This is such a great insightful content! I am professional freelance virtual assistant. Right now, I am started my personal project which is to build my personal branding following your Branding 101: How To Build A Strategic Brand in 2024 because I felt so unorganized and everywhere. I think build a concrete brand can help you get organized and consistent when it comes to your content and promotions. I hope I am in the right direction and can push through!
You're definitely on the right track with your personal branding project. Building a solid brand will help you stay organized and consistent. Check out more of our free content for extra insights!
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🚀 *AI's Impact on Marketing* - Seth Godin believes AI is the most significant change since electricity. - Professionals need to integrate AI into their daily routines. - AI's transformative power is comparable to the invention of electricity and the internet. 02:17 💬 *Introduction and Philosophy Exchange* - Seth Godin emphasizes the importance of offering and making things better. - The conversation delves into the philosophical background of marketing and branding. - The discussion explores the alignment between Seth Godin's philosophy and the host's approach. 04:19 🛠️ *Understanding Branding and Marketing* - Branding is often misunderstood, conflated with logo design rather than a comprehensive strategy. - Seth Godin emphasizes that branding transcends visual elements and is about building a resonant story. - The conversation highlights the importance of positioning and differentiation in branding. 07:15 🧠 *Strategy Versus Tactics in Marketing* - Seth Godin distinguishes between strategy and tactics, emphasizing the necessity of strategic positioning. - Strategy entails a desire for change and requires thoughtful decision-making. - Effective positioning involves offering a clear map of what a brand represents and what it doesn't. 09:11 🔄 *Evolution of Positioning Strategies* - The conversation reflects on the evolution of positioning strategies since the writing of "The Purple Cow." - Positioning is portrayed as a generous act of offering clarity rather than a competitive battle. - Seth Godin underscores the importance of valid axes and the shift from features to benefits in positioning. 13:31 📖 *Power of Storytelling in Marketing* - Storytelling's effectiveness lies in its ability to resonate emotionally with consumers. - Seth Godin emphasizes the significance of storytelling in conveying benefits rather than features. - The discussion emphasizes the need for stories that tap into human emotions of status, fear, or affiliation. 16:02 🎭 *Tactical Delivery of Stories* - Tactical delivery of stories involves finding creative angles to engage audiences effectively. - Seth Godin shares a historical example of effective storytelling in driving consumer behavior. - The discussion highlights the importance of understanding audience psychology in storytelling. 18:34 🎯 *Finding the Smallest Viable Market* - Seth Godin advocates for identifying the smallest viable market to achieve marketing success. - Fear and greed often hinder businesses from targeting a precise audience. - The conversation emphasizes the necessity of overcoming fear and embracing specificity in audience targeting. 20:01 🎯 *Strategic Audience Selection* - Picking a precise audience is crucial for brands. - Examples like Patagonia, Nike, and Whole Foods illustrate the power of targeting. - Seth Godin emphasizes the importance of niche audiences even if it means not reaching a broad market. 22:08 🛠️ *Strategy vs. Execution* - Distinguishing between working in the system and working on the system. - The importance of expertise in execution versus understanding and changing the system. - The scarcity of individuals skilled in brand strategy compared to those proficient in tactics. 25:09 🛑 *Permission Marketing Principles* - Seth Godin criticizes intrusive marketing tactics and highlights the value of permission-based marketing. - Building a loyal audience through permission marketing leads to genuine engagement. - The significance of creating assets and relationships with customers rather than pursuing short-term attention. 32:41 🤖 *Impact of AI on Branding and Marketing* - AI's transformative potential compared to the invention of electricity. - The role of AI in replacing mundane tasks and the need for professionals to offer unique value. - Adaptation strategies for professionals in design and branding amidst the rise of AI technologies. 36:09 🔥 *Creating Tension in Branding* - Emphasizing the importance of tension in marketing to drive engagement and differentiation. - Examples from Facebook's early marketing strategy illustrate the power of creating tension. - Encouraging professionals to embrace change and focus on creating products or services that leverage network effects. Made with HARPA AI/
Congratulations. On having the consistent cred to pull this interview. Ihave learnt much from your podcasts, but boy this one has really givem me the tension to build my brand. We have been working in but not on our brand for30 years. As a 55 year old business man I feel more driven and invigorated than ever. The AI component is the missing chain link for my food product btand. I already have a great product, have a great brand, I have not told it yet. So much to do but now have the tools at my disposal for very little cost. Great conversation and love your work. Thankyou Tony Nolan Kangaroo Island South Oz.
Hey Tony, Thanks a mil for your message. Beautiful part of the world (I lived in Oz for 20 years) Delighted to hear your drive. Looking forward to see what you do with your brand. 👍
I'm truly sorry to have to be the one to say this, but I don't understand how you use Seth Godin, the most sensible, ethical, integral, and honest marketing figure of all time, to create clickbait by saying he will discuss artificial intelligence 🤖, when you only ask him a brief question on the subject. That's not right. That's being a jerk and disrespecting Seth, who, thank God, is a master beyond good and evil, and makes your video worth watching, despite it not being what was promised. "Speaking of hustle marketers..." 💼
I’m truly sorry too. We are in the Age of AI and we spoke about branding and marketing in today’s environment. This topic discusses what has changed, what has not and the impact of AI. I think Seth would be just as surprised by your comment.
In my opinion, AI integration with branding and marketing is crucial for staying relevant. Reputation House understands this shift and ensures clients stay ahead by leveraging AI for reputation management strategies.
Seth Godin always brings valuable insights to the table. For entrepreneurs looking to leverage AI in branding, consider using AI-driven analytics to uncover deep insights into customer behavior that can shape more personalized brand strategies. Remember, it's not just about data, but how you interpret it to create a connection with your audience.
AI is not able to deliver human depth of insight. AI is a pure sociopath, pretender, mirror, and is as "intelligent" as its mentally focused designer. people have lost their humanity already and do not even see the danger of AI.
The message: go inside, get real, bring authentic quality to others as a service, don’t grasp. It’s not about Getting. Have faith. If it’s real then people will notice (sadly) because these qualities are so rare. Beautiful. Thank you. 🙏
Thanks, now I don’t have to listen to this long winded episode and I can spend my time on more important stuff like Putin invading Ukraine and committing genocide
Great interview, Stephen, Seth is a soft spoken genius who has bolstered many elements of my business over the years. Seth mentioned the great Irish storyteller, Bernadette Jiwa. I popped over to Amazon and sure enough, she had 6 books on storytelling, and she was giving away 4 of those books for free in the Audible version, so I got 4 of her books with her lovely voice offering great advice with well crafted storytelling. This was 3/6/24. I find there are many biz friendly authors on Amazon that are "gifting" their audible version with the hope that the audible crowd will help with a good review. Good health, Stephen, and a bountiful '24.
Lots of awesomes but despicably unrevolutionary to claim u have to support the incumbents to succeed! the whole idea is to drive evil out of business!!
Sadly many people bereft of ideas turn to AI and LLM as "the" cure to their problems and for (so called) creative content, using what is churned out as is including both text and images, so often thumbnails for YT videos et al. In such a short space of time people have bored of this recycled spam, if you take time to read the comments sections of popular channels that use such images often stuffed into videos to pad them out (thus gaining longer view-time and ad-payments) by video-editors that has ZERO interest in the channel's content as they will be using the same AI crap in edited videos for food-bloggers, car-repairs and funny cat compilations, not to mention the INSANE sound effects promoting Click, Like & Subscribe. Don't forget few actually comment when they bore totally of this robot production line crap and just Unsub. AI might be a tool to co-lab with but it is not content that people "like". Thanks for keeping it real Stephen. 👍
And they Say AI can do editing too.... like my Goodness, ai needs baby-seating, Telling one story in a creative way requires the uniqueness of the story teller his/herself, we can't solely depend on ai for this... this is failure already
This is absolutely amazing Stephen! Simplicity is the hardest to achieve and only wise man, like Mr.Seth and you as the podcast host can make it so interesting and useful! Cheers
Disagree with his saying that he does not care about a logo. Seeing the NIKE swoosh on a sneaker draws me to the sneaker. The swoosh on bags, shirts, water bottles, etc. draws people. Logos are extremely important and a identification of a source of goods or services.
I believe the point was, that your feelings towards the logo is not because of the logo itself, rather what the logo represents Yes, the logo is the gold standard, but if the logo they designed over 40 years ago had been different, you would likely be drawn to the alternative logo because it represents the brand and what it means
What's the AI tool that Seth referred to for analysing business strategy? I thought I heard Quad AI. Is this correct? If yes, where can I access this tool?
The conversation is about Branding and Marketing in the current environment (with AI considered) rather than the conversation being about AI - Sorry you felt misled 🫤
Consider starting with a few test videos on topics you’re passionate about. This can help you find your style and comfort level before committing to a schedule.
Interesting podcast interview. It's been a while since I listened to Seth. I ordered a couple of books from Bernadette Jiwa as I'm keen to understand more about storytelling. Lots of people tell me I'm a natural storyteller which is great but means I don't understand the construct or how/why what I'm doing is good. I was surprised about the section on the person behind the brand and not telling their story. But maybe that's larger brands I encourage my clients (and especially those who are customer facing to present on social media) and to talk about their journey not all of it in one go but little snippets that add credibility to the business, values, offering, skills and services they bring to the current business. Maybe you meant more of an autobiographical style is not required? Which I would agree with. Hmm... as you can tell I'm musing over what this means and what to take from it. If you have any blogs or resources that would aid my understanding / thinking on this aspect I would be most grateful. It's my first time coming across this podcast and I've subscribed to listen to more - thank you.
Your interest in storytelling is great. Bernadette Jiwa’s books are an excellent choice to understand the structure and impact of storytelling. There is 100% a place for the “Founder Story” where is aligns with the audience and the journey they’re on. That said, often this is the default way to tell stories, even when the journey of the founder doesn’t really align with the audience. The beauty of strategic storytelling is that it’s strategic and there are different solutions for different situations. This content will help you dive deeper brandmasteracademy.com/brand-storytelling/ ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sIh5yIVld-w.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nsjuWFrZzvQ.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0DPoMEFK7YE.html Our flagship program Brand Master Secrets dives deeper again
I now see brand strategy as a goal of a subsection within a world model framework for communicating to llm models more complex goals and tasks. And that reality is absolutely insane at moments.
Great reminders. You have to put yourself on the hook and keep picking an MVP. Commit and go an inch wide and a mile deep! I'm on a journey as a Brand Strategist for Tribe Builders in the sustainability and resilience sectors.
And they Say AI can do editing too.... like my Goodness, ai needs baby-seating, Telling one story in a creative way requires the uniqueness of the story teller his/herself, we can't solely depend on ai for this... this is failure already
As usual Stephen...i am always being happy after watching your podcast, and this one is a piece of gold...I wish you could do another episode with him and ask him more questions about branding (deep and more focused ones)
All brands go through steps: 1) when the brand is new, no one recognizes the logo/brand/reputation 2) soon enough, if the business sustains, the logo/brand/reputation become familiar Humans are wired to fairly quickly demote 'novelty' things to 'recognized' So unless a very objectionable symbol/message is being used by a new brand, most humans go through the 'novelty' phase then don't give the logo/brand much thought. I think anything (other that the purposely-objectionable) - any logo/brand message can and will become accepted. "That's just the logo that company wanted." Imagine seeing images of a white-with-large-black-spots Guernsey cow on a product's box. What's inside? Cattle food? Probably. Nope, that was the Gateway Computer branding. Cow image boxes. Pretty wild.
The ditch diggers did complain. Enough of them anyway. Focusing on those who adapted feels good but real pain in real life for obsolete workers has affects of its own.
Love this Stephen! Fun to see a fellow Seth Godin fanboy get to talk with him. I loved the following: 9:40 Positioning is a generous act. It's offering people who are busy a clear map of who you are and who you're not. If you're not eagerly sending potential business to you're "competitors" then you don't have a position. 33:52 I think AI is the biggest invention since electricity, bigger than the internet and if you're not using for a 1/2 hr each day, you don't understand. Liked the simple things he'd do as a start-up brand builder: 1. Make something that customers want to buy, do so by creating tension - my life will be better if I listen to this and if I don't, I'll be left behind. 2. Network Effect: Create something that works better when you tell others. Fax Machine, Hotmail, etc.
To me, authenticity means something completely different than he says. It means that many content creators use cheap phrases and selling techniques everyone sees through and it's annoying. Exactly this trying too hard to be your best version is not authentic and I personally prefer people and creator who are honest and upfront about themselves and their products. Thats why people prefer generally content creators against classic marketing, but unfortunately is less and less who are like that. That has nothing to do with bad personality traits.
The bald head, the poise soft spoken delivery of statement, the assertive delivery of information, and the stance of the humble teachee. Yes! They definitely look alike 😅
I’m constantly impressed at the lengths people will go to in order to find new ways to articulate the various aspects of marketing, where there are perfectly comprehensive terms and definitions that have existed for decades.
Marketing has evolved dramatically in the past few decades. Any objective marketer will agree. It’s quite normal that words that have been used for decades will change with evolution.
"Later, in 1999, Seth Godin proposed an ethical way of using email for marke" .. Me and several others were already doing email marketing on AOL at least as far back as 1998 I was 11 years old and marketing Acai Berry supplements. You were one of my main influences and it's funny we parallel on so many things I hadn't noticed before. -Zachary Bennett
I was hoping to hear more of his thoughts on AI. It’s hard to ignore that some of these AI systems were built by ripping off creatives who may now be replaced by AI. Seems to me that more than ditch diggers are in danger of being replaced…I just read his book The Dip. And I think with speed AI is moving, it’s hard to know if there’s “light at the end of the tunnel.” Harder to predict if my career, tactic, etc. is a dead end. Harder to know if “quitting” or sticking is the best long-term strategy. Sometimes adapting at the rate and performing at the level we need to succeed feels impossible and exhausting.
I appreciate your perspective on AI and its impact. Adapting to the pace of change can indeed feel daunting. Seth's book, The Dip, offers a useful framework for deciding when to persevere or pivot. Embracing AI as a tool rather than a threat might open up new avenues for your career.
Inspiring and motivating deep thinking and re-evaluating positions, especially after sinking in daily/monthly activities rather than global business strategy. Thank you
As someone who has recently become very interested in social media marketing, I like how this video makes down the essentials! It's really true that consistency and value are essential. I've been experimenting with several AI tools to help me expedite the content development process.
Captivating conversation. Thank you! Respectful and skilled interviewer who consistently asked excellent questions followed by reflective observations to maintain a magical flow. Well done. Seth is a calming voice of reason in a chaotic time of massive change. My takeaways: focus, learn and enjoy the ride!
Great Episode! I love that you didn't think he'd do your podcast, but you asked anyway. It's a great reminder to us all to go for it... you just never know!
Brilliant interview. Seth is a genius on marketing and branding philosophies! I really enjoyed it and always learn new thinking perspectives from Seth. A big thank you to Stephen Houraghan for this informative podcast!
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the algorithm for putting this in front of my face this morning -great interview, great topic discussion. You both have found a new reader. Bravvo!
