Will AI Replace Marketers or Make Them More Creative? | Kyle Merrick

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Kyle Merrick, the founder of Anarchy for a Day, about his journey from running a marketing agency to becoming a marketing coach. They discuss the impact of AI on the marketing industry, the importance of building trust with clients, and the future of marketing agencies in a rapidly changing landscape. Kyle emphasizes the need for creativity and the human touch in coaching and voice acting, while also addressing the challenges posed by AI in the creative realm. The conversation concludes with insights on embracing individuality and the importance of connecting with one's audience.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Kyle Merrick transitioned from a marketing agency to coaching.
• AI is reshaping the marketing landscape, creating both opportunities and challenges.
• Building trust with clients is crucial for marketers.
• The future of marketing agencies may involve more automation and less personal touch.
• Creativity is essential for moving culture forward in the age of AI.
• The human touch in coaching is irreplaceable.
• Voice acting is being impacted by AI, but unique human qualities remain valuable.
• Anarchy for a Day emphasizes embracing individuality in a conformist society.
• Business owners need to understand their market to make informed decisions.
• The conversation highlights the importance of storytelling in marketing.

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• 34:46 [Ad] The Fresh Patch Podcast - Where Good Pets Get It.
• 35:16 (Cont.) Will AI Replace Marketers or Make Them More Creative? | Kyle Merrick
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• 44:22 (Cont.) Will AI Replace Marketers or Make Them More Creative? | Kyle Merrick

Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.387)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. A special shout out to our one listener in Clinton Township, Michigan. I love any city that has township in it. That's brilliant. Thank you for listening. Joining me today, Kyle Merrick from Anarchy in a Day. Anarchy in a Day? For a day. Sorry.

Kyle Merrick (00:29.166)
for a day.

Christian Brim (00:30.903)
I'll say that again. Anarchy for a day. Kyle, welcome to the show.

Kyle Merrick (00:36.046)
Christian, thank you. Here I am wishing that I was from a respective township. I did go to my high school was Lyons Township High School. If that counts for anything, I know it's not a town, respectively.

Christian Brim (00:43.297)
There you go.

Well, it seems to be a geographic anomaly. don't know of any townships down this way in Oklahoma, you know, Michigan, Illinois. Yeah, were you from Illinois?

Kyle Merrick (00:59.99)
Yeah, originally from the General Burbs of Chicago.

Christian Brim (01:03.831)
Yeah, I love it. And you reside in Denver now. How are you in witness relocation? Actually, no, you wouldn't go to Denver if you were in witness relocation.

Kyle Merrick (01:11.394)
Sometimes it feels like that.

It would be a rather conspicuous location. Yeah, yeah. I've been out here for about five years. I was in Columbus, Ohio for seven years in between both Chicago and now Denver. And so that seven year period is typically the response that I render when people say like, well, why? Why are you here in Denver? say, well, how much time have you spent in Ohio?

Christian Brim (01:19.669)
Yeah, no, you go to someplace like Albuquerque anyway.

Christian Brim (01:45.343)
None. I've never been to Ohio, which is a shame, I think.

Kyle Merrick (01:49.338)
Here's what I'll say. I miss the people, not the place. Some of my best buddies are still out there. know, old clientele. The place itself, in my purview, unremarkable.

Christian Brim (01:52.831)
Hmm

Christian Brim (02:02.761)
No, well, it's hard to beat the mountains. I'm a big fan of Colorado just because of the topography. Okay, so you let's just jump into it, not anarchy in a any day, but anarchy for a day. For a day, not anymore. You can't stand that. How'd you come up with that name? And what is it exactly you do?

Kyle Merrick (02:22.55)
roughly for a day somewhere around.

Kyle Merrick (02:30.136)
But well, two fabulous questions there. So one, I will start with what I do. And I apologize, listener for the sniffles getting over a cold here. So if you can fight through that, then I encourage you please stick with us. The the day to day these days, I'm a marketing coach. That is what Anarchy for a Day is. It is the the whole of my knowledge base that's about a decade spent as a marketing agency owner turned into

an educational course, one which I refer to as a BA in digital marketing, a bachelor's of anarchy. So that is the occupation, outside of that, acting and voiceover. So all sort of three of those components work in conjunction with one another. Now, the reason I got to anarchy in four days just to lighten the load, but anarchy itself being the heaviest lift of the entire thing,

Christian Brim (03:01.239)
Mm.

Christian Brim (03:05.481)
Mmm.

Kyle Merrick (03:28.974)
Let's think back to like Thanksgiving 2024, right around there. all right, so AI has come into the frame and it's automated so much of the marketing world. Okay, well that's one component. So if we're doing like the RFP game, which my partner and I were at the time, we would essentially be going for the higher ticket RFPs. Now if AI companies come into frame, they undercut us so heavily.

Christian Brim (03:31.895)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (03:40.833)
Hmm.

Kyle Merrick (03:58.722)
that we can't trim our costs down to make our proposal, our pitch any bit more attractive. Like we are just completely out of the running. Reason being, enough companies, individuals and entities have so little lasting trust with marketers. Typically because I'm gonna say we, not that I feel like I'm included in this bunch, but many marketers fail to deliver on what is the expected, you know, expected.

Christian Brim (04:16.567)
Mmm.

Kyle Merrick (04:28.226)
deliverable, whatever that may be. So because of that depleted trust barrier, okay, well, people will look at these boutique marketing agencies, which we were in the classification, because we're small, we keep operations here stateside because we value fantastic customer service. That's one of the most key parts of the marketing world is we gotta be able to talk to the customer so that they feel that they are with us and that we are with them.

Christian Brim (04:29.301)
Right?

Christian Brim (04:52.447)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (04:57.146)
That's something that we valued critically, and I still do. But that is partly what attributed to the higher cost barrier, really. So all these different things are to say, really, if AI came into frame, that was almost always the preference because people don't want to spend that high ticket dollar amount on something that's likely going to fail because it has in the past. So that's the connection that I made that said, you know what?

Christian Brim (05:07.115)
Yeah.

Kyle Merrick (05:26.188)
this agency model, this ain't the right decision. This ain't the right product for today's market. So I kind of quietly closed the doors. And then for maybe a period of about six months or so, I was looking for a job and you know, marketing director, creative director, anything like that generally. Nothing was sticking. I couldn't find a lick of good business. And I figured, okay, well clearly I'm the problem here is the applicant. So I hire a coach.

Christian Brim (05:44.065)
Yeah.

Kyle Merrick (05:55.89)
And in the very first conversation, she's like, you know what? I know that we have to focus on the resume, but hear me out. I can see you as a coach too, just based on your, your, knowledge, the way that you operate and think about things. said, well, that's extremely a compliment, but it would defeat the whole purpose of looking for a job. can't start another business right now. So within that same exact week, the Colorado nonprofit association,

They reach out, they invite myself and a colleague to build out a single day in-person bootcamp for their entire member base. So, okay, within that same week, I have this seedling planted of maybe you should try coaching. And then I'm building out educational course material for the nonprofit association. And so this, this reality of, well, what happens if I actually, you know, do this kind of coaching thing? You know, the educator lives very strongly in me with the sales component of

Christian Brim (06:37.568)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (06:43.083)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (06:54.934)
anything marketing, there's always an educational component sort of in the mix. So it's not a new concept to me. was just simply, all right, well, how do I take this existing decades worth of knowledge? And how do I flip it into something that's attainable for everybody who's not wired like I am, who doesn't have my same background? And that's where the bit of anarchy came in, because I'm like, whoa, I'm completely.

Christian Brim (06:59.575)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (07:17.408)
Right?

Kyle Merrick (07:24.074)
re-engineering an entire knowledge base to cater to a different market, to kind of adjust an entire product base. And that was the genesis because I realized this is total anarchy in my own head that I'm going through, but that led to the tremendous realization that we can rethink words, regardless of, you know, the kind of reputation that word may have, which

Christian Brim (07:33.132)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (07:51.102)
I think a lot of people probably put like anarchy is like destroy everything and cause total chaos. Okay, that's fine. But if we're a little bit more strategic about when we apply these moments of anarchy, when if everybody goes left, then you go right. If you're very tactical about when those moments happen, that could be what instead pushes you out of your red ocean into your own blue ocean, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Christian Brim (08:14.995)
Mm-hmm. No, absolutely There's there's a couple of things there that I want to unpack or tug on the string so We talk about on this show not being Tied to the skills that you have or the experience that you have and Looking at the creative business as a problem solver

Kyle Merrick (08:24.514)
Thank you.

Christian Brim (08:45.877)
Because if you look at it through the lens of what you do, know, marketing copy, videography, whatever, you only see a certain, it's a lens that you see through things through and you might miss out on other opportunities, other problems that need solved. And so it sounds like what you did was exactly that. Maybe not.

overtly intentionally, but you, ended up there where you're like, I've, I've got this knowledge and skill and I can apply it differently than I did before and, or is being done in the marketplace and create something new. So kind of unpack what that experience was like, like shifting, making that shift.

Kyle Merrick (09:38.776)
Well, at first it was awful. had to mourn it. you know, think about it. The decade of entrepreneurship, the entrepreneur is fiercely dedicated to carving their own path. And then I reached the point where I'm like, I got to get a corporate fucking job here. That transition that is not, that's so easily said, but for the mind of the entrepreneur, I got in, in recent years, I had one of the biggest arguments with my parents.

Christian Brim (09:55.031)
that

Christian Brim (10:01.629)
No, that's not easy to say.

Kyle Merrick (10:07.756)
because they hit me with the question of, who do you want to work for?

Christian Brim (10:12.214)
Mmm.

Kyle Merrick (10:13.838)
And this is, you mom was a lawyer, dad worked in advertising, did the whole agency thing, retired working, advertising for law firms. That's not exactly how they met. They met back in their college days. But they come from that old school corporate background. know, the corporation takes care of you if you put your time in. And so they're querying who do you want to work for?

Makes all the sense in the world if you understand the individuals it's coming from. But then if you understand the individual that that question is being delivered to, it doesn't make a lick of sense because you're not talking to somebody who is sprinting to go work for somebody. This is the individual who's been working for himself, been redefining his own path, been carving out the individual through experience. For the individual, shifting from entrepreneurship to...

acknowledgement of I have to find a corporate job now. That required a process of mourn. I had to mourn the mere fact that I'm no longer going to be working for myself. This is going to be a very different, you know, shift in mindset and pace. And I got there. But in part, I had to lie to myself consistently to put myself into the brain space that's required to be able to walk into interview environments and convincingly.

Christian Brim (11:18.73)
Yeah.

Kyle Merrick (11:42.164)
act like I wanted to work with these people.

Christian Brim (11:48.183)
Unfortunately, you did not end up there, but that that mind shift was Had to had to happen Well, well, I'll ask that as a question Would you have seen the opportunity or been given the opportunity if you hadn't made that mind shift? And you hadn't gone through that

Kyle Merrick (12:09.706)
There's a distinct possibility that I may never have, no, because I had I stuck with the marketing agency, it would have just been, you know, continued on the path of iteration and figure out how do we make this, you know, this entity work. And to this day, I still believe it's a failing model for the specific environment that we live in, if you don't have the big name. Because the landscape is so wildly different. So had

Christian Brim (12:36.651)
Well, I, that's the second thing that I wanted to unpack because, I was having a conversation a couple of months ago with one of my clients and friends that, he was, an agency for 20 plus years. and I would say he was boutique. but you know, here in Oklahoma city, he had picked up, some pretty big entertainment clients, Blake Griffin.

Kyle Merrick (12:41.195)
Okay.

Christian Brim (13:06.591)
Nicki Minaj. So he was playing in rarefied air, but it was more that traditional model of doing everything conceptually for a high paying customer.

Kyle Merrick (13:24.814)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (13:26.557)
And a couple of months ago, he said that model is completely dead. that. And, and he may have been saying it more for himself, but it also was a acknowledgement of the industry landscape, where you, you had a creative firm that had in-house photography and videography and editors and writers and

Kyle Merrick (13:56.376)
Yeah, it was a butt in the chair for each component of marketing.

Christian Brim (13:56.405)
website developers and

Right, right. But the the fracture of technology has really upset the apple cart. But what what I found fascinating about what you said is the lack of trust was what was driving that that and and and I I hadn't really thought about it that way. But I agree with you because

I was just having this conversation with my head of marketing revenue this morning. That old anecdote of, I know that 50 % of my marketing efforts are not working, but I can't tell you what 50 % it is, is really kind of true. business owners like it to be more predictable, more linear, more analytical.

But when you're dealing with humans and marketing, you have this chaos, this anarchy that's built baked into the pie. You can't predict them. And so there were a lot of providers that took advantage of that and people would just go from one provider to the next because they had this itch that they couldn't get scratched. I've always put that back on the business owner.

Of not really knowing what they need and just buying something without really understanding what what they need But there's also this inherent thing that like well the marketer has got experience the marketer has Intuition based upon that but ultimately they can't with any certainty predict human behavior. So Was that

Christian Brim (15:52.981)
I guess the question is, I've talked a lot here. My question to you is, where do you see the current landscape for marketing agencies? Like what is going to come out of this technological disruption?

Kyle Merrick (16:13.368)
Well, a couple things. I want to address a few items before I get to the actual question, because that's also a good question, is what's the future of marketing agencies? One thing that I've seen is for the individuals that don't know what they're doing, the reason I became a marketing coach is to so, for the entrepreneurs, the makers, the business owners out there, they need to know what they're shopping around for. My utopic view is...

Christian Brim (16:38.027)
Mmm.

Kyle Merrick (16:41.368)
to create a marketplace of educated buyers so that they understand, okay, this is my product or service, and this is the base marketplace that I'm trying to speak to. And so if you thoroughly understand those two components, what that means is you need to understand your market well enough that you can be in a one-on-one conversation and never lose their captive attention. That's how well you need to know who you're talking to. If you don't, then...

Christian Brim (16:44.577)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (16:51.072)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (17:05.184)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (17:10.038)
When you walk into these marketing conversations with the individuals who are tremendous salespeople, likely, and they present this new shiny object and say, well, let me do this for, you know, Nicki Minaj and all these particular individuals and businesses. You know, here's our case studies and all this stuff. boy, if it worked for them, it can work for me. Hell no, won't. You have a different product, different service in a different marketplace. That alone is enough to say, it ain't the same anymore. If you are...

Christian Brim (17:15.531)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (17:20.907)
Right.

Christian Brim (17:28.865)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (17:34.817)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (17:38.358)
Yeah.

Kyle Merrick (17:39.518)
literally the same, they should have bought you up and essentially subsumed you into their operations if you are that close in operations. So that is to say, the educated buyer is the solution to not knowing what they're shopping for. The impetus to say, well, if I educate and I bring everybody up to speed on essentially my knowledge base, these individuals as they shop around,

Christian Brim (17:55.115)
Mmm.

Yes.

Kyle Merrick (18:07.606)
And as they see the marketplace evolve, then they can approach it without falling into the same pitfalls that I did in my own journey.

Christian Brim (18:16.411)
No. So let me ask a clarifying question. who do you coach?

Kyle Merrick (18:21.056)
Sure.

Kyle Merrick (18:25.922)
The maker, the individual who is looking to build for themselves and is open, available for feedback. Cause if the individual is not able to, you know, take that kind of thing, they're not good. That's a terrible client training coach. Yep. Entrepreneurs, makers. Exactly. Yes. Smaller teams, generalized.

Christian Brim (18:27.297)
Okay.

Christian Brim (18:41.153)
So entrepreneurs, owner-operators.

Yeah, so not like a director of marketing in a company.

Kyle Merrick (18:55.33)
I've seen directors in marketing that I can very much serve. But the reality is that these companies are too hesitant to bring on a coach these days, especially when we have so many different AI technologies out there. What I've seen is there are a lot of marketing directors that are under equipped, inept, and not ready to actually take on their jobs. But yet here they are. They have the title of director. And that is what is guiding the communication efforts of a lot of these companies.

Christian Brim (19:04.992)
you

Kyle Merrick (19:24.95)
Unfortunately, but that's not for me to reflect on. That's the state of the corporate marketplace.

Christian Brim (19:34.471)
So going back to my question, you started to lay some foundation there. What do you see? So first of all, I 100 % agree with you. I've said on this show multiple times, I call it crackhead energy. And the crackhead is the business owner, right? They want that crack because it gives them that high. that could be views, clicks, whatever.

Kyle Merrick (19:53.549)
Hmm.

Kyle Merrick (20:02.254)
Totally.

Christian Brim (20:02.551)
They don't know that they just want the high and the a lot of marketers were crack dealers, right? And they're like, you know, I know this isn't going to work and I don't, you don't really need it, but I'm going to sell it to you because you want it.

Kyle Merrick (20:05.346)
Yes.

Kyle Merrick (20:14.702)
Yeah. And they're paying us and we are not going to say anything. We're just going to sit back quietly, do our job and make sure that that check keeps coming in. Sorry, direct deposit. Nobody pays in checks anymore.

Christian Brim (20:18.455)
Mm-mm.

Christian Brim (20:26.089)
No, but that's that's the problem then is, know, technology disruption just makes that cheaper and more people are going to buy it, but it doesn't improve the solution. Yeah.

Kyle Merrick (20:37.87)
So one notion too that this was sort of the secondary component that I wanted to address before we still get to like, where do we see marketing agencies these days? How is it that we can also build trust in the marketing practice itself? So if you've engaged with a marketer who's saying, you should do X, and Z. Okay, think radio, still exists. Think TV, still exists. These are.

Christian Brim (21:01.9)
Yes?

Kyle Merrick (21:05.964)
difficult because you we have huge huge streaming services, you know, we have I heart radio that are, you know, moving big big numbers and they are, you know, I heart was the main sponsor for what like the one of the Olympics or something recently. So, you know, these are at the forefront, I believe when people think like radio and TV and then we have Amazon, Netflix, you know, the big streamers. Okay, that's all fine and dandy.

Christian Brim (21:23.531)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (21:33.902)
but you cannot guarantee that the individual is sat watching the entirety of that commercial. Somebody might flip up their phone, somebody might be distracted. You cannot guarantee that there is actual viewership, even though Amazon, Netflix, all these different streaming platforms, radio included, will suggest, well, we have however many millions of viewers within this target zone that you're aiming for. It's no guarantee. And so this is largely what we're talking about is,

Christian Brim (21:59.19)
Right.

Kyle Merrick (22:03.02)
The marketing component says, we'll get you the viewership. Okay, well, that's the shiny end goal. But how can you quantify that people are actually watching this stuff? Web-based activity, this is where social media comes in. You can tell, phones have cameras and we use these cameras to track where the eyeball is on the screen. We can see what is lingering. That's the level that we can actually scrutinize and see, okay, what are people actually looking at? Where are they interacting on screen? How long?

Are they staying here? That is, if you cannot find those data points and money is of the essence, then you should only be embracing things that will get you that level of detail. Is viewership where eyeballs are, how long people are hanging out there? Otherwise, it's not gonna be a good marketing avenue for you. That is the solution that I say is, I'm not gonna point to any specific thing, but that's where social media advertising comes in.

Christian Brim (22:59.159)
Is it kind of tilting at windmills? I mean, it seems like there's just more and more data around human behavior to your point. They're tracking where you're looking on a screen, heat maps and the like. But has the marketing become any better with that information?

Kyle Merrick (23:18.445)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (23:27.913)
Or is it just because we can measure it, we do? And this idea of direct attribution of I'm going to spend X dollars and get Y results is a fool's errand.

Kyle Merrick (23:40.172)
You have two different components because one is you have the data and then two you have essentially the quality, which I would attribute to say like storytelling. I don't know if we have to label it something. If you disagree with that, you or listener, then label it something else. But the two are desperately related because we would essentially tie data points into the story and figure out which stories are punching where and when. OK, that's ideal, but

Christian Brim (23:53.623)
Okay, no, that's good.

Kyle Merrick (24:08.778)
just because we're tracking these data points does not mean we're making better stories. What we're accounting for is the fact that we are, I'm going to say this blatantly publicly, we are retarding ourselves with how little attention span we have. My ADHD brain has only skyrocketed thanks to social media. I hate it. I mean it, but I hate it. We have media coming in from so many different corners of our

Christian Brim (24:12.811)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (24:21.301)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (24:25.226)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (24:29.323)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (24:37.324)
just waking day, unless we're like, you know, a couple thousand miles away in the forest, then, you know, we have no real way of stepping away from all of the innovation, the, you know, the advertising, marketing, the media everywhere. And now we have AI coming in and saying, well, within this, we don't know what's real anymore. That's the cool bit. So the two are not related. Data tracking and

Christian Brim (24:59.537)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (25:06.21)
technical quality because you quality if you're talking about you know Tarantino Spielberg you know the individuals that are you know Chris Nolan the individuals that are true true story makers.

That's quality. But it takes time. You gotta sit through that one.

Christian Brim (25:22.497)
right?

Kyle Merrick (25:27.276)
it's tough to develop quality in a matter of seconds. quality is oftentimes out the door, but it depends what your baseline expectation or understanding of quality is. So that one's a hard one to remark on. But.

Christian Brim (25:45.557)
Well, and it kind of goes back to what I said is that AI makes it cheaper and it's just more crap. if the story wasn't good and it wasn't compelling, just because you can produce it cheaper and distribute it more widely does not make it any more effective. Yeah.

Kyle Merrick (26:01.39)
Yeah, it doesn't mean you should do it. And so, and so this brings me to your sort of like final question out of this entire sort of conversation, which is, you know, what's the, what's the future of marketing agencies? And, okay. So what we've, think readily sort of made apparent here is AI. All right. To shoot a commercial, you know, it takes a team, need a writer, you need the client to be able to sign off on all this stuff.

But before that even happens, you gotta know who you're talking to. We're talking only commercial, I'm not talking film or anything like that. Because you're advertising a product, a service, or perhaps a greater theme or notion, But to do that, I mean, you need lighting, you need sound, you need camera, you need the director, the producer, you need all of these people in the same room.

And now AI has essentially removed all of those people. We no longer have a need for any of them, actor included. And where I see marketing agencies going based on where this technology is, unless something happens that essentially says, like, there's a court case that essentially establishes clear enough boundaries that makes this an impossibility, okay, we can do this cheaper.

So there's this concept of A-B testing within the marketing world is to say, you know, one audience member will receive different types of messaging within the same general campaign. And so that's to figure out, all right, what messaging within this general storyline resonates the most with this one individual. That's A-B testing. And the point being, how is it that we get this individual to just turn out their pockets for us?

Christian Brim (27:29.131)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (27:37.61)
Right.

Christian Brim (27:47.873)
Right?

Kyle Merrick (27:56.202)
A-B testing maximized. That is where we're going. So essentially, A-B testing costs more money if we're going with the standard production team, because it means that you have to shoot different hooks, the actors have to be saying different lines, and that just means more footage, more time on set, more, more, more, more, more, everything, more money. And because AI can do this cheap, fast, efficiently,

Christian Brim (28:00.278)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (28:26.306)
What this means, the way that I see it at least, is all right, if you, Christian, are an entrepreneur, a business owner, a CEO, president, well, whatever your business is, then you're probably going to have, let's just speculate, 150 different character profiles of the types of individuals that you want to be talking to. That is your customer base. There are 150 different brands of individuals out there.

live in a very specific lifestyle, perhaps in a different space and geographic space. Those 150 character profiles, those are the people that you want to talk to. Now, what is standard with production teams these days? Maybe you can cater to like, I don't know, a percentage of that marketplace, but you're not going to be able to shoot everything specific for each of those 150 different models, really.

Christian Brim (29:15.35)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (29:24.972)
Now AI can do that. That's what I'm seeing, is that we can essentially build individualized assets for you, for me, based on exactly what our phones are hearing as we have these wonderful podcast discussions. And these data points can be sold so that these companies can essentially know us as well as we know us. And then they can either...

Christian Brim (29:35.575)
Mm.

Christian Brim (29:52.157)
Mass customization.

Kyle Merrick (29:54.648)
That's it. Because that's what the AI will enable within the marketing field is remove all the people that you have to deal with, the stingy camera people and the audio guy that can't get quite the boom out of shot. Well, great, you don't have to worry about any of that anymore.

Christian Brim (30:13.887)
Interesting. Okay, I'm gonna pivot now You said that you created an online course, which I find interesting. I was Participating in a webinar recently with Alex Sanfilippo of pod match and one of the guests on there was I forget his name, but he had sold his company to mighty networks

Kyle Merrick (30:31.726)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (30:41.055)
and had stayed on in their employee. And he was, he made this statement that online learning is actually in decline. And I'm like, well, mighty would know that since that's their business. And he was talking about how that potentially could pivot. What has been your experience with the online learning as a business? How has that worked out?

Kyle Merrick (31:09.208)
Well, I want to begin with a correction. I don't have an online course. It's taught by me. Anybody who embraces me, I'm actually cognitively staying away from online because you need me. The business is me. It lives and dies with me. And that's that service, that level of personalized understanding of the individual. That's the point. But it's still a great question, though. So I needed to clarify that for my end.

Christian Brim (31:12.959)
Okay, I say.

Christian Brim (31:22.388)
Okay.

Christian Brim (31:30.807)
All right, we'll forget that I asked that question.

Kyle Merrick (31:39.022)
Because there's a lot of people that would suggest, well, when you actually want to start making real money as a coach, what you do is you essentially either use AI to build out videos of each of the different core sections, and then you plop everything in an app, which you can use AI to literally build the entire framework of the app just like that.

Christian Brim (31:44.727)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (32:03.553)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (32:05.314)
then that is your product. You just go simply sell that app and you don't have to talk to a single person anymore.

Christian Brim (32:11.413)
Right?

Kyle Merrick (32:12.792)
So that is the online course making process that has been advised to me. I saw that, I hear that, and I respectfully decline that, given that the human touch is still a requirement in the marketplace. Now the important bit is catering the material to the individual listener. That's the key, because if you go with evergreen material, some of it may not be

terribly relevant because not everybody's going to have that budget to go to like Netflix and say like, right, I'd to run commercials while people are watching like Bridgerton or whatever, I don't know, all that stuff. you know, so the idea is the appropriate coaching mechanism here is to say, okay, well, within, if I'm taking my project management hat and saying, all right, how much budget do you have? How many people do you have? How many AI systems are you using?

then within those confines, then we build.

Christian Brim (33:13.825)
So walk me through what a sample engagement with a business owner would look like.

Kyle Merrick (33:20.718)
There's really two iterations of that. One is simply one-on-one coaching. And that's where we just go through and we establish, well, let's build that priority list. What's the most important so that we can build the foundation? And then from there, any structure you end to build atop that foundation, then you'll build a solidified structure. The other is if we go with the course, like I said, the BA in digital marketing. So that's where...

Christian Brim (33:42.817)
Right.

Kyle Merrick (33:50.482)
We have 10 different Zoom or Google Meet sessions, and I'm literally going through a course as it pertains to the individual that I'm speaking with.

Christian Brim (34:03.339)
That's where I got confused. So that's not work they do independently of you. Or is it like pre-work, homework? Yeah.

Kyle Merrick (34:09.646)
I'll give you some homework. You know, there's a bit within there because, you know, out of the discussion, there's going to come essentially, you know, portions that, okay, now, in order to actually put this into motion, I need you to build this and then we can bring this back. We can look at it, we can critique it, and can adjust it.

Christian Brim (34:26.613)
Are most of your clients doing the implementation themselves or do they have a team that they're working with?

Kyle Merrick (34:34.766)
Mostly themselves.

Christian Brim (34:36.705)
Okay. And so, you know, I, I know as an entrepreneur, one of the things that, a lot of the struggle with as bandwidth, like, you know, I don't have all the hours, to, to, to vote to it. do you have people that like sign up and then don't do their part? Like I come to the coaching session, you tell me what I need to do. And I just don't do it.

Christian Brim (35:09.907)
Okay, well that's good. I mean, well, I mean...

Kyle Merrick (35:12.6)
The individuals that sign up for me, they are dedicated to the craft to understand like, all right, I need the individual to essentially help me drive this ship and keep it in the right direction. That kind of a partnership that takes understanding and that understanding laziness is not within them.

Christian Brim (35:24.181)
And so.

Christian Brim (35:31.389)
Is there a screening process that you do to assure you don't bring on somebody that's misaligned?

Kyle Merrick (35:38.444)
The moment I start speaking with somebody, I'm screening them. I have been doing this long enough that I can just kind of smell where somebody is in life. I wish I had a better answer, because anytime anybody's like, I'm just good at this. OK, well, that comes from experience. I can hear. Yeah, exactly. There's an AI for that.

Christian Brim (35:41.814)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (35:50.825)
No, I'm...

Christian Brim (35:55.273)
Right. Well, you just need to put that in an AI and then.

Christian Brim (36:03.103)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, because I find that in our experience, helping people with their money, there's oftentimes, sometimes not oftentimes, this attitude of, well, I just need you to fix it for me without understanding that like, there's some fundamental things, including like mindset shift.

that have to occur on your end that I can't help you with. Like if you don't care about this, I can't care about it enough to make it worth anything to you, right?

Kyle Merrick (36:37.55)
When I'm remarking with my business partners these days, those individuals that have that mindset, that understanding to go with essentially the business practice, whatever it may be, there's always such a mutual alignment through anybody that just makes the entire exchange pleasant. Because it doesn't have to be like we're just yanking teeth out with a plier.

Christian Brim (37:05.824)
Hmm, no.

Kyle Merrick (37:07.554)
why. But some clients, especially the small ones who have been burned have maybe a couple hundred bucks and they're like, why are we spending money here? Just shut up and let us do our job. It's those individuals, the smaller ones that actually unfortunately turn out to be the least enjoyable clients.

Christian Brim (37:18.326)
Right.

Christian Brim (37:26.571)
Well, and I think that's exactly who is going to attract the technological tools, right? It's the people that weren't going to spend money on you anyway, right? They're going to DIY it.

Kyle Merrick (37:39.446)
Exactly. We're going to look for alternative $20 a month solutions because just money is, well, that's, that is it. That's the only consideration.

Christian Brim (37:51.039)
Yeah, okay, I'm gonna pivot one more time. You are a voice actor. How did that, how has that worked out? Like, I'm curious. Okay.

Kyle Merrick (37:53.742)
I like it.

Kyle Merrick (38:00.846)
Voice actor and actor. I'm actually finding more leverage within the acting world. Voice acting, well, it's interesting. If we're talking, because I can still kind of bring this back to the whole AI conversation, AI has done some incredible strides within the voice acting voiceover world. We have the ability now to customize it so that commercially we can pretty much achieve

Christian Brim (38:05.718)
Okay.

Christian Brim (38:19.468)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (38:28.726)
whatever we're looking for without having to engage an actual human. So, okay, for the productions that yet again are very cost and budget conscious, if that's the case, then okay, go use AI. I don't see that voting well for the people that aren't well established within the voice acting or voiceover world. So for voice,

Christian Brim (38:43.351)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (38:55.662)
You better have something that machines and other people don't have. That's what you're gonna need to essentially carve a path in today's world if you're kicking up a career in voiceover. That's a reality that I see.

Christian Brim (39:11.297)
Well, I am curious about that because Connor Quinn, who's an OG voice actor here in Oklahoma City, older than I am. I don't know how old he is, but he's older than I am. He talks about like voice acting is acting first. It's not, I mean, it's not about the voice. It can be, but you you're acting. And I...

The whole idea of creativity being replicated by a machine makes a lot of people uncomfortable. And I guess my question to you, I I'm going to tell you my thought and then you respond to it. I don't think machines anytime soon are going to actually come up with something original. Like it's iterations on what's already been created.

Kyle Merrick (40:09.624)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (40:11.223)
And so for, for a lot of people and a lot of situations, that's sufficient. Um, you know, I heard a, uh, uh, an actor or saw an actor. heard a voice, I saw a commercial and I want something like that. That is, uh, where AI can make it, uh, more cost effective to, produce. But if I'm trying to create something on.

not necessarily on the level but like Tarantino or Nolan where I'm coming up with a novel story and novel acting novel script writing novel you know voice acting that still is the purview of humans I think that there's going to be kind of a whiplash against technology where those types of genuine things actually

come at more of a premium than they do now. In other words, if you're just gonna go produce another Marvel movie where it's essentially the same thing, that is going to be highly leveraged by technology. If you're trying to create inglorious bastards, there's no machine that does that.

Kyle Merrick (41:32.75)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (41:39.63)
True creativity moves culture forward. That's my understanding, having studied it and having still operated with it. I'd argue most of my waking life. That's, when I point to Tarantino, that's my general undertone as audacious as some of his films may be. I point to Inglourious Basterds.

Christian Brim (41:43.148)
Hmm.

Kyle Merrick (42:04.92)
Quite simply, the scene where Christoph Waltz is having the glass of milk in the gentlemen's farm. Cinematically speaking, I struggle to come up with any greater scene.

Christian Brim (42:16.467)
It's it is. mean, I read I read about like how he got cast in that role and like the it essentially came down to Tarantino. Like if you don't play this role, we're not making this movie. Like it's that important.

Kyle Merrick (42:31.586)
Yeah. And that's extraordinary that Tarantino saw so much in Kristoff is to say, not only are you this guy, but we simply cannot move forward without you. And if anybody ever pays such a compliment to me in a production, holy cow, I will do everything I can to bring that life, you know, to the role.

Christian Brim (42:41.002)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (42:51.159)
And he was uniquely humorous and creepy at the same time. the juxtaposition of those two things is just like unsettling.

Kyle Merrick (43:01.548)
It's epic. And that's what makes it lively. So, all right. If I have to distill essentially the last couple paragraphs into like a question is, do we see AI taking over or will there be a sort of a human backlash within the creative realm? I think that's a valid question based on essentially what's been imposed.

Christian Brim (43:06.463)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (43:22.961)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (43:29.902)
One of the realities is that I see sort three different components here, different tiers of thinking about AI.

Christian Brim (43:36.961)
Did you do that in homage to Inglourious Basterds? No, okay. You have a German heritage. All right, go ahead.

Kyle Merrick (43:40.726)
Not intentionally, but I now see the reference. I do. I am mostly German. I hope you can tell by my accent.

Kyle Merrick (43:55.226)
so yeah, okay, so AI usually turns into a gay German inadvertently, but it's neither here nor there. Investors are going to invest in AI. Business owners are going to invest in AI. And they're more or less going to relieve most of their workforce in that process, and they'll save gobs and gobs of money. Creatives should be lobbying against AI.

Christian Brim (44:10.07)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (44:23.858)
And you know, that's one of the realities. The employee doesn't like AI because they're let go in that process. Their safety and security is gone. Investors, business owners, you know, whatever in that top tier percentage, they love it. Let them have it. That's fine. But creatives largely, I don't see AI being a good solution for any of us. I'm a creative. I don't like where AI is putting us because

as we've already established here, it's like, I'm gonna quote myself again, it's the creative material that is, now using your word, novel, that's what moves culture forward. That's what we need more of. And so all of these CEOs, executives, as we've kind of remarked on previously, they see, well, that worked previously, that made money for X entity. And so if we do that for ourselves, then we should be able to make a lot of money here too.

That's a deeply, deeply problematic thing because what we're seeing is it's the Marvel thing. It's the same iteration of just, you know, tweak a couple different colors, bring some new characters in. Same shit, new day. Okay, well, now that's trite. Maybe a novel story, but we're bored with it. And so this is where a lot of Hollywood is kind of dropping the ball right now is because we're not looking at new, you know,

Christian Brim (45:30.517)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (45:39.659)
Yes.

Kyle Merrick (45:52.13)
newly adapted stories that are taking greater risks because too many people are scared they're going to lose the millions that they need to just build it in the first place.

Christian Brim (46:02.241)
Well, and I think that's a universal problem. I go back to like Kodak and the advent of digital photography and Kodak got into the digital camera business, but they couldn't get out of the photography, the film making, the film manufacturing business because they made too much money on it. And eventually it collapsed and the

You talked about business owners replacing people with AI or automation of any kind. At the end of the day, yeah, they may in a short term make more money, but it's going to drive down the cost of their product. Like someone's going to come in and say, well, I'll just do it cheaper. I created a whole new stack and I don't have any of the legacy bullshit that you do, right?

Kyle Merrick (46:50.04)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Merrick (46:59.618)
Well, the reality with these guys, I, this is the double edged sword and that's the unspoken portion is I say, you know, business owners, investors go embrace it. say that with the cheeky, you know, the reality is there is nothing original by embracing it. You're just automating what's already been done. If it's building off of existing material, then it simply cannot enter all that well. And so eventually if the company implements it out across, you know, such a

Christian Brim (47:15.223)
Mmm.

Kyle Merrick (47:28.098)
like a, we'll call it like a cellular level.

Inevitably what this tells me is probably companies are going to begin looking all the same and at that point that's when companies get bought up and you know consumed by the bigger dogs so I You know I Use AI I just hope it doesn't bury

Christian Brim (47:48.823)
Well, I think I can tie this back in very nicely to the beginning statement. The problems that we face in this country, in business, culturally, societally, whatever, need more creatives, more creativity, more divergent thinking than ever.

And we're all dogpiling into the convergent thinking. And it's like the exact opposite of what we should be doing. and so for the entrepreneur that will embrace their creativity, whether their, their business is a creative product is, is irrelevant. And I would tell creatives that, you know, they need to be embracing the, commercial and enterprise intent.

Kyle Merrick (48:35.608)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (48:45.107)
around it as well. But people like you are what we need more of. need you to, like you did, take off what was done before and not be holding to it and not be grinding it out trying to get the marketing agency to work, but take your creativity in a divergent way with the experience that you have and solve new problems.

Kyle Merrick (49:15.886)
Thank you. You've heard everything. And that's why I love podcasters, because individuals who've been in this game are great listeners. They're great question askers. Not everybody's wired that way. I mean this very genuinely.

This is where anarchy comes in. If we're bringing it back full circle, the entire root of what anarchy stands for is that Christian, you are the individual. You embrace your individual. know, podcasting is a wonderful tool and mechanism to do that, you know, whatever your personal brand may be.

Christian Brim (49:34.219)
Mmm.

Kyle Merrick (49:56.426)
in the society and the world that we live in largely, but I'm really going to just keep it to the confines of the US. We live in a society that does not quite value the individual. Far from it. I say that very lightly, but I don't believe it does. It says it does, but it doesn't. It just wants to make money of you. And to make money, it needs sheep. It needs people to do the jobs. And so in this

Christian Brim (50:09.815)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (50:16.203)
Mmm.

Kyle Merrick (50:23.854)
sort of society, the individual who can embrace their own individuality unabashedly, without shame, openly. Don't hurt anybody. You know, operate within the confines of what is reasonable within what is kind, caring, loving. You know, anything that makes you a good human, but be fricking you. That is the anarchy, is simply being yourself in a society that does not value the self. That's anarchy today, unfortunately.

Christian Brim (50:34.358)
Right.

Christian Brim (50:44.524)
Mmm.

Kyle Merrick (50:53.166)
But that's one reality that we live in. And that largely is something that I really try to champion in environments like this is you need to embrace yourself, but then also use technology to help further that message. But also don't lose your IP. The actor, the actress that is signing away AI rights, that's a potentially very dangerous spot to be in.

Christian Brim (51:20.135)
Mm-hmm Kyle this has been a fascinating conversation. How do people find out more about? Anarchy for a day and working with you

Kyle Merrick (51:30.08)
I thank you for the question. Anarchy for a day dot com and that's F-O-R not the number four. If you want to learn more about the marketing coaching practice or just hop on a call with me and get a greater understanding of what that would look like for you. Otherwise, give me a follow on the socials. That's LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. It's all Kyle Merrick, actor.

Christian Brim (51:50.923)
Perfect listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you liked what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, shoot us a message and tell us what you'd like to hear and I'll get rid of Kyle until next time. ta for now.

Kyle Merrick (52:06.382)
I'll get rid of myself too.

Christian Brim (52:14.177)
Perfect.