Breaking Through to the New American Consumer - Full Conversation
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00:00I'm China Widener and I am vice chair of technology media and telecom for Deloitte
00:04and with me is Gail Turberman. Hi, I'm Gail Turberman. I've been the CMO at
00:10iHeartMedia for quite some time and I'm still an exec advisor there and we're
00:16gonna talk a little marketers and truth today. Sound good? That is our goal
00:21because the reality is at the end of the day if we don't understand the consumer
00:25we're trying to reach we're gonna have a problem and ultimately when you think
00:29about the goal that you all set for yourselves respectively it really is
00:33about that connection and engagement because what you want from the consumer
00:37right is about their time you want their resources and you want their engagement
00:43and so you have to understand where they are. What's interesting Gail is some
00:46research that you have done at iHeart around the fact that interestingly
00:50enough 44% of consumers actually feel ignored by markets. 44% of the people
00:57we're trying to reach tell us they feel ignored by marketers and brands. What is
01:02equally interesting is 67% of those same people also tell us they don't like to be
01:08trolled right with with with email and with text messages so the question becomes
01:14two things that I want you to talk about one is who is this 44% like we say
01:19these words and we we toss out this data but if we don't know who that is the
01:24makeup of that 44% then we're not sure frankly who we're talking to and then
01:28secondly how do you think about the gap if the reality is I don't want to be
01:32trolled but I also think you're ignoring me so let's I think there's a slide on the
01:36hoop. There's like a really fine line between targeting and creepiness like we
01:40all feel it as consumers right yeah so let's first let's talk about if if almost
01:45half of the people we're trying to reach feel ignored I think as marketers if
01:50we're gonna be like remotely responsible we need to think about who those people
01:54are so I think you can throw this slide up because a lot of times when I start
01:58this conversation with people they're like oh yeah yeah it's that audience I'm
02:03reaching my audience my target consumer but there's those other people right and
02:09we all have these stereotypes of who we think the other people that aren't our
02:13target consumers might be right and the reality is most of America feel ignored
02:19right when it comes to geography suburban people urban people rural people it's
02:25not just that guy on a tractor in the middle of nowhere that you might think is
02:29not your consumer he is anyway but for a lot of brands it skews a little more
02:35white so interestingly white consumers feel a little more ignored than some of the
02:41other ethnicities but you see still solid numbers black consumers Hispanic
02:46consumers and I thought was really even more fascinating was when it comes to
02:50income sort of all of the income levels are feeling the same pain they're all
02:57feeling like you don't get me and how is it in this moment in time when we have
03:02more data than we've had in the history of marketing at our fingertips with more
03:07speed and more access we're missing these consumers there's so much data and yet
03:15these people don't feel seen and heard by us right so so if we think about it in
03:20the context of look everybody's feeling a bit ignored right so then the question
03:25becomes is this a function of we're trying to reach too many people too broadly and
03:31in a way that sort of whitewashes the notion of what actually matters to them or is it a
03:36function of so much matters and there's such a battle for time for visual attention we
03:43recently in the in the deloitte media trend study actually understood and became came
03:47to understand the fact that while millennials and gen z and and the average consumer is spending six hours of
03:56time across multiple platforms so think about it whether that's on the little screen on their phone whether that's actually
04:02streaming whether that's movies whether that's audio it's six hours a day but in
04:08those six hours the battle for their time and attention is extraordinary so the
04:12question then becomes if you think about it in that context you have to think
04:16about where you can get contact that isn't a battle for time and so the question I
04:22put to you is what does that look like where where are the spaces and places for
04:27which we get called it undivided or less divided attention from the consumer yeah
04:33there's a lot in there I think there's there's two really important questions you
04:36just asked right one of them is how do you capture attention in this distraction
04:42economy and right in the audio world we see again and again and again and again
04:49study after study after study that the way your brain processes content audio gets processed audio gets
04:57encoded audio creates more recall right because it's like you remember what your
05:02friend said to you last night right I always use these examples about what's the
05:06power of influence right I have never been to a restaurant because I saw a
05:11beautiful perfectly filtered picture of pasta ever I have been to millions of
05:17restaurants because China said I had the best pasta last night I don't need the
05:22image I don't need the filter right I don't need a link I just need to remember
05:28that you were so excited because what came through in that conversation is just
05:33your genuine unscripted excitement about a bowl of pasta that gets encoded in my
05:39brain and then when I'm like where do I eat in LA I'm like China where's that
05:42restaurant right that's how marketing influence happens and we forget that a lot
05:47right we look at our video views what is a view a split second three seconds right I
05:54mean right what is engagement what drives real impact is what we need to get to so
05:59I think audio has to be part of the mix if you're trying to capture attention
06:03because it just works differently in your brain and it generally drives more
06:08engagement and higher recall more neurons fire when I have to picture that bowl of
06:13pasta then when I see it and I just move on to the next thing so you you said
06:18something about the notion of it's because I recommended it so so let me ask
06:23you a question is the perception of what is influential the same through the lens
06:29of the marketer and the lens of the consumer yeah really good question so this
06:34study we did with Malcolm Gladwell and our friends at Pushkin they're some of our
06:37big I heart podcasters it all started because we were sitting around at a table
06:42saying how much the briefs we get for many of you no offense suck right it's
06:48like a lot of marketer speak a lot of words and you're trying to target right
06:53which is the other part of this question right I think part of the problem is we
06:57are targeting our way to oblivion we are targeting our way to irrelevance right we
07:02need to talk to more people to sell more stuff not just people who love Taylor Swift and
07:09this kind of shoe and have cats and are really into pop music right if you just if
07:14Taylor Swift just targeted Swifties she wouldn't be Taylor Swift and the Bears to
07:19her wouldn't have done a billion dollars right she targeted everyone she went broad
07:24she talks to moms and dads and families and young and old and pop fans and
07:29country fans and hip-hop fans and she is a phenomenon right and brands we are
07:35targeting our way we're getting so in our own heads and talking to ourselves and
07:40that's what spurred this research so we did this research and we asked a whole
07:44bunch of real what I call real American consumers a bunch of questions about
07:48their values their influences how they spend their time what they care about and
07:52then we asked you marketers the same exact questions and you know what we
07:57learned our lives are not normal right you know what people find really cool most
08:04Americans love lottery tickets you know it's in the top five cringy things for
08:08marketers lottery tickets you know what consumers find cringy tennis Wimbledon
08:15US Open designer clothes you know what marketers love tennis pickleball Wimbledon
08:20designer clothes like our lives are not normal I love that I say that with full
08:25complicitness here like I love our marketer bubble it's a really fun place to go to
08:30conferences and sit on stages and have these intellectual conversations but I'm
08:35telling you a lot of your growth is not in this room and we got to get out of our
08:40own way because what influences real people their community their church
08:44groups right with the people around them at the PTA you're doing and thinking and
08:49saying right and we are getting so into our trying to reach the epicenter of a
08:54target which is some unreal artifice of no human is that epicenter of your target
09:00those briefs you send with that archetype there is no human that is that person so
09:07you're losing trust and authenticity I think as you add cost to target so so this
09:12is interesting and I would tell you maybe an added factoid that actually
09:16amplifies this is the fact that Millennials Gen Z and even Gen Xers dare I say
09:21actually have more faith and more connection and more trust looking at social
09:29influencers than they do TV personalities and the context of that it seems is
09:35because those people look like them because any of us could take our phone turn it on
09:41ourselves and become an influencer and so what's fascinating is the
09:45recommendations to actually take action in some of the things you're marketing is
09:48actually coming from those influencers the notion of the ways in which they start
09:52to spend time whether it's what movies they watch for streaming whether it's what
09:56movies they go to whether it's what products they buy their trust quotient is
10:00higher for that population than it is for traditional media personalities and so
10:05there's something in there that says I want to understand it from somebody who's
10:10like me in a way that makes sense to me and so to the extent that what you're
10:16talking about relative to the information you receive that says hi and here's all
10:22the things and this is the that one intersection right here our data is also
10:27suggesting the same thing across really age age ranges so when you put those two
10:32things together there's a there there totally now you might have to unpack what
10:36it means for you and so let's talk about that a little bit if I'm a marketer
10:40sitting here going okay I heard you Gail and you said all right real I'm in a
10:45bubble then what do I do now what do I do next how do I start to think about it
10:48in the context of the way we work as marketers right versus what the consumer
10:54is telling us yeah I mean I you know I obviously I show up with my own biases
10:59right we're going to talk about marketer biases I have an audio bias because I
11:03really do believe as a marketer it is one of the dramatically underutilized
11:09channels in your marketing mix it's more efficient than video it's got higher
11:13attention and you can get local right so particularly with broadcast radio you can
11:19get local and into the communities where real people live right and you can do
11:24that in ways that you can be and most marketers don't even use our platforms
11:29at iHeart as efficiently or effectively as they can if you're going to be on a
11:33hip-hop show in Nashville you might want to sound different than if you're going to
11:36be on Bobby Bones show with country fans in Nashville or a pop show right you have the
11:41ability to be relevant and this idea of fandom is a really interesting place right
11:46you need to find some connection between you and your brand and that real American
11:53consumer so it can be as simple as are you in Boston right now with your message
11:57or New York or Nashville or Oklahoma or Miami where are you and can you speak the
12:04language of that place what format are you in right what kind of background music
12:09should you be using right maybe if your brand showing up as a country fan on
12:13country stations and as a pop fan on pop stations all of a sudden you're
12:17relevant if you're part of a conversation with the breakfast club you're going to
12:20want to talk about different things and sound differently than if you're on Ryan
12:24Seacrest show that's on right now right like Seacrest is a great example of
12:28influence right he gets up every day and for it does four hours of live
12:32unscripted broadcast radio and he probably doesn't need the paycheck but he says it
12:37keeps him the most relevant as a producer as a creator is a businessman as a marketer
12:43because he talks to real people and they pick up and they dial and they get on
12:47social and they have a real-time live unscripted conversation and when he goes
12:51out into the world he's not this big mega star they come up to Ryan and they go oh my
12:57god is your dog better right right because he's been talking about his dog being sick all
13:01week right real unscripted conversations are you willing to have those as a
13:06marketer are you willing to get a little more real are you willing to let a host
13:12on a podcast talk about your product in their own words without you approving it
13:17right are you willing to get more authentic because I'm not sure we really are
13:22ready and if we're gonna be trusted I don't know I'm not sure scripted is the way
13:27to trust well so it even if we accept all that is true everything I say is true
13:35well you know that's subject to right so so think about if all you've all the
13:40things that you just said are true and we are moving to a place that says look
13:45having an unscripted conversation recognizing the intersectionality of
13:49people and humans right that that means that you've got to touch them in a
13:53completely different way what you're actually talking about is a fundamental
13:57shift I believe in the way all of marketing is really thought about now
14:01look we're in a time where we have to fundamentally shift many things they had
14:05talked about the fact that AI is is rewriting re-scripting the entire way we
14:11think about engagement it's re-scripting the entire way we think about
14:14producing material right and content and document and all those things what you're
14:20suggesting is a fundamental wholesale shift so look even the most
14:25progressive among you out in this audience in this moment works in a
14:30construct somewhere there is a system of things that is required from the place
14:35in which you operate so the question is what's the first question what's the
14:38first conversation even if even if there are people who are sitting here in
14:42this moment that say oh my god somebody is finally saying all the things I've been
14:47thinking what do they go and do right what is that next first conversation with
14:53their own leadership that says we got to open the door and the channel in a
14:57different way yeah right like and I think so much of that answering that that what
15:01is the first question question comes back to starting with the topic not the
15:07audience right we got so into these hyper targeted niche audiences right and trying to
15:14and I think we miss more often than we hit whereas if we went to bigger groups of
15:19humans who share things right like we were talking backstage if I were trying to
15:24target you I'd be like oh my god you're a badass businesswoman you're black you
15:27you live in Austin I probably would have missed the fact that you race dirt cars
15:32right huge passion huge part of your life right but if I went into the racing
15:38community or the dirt car racing community and I showed up I don't know how you
15:43market there right maybe Tim from NASCAR can help you with that right but like
15:47that's a huge passionate fandom if you show up there let's talk cars let's talk
15:53speed let's talk dirt right that's how you capture love and trust and you become
15:58part of your consumers lives then the next question is how do I scale that right
16:05maybe I you know I can be at that race but there's a hundred people a thousand
16:09people that's not going to drive my quarter so that's where we come in at
16:13iHeart and we go let's have that conversation on broadcast radio where the
16:18data shows us every dirt car racing fan listens and I can be having that
16:23conversation in Florida in Texas in New York where there's race car fans right like
16:30it's like let's scale that conversation urban suburban and rural and let's get you
16:34enough reach on topics people don't expect you to talk about be a fan with
16:40your fans but the only way to do that is you have to have data yes so what what
16:44you're really talking about is a different not not only the acquisition of
16:49additional data but also to think about how you segment that data in a very
16:53different way because to our earlier comment we are a wash in data everywhere you
16:59turn there's a ton of data but what you're really talking about is thinking
17:03about the data in a fundamentally different way not to go so deep that I
17:08can only be a woman who loves flu vlog shoes but you can actually figure out that
17:14yes I rate I race dirt or yes I raise cattle but you can't figure that out if
17:19you don't get a holistic picture of the data you have to go somewhere to get that
17:22data now there's an interesting struggle that exists in the world which is data is
17:27gold you all know this I'm not telling you anything you haven't that you don't know and live
17:32every day but the fundamental question is how do you capture enough of the
17:36different kinds of data to actually give you a different view and a different
17:41picture so that you can get to the totality of the human yeah because I think
17:44it's it's not data right you you said it it's questions like data can help us
17:49answer questions if you're not asking interesting questions your marketing is
17:54gonna suck right I want to know right you know padded elf sitting over there you're
17:59gonna hear from him in a minute right if you're thinking about how to reach the
18:03elf cosmetics fan right you're probably not thinking racing but they are because
18:08there's a ton of passionate racing fans who are young and who are female and who
18:13are diverse right I think as marketers we keep stereotyping our audiences and and so
18:19we're not asking that what's the unexpected consumer what is the thing
18:25consumers love at scale that I could be part of that I don't that my friends
18:31aren't part of because I think we're getting trapped in our own bubble right and
18:36the things I love are not where my next target growth is at scale right we're
18:42tripping over each other to market in these same very expensive very cluttered
18:47spaces and then all of a sudden you open up a new space a women's sports is
18:51another great example right it's on fire and a year ago nobody mentioned it it was
18:57the most undervalued under tapped opportunity I'd say the same thing is
19:01true with audio go find where there's passionate fans and then become ask the
19:07questions then which sports which consumers how do I break in what matters
19:12to these people then use the data so what you're really talking about is don't
19:16lean into what you know yes what you're really talking about is identify what's
19:21what you don't know who else who who might you be missing exact context of the
19:27thing that you're marketing who might be your unexpected consumer in essence and
19:31the only way you're gonna actually know that is you actually have to have more
19:34engagement with the consumer themselves exactly and you know it's bizarre if
19:38you guys throw the next slide up if you can actually reach these ignored
19:42consumers in some of these new unexpected places 75% of real Americans will
19:49actually pay more to support brands that get them and to get them you need to
19:57show up around their passions and I think those are increasingly unexpected not so
20:03obvious places I mean these are three out of four real Americans in the shit show
20:08that is this economy actually say they would pay more for your products and your services this is
20:15bizarre this is this is an insight but you have to show up in places they don't
20:20expect you and you have to really become a true voice and a true part of that
20:25community and that fandom if you can do that the money is out there well well
20:30people will always invest time talent and treasure and what they care about
20:34right we really understand that the trick is to figure out what it is that they
20:38care about and so what you're suggesting ultimately is that if you can find that
20:45that point of concern for them that point of priority then if it's a little more
20:52it's okay because it matters to me right we all every day make choices about how to
20:56spend our time and what we spend our resources on and and you're basically your
21:01research is telling us exactly the same thing don't count them out they're not
21:04unwilling to part with the resource they're just unwilling to part with it
21:08when it's not something they value and that shows up in other ways that quite
21:12honestly has been interesting when you think about things like the notion around
21:17social platform to streaming and we'll take a really simplified example they've
21:21said look at the intersection of cost and value for streaming when we
21:25originally thought streaming was to displace cable right because of its expense the
21:29consumer is now said look I'm not sure I'm getting enough value for what I'm
21:34paying for and I don't know that that average price of $69 a month across my
21:38four streaming platforms is worth it to me ergo I'm willing to look for an
21:43alternate method to be entertained because what they value in it the
21:48content isn't quite enough so they're not willing to part with it but when it is
21:51they'll pay they'll pay and you know one of the things we saw in the study that I
21:55thought was we all had a moment when we were sitting and going through this
21:59research with Gladwell and and our research team and we all kind of gasped
22:03when we saw this one fact which is for the average consumer a considered
22:08purchase right considered means they're going to do some research they're gonna
22:12talk don't give them the answer ask let's ask them the question don't don't give
22:16them the answer yet I love it so here's a question for all of you how much money do
22:21you believe a family would decide is a considered that they need to have a
22:26conversation about before they spend and I'm gonna give you ranges to make this
22:30easy do you think it is a thousand dollars just show of hands which means you got to
22:39talk to whoever it is you reside with before you would go make that do a little
22:42research spend a thousand dollars do a little research think that thresholds a thousand dollars
22:47all right who thinks that thresholds five hundred dollars interesting who thinks that thresholds a
22:56hundred dollars so this is interesting yes two-thirds of them are wrong yes this is true and that last
23:04third you guys nailed it a hundred dollars is a considered purchase for the average American and
23:10that means they're gonna think hard about it do research decide what they want to do and save up so
23:17think about we we live in this relentless speed economy and we're missing the fact that just because we put a
23:24campaign out there or we're selling an idea right now that average consumer anything over a hundred dollars
23:31they need eight to twelve months to plan research save up a little money and commit
23:39for you all so we did the same study for the average marketer it's a thousand dollars so that first group
23:46you you nailed us right ten ten times the difference we don't think and live like our customers and we are
23:55just going to miss every day if we don't start understanding their realities a little bit better
24:00yeah so think about what it is that you all market you you are all sitting here marketing your every
24:06day you think about it in the context of those differences or speed to decision yeah so so this is
24:13the other thing that was also very interesting the marketing community believes the speed to decision is
24:19incredibly fast but your research actually said something different about it so so what's the speed to decision
24:26differences yeah i mean for marketers you know it's like again a thousand dollars i'll like oh i'll pull
24:32the trigger tomorrow something pops in my feed oh those shoes look cool i need those right you know um for the
24:37average american it's like a eight to twelve month like planning cycle and i don't think we think when we put
24:44our messages out there about how we're talking to that consumer over that entire period of time
24:50right and and it just takes a lot longer for the average consumer to get comfortable with what you sell why they
24:58should buy it you know we're talking about like the streaming services right when money's tight we're all thinking
25:04about what really matters we talk a lot with marketers that i heard about be part of the conversation every day it's not
25:12that expensive to be on air and be part of a conversation with hip-hop fans or pop fans or sports fans or women's
25:20sports fans every day and every week because being part of that conversation is how you build that trust
25:26and then when they're ready they're going to get comfortable they're going to save up a little money
25:30the tax refund comes i have a little extra money now i'm going to be ready to pull the trigger but if you only show
25:37up for campaign cycle for 90 days you could totally miss like two-thirds of your consumers who just
25:44aren't ready yet so i think that as we sort of close i think there's a couple of things that are
25:49important one is as true as all that is we also are all very clear about the impulse buyer the people
25:55who shop in the middle of the night on social and they wake up and go i don't really know why i got
25:59this package today but you know it's more marketers than real people yeah but but the reality is i think
26:05the notion here is to say to you there's a balance to be struck and to the extent that you're only
26:11thinking about it through one lens through one channel through one avenue through one set of
26:16experiences that you're going to leave out the other 75 percent and so the notion is about expansion
26:22not not um not to swap or exclude and i think that's the core message in all of this exactly it's
26:29not either or exactly if you haven't done audio give it a try reach is there the attention is there
26:36and i guarantee you're probably going to find growth with some audience that's not on your chart that's
26:43not in your gritty striver archetype that you've been describing at length and researching at length
26:48there's a lot of people out there in this country ready to support your brands and services but you're
26:53probably not reaching them if you're just over targeting so gail thank you for giving everyone
26:59something else to think about when they walk out of here awesome thank you guys for the time i know
27:04it's valuable
27:05it's valuable