody is blue in this

Matt: Yeah,

Staeven: All my competitors are [00:47:00] blue. then you're like, wow. So if we redo our brand or zhuzh things around, what's the likelihood that we can own a color blue? Thank you. Nil to none, but what if we utilized like a, a Navy cadet kind of sophisticated blue and our main color was bright pink? Ooh, that would be distinct, but it would still reference the blue that we need to ground us in the category.

And that's just an example of the, the type of conversations that you can have around your brand assets of, are, are, is this distinct to us? Is this distinct to our category? And every category is like a different ball diamond or ball field. Some of them are indoors, some of them are outdoors, um, they may be in, in a different city, a different location for you.

I don't know. Should I be talking about cricket instead? Uh, is that a better metaphor?

Matt: No, not really.

Staeven: Okay, okay, okay. Just long as, long as, long as you know what baseball is.

Matt: I do, I uh,

Staeven: Thursday. Okay. [00:48:00] Just checking, I'm trying to be culturally sensitive.

Matt: You're

Staeven: going to get some comments. I didn't talk about, I didn't talk about rugby, ah!

Um,

Matt: Very good, very good, I like the accent, yeah,

Staeven: I was a tight prop, by the way, if anyone wants to know. That's, uh, Gentleman's Sport for Barbarians.

Matt: Yeah, yeah,

Staeven: Uh, so, so those are the conversations that... We need to find out what assets we have first so that we can measure, and that's really the first step, is find out what assets we have first so that we can start measuring their effectiveness.

The challenge here is that most people only have three to five. They have their brand mark, they have their name, they have a color. If we're lucky, a tagline, I don't know when we see the tagline, they probably don't, but they know they have a tagline.

Matt: hmm, somewhere, buried, yeah,

Staeven: You know, it's, it's like on the back of the business card when you flip it over, it's like, ah, tagline goes here, Lorem Ipsum, you know, uh, So we, you need to, you need to, to, to [00:49:00] first measure so that you can assess, uh, and I've actually got a tool, um, if, if, uh, if I'm allowed to share a

Matt: You go for it, I've seen it, it's good,

Staeven: actually, uh, I actually saw a little email this morning, a little bird showed me that you downloaded it,

Matt: yeah I did.

Staeven: but it is the, the Brand Science Checklist, and it really is Uh, the best tool out there, it's the only tool out there, based on brand science, to help you quickly, in about 15 minutes or less, you assess how many assets you have, and it literally is.

If, if you're familiar with the words yes and no, and can count on your two hands.

Matt: You're in safe hand, you can do this. Uh, is, is what you're

Staeven: can do this, and there's bright colors on the page, you can print it out, you can, you can, you know, share along with a friend, you can do it online, you can print it out, but the goal is, you just count, literally, do we have a single color that represents our brand, yes or no, do we have a color combination that represents our brand, [00:50:00] and once you start any Doing this work.

This is the first step for anybody, whether you are a new brand, whether you're an old brand, whether you want to revitalize your brand, whether you're thinking about rebranding, whether you just took over your father in law's company, whether you're an entrepreneur that's starting a new company, doesn't matter where you are in the age and stage of your business.

This is the same tool that Fortune 500 brands are doing. Why? Now, they're not using this tool, but they're, they're going through a process to assess this. Uh, and this is what I've developed working with those brands, Mars, Petcare, Target, Walmart, Michaels, many, many big brands to assess and count and identify and create a plan to say, ah, we have 35 distinctive brand assets.

Next quarter, which are the ones that we are going to revitalize and jus, just a little bit to keep the packaging fresh so people notice us online and on the shelves. So, most people think that [00:51:00] branding is this once and done thing. And in fact, that's, so that's, that's another myth. That's, that's episode three. more myths about branding and drinking whiskey and shenanigans

Matt: shenanigans. Now, as I'm listening to you talk there, I'm kind of going, actually, um, we, in one of our eCom brands, we have this box, which we spent a long time thinking about, you know, in terms of design and some of the things that we could put on it, and we've not touched it in three years. And I'm, I'm listening to you going, oh, that's, that's not a good thing.

We need to, we need to add some zhuzh, uh, to that box. Um, and not just assume that actually leaving it is, is a good thing to do. And I, I, if I'm, here's the, here's the thing that's going through my head, but as I'm listening to you talk, if I'm starting out, um, and I don't have full time graphic designers working for me, et cetera, et cetera, um, I. [00:52:00] I can, obviously I can, you've just mentioned that I can use a checklist, I should use a checklist actually when I'm starting out. Um, what are some of the things that maybe, besides the checklist, or maybe is it just the checklist? If I'm starting out, what are some of the things that I need to think about?

How do I, how does this become accessible, um, for people without, that aren't target Walmart, you know? Hmm, him hmm,

Staeven: it's, it's kind of like, you have to think about this as like training wheels. Like on, like riding a bike, you're, you're not going to go start riding the most expensive fanciest bike, but you still need to learn the basics and you still need to learn some of the things. So it's, so. It's not really like about the bike.

It's about you learning about it as, as, as if that tracks, uh, it's really important for some of these things. Um, if you're in a position where you are, have a business, you have an eCommerce business [00:53:00] and you want your eCommerce business to succeed, you're investing in your eCommerce business. Then here's the thing you need to start investing, even if it's in some training wheels, even if it's, You know, we're not expecting you to spend 150K on your brand mark, but here's the interesting thing.

You, you, you're investing maybe, you know, to get traction. If you're in that traction phase, you're just getting going, you want to get fit market validation. You need to know that your name of your company is commercially viable. So you need to get that signed off. You need to, you know, uh, go with the Secretary of State or whatever the licensing and proper business protocol there is, uh, locally, regionally, and nationally, you know, and sales tax.

And, and that's kind of part of that process too. You're already investing in your name. So how did you choose that? So then that's where folks like myself come in, like, we need to make sure that you can use that name and that's not infringing on someone [00:54:00] else. So it's really, really important to like, start from the basics of, even with just your business name, we, you need to know that And that your name is able to be used in, you know, the industry space that you're in.

And, and so that's, that's an IP lawyer and there's an IP search. And I do a lot of those things. I'm not, you know, a practicing professional cause it's a conflict of interest. Uh, but I do a lot of those terms, search terms and preview things that I can kind of see, ah, this is probably what the lawyer is going to find out.

And, and then they pay someone. That's really, really important. We have to start with due diligence right from the beginning.

Matt: yeah,

Staeven: Um, you know, we want to get into the brand identity. We want to get into these things because they're fun, because it helps visualize in our, in our, you know, entrepreneur or business people brains to, ooh, this is my thing.

Like it's, there's something about creating and naming something that is very inherently human and fundamentally [00:55:00] satisfying. And also we need to make sure that that's done by industry standards. And so just coming, you know, having, you know, the kid from church come up with something or, you know, your nephew, you know, um, who is a graphic designer come up with something, you know, something that you've gotten off of freepick.

com or Adobe Stock. That may be a great inspiration point to say, what is the style that I like? But here's the thing. If you're downloading it. So can someone else. Then they'll even dupe you into thinking like, Oh, I can buy the royalty out on this and no one else can download it. Yeah, for 1400. But what about all the people that downloaded it for you before?

So, so, there's so many little cans of worms that start to open up. And it really is just, from the beginning, you need to spend the, the, the right amount of Age and stage appropriate investment if you're in that traction phase, if you're in that inception phase, if you're in the growth phase. Here's an interesting thing.

One of the [00:56:00] models I teach in the Brand Pretty Word program, and that's actually the flagship program over at Quantum Branding, and I teach this model of the brand authority pyramid. And literally, it's just really easy, and it's an easy way, and you could like, draw this at home and not go through my program, this will be great for you.

So, there's four pyramids. If we're building a pyramid, a pyramid has four sides. We usually think of pyramids as diagrams, but no, what do pyramids do? They celebrate the treasure that's inside. So the treasure is your product, your service, you know, your virtues, your values, all those things are in the middle of the pyramid down here.

And then what we want to build a pyramid around it. And so we have four sides. We have brand, all your brand and marketing. We have operation, how you deliver your product. You have your experience. Your experience is customer facing, anything that the customer experiences. And then you also have support.

Support is like admin, legal, financials, any of those things. [00:57:00] What's interesting is you can't build a pyramid. Unless you build it all the way around. And the majority of folks out there are struggling with the first layer, which is their brand platform. And so they're trying to get traction and they're trying to grow.

And so they're upping their operations. They're upping their customer experience. They're upping, they're even trying to maybe like do ads. You're trying to like build out channels and social media. All of these four categories all depend on the first foremost layer of the brand side. Which is your brand platform, which is the stuff we're talking about now, which is your brand, distinctive brand assets, your content strategy, um, your, your story, your archetype, all these things, and the assets themselves are your platform.

It's how you deliver what you do to the folks, the voice, visually, verbally, in a sensory standpoint, and the strategy behind it. So the challenge is, we want to grow our businesses, and everyone's like, [00:58:00] I'm going to spend ads! I'm going to build up my operations. This side of the pyramid keeps falling down because we have to build them all up together at the same time and we're subject to the lowest common denominator.

So the challenge is no matter where you are in your brand, What age and stage, whether you're in traction, growth, scale, or authority, you still need to look at your brand platform and assess it and look and see, like, do I have a strong brand platform? How can I make it stronger? Because I don't want the rest of my, my, my pyramid to fall down.

I don't want my efforts that I'm spending in the other areas of my business to be, You know, um, disadvantageous, I want them to be successful, successful and fruitful. So at the end of the day, it benefits everybody in your organization, whether you're a one man operation doing everything, or you have 10, 50, 100, 10, 000 people, the brand platform is the most important component for you [00:59:00] to propel and make everything clear using this mental model.

And using the model of distinctive brand assets and senses.

Matt: Fantastic. Well, but I'm aware of time and I'm, and I'm aware of how much time I've sucked out of you given the false start of the first podcast. Um, you, there's a couple of things you mentioned there and I, I'd love for you to, um, uh, just tell people how to find out more. So the first one was the checklist.

How do people get a hold of that?

Staeven: Absolutely. So we're going to put a link in the show notes, but we've got a link for you. And it is, um, it's bit. ly, B I T dot L Y forward slash brand science checklist. Pretty easy if you're familiar with bit. ly links. It's bit. ly forward slash brand science checklist. That's going to take you to a link that's easier to share, uh, out loud than, uh, giving you the one from my website.

Matt: Yeah, yeah, no fair

Staeven: And that's going [01:00:00] to take you to, that's going to take you to the brand science checklist and you just pop in your name and your email, you wait five minutes and the little auto responder will send you over the goodies, uh, for you. Um, and then there's also more information. Um. in there to guide you through that process of assessing yes or no.

And there's just a rubric, you count them up and at the end you can assess where you're at and know what your next steps are.

Matt: Fantastic,

Staeven: bit. ly forward slash brand science checklist is the first one.

Matt: fantastic, which of course will be like Stephen said, be in the show notes as well. Um, and the second one that you mentioned is the Brandpreneur Programme that you're doing. Um, just explain what that is and how people can find out more if they're interested.

Staeven: yeah, yeah. So, so, Brandpreneur is a 10 week program. This is for purpose driven brand leaders. Um, so, if, uh, you don't have purpose, you aren't passionate about your brand, this is not for you. Uh, if [01:01:00] you love learning, you want your brand to succeed, and this is something that you feel like you're put on this earth to do, then this is for you.

is for you. And so that helps purpose driven brand leaders like yourself create an actionable brand plan. That's your own custom plan. It teaches you the foundations of brand science. So you learn in the first six weeks what those foundations are. There's a four day, there's a four day, uh, Workshop, and then after the four day workshop, you've created your brand plan.

We then have four more weeks of calls and meetings where we work through implementation and strategies. So it's literally like doing all your conditioning and learning. And then when we get to the field, it's game time. Because if you're familiar with conferences and events and workshops and trainings, you know that you can't learn and do at the same time.

So this has been made on all the, the learning models, um, as well as brand science all together. So [01:02:00] you can then go out with you and your team knowing what you need to do next. Uh, whether that's continue to work with us, that's another, you know, that's another option as well. But the goal is for you to learn the tenets of brand science so you then can go out.

And build the brand of your dreams, um, um, and the one that you feel called to do based on science. So you can go to, uh, quantumbranding. agency, um, and you can click on the top right hand corner. Um, you can also, we're going to give you, I'm going to give you a link tree. Uh, it's linktr. ee forward slash Stephen Fry.

Uh, and you can check that out and there'll be a link to that, or you can go to brandpreneur. com. Brandpreneur. co. Uh, brandpreneur. co. So that's the easiest one. Uh, but b r a n d p r e n e u r. co. I always, I always feel weird. I'm like, are we still in that stage of life? We need to spell things on air?

Matt: Yeah,

Staeven: We are, I guess. But, uh, go to [01:03:00] quantumbranding. agency and you can check out all those things. Uh, we're going to give you the link, the link tree and all the links in the show notes. Uh, but brandpreneur. co and the Brandpreneur Program. Um, and we are getting ready. Um, uh, if you're listening, uh, in the future, thank you for listening in the future.

But if you're listening right now, uh, we are gearing up for our next cohort in January. So that's really, really exciting. Um, still have a couple more spots available for that.

Matt: And that's in Jan 24,

Staeven: yep, January of 2024.

Matt: 2024. And

Staeven: aliens come listen to this time capsule, they need to

Matt: will, of course, have all of those links in the show notes. And the other thing to say, of course, here, Stephen, is that you are in fact, um, in the cohort as well. So if you want to find out more about, you know, getting deeper into Stephen's brain, um, then.

Watch his video on the cohort if you remember as well all about the brand science stuff and It's um, it's mate. Honestly, thanks for coming on the podcast [01:04:00] Always love iCommerce. It's fun. I love the banter and I love the fact that we just totally go off piste quite regularly. Um, but

Staeven: Whiskey and toys.

Matt: Whiskey and toys. Yeah, yeah. I'll see you Apollo Creed. Uh, and, uh, but Every time you come on, I have pages and pages of notes, um, and that is just fantastic. So thanks for being such an awesome dude, such an awesome guest, and thanks for sharing heaps of value that we can all take away from. Uh, you're an absolute legend, my friend.

Staeven: Oh, thank you so much. And thank you listeners for joining, uh, uh, and check out, uh, the cohort. If you're not in the cohort, go check it out. You

Matt: Oh, I just, absolutely. ecommercecohort. com. Go, come check it out.

Staeven: like how I segued that? I teed you up.

Matt: you

Staeven: you up. I

Matt: you did.

Staeven: ping to the pong.

Matt: It's almost like we

Staeven: your needs. I anticipated your needs and I set you up. It's like a precursor to the dad [01:05:00] joke, it's the dad prompt.

Matt: Yeah, it is. It is. And I just don't have any dad jokes lined up. I'm really sorry. Um, but it's the way it is.

Staeven: that's okay.

Matt: So do check out ecommercecohort. com. Also be sure to follow the eCommerce Podcast wherever you get your podcasts from because we've got some more great conversations lined up and I don't want you to miss any.

Any of them. And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first to tell you, you are awesome. Yes, you are created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Stephen's got to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now the eCommerce Podcast is produced by Orien Media. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.

The team that makes this show possible is the beautiful, the wonderful, the very funny, said Al Baynon, and equally funny, Tanya Hutzlack. A theme song. Uh, it was written as we discussed before, uh, in the, but if you're listening to the audio version, you have no idea what we discussed before, but we talked about how the theme song was written by Josh, my son, uh, and, uh, as I [01:06:00] mentioned, if you'd like to read the transcript, the show notes, head over to the website, eCommercePodcast.

net, where if you haven't done so already. Sign up to the weekly newsletter. So that's it from me. That's it from Steve. Thank you so much for joining us. Do you know what, in England, when you hear the bell, it's last orders at the bar. So if you own a pub and it's like 11 o'clock and you can't take any more orders, the barman always dings the bell.

Everyone rushes to the bar to get their last orders in. So. Uh, it's well timed on the bell there, but, uh, so yeah, thanks for joining. That's fine, fine. Last orders. Uh, have a fantastic week, wherever you are. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.[01:07:00]