Cocktails, Tangents and Answers
Cocktails, Tangents and Answers is a marketing podcast that takes you on a ride with our team. We'll kick off every episode with a little chat, a cocktail recipe (sometimes basic, sometimes craft, sometimes bougie) before we get into a conversation to tackle some of the pressing marketing questions of the day. And of course, our brains take us on some of the most wonderful tangents. Come along for the ride!
Cocktails, Tangents and Answers
Our Biggest Thoughts Heading into Q4
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What Should Marketers Focus on in Q4
In this episode, we’re kicking off Q4 with a look at the state of marketing. We’ll share our biggest thoughts on what’s driving change right now and highlight the challenges and opportunities that will define how marketers finish the year strong.
Pumpkin Spice White Russian
This cocktail has everything you want in a fall drink. Think of it as the after-5 p.m. version of your morning pumpkin spice latte, but without the long wait in line. Smooth coffee notes, creamy richness and a hint of pumpkin pie spice make it a perfect seasonal sipper.
Ingredients (makes 4):
- 4 gingersnap cookies, crumbled (for rim)
- 1 tsp. honey (for rim)
- 6 oz. coffee liqueur (such as Kahlúa)
- 5 oz. vodka
- 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
- 6 oz. heavy cream
Directions:
1. Place crumbled cookies on a plate. Rub rims of 4 glasses with honey and dip in cookie crumbs to coat.
2. Whisk together coffee liqueur, vodka and pumpkin pie spice in a measuring cup.
3. Pour into prepared glasses, dividing evenly; add ice.
4. Top each glass with heavy cream and serve immediately.
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Hosts: Rich Mackey & Catelin Drey
Producer: Zac Hazen
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Q4 Marketing Insights Introduction
Speaker 2hey zach, another week, another episode, we're here yep, and we're closing on the end of the end of the year. Uh, playing for 2026 is starting and today we're going to break down some thoughts trends, challenges, things that we think you should know heading into q4, and everything's going to be marketing related, obviously but yeah, of course, marketing related and I changed my microphone Things that we think you should know heading into Q4. Everything's going to be marketing-related, obviously.
Speaker 1Yeah, of course, marketing-related, and I changed my microphone because I had to put it on, so now I think it's probably in the frame for some people, depending on how you crop this, but hopefully that doesn't bother anybody. But yeah, so budgets are going to close. They're probably in the budgeting process right now. Campaigns are peaking, trying to make it through. The end of the year 2026 is coming like tomorrow, so it's really insane. We're going to break down the trends, challenges and opportunities we think you should be paying attention to in Q4. We've each got a couple of those that we brought separately.
Speaker 2There's a little overlap on some with technology, so it should be a good time. Yes, be a good time. Yes, and uh, for q4. Since this will be the first episode of q4, you can expect more seasonal cocktails. This time I really focused on actual, like seasonal stuff, so you're gonna get a lot of fall flavors. Uh, for in october, november and december is going to be all the holiday flavors, so I went outside in my normal sights. Uh, today's drink is a pumpkin spice white russian. Um, this is a cocktail recipe from the countrylivingcom. Uh, as they say, it's everything you want in a fall drink, or it's kind of like your 5 pm version of a morning pumpkin spice latte, without having to wait in line.
Pumpkin Spice White Russian Recipe
Speaker 1I think that's the most important part, um so you're saying you can't have this in the morning, like you have to wait till five?
Speaker 2oh, you can have it whenever you want. I mean, there's coffee in it. There's definitely some coffee notes lots of pumpkin pie flavors, honestly good richness, um yeah, I think honestly. I looked at this and I was like this is when I'm actually gonna have to like roll my sleeves up and go try, because I'm a big pumpkin spice guy okay I guess I'm admitting that publicly but zach is a basic bitch there you go, but yeah, no, I was really happy about this one.
Speaker 1Like it looks really good I'll do one or like pumpkin spice lattes in the fall, but like they're just so sweet so I have to do like half pumps on those. Like it just gets overwhelmingly sweet for me, and that's the sensitivity I have. But this seems less sweet though, which is good. So, all right, how do we make this? We Mm-hmm. So all right, how do we make this? We take four ginger snap cookies. You've got to crumble them for the rim. Honestly, if you're going to use them on the rim, I would recommend a food processor and just grind those babies down to a powder. That's going to be really great. You need a teaspoon of honey for the rim as well, because those ginger snap cookie crumbles have to stick in some way. So, as you get into the recipe, you need three quarters cup of coffee liqueur, such as Kahlua will work. Starbucks has a coffee liqueur that's really good. There's a couple of other ones out there that I really like. Two thirds of a cup of vodka. One and a half teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice. We just have to admit that's not really a thing. It's a combination of other spices like. But okay, we'll call it pumpkin pie spice, because you can buy that at the store. Trader Joe's has it, all your grocery stores have it, and then three quarters of a cup of heavy cream. So hopefully you are not lactose intolerant.
Speaker 1So to make this thing, you place your crumble cookies on a plate, you rub the rims of four glasses with honey and then dip in a cookie crumbs to coat. So that is fantastic. And then, unlike a lot of these, this one is a whisking. It's more like baking than like making a cocktail. So no shaker. You whisk together the coffee, liqueur, vodka and pumpkin pie spice in a measuring cup. Just get it all nice and combined. That's really all you're going for. You don't have to like make whipped cream or anything out of it. Pour it into the prepared glasses, divide it evenly and add ice, and then top each one with the heavy cream and serve immediately. So this is an interesting one, because it's like that heavy cream float on it which I guess when you get, like your Starbucks drink or whatever, like that's how their lattes are right, the coffee is always on the bottom and like the milk and foam are always on the top.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's basically just like a right russian pumpkin spice latte like I and you could.
Speaker 1I think you could dust it with a little more pumpkin spice if you wanted to, or a little fresh nutmeg might be.
Speaker 2Yeah, I was gonna say some fresh, freshly grated nutmeg maybe but, um no, yeah, I love pumpkin spice, so definitely want to try this one all right.
Speaker 1Well, um, I think it's interesting. I'm like I'm mixed on pumpkin spice. I get it like a lot of people like it though. Um, this is one I would try, though I would 100 try this, because it doesn't seem like it's super overly sweet. Really, the your sweet element is the cream and then the honey on the rim. That's about it, so all right.
Speaker 1So that's the cocktail for fall, and I'll be curious to see what else we have for fall and, as we get into holiday, what those drinks are. I've got a few holiday ones too, if you need some recommendations, but it sounds like you've got them all planned out, so we'll just go with it. Yeah, all right, so should we talk about Q4 and what people should be looking for, expecting and kind of how things are going to ramp up?
Speaker 2Yeah, let's talk about Q4.
Speaker 1Welcome back, zach. Time to get into this Q4 stuff. So I know you've got at least a couple things here. I've got a couple of data here. I've got a couple of data points that I think will not surprise anybody. So marketing emails are going to ramp up considerably as you get closer and closer to Christmas. They go up about 14% in total compared to Q3. And then the worst thing for B2B marketers is like you don't really have that holiday offer, like we don't run holiday specials on retainers, like you know, get your SEO at 40% off. Like those aren't really things for B2B, where B2C marketers are going to start discounting super deep and then jamming inboxes like crazy. So that's something to watch out for.
Speaker 1If you've got clients who keep their work and personal life separate, that's a little less of an issue. But we still get email fatigue right, even if it's from a personal email address. Just going through and clearing all those out that can impact. You know our like getting more aggressive with our work email as well, and it is going to be unsubscribe season. This is always the time when people start unsubscribing because they get too many emails. So something to watch out for there. Not a great one, but it will happen.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, definitely. I'm definitely ready to get a lot of emails in my inbox. Um, so mine's a little unrelated to that, just like curious rich. How much, how many hours do you think generative marketers say generative AI saves them per week on average?
Speaker 1Six.
Speaker 2That was really close. It's actually five hours per week on average, and that's per person. So putting that into perspective, I think, just like generative AI, and implementing AI into your existing workflows is going to be something big to look out for. So I wanted to mention that.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think what's interesting so generative AI is AI that creates right. It generates something.
Speaker 1So I think the other one that's going to be more interesting as we get into Q4 is agentic AI, so AI that acts like a team member, because I think that will do a whole lot more Generative AI. I'm still really mixed on. I think it's great for first drafts, it's great for things, but technically it's agentic AI is doing research for you. Those, I think, are huge. Agentic AI could technically make a shopping list for me and then map it out in Google maps. I suppose. Um, I would have to take a look at that and you have to build that agent to do that, um, so, yeah, I'm going to find it interesting. I think that agentic AI will also start saving people more time than that.
Speaker 2Oh, a hundred percent. Ai is an accelerator, not a replacement, is correct.
Speaker 1Correct, um, I think, is that getting us into some of your main points of things to watch out for in Q4? I feel like that was on your list.
Speaker 2It definitely is.
Speaker 1Let's get to it.
Speaker 2Well, yeah, another interesting stat to go along with that is nearly 88% of marketers are already using AI in some capacity and 93% of them says it helps generate content faster, which, as a content marketer, that makes a lot of sense to me, as we were kind of just discussing.
Speaker 2I don't think it's a replacement. I think where it really helps is doing those things that you said research, starting you at a really good like first draft point. I would say, if you don't have a lot of time and you write out a whole rough draft and you're like, wow, this looks like absolute garbage, like throwing it into AI to get some ideas of how you can improve, it isn't bad, especially if you ask it directly for suggestions. But I think kind of my main point here is you should, in some capacity, start looking at ways to implement AI into your team's workflows and your own workflow. You don't want it to be putting out everything. I mean quality is still more important than the volume of which you put things out. Sure, AI can go out and help you create tons of blogs, tons of different things, but if you're not, if you are losing the human quality of it, not refining tone, fact-checking or making sure that it actually connects authentically with your audience and has your voice, then you're definitely missing a lot of what AI can do for you.
Speaker 2It's again not a replacement. You really need to focus on it improving your processes, not replacing you doing that thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1It still got to have the human element. Like right, let AI do what AI is good at, let humans do what humans are good at. So funny side story there. So a friend of mine sent me like I asked how their day was and he just sent me this string of like 15 emoji and there were just a bunch of them in there and I was like, oh okay. So I threw it into chat GPT and said, interpret all these emoji for me. And it wrote like it basically gave me the treatment for a fantasy story where, like a dinosaur and an elf go on a journey.
Speaker 2Looking for something.
Speaker 1And it just was crazy. So here's the funny thing, when you talk about generative AI. At the end of it, it offered to write me a children's story based on the treatment that it gave me, like a whole book, and I was like no, I don't want that, thank you, I just wanted you to decode what my friend was saying.
Speaker 1Yeah. And so I pasted that for him and he's like oh my God. He's like no, not really. And so then I actually went back in and I said reinterpret this in this context. And I shared some of what that friend was going through, like they had a pet who died, they were having some issues at work, Like some other stuff that was going on and it reinterpreted the emoji with that and I sent that to him and he's like yeah, that's basically what I meant with it.
Speaker 1So I think the good example there is garbage in, garbage out. If you just give it something and say tell me what this is, it's like I can make something up that's completely crazy and wild. If you give it context. And in a lot of cases like especially when we're using it, we, we give it a walled garden of resources it can use. So don't go out to some random weird place with crazy stuff. Use this content for us. A good example that I have is having it find the right photo from our photo library for a blog post, versus generating some wild fantasy photo on its own. You know, that type of thing is kind of more where I would look for AI to speed that up.
Speaker 2Well, and I think people definitely need to start looking into where AI can speed up like different parts of their processes, right, I mean, I know you and I have talked about this a lot, but basically, like, ai is not going away and this is probably going to be in the B2B trends episode as well because it's that important. If you're trying to ignore AI and you're scared of it, that's understandable, but at the same time, you're setting yourself back. Like I said earlier, 88% of marketers are already using it. If you're a marketing company or you're doing marketing for yourself without using AI, how are you going?
Personalization and Content Marketing Strategy
Speaker 1to keep up, and I think that's a tough question that a lot of people need to ask themselves. I think so too. So that dovetails into one of my points, which is about technology and platforms. So optimizing how you're using technology and platforms, so automating workflows, taking any routine tasks from discovery to pricing to reporting, all of those things research, excuse me and generating, creating a workflow for those so they can happen automatically. So you're not doing the actual task, you're actually having it pull in.
Speaker 1So a really good example of that one for B2B folks is you've got a prospect, a prospective company you want to reach out to, or a prospect. You can actually have AI go out and do research on that company, pull in information from their sales reports, pull in information from their stock if they've got it, how many employees they have from their LinkedIn profile, pull all of that stuff in for you and give you a summary and speed up that discovery. So it might have taken you 45 minutes to an hour to go research on your own. You can have it like 10 minutes or even better. You don't even care how much time it was, because it's out there doing it as you put things into your CRM and you're just being able to go whenever you want on demand and see that discovery that's done on demand and see that discovery that's done.
Speaker 1Same thing with analytics having it go through and look at your analytics and pull together insights and things like that. You've still got to put sort of the so what on it, but it can tell you what happened and it can give you good summaries. So those are just a couple of ways. I think that technology and platforms are really going to start to help us be more efficient and do more, especially in Q4, because that stuff's just ramping up so fast do all these things, but there's still that human element.
Speaker 2It's more of a hybrid approach which, when we went to inbound, we didn't do it this year but the hybrid ai hybrid team approach is huge.
Speaker 1So yeah, caitlin didn't accost anybody and make them do a video. Um, she almost did. Um I do know she did uh, meet yamini again and she ran into um a couple of other folks from the executive team there as well, so she was very thrilled with that and we had great food. That's a whole other episode, yeah that's a whole other episode.
Speaker 2It was awesome. So another one of my biggest thoughts that I've been like thinking of as it relates to content. Obviously you you know I'm a content marketing specialist, so a lot of what I think about relates to content. Personalization is becoming a bigger and bigger thing and like I mean, hold on, sorry, I have a stat for this.
Speaker 1Somebody's calling me tell them they can't call you during a podcast no, I know all right, so nearly four in ten.
Speaker 2So, like 39 percent of us, consumers expect brands to personalize their online shopping experience or you know their emails to some extent and if they aren't getting like that personalized stuff, they're turning away.
Speaker 2And one of hubspot's, like biggest things that they talked about when we were at Inbound talking about Inbound again but tailoring your content and your messaging to your specific target audience is going to be super important and it's always been super important. But the way that you can do that with AI is very different and impressive. It gets down to the nitty gritty details of targeting that specific subset of people. So I think that's something that people need to have their eyes on and really think about. And, honestly, personalization can be kind of creepy, but over 80% of consumers are comfortable with some level of personalization and I think that's telling. I think people are beginning to actually appreciate how you target them, because if you're providing them value in the moment, that speaks in a way to them specifically rather than just pushing out your message to a broad, general audience. That's way, way more effective.
Speaker 1Yeah, show me things that so, yeah, show me things that I want, Show me things that I like. Talk to me. I'd like you know who I am, and I think that's where you know having AI do some of that discovery and update your CRM, because you're only going to be able to personalize to the extent of the data that you have, and so things like having a LinkedIn URL for your prospects, like having that in your database, and AI can totally do that. They can go out and match the email address to the LinkedIn profile and pull that link in. Now they've got everything in that LinkedIn profile that they can use to personalize or share or to give you more information. So I think that all that's important, and especially as it comes to AI and it comes to personalization.
Speaker 1And another thing we heard a ton about at Inbound is quality of your data is what matters. So there's a whole hierarchy and you mentioned it with content, you know quality over quantity. Same thing with your data. You've got just massive amounts of data. Don't do you any good? But having quality data in there is going to be important and I think using AI to help with your unstructured data right.
Consumer Behavior and Values Shift
Speaker 1So like an email or a blog post or a LinkedIn profile. That's not structured data. It's not a phone number, an email address, stats, purchase history, things that are very structured and even but AI can still summarize that and help you use that data in things as well. So that's a great one. So I'm going to take us out of technology now. We're going to move on to something completely different. We're going to talk about consumer behavior and values. So the world is shifting and we're not going to get super political or anything.
Speaker 1But there are a lot of economic pressures on people right now and those aren't going away from what we've seen. They're going to probably get worse in q4, especially as you get into, like, holiday spending and things like that. So economic pressures mean that consumers think more about what they're going to buy. They're looking for value. So affordability, savings, perks, anything like that, is going to be important for them. It's also important for companies. So as the consumer goes, business goes as well, or vice versa. Be looking to build relationships with companies that they have loyalty to, that they believe in, that they deem as affordable or as high value. All of that is going to be important and it'll just ramp up as Gen Z gets deeper and deeper into the workplace. They're looking for things that are genuine and relatable and things that they understand and that speak to them. So whether you're doing B2C or B2B, you've got to take that into account as well.
Speaker 2I mean as an elder Gen Z person I think the more authentic and not buttoned up your messages sometimes can really speak to us. Like when I see an ad, it's just an ad. But when I see somebody actually talking to me face to face, telling me about a product, not BSing me, that's different.
Speaker 1So Yep, yeah, and I think that user generated content is going to be another big area where you know, b2b hasn't really capitalized on UGC much, but B2C definitely has with influencers and things. So I think that's going to be a place where you'll have to figure out how that works for you or if it works for you. But that authenticity, the mistakes, the little like baubles, that people have the little laugh here and there, like that all just reads as genuine.
Speaker 1Yep, absolutely so. The other piece in this is purpose-driven marketing and I think we've seen some of this with the backlash. Target got over a few things politically. You know their CEO ended up quitting or getting thrown out. Their stock has declined, their sales have declined. You know things like that. Their stock has declined, their sales have declined. You know things like that. You've got a far more activist crowd, especially in Gen Z, and as they continue to evolve and get it. Like you said, you're an elder Gen Z, you're not like. I mean I think you're pushing 30 now right, I'm 27.
Speaker 1Three years away, 27, but 27.
Speaker 2Don't scare me like that.
Speaker 1There are plenty of people You're almost 30. You're okay. There are plenty of people like mid to late 20s. For Gen Z, though, those people are in the workforce. They're influencing decisions. They have the ear of the CEO or the CFO or CMO or whoever. So really starting to think through that and getting ahead of it and understanding who you are and what you stand for and making sure that you're putting that out there You're not going to make everybody happy. That's just never going to happen, especially not right now when things are so divided. But getting who you are and who you want your company to be and attracting that audience is going to work better for you than for others. You can't Just say like, hey, this is what we do, come buy from us. You actually have to align with them.
Speaker 2We were just on a discovery call with somebody today.
Speaker 1Yep, yeah, we did a discovery call with a potential client today and she said you know, I've been on a bunch of these and some people. I'm just like, yeah, I feel like you're not listening to me, I feel like you don't get it. And she's like, in some of them, you just feel like, yeah, I just I don't know, I just don't, I'm not feeling you like personally. But she liked our vibe and she said that specifically, like like I really liked the vibe that I'm getting here, I feel like you're listening to me, et cetera. And that's going to be really important in B2B, people will be doing discovery calls with three or four companies and you, being who you are in genuine, genuine, it'll get you clients that you want to work with. Because if somebody is really diametrically opposed to your values as a company, you're probably you're not going to be successful. You don't want to work with them. So like, why bother? Like it's crazy.
Speaker 2So a lot of stuff there. Well, and I honestly think, just piggybacking off of that I I think the messaging really matters too right. There's a lot of the same voices happening in B2B. So setting yourself apart with an authentic human voice where you're actually connecting with them, not trying to just sell them the service that you're providing, I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think it's also a part of people are doing research, right? We talked about this. So, yeah, I think it's also a part of like people are doing research, right. Like we talked about this in a previous episode, I think like people have already researched you before they ever came close. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2This piggybacks into something I have for next week, but I kind of want to say here too.
Speaker 1Can you tease it for next week?
Speaker 2So when I was at Inbound yeah, so while I was at inbound um, I went to a b2b trends for the contrarian marketer. It was hosted by somebody who's like pretty high up in like the linkedin learning, uh, like platform, and one of the first things that she said I'm sorry, I can't remember her name. I wish I need to shout her out, but that's okay, you can shout her in the comments she compared basically catching like somebody's attention.
Speaker 2Right, when you're like your, your first impression to like the first impression rose from the bachelor or the bachelorette, people who get the first, uh, the first impression rose are like 52 percent, or like a high percent, more likely to actually be in the finale and win the show. And it's the same for B2B marketing, right, you want to be on, you want to have a great first impression and you want to be when people are researching, you want to be on their list of first brands that they've researched. So putting yourself out there, just raising brand awareness and being memorable are super important, which I'll discuss more next week with actual stats and numbers. But yeah, when you said that, I was like, oh my gosh.
Brand Impression and Key Takeaways
Speaker 1Yeah, 100%. Yeah. You've got to understand these are savvy people making these decisions whether it's a consumer or it's a B2B opportunity and they already know quite a bit about you. So if they've seen and felt what you're supposed to be beforehand, that's going to bring them into you and you're going to make a better, technically second impression. Your first impression is probably your website or something they read in ChatGPT.
Speaker 2A campaign you put out just to raise brand awareness. You want to get that first impression, Rose, so you can end up in the finale Jeez.
Speaker 1I don't watch the Bachelor, but I get what you're saying. I understand the concept of the show and I've seen clips and things before, so I'm not completely inept on those kinds of trends.
Speaker 2It's like the Rose they give the person that makes the best first impression and apparently those people end up have the highest chance of ending up in the finale because they remember them. They stood out.
Speaker 1It's not just because they're hot, it's not just like oh, you look really hot, that's definitely probably part of it, but yeah. All right. So I think that we talked about a lot of stuff. I think a couple of key takeaways.
Speaker 2Ai is not going away, you've got to find a way to use it properly. Start auditing your processes to look for opportunities to implement AI into your workflow.
Speaker 1Yep, yeah, and create automated workflows wherever you can Take that routine stuff and get it off your plate so that you can look better or work better and work smarter. You've got people who are more savvy. They're looking at things, they're researching things, they want to know who you are, they want to align with it. People are going to be choosier and businesses are going to be choosier with their money. I know we're going through that like really thinking like, do we need this piece of software, or can this one work good enough? Or like, is this one actually even better and we just don't know it and so we don't need that thing, and kind of going through that, you know, and spending, we'll spend money where we need to.
Speaker 1Like we've got some very expensive software stacks that we use, but we need those. And some of the ones that we're you know, we're even looking at getting rid of are, like you know, three or $400 a year. But it's like, do I need to spend that three or $400 a year if I've got something else that will do it? So you're going to have picky consumers, you're going to have B2B decision makers and they're looking for value, they're looking for fit, they're looking for alignment. They're looking for personalization 100%, so all of those are doable. There are things that we're exploring right now for ourselves and Zach's actively working on some of that for us, and so it's very interesting and you can always ping him and he's happy to chat with you about that.
Speaker 2Yeah, Thank you for listening. As always, you can find our agency at antidote71.com and all of our socials there as well. If you have a question you'd like to send our way, head to ctapodcastlive to shoot us an email. Even better, leave us a voice message on our hotline at 402-718-9971. Again, we always say this your question will make it on an episode of the podcast. Once that first question hits, I'm going to be the happiest man ever, but until then we're going to keep saying it.
Speaker 1So yeah, I think I'm going to call in with an accent and just be like, pretend to be somebody else and you'll see the number it came from and you'd be like this is just Rich calling in. Like that's just stupid. All right, so we will be back next week with another episode and Zach teased it a little bit. But what episode? What's the topic that he's going to be talking about? That on it is B2B trends that are making waves, things you need to look for in 2026. So we got you set up for Q4, which is coming in like five minutes, it's going to be Q4. And then we're going to work to get you set up for 2026. And we'll kind of look at those things to look for in trends. What's always interesting with that is to look back at sort of the middle or end of 2026 and see if things are happening the way we thought they were.
Speaker 2Because sometimes they do sometimes they don't All right.
Speaker 1So we will see you next week. And thanks, zach, it was really nice to see you again today yeah, awesome episode.
