Big Things Podcast
A weekly show where we talk about the big things we're watching in marketing, social media, pop culture and sports. We also talk through signals we’re seeing that could inform the future of digital marketing.
You can catch the podcast every Friday wherever you listen or watch it on YouTube. Be sure to follow us on Instagram or TikTok for updates on every episode.
Big Things Podcast
Monopoly Go! Was Not Good for Our Marriage (E1)
Welcome back to Big Things! This is our first official episode and we are ready to yap about all the big things happening in marketing, social media, pop culture and sports. From the new NFL season (and WAGS) to Chilis killing it on social media – these are the stories on our radar this week.
More from us:
- Mitzi Payne @mmmitziP
- Mike Payne @mmmiiike
Timestamps:
- 00:00 – What is Big Things?
- 04:30 – Entrepreneur guilt, taking time off and our fitness era
- 08:10 – The Big Things we’re talking about today, first up – NFL is back (and for Mitzi, it means it’s WAGS season).
- 16:00 – The WAGS of the NFL (who is who).
- 20:00 – Kendrick Lamar was confirmed as the Super Bowl Halftime performer and Lil Wayne is not happy.
- 22:30 – Next: Why are clients asking us to be more like Chilis?
- 26:15 – The pivot from original content, to following trends, to personalizing trends.
- 28:25 – The “unhinged” brand is feeling cringe.
- 30:40 – SCAN CLUB: What are signals? Our secret trick to stay ahead of the curve on digital marketing trends.
- 32:50 – Millennials and Gen Z would rather play bingo than go clubbing. Really.
- 38:00 – Monopoly Go was not good for our marriage.
- 40:00 – Signal 2: IKEA is entering the resale market.
Show Notes:
- NFL Jackets by Kristin Juszczyk: https://www.instagram.com/kristinjuszczyk/
- Linkinbio Newsletter: https://www.milkkarten.net/p/theres-a-reason-chilis-is-all-over
Big Things with Mitzi (@mmmitzi) and Mike (@mmmiiike).
For more from Arcade, follow us on Instagram and TikTok @helloarcade. https://www.arcadearcade.ca/
Production by Morgan Berna, editing by Oliver Banyard.
All right, should we do this podcast? Episode.
Speaker 3:Yep Are we ready?
Speaker 1:Welcome to Big Things. I'm Mitzi and this is Mike.
Speaker 3:I can't believe we're finally here.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 3:This is our new show where we talk about all the big things that we're covering in marketing, social media, pop culture and, of course now sports. We'll also be talking about signals that we're watching that could influence the future of digital marketing. You can catch the show every week on podcast players, like the podcasts that we've had before, but we've put a little bit of extra elbow grease into YouTube. So if you prefer audio, that's OK, but maybe just check out YouTube and let us know what you think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you are a listener of Waves or Tea for Lunch, this will be a little bit of kind of a mix of both those podcasts, but you can expect less interviews, more news and pop culture and some new Scan Club signals.
Speaker 3:And, of course, like always, we'll be clipping this up, putting a bunch of the best moments on Instagram, so make sure you engage there and send us a message. Let us know you're listening and what you want to see more of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're excited. We kind of took a break from podcasting for a while to regroup and reset and figure out what our new show should be like, so I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 3:I hope that you all love it. This feels like.
Speaker 1:Christmas. I know it feels exciting. If you're curious about, like, how we arrived to the decision of starting a new show, you can check out episode zero, which we kind of walk through kind of a history with our podcasts, and why we are blowing them both up and starting something new.
Speaker 3:Sometimes you just got to start from scratch. It's true, take it down to the nuts and build it back up.
Speaker 1:It's true, and if you're new here and you have no idea who we are, I'm Mitzi. This is Mike. We're married. We also run a business together called Arcade. It's a digital marketing agency. We've had the chance to work with a bunch of amazing clients and brands all over the world and we've had a lot of fun and had some challenges, but it's been a good ride.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we grow a little bit every year, we get a little bit wiser, and we make some mistakes and we learn from them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we share a little bit of that on this show.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's not just going to be pop culture and NFL, it's also going to be a little bit from our experience as agency founders, marketing experts, dare I say now, after more than a decade in the business, and we hope that you can take away some practical value too.
Speaker 1:Totally, we're also just elder millennials just trying to keep up with Gen Z, doing our best to keep up with the pace of the internet. So you'll see us crash around and figure that out too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely A quick summary of what we're going to cover today. Speaking of sports, we're definitely going to talk about the NFL and the fact that it's back and we're into the season and why you should pay attention. Like Mitzi loves to talk about the wags, which we'll decode for you later, we're talking about the fact that Chili's is everywhere and we're going to unpack a little bit about why that matters, also covering the fact that millennials prefer bingo over clubbing and that Ikea has entered the resale market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so stick around, we'll dive into each of those topics. Before we get into it, let's talk about this new show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think like it's September, middle of September. This is going to be published closer to the end of September, but there's no better time than September to start a new show.
Speaker 3:So, we've been like sitting on our hands a little bit. We've been antsy to get this going because we love podcasting and we love talking to each other about the stories that we're following. But yes, we pick September. Also, our producer, morgan, always lets us know every year that October is the best month for downloads. It's true, we're just getting a little bit of a jump on October.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and September is a great month to start something new. It always feels like a fresh reset back to school season. I personally love to like be in the back to school mindset. I haven't been in school in like 10 plus years, but our daughter started kindergarten this year, so it was an excuse for me to go back to school, shopping, get new clothes, get all the supplies and the backpacks. It just feels like there's something new in there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I skipped the Staples run, but I was definitely there for the clothes shopping.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We did a Zara haul.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're back into our routine. We took a lot of time off in August, which I was really proud of us. We haven't really done that in the past because as business owners, we just kind of like stick it out and make sure that we're working every day to make sure our business is doing well. But this is the year we really like took advantage of slow summers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, entrepreneur guilt when it comes to vacation and time off is a real thing, and I think we felt that we've been running our agency since 2018 and taken very little time off until the last couple of years. So for all the entrepreneurs out there listening or watching on YouTube, this is just permission to find a couple of weeks in the year that you can take that time off and not feel bad about it, but recognize that you're restoring those creative repositories and just giving yourself what you need to be able to show up the way you need to show up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I felt like the last two weeks in August were just so quiet.
Speaker 3:Yes, and we've seen that a few years now. So I would say that's a bit of a word to the wise is you might feel a little bit guilty if you take time off at the wrong time of year.
Speaker 3:you know like or you might feel a little bit scared if you do that, because some times of the year are just inevitably busy and you're needed more. But I think most of us we recognize that those days between Christmas and New Year's, for example, are always quiet, like everyone has decided to collectively check out, and you have permission to just kind of relax with your family in that period of time. The last few years we've been on a on a hunt for that another week in the year. That kind of feels similar to that where you're not as needed. Maybe you're starting to build a bit of a team or you have a system in place so that you can actually spend that time and check out a little bit. So yeah, we recognize that over the last couple of years that all of our clients were out of office and we kind of wondered why we were at our desks. And it was a couple of weeks of the summer where we didn't have child care anyway, so why did we feel like we needed to be in the office?
Speaker 1:you know, if daycare is closed, I'm out we're out peace yeah, exactly yeah so it was good. But now we're back into a routine, getting up early, getting the kids out the door earlier, and we're more focused and yeah it's different, it's earlier.
Speaker 3:Our son is two now, which it's so hard to have a routine when you're, when you have a child under two especially an infant, because, like you're just kind of, you have to be on around the clock and they're up at night and stuff like that. So we we've been kind of trying to get our fitness routines back too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I feel like you've been doing a better job than me, though that's nice, you're like in your lagree era yeah, I'm trying and I wouldn't say it's my era, yet it is, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you that this is your era, because I know it's hard every time and you, you're doing it a couple times a week, but just the way you look when you come back like you look, like you put it you left it all out on the court, but you've got a different sparkle in your eye you look like you accomplished something, you overcame something, and I've been noticing the results.
Speaker 1:I do feel accomplished when I come back, because I'm like that was so hard and my goal is to just like I could stick with it and not give up yeah, I actually would love to take you to a class one day, I know you would you'd get some sick kind of joy out of that seeing me suffer, I would yeah yeah, I've dabbled in like the personal trainer kind of thing, the one-to-one coaching, and I think that served its purpose.
Speaker 3:I've checked out the gym with some friends a couple times. We obviously have a peloton and some weights at home, so I'm still trying to figure out like what's the sweet spot for me. I think I'm gonna end up going to the gym maybe once or twice a week with a friend and and then on the in-between days, maybe once or twice a week, do a spin or some sort of like body weight workout at home.
Speaker 1:Working out with friends is so fun.
Speaker 3:It is, it's better. It's better for me. I feel like I know what I want to do. So I'm not necessarily like piggybacking off of their routine, but it just helps to have someone to chat with and hit the steam room after or whatever. Make it a bit of a social activity.
Speaker 1:I love that for you. Thank you, yeah, do it, trying to make fitness our hobby.
Speaker 3:I know let's get it.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about a few of the big things that we wanted to cover today. The first one is that NFL is back.
Speaker 3:My favorite topic in the world.
Speaker 1:I know and I'm actually paying attention to it this year. If you listen to Tea for Lunch, you might know that I got into football last season for the first time ever. So some backstory. Mike and I have been together for almost 10 years and he has been into football and NFL since the beginning.
Speaker 3:Since the dawn of time.
Speaker 1:Totally, and I've just kind of allowed it to happen in my periphery, but I haven't ever really paid attention that much until I started noticing that he was watching this like reality show and it was actually a reality show about football hard knocks baby yeah, and so I started watching it and I got sucked in and then that's what kind of like turned me into like a football fan.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, this is the year that I'm actually paying attention to the season and what's going on, although I'm not really paying attention to what happens on the field. It's mostly everything outside of the field, like the pre-game, the post-game, the content on Instagram, that kind of thing and of course, the wags yes, and for those who don't know, wags are the wives and girlfriends of the players in the NFL or any other sports team. So I pay close attention to the wags because there is an elite squad of NFL wags 100%.
Speaker 3:There's movers and shakers, there's big celebrities, but also to your point about like you care more about the pregame and postgame and what's happening in between. I think that's fair, like that's the beauty of the NFL that some other leagues don't have. I feel like NBA is maybe the closest, but the NFL just hits different the type of people that you see on the sideline or in the boxes, and even some of the side stories in the media around the games and the players themselves. I take interest in that too and know, to be fair, games are long, they're like three hours and really it all comes down to the fourth quarter.
Speaker 3:So for sure they do a really good job of adding dynamics and making it interesting and adding, like other types of culture, like music, into it.
Speaker 3:Um, and even now ai yes there's been a lot of movement and change, I think, in the NFL even in terms of licensing and who gets what rights to what primetime football games and stuff like that. And last year Amazon signed a deal with the NFL for Thursday night football specifically and it was a pretty normal broadcast. I felt like they actually one thing I noticed with them was they did a really good job of the pregame last year with Thursday night football and the panels that they had and the type of guests that they had to make it Thursday night special because, for context, thursday night was always kind of the the night that people cared about less yeah, that's one thing I'm still figuring out.
Speaker 1:There's like Sunday night football, monday night football, thursday night football like what's the difference, besides, what day it's on?
Speaker 3:um, that's. The difference is what day it's on but, those are all prime time spots. So thursday night, sunday night and monday night, those are the prime time games so they get all the games they get more. No, those are just three games in the week oh, there's more than that sometimes they'll have a double header, but for the most part there's only one game in the prime time spot each of those days, and then there's tons of games that Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 1:Right Sunday morning.
Speaker 3:So those are like kind of the group slate games.
Speaker 1:Got it.
Speaker 3:So usually they try to strategically plan the schedule to make sure that, like there's exciting matchups in the primetime spots. But for some reason, inevitably Thursday night has always been this like almost like the weird stepchild of the primetime slots and you get kind of weird matchups or they just always go wrong or not the way you wanted them to go or whatever. So, anyways, all that to say, amazon signed the deal for Thursday night football last year. It was OK, but this year they started introducing AI components into their uh, into their broadcast. I was looking for. What does that work?
Speaker 3:Um, I didn't. I haven't seen it yet, but um, from what I've read, they've started to almost highlight different elements before the play starts, kind of like when you're playing a football video game, where you see like highlights on players or even elements of the play that you've planned for your offense or defense, but what they're doing is predictions. So, based on the formations that this ai feature recognizes before the ball is snapped, it'll highlight different players to you. Primarily, I think right now it's on the defensive side of the ball, but they'll highlight right now players that are most likely to blitz when the play starts, and blitz is when a defensive player rushes the quarterback Interesting Rather than stepping back to cover a pass.
Speaker 1:And if they don't do that, then they're just going against what the AI thought.
Speaker 3:Well, it's pretty predictive, just based on how they're lining up. So I don't think it's that amazing for people that really know the game and, like have followed it for a long time. But what I like about it which we're kind of alluding to with like the before and after of the game and the wags and all that kind of stuff is it's another element that makes it more approachable for people that are less like diehard fans yeah that are more introductory yeah, to the sport.
Speaker 1:The one thing that's so crazy is when you watch a game and you see all the lines on the field.
Speaker 3:Those lines aren't actually there in the actual game they're like like the first down line and yeah and it shows you, like, how far they need to go down the field yeah and like the numbers, they're not even there no, it's just a projection.
Speaker 1:That's crazy so when you're watching a game live, like, how do you know how far they are?
Speaker 3:well, for the first down line. You don't have that line if you're there live. But you see the there's like these orange stakes that someone's holding and that always is the first down mark, right, yeah, that's the chain gang the chain gang yeah that's actually. You raise an interesting point, because they've continued to employ a chain gang for every football game instead of going to like an AI or a digital kind of like video software to show or to measure first downs.
Speaker 1:So it's like a person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so where, like soccer, for example, has VAR technology, where they can like really closely review things, and tennis as well? That's a technology in tennis where after the play you can. It shows you where the ball bounced and, like the mark of if it hit the line or not. So other sports have embraced this like deeper technology for measuring really precise things, but football has really stuck with manual.
Speaker 1:It is trying to protect jobs.
Speaker 3:Maybe In this age of ai protect the chain, yeah, and the chain gang is like that's.
Speaker 1:That sounds legit I want to be on the chain gang. Didn't somebody on the chain gang get tackled in a game recently and he's like really old oh, it happens often.
Speaker 3:There's frequently injuries because, like a play will go off the sideline and it's hard for these players to slow down and they'll just go careening into some random bystander yeah, that's my biggest fear to get like tackled. Yeah, I couldn't imagine a regular part of your commentary when we're watching the games yeah, I could never survive that I could never be chased for one and I could never be tackled.
Speaker 1:That's so scary you might not come back from that, no I think it'd be really cool to jump and catch a ball if I had the athletic ability to do that you do.
Speaker 3:You're in your leggery area, no.
Speaker 1:I just definitely don't. I don't have the hand-eye coordination to like jump and catch.
Speaker 3:I think you do, because you always surprise me, even with soccer, how good you can kick the ball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you seem like a a soccer player, so I think, if you wanted to catch a football, I was always into soccer for the social component just the chit chat on the field got it.
Speaker 1:Um, okay, but if you're curious to know which which team I'm cheering for, I'm curious. The answer is everyone. It's really hard for me to choose a team because I really want whoever has the ball to go as far as they can. So but if I had to pick, I have a few like of my favorites, based on the wags. So, like I said, the wags are really like doing a number on the sport of NFL, like they're really changing the game. I feel like so many people are more interested in the NFL this season because of Taylor Swift, who is one of you know, the bigger, more known wags.
Speaker 3:She's the ultimate wag.
Speaker 1:She's well, yeah, she's new to the scene, but she's doing a good job holding it down, Um. But there's another squad of wags I really appreciate and they're on the San Francisco 49ers, which happens to be a pretty good team, I'm told, and they're just an amazing group of women who like, really do so much for the team and like getting the team out there and like getting people excited about the games. It's Claire Kittle, who's married to George Kittle, and it's Olivia Kolpo, who's recently married to Christian McCaffrey, yep, and then there's Kristen Juszczyk, who's married to Mr Juszczyk. What's?
Speaker 3:his name Kyle. Yeah, he's a full. It's like one of the least glamorous positions.
Speaker 1:Love that, yeah, and she is so glamorous. But these women are amazing. They're like, every time there's a game, they like go all out, they have the outfits, they have the pictures, they have the party buses. They're just like doing the most with the content. Kristen Juszczyk is also a designer like an amateur designer. It's what she would call herself. It's not what I'm calling her, it's what she would call herself. But she went viral because she made this like really cool jacket for Taylor Swift and she takes jerseys and redesigns them and remakes them into like jackets or dresses or pants.
Speaker 3:She just does like jerseys from like Value Village.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she does such a good job at it and it's so fun to watch her content on social media, so I really love seeing those girls and their team win.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so fun. Claire Kittle is really fun. I think we got familiar with her, especially from the show Receiver this year.
Speaker 1:She's doing the most. She's like the ultimate, like 49ers cheerleader. Yeah. I'm so proud of her.
Speaker 3:And so proud of her and she just seems cool, she does, she seems fun, yeah, like some people you see on the periphery, even like parents of players sometimes come off a little cringe, yeah, like that you can tell that they're just trying to get exposure from their kid right like see the best for their kid all the time. But some of these wives and girlfriends just seem so fun and they're like really like just all about their husband and his team and they're in it.
Speaker 1:Apparently. The kiddos and the Yuschecs share a box and they personalize their box so they have family photos and pictures from their wedding and they really make it like a family affair, which I love. I like that too, yeah, it's super cute.
Speaker 3:That's nice.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So I'm cheering for the 49ers, I'm also cheering for the Jets.
Speaker 3:this year we're hoping to go to a jets game in new york this year. Yeah, I would love fall in new york. I've actually never been to new york, so it's been on our list for a long time. But again, having young kids, it's a little hard to get away sometimes.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I was really wrapped up in like the aaron rogers story of last season because he was signed to the Jets, played his first game, literally got injured within the first minute and then it was over for him the whole season. And they had this rookie quarterback who was playing his second season, who had all the pressure of the whole team To have a fan base based in New York.
Speaker 3:Like that's hard they're so aggressive and the New York media, not just the fans. The fans are intense, but the New York media is ruthless.
Speaker 1:Anyways, they were all over him. Zach Wilson he now plays on another team. He's probably like I'm out of here, anyways. So Aaron Rodgers is back, so I'm really excited, or curious, to see how that goes, and there's a new Netflix documentary or Netflix show coming out about Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 3:That's true.
Speaker 1:So that'll probably heavily influence my interest there as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's a polarizing character. A lot of people claim that he's kind of poison in the locker room and he's all about himself. But then other people are completely the opposite, and many of these are close to the situation. They say that he's a great team player. He's always coaching others, he's like spending time with them, investing in their success. So I'm interested to see what the documentary ends up like.
Speaker 1:I know, according to Hard Knocks, he has lunch with a different player on the team every day.
Speaker 3:That sounds pretty good to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he sounds like a leader.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyways, we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 3:People just want to hate him.
Speaker 1:And then also big NFL news is Kendrick Lamar was announced as a Super Bowl halftime performance.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think that's cool. Obviously, he just kind of is on the wake of his beef with Drake, so some would say that he has Drake to thank for this opportunity.
Speaker 1:Interesting that you'd say that.
Speaker 3:But anyways, he deserves it. It's going to be an awesome show. There was all this talk too, after he was announced that Little Wayne expected that he was going to get the nod and then he didn't, and he was really upset about it?
Speaker 1:Didn't he say like he's broken and he has to pull himself back together?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's just focused on putting himself back together Because he didn't get the halftime. You know honestly same.
Speaker 1:That's all of us.
Speaker 3:Anyways, yeah, it's going to be in New Orleans and I think Kendrick is the guy. He always puts on an incredible show. He's an amazing lyricist, he's got rabid fans and he fits kind of like the sports attitude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kendrick has one job and that is to bring Beyonce.
Speaker 3:Amen, yeah, bring the queen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have a great song together Like why not Amen? Yeah, bring the queen, yeah. They have a great song together, like. Why not they perform together on like award shows?
Speaker 3:And Jay-Z is the one that decides who performs. So, Jay-Z picked Kendrick. I mean, that's just one degree of separation from Beyonce.
Speaker 1:I know I would die.
Speaker 3:Love it. I think that's all she wrote about the football, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you might be listening. Well, I just want to say that, like, not every show will be this, like about football. So if you hate this, just stay with us. We will try to diversify. I'm a sports fan now, so I really feel like I've embodied like the sports, like enthusiasm.
Speaker 3:Right, so I'll try to diversify. And it's very connected to other pop culture moments and stories.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And I think we also got a decent amount of feedback during Tea for Lunch that people enjoyed the sports commentary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially from you?
Speaker 3:I hope so. So more Mitzi, more NFL Mitzi.
Speaker 1:Yeah, less what happens on the field.
Speaker 3:We'll get a bit of that. And of course a little bit of fantasy football mixed in, depending how my teams are performing.
Speaker 1:I know about that.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about chilies all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, chilies is everywhere right now. Everywhere, I can feel them in the room here with us.
Speaker 3:I actually love chilies. It was like I don't know if we've ever gone to chilies.
Speaker 1:We've never gone to chilies together, but I used to live in florida and it was like a hot spot because it was very cheap and they also did like three for one, like slurpy margaritas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they do some of that stuff, so right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it was so good.
Speaker 3:I lived in the States for a while as a kid and I just feel like Chili's never became part of our thing Like I remember being at. I'm sure we went a couple times, but I remember being at Applebee's that was a big one yeah. Eastside Mario's.
Speaker 1:In the US.
Speaker 3:Yeah, huh, I marios in the us. Yeah, huh, I don't know?
Speaker 1:well, actually, maybe east side marios was in canada later, I don't know. Yeah, applebee's a good one panera. Yep, panera's slaps, actually panera's not that good but it's like, it's like nostalgia yeah that's all that it has going for it totally yeah, anyways. Well, chili's is everywhere right now. Um I recently read Rachel Carden's sub stack called Lincoln Bio.
Speaker 3:It's a good one.
Speaker 1:Which is one of my favorite sub stacks on social media. She did a deep dive on why Chili's is everywhere. So if you want to hear more about that or read more about that, go check out our show notes. We'll make sure we link it. But it's so interesting because I read her newsletter right around the time where one of our clients was asking us to be more like Chili's. I was like, why Chili's? But now I know.
Speaker 3:Get more celebrities to post organically about the brand.
Speaker 1:So here's what's going on. Food reviewer Dylan MacArthur's triple dipper videos have gone viral consistently, which has prompted other people to do their own triple dipper videos as well. So triple dippers apparently I've never had one, but it's like a menu item at chili's where you can pick three of different, like appetizer type dishes and you have them all in one dish. So it's kind of nice, like I wish more restaurants did that, because you can build an entree out of the appetizers. So instead of ordering three appetizers, you just like get a third of.
Speaker 1:So that's the point of it is you get that and you don't get an entree I from what I can tell on tiktok cool, I like that yeah, so um, alex earl, which is a very popular tiktoker, she is one of those people who went to Chili's on her own to also taste test a triple dipper, and the CEO of Chili's parent company, brinker, says that the triple dipper going viral on Tik TOK accounted for roughly 40% of the chain's sales growth this past quarter.
Speaker 3:That is serious, that is so.
Speaker 1:I know that's crazy, yeah. So it's so interesting because there's so many things that go viral every day, especially on TikTok, but they don't have nearly the same impact on a business the way this has had. So part of that so Rachel explains it in her newsletter, which you should go check out but part of that is called what she calls the feedback loop virality, and there's a point of inflection where something goes viral, where people start talking about it, but they also want to do their own version to also get in on that trend and get their own views for that trend. So I think it's super interesting because it's not just like a video went viral and it changed the game for that business. It's like OK, these videos are going viral, so more people are organically posting about it so that they can also go viral. So she also actually interviewed Chili's social media manager to talk about this moment, how they're going to capitalize on it, what they're doing next, all that. So it's pretty cool. Like to see that happening.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it just shows like kind of the fruition of this material change we've seen over the last few years in social media, where previously, like early Instagram, it used to always be about original content, like doing things for the first time or in your own unique way. But then the with the introduction of TikTok, it started to be, it started to completely 180, where someone would start something and everyone else would pile on and that would be your opportunity to get more views or more traction on your content it's kind of like this, like add yours or like, even just like micro trends in general it's like we're
Speaker 1:all doing this together, still with our own spin on it, but with the same kind of core components yeah, there's a lot of this kind of thing that happens in like the beauty world, where there's like a certain product that everyone loves and is raving about and they're seeing that get like picked up and lots of people using it and trying it and then they'll do the same, so it's like creating that feedback virality. But I don't think I've seen an example of this happening in food, especially in like a chain yeah, I can't think of it.
Speaker 3:I'm sure there are other things like that. You know there's like the wendy's and the chipotles of the world, like I'm sure there's stuff going on in those spaces but, yeah, it's interesting and it's crazy.
Speaker 3:It's cool to see the sales lift from it, because a lot of brands and especially executives on the brand side, will always question that Like does influencer marketing matter? Does it matter that we're jumping on TikTok trends, because all it is is views? But if you can start to measure the sales lift from that type of conversation or activity, that's a game changer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it also has to be the right demo, like it's the right demo of people, the college-aged type of people, to go to Chili's and do this yeah, right place, right time, right people.
Speaker 3:It just shows the power of a moment and the fact that it doesn't have to be beautiful either, like that's. One of my key takeaways from looking at Chili's content is like that feed is not beautiful, you know it, and they're kind of scratching the surface of unhinged, which I would say is almost like getting to third wave, a little bit like we've got Wendy's. That's very much unhinged. We've got Duolingo with the owl and they're like unhinged thing and everyone's trying to be Wendy's and Duolingo. But Chili's is like touching that a little bit while still being able to keep it their own yeah, I think we're kind of over unhinged.
Speaker 1:Tiktok. I feel like it's gone too far, like it also feels like they're trying too hard by being unhinged, like this is just a brand like brands in general. Yeah, brands in general yeah, not Chili's, but I just don't feel like that's the move if you're a brand account yeah, there's other things to try yeah, for sure. Speaking of Duolingo, I saw that they went to a Charli XCX concert and they had like a bunch of owl mascots like show up and do this like guerrilla marketing at the concert. Love that. Which was interesting.
Speaker 3:Because I kind of have a similar green to the Brat Green and stuff too, so maybe there's just a few layers that just felt like it would be right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they also have this like lore with like Dua Lipa.
Speaker 3:Right Because they're similar brand themes.
Speaker 1:But anyways, I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got to listen to the social media manager from Duolingo last year at a conference and that was really cool.
Speaker 1:Would you ever wear a mascot uniform?
Speaker 3:Would I personally?
Speaker 1:Sure you would.
Speaker 3:I feel like I could rock it as a mascot.
Speaker 1:Speaking of going back to sports, I love when the mascots dance with the players. I feel like it happens a lot in basketball or baseball where they'll like be doing their thing. And I actually I think there's an wnba mascot who's like she is that girl like she's has the moves. She's like tiktok famous, she's like so I'll get, I'll like find it for the next episode so we can talk about it.
Speaker 3:But it's really fun to see the mascots like do their thing I'm curious like how much mascots are paid I think they're paid well because you have no identity, so like it technically could be anyone we know someone you have job security, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, actually, we know someone whose dad is the mascot of a team in Canada.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but that doesn't answer my question.
Speaker 1:He's been that mascot for like 40 years.
Speaker 3:And that's his career.
Speaker 1:That's his career.
Speaker 3:That's so interesting to me, like they must make enough. I think they do. Crazy Cool. I like that. Yeah, maybe that's going gonna be my like. Maybe I need to change careers in like 10 years and just go lean hard into that I would love that for you. It's a football mascot. Yeah, you could. Who is he?
Speaker 1:who is he that?
Speaker 3:would be really well.
Speaker 3:I don't have anything else to add about chilies all right, let's move on okay, we're to get into a new segment where we talk about signals that we're watching right now in the world of digital marketing. We talked about this a little bit at the beginning of the show, but a signal is basically anything that could point to a future, and for us, we are doing it in the context of our world, which is digital marketing, so it could point to a certain type of future or a larger trend. It could be a new technology, it could be a tweet I know they don't really call them tweets anymore, but I don't like the name.
Speaker 1:What do they call them? Like X messages? A post, I don't know A post, a thread.
Speaker 3:Not a thread, that's meta, but anyways it could be a new technology, a tweet, even a TikTok that's capturing a larger movement. We as a team at Arcade watch these signals together on a regular basis and we meet monthly to kind of unpack them, to batch them, to kind of identify how they're connected or how they relate to each other or how they could be working together to accelerate a possible trend. And so we wanted to bring this in to this show and unpack it a little bit in person together and talk about what we see happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're listening, you're probably a marketer or like marketing adjacent, and so this is kind of the way that we stay ahead of our industry instead of always being so reactionary to like every small trend. It also allows us to like, look bigger and think more macro and less micro, so it's been such a good tool for us as an agency.
Speaker 3:Um, and then we also do a newsletter that kind of covers the same signals, so you should go check that out and we'll make sure that the link is in the description scanclubsubstackcom and we also, for the first time this year, put out a trend report within the space of digital marketing and and we were really happy with how that was received, and we've also just been tracking how those trends have continued to grow and accelerate throughout the year and we also use that information to inform the strategies that we produce for our clients. We can connect the trends to the content types we're recommending or that we're producing on behalf of our clients campaign ideas and things like that so it's valuable information.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about the first one, because I feel like it's so you.
Speaker 3:This one's fun Signal number one is millennials prefer bingo over clubbing, which I can relate to.
Speaker 1:You can. Did you ever club?
Speaker 3:I did believe it or not, I actually have become less extroverted. I still love spending time with friends and I'm okay to meet new people, but I've definitely. I'm definitely more in my introvert or, like more common, collected era, whereas when I was younger, growing up, of course, but then even into my 20s in that kind of like prime clubbing moment of life I love that stuff yeah, I used to love clubbing of course I would for hours. Miami mommy over here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would like it was like the thing we did every weekend. It was so fun. But I feel like clubs then were actually like really fun. I don't know if they're fun anymore, like I feel like and maybe I'm just getting older too, but just it just feels like they're. It's a different energy.
Speaker 3:Well, no, I think you're onto something, something because, even on the topic of scan club and signals like a lot of the signals that we've tracked show us that gen z specifically, they're drinking less, they're doing other more like recreational things outside of the club, and that's what kind of brought us to this one, and some of the data points we have for this one are specifically around Gen Z millennials as well, but the fact that people are starting to prefer things that are more social and less like bar and alcohol centric. So, to quote a couple of the data points a venue in Las Vegas is finding surprising popularity among the under 30 crowd at its late night bingo sessions, as well as a milwaukee casino who reported that 59 of their bingo players in 2022 were actually millennials, and a bingo hall franchise from england then recently shared that half of all new players are under the age of 35. So I remember back when we were clubbing like if anyone brought up bingo, we pictured senior citizens.
Speaker 3:For sure you know it was elderly people, not elder millennials elderly folks that were playing bingo, and still they made it look fun, Like we were like good for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like good for them. They found a hobby. But now it's like, should we do that? Yeah, and you might think of like oh, let's all go play bingo one night, kind of in an ironic way, but not as something that you're like. I want to do this specifically because it's more fun for me than the other options going clubbing yeah, you know what I wish we had more of. What piano bars.
Speaker 3:I love a good piano bar yeah, you're really showing our age with that one no, what.
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 3:like there's I just want to go listen to classical music.
Speaker 1:No, not classical music like jazz hits no like pop, 40 like top 40 top 40 piano or like classic, like 2000s like 2000s r&b, piano, and now you're speaking my language.
Speaker 1:No well, it doesn't even have to. That also I've actually seen I don't know if they do this in calgary, but they have like r&b brunch, like old school R&B brunch, where they just like have a DJ playing like slow jams and it's like during the day brunch vibes. You're having brunch and then like everyone's singing along to these like iconic, like boys to men songs. That would be my dream.
Speaker 3:Singing boys to men while eating some poached eggs and bacon.
Speaker 1:And a little mimosa or two.
Speaker 3:Yes, sign me up. Cool. Well, yeah, when we reported that younger people were increasingly sober, curious and looking for a connection, we didn't exactly picture bingo as a solution. But I think, as we are starting to think about this a little bit more, it's just making a lot of sense.
Speaker 3:I think we should plan to do a bingo night, whether that's just you and me, or us with some friends, or even we've been doing this kind of like fun happy hour tour with our team at arcade and we meant it as a summer thing that we were going to do, but we only really did two or three, so I wonder if we need to keep it going into the fall yeah, bingo, but we should go to like a bingo hall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that'd be fun, that'd be fun.
Speaker 3:I still I wish we had done lawn bowling. I feel like it's kind of like similarly coded.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we could also. You know, what we should get into is pickleball.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm down, but it just doesn't feel like it hits the same as lawn bowling and bingo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's definitely like more rigorous activity.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It'd be fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and would be fun.
Speaker 1:yeah, and the fun thing about tracking signals is that they sometimes lead us down a path that we didn't expect. I wonder what other like stationary activities we could do. That would be fun stationary.
Speaker 3:That's a good way to put it. I want to be stationary I would I love being stationary I mean, there's like we recently played some games with our friends.
Speaker 3:We're not really game people like when it comes to like social activities we're talking about card games, yeah when we went to, when we took that time off we mentioned in august, we went to tofino with some friends and they have kids too, so we got the kids to bed and then we were sipping some drinks and doing what you do, but they pulled out a card game monopoly go and uh, at first we were like this this is what we're going to do tonight.
Speaker 1:It was actually not good for our marriage.
Speaker 3:The first night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the first night we needed, like after that we needed to talk about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're both. We're two Enneagram threes. We're both firstborn children, we're both competitive, we're both alpha Like. We want to be in charge. We want it to happen our way.
Speaker 2:But like we want to be in charge, we want to happen our way. But you came for me opinionated you came for me.
Speaker 3:I came for you because it strategically made sense like you were the one that made the most sense for me to use my car you went above and beyond the call of duty. You did I didn't everyone agreed? That was pretty, I made a strategic move which that you didn't receive. Well, and then you got petty after that to try and get back. Oh, I didn't, even though it wasn't the most strategic.
Speaker 1:You made it a flaw of my character, like you were, I exposed it as a flaw of your character expose it. Yeah, anyways, it wasn't good for our marriage, but then we talked about it.
Speaker 1:We're also not used to competing against each other because we do so much of our life as a team, like we're like parents, we're business owners, we're podcast hosts, so like we're always like kind of like working towards the same goal, so it was different to be working against each other yeah, I mean especially different for you, because I won four games in a row, so that would be a hard pill to swallow, but maybe that's a good opportunity to go to the next signal.
Speaker 3:Let's move on from that. Ikea is entering the resale market.
Speaker 1:This is so smart for IKEA because there's so many IKEA pieces that show up on Facebook Marketplace or in thrift stores and now it's like a chance for them to kind of take back some of that market share. So they're launching a resale digital marketplace called ikea pre-owned, and it's part of their goal to become a circular business by 2030, and the marketplace will allow people to sell their used ikea products and keep them out of landfills, which is super cool yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3:Um, I get that it's a market share thing. I get that it's also their attempt at um where do I have this note becoming a circular business by 2030, um, but I also think it's good at combating the perception that they're a cheap product right you know, because it kind of like alludes to the fact that there's actually longevity to these things that could live past your need for that product.
Speaker 3:Like, if you get a dresser, for example, you're not getting rid of it because it isn't working anymore. At least, I think that's what they hope you'll perceive. You're getting rid of it just because you want something new, or it may be moved and you have a different space to fill or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or you have like different use for the space yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's kind of implying that these can actually last a long time and combating this perception that it's a cheap, cheaply made thing totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting. I think it's cool that they're doing that because, yeah, I think the more that they own in terms of like how their product is sold like, the better personally, they can also like provide a bit of customer service there and also kind of get more even data on like which products are being sold the most on their like pre-owned sites and things like that. So I think it's cool. I feel like Ikea is like really good at being innovative and showing like new ways to like even in their marketing, like new ways to like sell a product, new collaborations. I love their ads. I just feel like they've got some good folks over there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're smart for sure. They've always been innovative and interesting, even just in the way that they provide directions and even your shopping experience. You get to shop in rooms as opposed to just on shelves yeah they're like bringing it to life in front of your eyes for you, so you can visualize it in your space or even upsell you like you came for a dresser, but you see that dresser in a bedroom that they designed and now you're wanting to buy a few other pieces of furniture totally that bedroom design yeah, and sometimes like you just need like a little ikea shelf, so it's nice, you don't have to like filter through facebook marketplace.
Speaker 1:I know there's like a lot of gems on facebook marketplace, but I find I don't have the time to like personally curate my facebook marketplace experience, so it's really hard for me to find what I'm looking for and oftentimes at least from what I've seen is people people will add IKEA to their description to show up more in their search, but it's not actually an IKEA product.
Speaker 3:Gaming the system a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm down for this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like doing some of the curation for you, and I assume there's some level of upkeep that they do, like light refinishing or cleaning up, which allows them to control the perception of the products that are going back into the market too. But it was cool too. We feel like this connects to one of the trends in our trend report this year of guaranteed value, which is basically the idea that, um, people want more than just knowing that they could, they're getting a good product. They want to buy from a brand or people that they feel like they have values alignment with which and this is a values play from ikea with their like circular brand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah from a public perception standpoint, it's a values play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anything else just think about all the ikea furniture I have we don't even have that much. We have shelves, dressers.
Speaker 3:Shelves and dressers. Our daughter's bed.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:And our crib.
Speaker 1:And their like storage units. We have quite a bit.
Speaker 3:We have some stuff at the office, our desks our Ikea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it serves a purpose.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:And I love their meatballs.
Speaker 3:I think it'll be cool to check out their pre-owned too, because there's also some like almost like vintage Ikea out there.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:That is really cool that you can't get anymore. That's sometimes a different level of quality, but also a different type of design, right? So maybe we'll find some gems on there, yeah Well.
Speaker 1:I think that's all she wrote for today. I think that was it.
Speaker 3:Well, I have a fun little surprise before we roll the credits. Oh, I know, in episode zero we were kind of joking around about how we were going to end this thing and we don't really have a planned spiel. But I do have something special and that is a gong.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, you got it.
Speaker 3:So why don't you just cue me up and say, let's wrap this thing up, roll the credits.
Speaker 1:Apologies in advance. Please don't judge us for this ending and stick around. We'll have more episodes coming to you every single Friday on YouTube podcast platforms. All of the good stuff, and let's roll the credits. I can't believe we got that. Was it expensive?
Speaker 3:It was reasonable, reasonable and worth it. I can't believe you didn't Worth every penny. I love this little mallet too.