Shownotes
- Transition from Traditional to Digital: Tim reflects on the major shifts in media from using stat cameras in printing to embracing digital advancements. This timely transition has brought about significant changes in marketing strategies, primarily with the rise of the Internet from the 90s into the early 2000s. Despite initial skepticism, the shift towards digital marketing has transformed how brands engage with audiences.
- Impact of AI on Branding: AI is heralded as the next big technological change. Though currently limited in its ability to capture authenticity, AI's future potential to mimic genuine communication poses intriguing challenges for media literacy. The conversation emphasizes that despite these advancements, there remains a strong consumer demand for authentic communication from brands.
- Post-Pandemic Consumer Behavior: We delve into how the pandemic has fostered a new level of cynicism among consumers, pushing brands to prioritize trust and authenticity. Storytelling in marketing has become more vital than traditional sales messages. Brands need to adapt by focusing more on narratives that resonate with consumers’ values and experiences.
- Social Media Trends and Generational Loyalty: We discuss the evolution of social media platforms and their emphasis on authentic content, using TikTok's micro storytelling format as an example. Generational differences in brand loyalty are also highlighted—where older generations exhibit long-term loyalty, younger consumers often prioritize alignment with social causes.
- Challenges in Content Creation: Tim underscores the importance of creating high-quality and consistent content, offering advice on managing the volume of content creation. Frequent posting with a clear narrative thread is vital for maintaining audience engagement and trust. Investing in strong brand guidelines can streamline content creation and ensure messaging remains authentic and impactful.
Transcripts
What is happening, everybody? I'm Sara Lohse and this is Branded. Larry is currently recording for abc. So apparently that's more important than our podcast. I guess I get it. But thank you so much for joining us. Our guest today is Tim Konowski. Said it right, I think he is an award winning brand and creative Expert with over 25 years of experience crafting powerful, customer centered stories. Basically, he's been doing this since before I was alive.
Sara Lohse [:It's. It's fine. Tim's unique blend of creative vision and data driven strategy is shaping global campaigns. And he approves that the most memorable brands are the ones brave enough to be different. And I love that. So we're going to dig in a little bit about brand storytelling and how to be different. And Tim, welcome to the show.
Tim Kalinowski [:Hey, thanks. So glad to be here.
Sara Lohse [:This is our first recording of the new year. And one thing that I want to ask you because you are an expert in having brands stand out and get noticed and really get their stories out there, what would you say should be a brand's New Year's resolution when it comes to reaching those audiences and building connections and everything?
Tim Kalinowski [:Listen, get out of your own way. I think that's probably one of the themes I've learned the most throughout my career is people get in their own way and they start believing what they want to say versus what customers want or need to hear and they, they lose track of that. That's the key cornerstone of everything, in my opinion. My experience.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, anytime I'm talking to someone, because I work on like brand messaging and everything as well, and I, they ask me, how are they supposed to know what their audience wants and what their customers want? And when I tell them the answer, it's always really anticlimactic because I'm like, ask them. And they just look at me like, wow, I never thought of that. But it's simple thing.
Tim Kalinowski [:Well, and what's, what's really crazy. So we work with, you know, the big of the big and some of the small of the small. Right. So I mean, we've helped businesses that are kind of solopreneurs to, you know, pretty large household names that you've seen. And the one thing that seems really interesting to me is I see it both internally within marketing departments of companies and just even with smaller businesses where they haven't asked the questions or even with salespeople where I've had a salesperson say, well, this is who our audience is. And I'm like, do you really understand who they are? And Then have you done the math to understand, if I only focus on who I think my core audience is, am I taking that circle and making my audience bigger continually to understand who else could benefit from my products or services? So, yeah, there's a. There's a whole bunch of ways. I got some stories in there, too, that I can share.
Sara Lohse [:Oh, I'm sure when we're talking to businesses of those different sizes and we're talking about storytelling, storytelling is kind of intrinsically a personal thing. But when you have a big corporation that is so many different key stakeholders, so many different faces and names and voices, where is that difference? How do you go from the small personal stories to the corporate stories? Where. What is the secret there?
Tim Kalinowski [:Well, to beat the same drum, right? So if you're listening and understanding where those stories come from, that's the best part of it. And what I mean by that is, are you really paying attention to how it impacts somebody's life? Have you really sat down and said, okay, how are you going to use my product? And then watch somebody use your product or service? Or, you know, be really aware and don't talk, but listen when they're using your service. And you'll start to see. Sometimes they'll give you the stories. You know, those are the best ones. When you watch somebody do something and you're like, oh, that's it. And. And that's a lot of what we try to do.
Tim Kalinowski [:That's a lot of our initial impact with companies is we just try to listen and we'll set a camera on people. We'll go out in the field and watch what their customers are doing, and you start to see how they're using it. And it's amazing because that is the story, right? And when you can do that, things change really quickly because people want to know how it impacts their life. And that's the. That's really the special sauce. It's understanding them. I think the front page of our website, the first thing it says is, you know, it's not about you, it's about them. And I'm paraphrasing it, but that's basically it.
Tim Kalinowski [:You're not the hero of your own story. Your customer is the hero of your story. And that's where it all starts.
Sara Lohse [:So when I talk about storytelling, I usually don't go the corporate route. I go very personal thought leader. I want to hear people's personal stories. But how have you helped people take those personal stories and still kind of flip it so that it isn't about them?
Tim Kalinowski [:This is going to sound bad. Maybe it's too honest. But getting people's ego out of the way is the first step, right?
Sara Lohse [:Yeah.
Tim Kalinowski [:And that is the hardest part is. And we all do it right. We all are really proud of the things we've accomplished and the things we've done. And if you're, you know, a entrepreneur or a large corporation, small corporation, it doesn't matter. There's some level of ego around what you've done and who you think you are, and it's helping them get past that is a huge part of it.
Sara Lohse [:And how. How have you seen people get past that or how have you helped people get past that?
Tim Kalinowski [:Sometimes we just have to show them. So we do something, and I don't want to sound like a pitch, but we do something called. I call them discovery sessions. Everybody calls them something different. And we actually will do it over zoom, or we'll bring in cameras and record them. We'll mic them up, and we'll do the entire. Not the entire company, but a big range. I want people from the factory floor to the sales guy to the president.
Tim Kalinowski [:We want everybody. And then nobody else is allowed in these. And you start to gather the information, you take notes, and then there's always an outbreief presentation. And it's great because now you can start to see, oh, look what these people are saying. And we talk to customers, the whole thing, and then we go back and present it. And it's amazing how just having that information and having a really honest conversation with people can start to change how they see or perceive themselves. Even. So we do that quite a bit.
Tim Kalinowski [:And it's those listening sessions. It's using their own words and their own ideas to shape what's happening.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. One of the things we were talking about before we hit record is your first job in this space was in 1994. I was born in 1995. So you have been doing this for literally my entire life. And so much has changed. You mentioned, like, with AI and all the different changing technologies, what have you seen has been, like, the best change? And what are you really excited about with the new technologies that that's coming up?
Tim Kalinowski [:Can I switch your question a little bit?
Sara Lohse [:Yeah.
Tim Kalinowski [:I don't know that I've seen, you know, the best change yet. I think change is always hard. And so one of the stories when people start asking me about AI, I see it as just another technological change in a whole long line. That job that I was talking about, 1994, one of the things they had Back then, you know, printing plates were still made with basically large negatives. And so they'd have this. They had a room and it was. They had a camera. They called it a stack camera, and it literally filled a wall.
Tim Kalinowski [:And then they would take a picture and the negative would be what they would use to create a printing plate from, right? So it goes way back. So computers were just kind of being used to set type and, you know, improve and increase the speed in which we could do things. Within a few years, the people that were using the stat camera were pretty much out of a job. Right. By the end of that decade, that had all changed. And within a couple of years, everybody was. You know, of course, the Internet was the big conversation in the 90s and the early 2000s. And so everybody's like, well, print isn't dead.
Tim Kalinowski [:It's not going to change. We still need to market with print. It's more special than digital. And there was a few of us that were like, no, digital marketing is really the future of where things are at. And there was some resistance. And then I saw digital cameras come in, and everybody's like, well, it'll never replace film cameras. And, you know, now we're streaming things on digital cameras to have these types of conversations. And.
Tim Kalinowski [:And, you know, so many of those things just keep changing. And every time I remember a constant and consistent point of view where it was, this isn't going to change things. It's not going to evolve at the same rate. We're still going to do the old ways, and AI is really that same, same thing. It's. It's the next thing. And while it's here, it's not totally here yet, but I do see, you know, the future of where it's going and how it's changing. And, you know, knowing how we use it and how we can incorporate things to make things, you know, more efficient, more.
Tim Kalinowski [:More impactful for customers. But there's a gap. You know, the. The biggest gap I see right now is AI just doesn't carry the same level of authenticity that we need, and that's the biggest gap. And I. I don't know for sure. I'm. I'm guessing, and I kind of believe from the things that I've read and seen that it will probably be able to do that at some point.
Tim Kalinowski [:Is it this year? Probably not. But, you know, we're. We're not decades away from it either. You know, we're. We're years.
Sara Lohse [:It's. It's funny because you say we'll be able to. But really what it will be able to do is mimic it. So it's still not the authenticity. It's faked authenticity, which is really interesting. And I'm. I know that's coming. And it's probably, like you said, it's not far into the future.
Sara Lohse [:And it's going to become almost like a new version of media literacy, being able to tell what messages are authentic and what messages are that faked authenticity.
Tim Kalinowski [:Right.
Sara Lohse [:And that's going to be a challenge for not the marketers so much, but the consumers. And then the marketers will have to follow it up with trying to be better so that they can't see through it, maybe.
Tim Kalinowski [:No, I think you're right. I mean, customers. So we've seen, and I'm sure you've seen it since the pandemic, there's a level of cynicism that has come into play. Right. We've seen some of the brand loyalty numbers drop off. Oh, excuse me. They're still pretty high though, right? 81% of consumers, you know, still want to trust the brand before buying them. And, you know, like 90, 95%, it's.
Tim Kalinowski [:It's in there. It's very high in terms of. Customers want stories that they can trust that seem authentic, so that need is still there. I don't see that changing. And if you look at human history, how we tell stories, you know, shapes culture in a really big way. So that's how we're wired. Like, this is part of our DNA. This is part of the psychology of a human being.
Tim Kalinowski [:We want authentic stories. And, and that is how we've always been wired. So that's not going to change in the near future. Who knows what implants they could put in their brains or crazy things can happen. But, oh, gosh, we still, you know, we're still human. We still want authenticity. And so, yeah, I don't see brands being able to shy away from that. And I see customers driving the need for authenticity because they're still cynical and they still want the truth.
Tim Kalinowski [:I mean, we see it in politics, we see it in consumerism. People want the truth. And so they're gonna call BS if they see somebody that's just leaned in too far, too quick to AI and it's not authentic. It's. It's not going to resonate.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, I think marketing has seen such a drastic change because if you look at almost all marketing now, at least the, the marketing that's doing well and what's actually performing, it's not sales messages anymore. And for years and years and years, if you got the. A good headline and a good sales message, you're good, you're golden. And that changed and was replaced, thankfully, with that authenticity, with that storytelling. And then I came, and now I think AI is actually making things more difficult instead of making things easier like it's supposed to, because you can create so much content really easily, but it's not what people want. And with the stories I think it's going to like, I will never go away, but I think it's actually almost harming itself because people are wanting to get that real so much more than they want all of this massive amounts of content.
Tim Kalinowski [:Yeah, I mean, I agree with your point. I mean, just look at. Look at social media and how social media has changed even in the last five years, not even the last 10 or 15. Right. The thing. And I still believe this, I had clients that didn't believe me in, like, 2019 and 2020, when TikTok was starting to take off. And I was. My point was they are micro stories.
Tim Kalinowski [:And, you know, it used to be a minute, right. Now it's gotten longer. But they were videos, so they were harder to fake, whereas, you know, people could Photoshop an image pretty easily. You know, so it became more real. And what was presented to you wasn't based on friends and family, it was based on what your interests were. So the whole platform felt more authentic than anything else that existed. And the psychology behind that is really what drove that in popularity and why we've seen, you know, younger generations, your generation, not as into Facebook, little bit of Instagram, kind of fading. If I'm.
Tim Kalinowski [:If I'm, you know, reading the tea leaves and looking at the stats, and then you look at TikTok and everybody likes it more. And, I mean, you can tell me I'm wrong. And I think that's probably one of the benefits of the age gap between us is, you know, there's a lot of good information and knowledge there between the two of us and probably some things worth sharing.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. I think the biggest difference in generations right now is kind of going back to what you're saying about trust and loyalty. I feel like older generations, it was very much like, this is the brand I use, and I will always use it. And with, like, I'm. I'm a kind of like a baby millennial, I think I just missed Gen Z by like a day and a half or something. And we don't. We're happy to switch brands if we find one that aligns with our values more, and one that we do feel like we trust. And I've seen all the data around with Millennials.
Sara Lohse [:We want to align ourselves with companies that are aligned with a social cause. So we're happy to spend a little bit more if we know that a percentage is going to something that we care about. And I don't think I see that, at least in my opinion, as much with the older generations. It's like, I have always used this brand, and I will use it till I d. Yeah.
Tim Kalinowski [:Which is great. Until those customers do die. And then a brand has to rethink itself completely. Old Spice is one of my best examples of that. So this would be an interesting case study for you. So my dad, my grandpa, they used Old Spice cologne. And it came in a little white bottle, kind of almost triangular, had kind of a round base, but it tapered at the top. Right.
Tim Kalinowski [:Had a little gray knob. And if you were born probably before 1985, you probably had seen one of those bottles in somebody's medicine cabinet, and they. That was all they used. There was no need for another cologne. It didn't matter. There was no influence from my mom, my grandma, or anybody else. That was what grandpa used. Right.
Tim Kalinowski [:By the early 2000s, they were like, they were obsolete. Nobody wanted old space anymore, and they were dying. And then all of a sudden, they made this really unique switch, which was maybe we should market to women because they're making the purchasing decisions and stop marketing to men. And that's what saved that brand, was this realization that we're targeting the wrong customer and we're telling the wrong story to the wrong people.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. And as soon as you said Old Spice, I knew that's where you're gonna go with that. And it also makes me think of Stanley, like, the Stanley Cups, not the hockey one. They. They've been around for over a hundred years, and for the longest time, they were. They're the brand that is the go to for the, like, construction guys because it keeps their. Their water cold all day, their coffee hot. And that had always been their audience.
Sara Lohse [:And that's who, like, they thought their, like, their target audience. It was always, like, the retired police officer. It was the, like, the company foreman at the construction side. Like, that was their target. And then, like, these women, it was a, like, a shopping blog that was like, oh, wow. Like, I had this, and I went shopping with my kids, and I went through all of this stuff and everything, and I still. I get home, my water's still cold, and they put it out on this blog and they hit like record sales because they realized like they're talking to the wrong audience. They switched everything.
Sara Lohse [:And then like if you look before that there weren't all these colors, they weren't partnering with Starbucks. Everything changed. It used to just be this kind of ugly just metal canister and now it is like I have the knockoffs because I'm cheap but I have like 12 of them and that is normal now versus it's just I buy one and I use it till I die.
Tim Kalinowski [:Yeah, I would add in there they were blue collar, utilitarian, camping like they were kind of the OG like camping brand people wanted because they were, they were it. You wanted to go ice fishing in the winter. I'm from Wisconsin. Everybody had their Stanley Thermos with hot chocolate or coffee. Like that was it. And, and you're 1,000% correct. They that those little shifts and understanding both your audience and how the market is changing, I mean Kodak did a terrible job of adapting. Right.
Tim Kalinowski [:You know, they, they really aren't relevant at all anymore. But 30 years ago they were massive, massive company.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. And I think they, with Stanley, they should have taken a page out of Yeti's book because Yeti is the same thing. It is basically the exact same brand. But they took off because they targeted a diff, like a younger demographic. They targeted that fun and adventure lifestyle and they didn't target like the old work guy because the old work, it's a fitting broke, don't fix it. So they're going to buy it once and they're guaranteed to last forever. So if it gets a scratch on it, I don't care. Versus where like oh, it came, now comes in pink.
Sara Lohse [:I need a new one. So if they had, if they had just kind of paid attention to that, it probably would have happened a lot faster. But I mean now they're, they're doing all right. I think, I think they're, I think they'll be okay, Stanley.
Tim Kalinowski [:Yeah, I think they're going to be just fine. At least for quite a while.
Sara Lohse [:Is there any other, I mean like you've been doing this for a while. Is there any other brand that you've seen make like a really cool switch?
Tim Kalinowski [:I think insurance brands are one that's really worth kind of studying. If you really want to talk about branding and advertising, go back and look at, you know, the 80s, even early 90s of what insurance was doing and how they were communicating with people. And then, you know, look, now you have Geico and you have the State Farm with how they've really changed to, you know, football and everything else that you see with them. The mayhem, you know, Allstate, they're, they're great. They tell great stories, they really connect with people and they've brought something that's really a hard topic to talk about. I mean, as an, you know, advertising, marketing, media brand. Get an insurance company as a client and you'll see really quick how good you are because it is not an easy thing to talk about.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, I think it's funny that you say that. One of the things that I think is really interesting with some of those insurance brands is they are massive and they're very unpersonal. But even though it's a personal topic, so they created a person. So now it's like if you look at progressive, you think of flow, right? And so it's not just like, oh, I just need insurance. It's like, oh, wait, I think a flow. And it's the same thing with real estate companies putting the realtors faces on bus benches because it makes you feel like, you know, a person. And that, that's probably one of the things they were missing for so long was just, we need a person that we can latch onto and form some kind of bond with. So they just made a fake person that just feels so real.
Sara Lohse [:So it's just like, yeah, that, that one I like flow.
Tim Kalinowski [:But they've done it. They've gone one step further and brought in like, okay, now you recognize somebody and you, you've made a connection, which is hugely important. Right. Which is what you're talking about. But then you add the story in there. So Mayhem does a good job of, oh, yeah, look, that really could happen to me. Or Farmer's Insurance, right? Where they say, well, these are real stories. And people are going, yeah, I guess that could happen to me.
Tim Kalinowski [:Or Aflac with the duck and the. Right. Like, they all have the same model. They've kind of figured out the formula, but they've done a lot to change.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. I think my favorite one is that we can't stop you from becoming your parents. I don't know which brand that is. It's either Allstate or State Farm or something. But that, that campaign, I personally could watch all. Yeah, it's just so real.
Tim Kalinowski [:It is. It's good.
Sara Lohse [:Jumping back to. You're talking about social media and I did a lot of social media management at my first advertising agency job. And I remember it was just, okay, you have to post at least three to five times a week and it was find basically a stock photo, slap a logo on it and connect it to a service and there you go. And you can't do that anymore.
Tim Kalinowski [:That is, you couldn't really do it back then. Everybody was just trying to work the algorithm to try to make something happen.
Sara Lohse [:True. But I feel like that was just the way that it was done. And now it's not like, okay, I have to get this number of posts out. It's, I need to get quality posts out. And I'm curious, like what, like how you've seen what you've seen with that shift and kind of your thoughts on that. Because it's really changed. I think the whole social media marketing.
Tim Kalinowski [:Landscape, it's, it's changing. I still. So the algorithm still benefits more. Right. And this, I mean, even Google does this. Right. So have you ever looked at companies authority scores in Google? That kind of. Right.
Tim Kalinowski [:So like every website, most people don't know this, but they're assigned a score and that score is based on how credible they think you are. And so it's 0 to 100. And I mean, I've had companies come with a score of like an eight. And that's. And what it's saying is Google thinks you're in the 8th percentile of companies that they want to present in terms of, you know, what they want to give you on your search engine results. Right. Social media is the same way. They're looking at, are you giving good information? Because their product is us.
Tim Kalinowski [:Right. So they want the best us, the best content creators, and that's who they're going to present and push out to people. And so yeah, the better quality that you're creating in terms of stories, in terms of content, that matters. But unfortunately the amount also matters. And that is where the rub really comes today is how do you figure out how to create the best stories, the best content in the most authentic way and deliver still, you know, three to five times a week, or in some cases three to five times a day. And that's not an exaggeration. Yeah. What I found is if you can get a really.
Tim Kalinowski [:And so we do this with clients too, you know, what is your narrative? What is the core? What is that red thread that kind of goes through everything? And finding that is, can be really hard. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard. But if you can find that, that makes your content that much better. Right. Everybody talks about brand guidelines and oh, they're restrictive and I can't work within that. The truth is if, if your brand and Your guidelines are created at a high level in a very, very good way. You'll be able to make so much content and make it so much easier because now you know what that kind of thread is, what the base for every story is going to be. And it's what your customers want.
Tim Kalinowski [:Right? That comes down to a brand equals trust. That's the simplest definition. And so if your content is consistent and you are providing what your viewers want, they're going to listen, they're going to watch, and they're going to follow you because they want to see what you're doing. And so finding that thread, that is the key to really creating great content and like, making it easier and faster and not sitting there wringing your hands going, why do I have to post today? What should I make? I haven't thought about, you know, like, it's a really awkward situation. That's, that's the truth is you can make it much easier on yourself if you can figure out what the recipe for the formula is.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, I feel like it's extra awkward and extra just difficult with things like personal brands because how much can you say about yourself? And at least for me, like, I hate it. I tell everyone, like, you have to be on social. And then if you look at mine, it's like, oh, I forgot to post this year. But when we're talking about trust and we're talking about stories, you have to be telling the stories that are honest and authentic. But you can't only be showing your highlight reel. I feel you also have to be showing the negative, the mistakes and all of that. How do you find that balance? What do you recommend people do as far as actually showing some of the blooper reel instead of just that highlight reel?
Tim Kalinowski [:Well, you know, it comes back to can you laugh at yourself? Right. And so that's probably the litmus test for those things. Like, you want to find that middle ground between where you're taking away from the brand, where you might be opening doors of like, oh, maybe I can't trust that guy. He's, you know, kind of weird or off or it's product isn't good. But you find that middle ground where there's some kind of authentic element in you, where it's like, hey, I want to laugh at myself. This is what happened. And I think that's the test is to find out, like, can you laugh at yourself about something and is it laughable for other people to see? But that, that's probably where I would say, test the water there before you Went because I've seen people go too far the other way and it's like, well, no, don't show me how easy it is to break your product or don't, you know, like, that's too far. But if you want to tell me these stories or you know, little tidbits about something that's funny that you want to poke fun at yourself, that resonates with people.
Sara Lohse [:My. I mean if, if you know me, you know that my kind of whole brand story comes back to a really embarrassing tattoo. So I launched my whole career on talking about something that I did that was probably not the best. What's yours? What is your I shouldn't talk about this, but I'm going to because I have to laugh at myself story?
Tim Kalinowski [:Well, you know what I'm the worst at doing that I'm far too serious of a person. I think sometimes.
Sara Lohse [:Oh, you gotta fix it.
Tim Kalinowski [:Yeah. And that is, that is. I mean now if you ask my family, they probably have a thousand things. I mean, I have a 15 year old daughter that would tell you right now that I'm probably the most embarrassing person in the world.
Sara Lohse [:Naturally.
Tim Kalinowski [:Naturally. The thing that I probably need to laugh at myself more about, and maybe it's evident here is I want to and preach all the time about being a great listener. And unless I put my like conscious, I'm a listener hat on, I talk way too much.
Sara Lohse [:Oh, same.
Tim Kalinowski [:Yeah, like sometimes I'm like, shut up. Why are you doing that? And I could probably make post after post of just me rambling without making any sense.
Sara Lohse [:So basically you could have a podcast by myself?
Tim Kalinowski [:Yeah, for sure.
Sara Lohse [:No, I'm the same way. For me it's my adhd because it's like you say something and then I think of something and if I don't immediately say it, I'll forget it. Like I've done with questions like this entire like episode. So as soon as I get something in my head, I have to be like, okay, no, but listen to what they're saying. Don't just sit there waiting for your turn.
Tim Kalinowski [:Oh yeah, well, I have four monitors up with like little things for me to remember and a scratch pad. So. Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:How do you know where to look?
Tim Kalinowski [:Good question. I'm just trying to make it natural. So hopefully it does. And you don't just fake me out on this right now. But yeah, I've got screens of all kinds of things going on. Plus, you know, my. I've got ever use a remarkable tablet?
Sara Lohse [:I've been wanting one.
Tim Kalinowski [:I really love Mine, I really do love it. They're probably pricier than we really think.
Sara Lohse [:That's why I don't have one.
Tim Kalinowski [:Yeah, it was $700 for. Yeah, I didn't, I bought it and then. Didn't realize you needed the case. The pen, the, you know, starts adding up really quick.
Sara Lohse [:But yeah, I got the Kindle Scribe as like an attempt to almost have a remarkable. And I used it for a week and it is somewhere gathering dust, maybe eaten by my dog. I don't know.
Tim Kalinowski [:I know, I, I know where this is all the time because it just, it's great because I can store so many things and I can organize it for a mine that's not always organized and I can go back and find things.
Sara Lohse [:You know, literally today I was thinking, like, I should go see if the price went down.
Tim Kalinowski [:Yeah, I don't know if it did. I haven't, I haven't looked. But no, I mean, at my, you know, older, more experienced age, remembering things becomes harder.
Sara Lohse [:So I, it's hard for us too, I promise you. But you have four screens and like I said, like, how do you even know where to look? That's actually like a common thing with brands now. It's like, how do you stand out? How do you get people to notice? And you said something that was, what was it? You have to be the one, like the bold brand, the one afraid, like not afraid to be different. Talk about that. What is it that as someone looking at four screens, what could pop up that would actually grab that attention away from the other three?
Tim Kalinowski [:Well, I mean, good content is good content, right? Like, one of my favorite quotes is things done well never go out of style. Oh, yeah. And, and to be honest, if you really, I mean, that holds up no matter what, right? If you look at athletes, you know, Michael Jordan has never gone out of style because what he did is great. And there's no, there's, there's no other way to look at it. Right. So he's still relevant, you know, almost 30 years after winning, you know, back to, back to back championships in Chicago. Right. So it never goes out of style and just being great and focusing on doing things well.
Tim Kalinowski [:And I guess that also goes with understanding what good is, which I think for some people is a little harder, but you can find that and you can learn that in it. Some people have it intrinsically, but it's also very much a learned thing for most people. And so you can figure out what good is and when you see good, it will stick out. Promise you that. But I think, you know, if we're talking about just brands and common brands, sometimes you can do very small things to make very big impacts. And so I can give you a couple examples. One, sometimes we'll use a trick whereby, say you have four competitors and you all have basically the same product, but you'll start to realize that you're all also talking about exactly the same things. So a bold brand is going to be the one that picks some benefit, something to wrap a story around.
Tim Kalinowski [:And even if everybody else has it, if you do it well and you put in the market in a big way, not kind of hide it on one social media post, but put some dollars behind it, get it in front of people, you will basically create doubt in the mind of the customer of the other three brands. Because maybe you're talking about one little thing. Well, now you own that. That's the thing that you own. And nobody else is talking about it. And it takes a bold brand to want to do that. But those types of things that kind of shift and you can always introduce other things. It doesn't mean that you have to only do that.
Tim Kalinowski [:But when you start that and you do it and you do it in a big way and you do it well, you will stand out. And all of a sudden you put this doubt like, well, wait, why are they talking about that? Did the other ones not have that? And then you become that brand. That's just, oh, yeah, I have this. And everybody will talk about that. And that's a. There's just. There's little tricks like that in, in advertising that translate into storytelling and branding that can make a huge difference.
Sara Lohse [:I think chewing gum is like a really good example of that. And because gum is gum, it's just that it's very simple. We all know what it is. There's nobody that's not like on board with gum, but they had to find those things that they could latch onto and like, be like their kind of like their stake. And one of them went with like the dating route, like, you don't want bad breath, you want to stay kissable. The one that I remember the most, which is funny because it's a brand that I never see anymore, and I think they might be Dead is 5 Gum. And their commercials were like, what it. How it feels to chew five gum.
Sara Lohse [:And they almost went like the perfume route of like, how do you advertise a scent? I guess it's just some weird walking through a forest. And there's traips for some reason, like, it's Just the weirdest commercials. But they're. Remember, they're memorable. That's kind of what five did. They just had the strangest experience related to a piece of chewing gum.
Tim Kalinowski [:They've all. I mean, through history. I mean, if you. You won't remember these, but if you go back and look, the Double Mint twins.
Sara Lohse [:I remember those.
Tim Kalinowski [:Okay. You remember those. Okay. I didn't. I didn't remember how long they lasted, but. Right. Double Mint. It's not even that good of a gum because it doesn't like.
Tim Kalinowski [:It's good, but it's not great. But, you know, that lasted for probably 40 years as a campaign.
Sara Lohse [:Was that because they were just attractive? Was that like just a sex sells kind of campaign?
Tim Kalinowski [:Well, I mean, they did it with men and women, so. Yeah, but I. I think it was just fun. It. Yeah, it was catchy and there was a little tune and, you know. But it meant nothing about gum.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, it rarely does. But, no, I think we. We see that a lot as brands will start to really increase in popularity. You kind of said this before with ego and laughing at yourself. The ones that find just that kind of just kitschy hook that makes it like, a little more personalized and a little less like corporate. It kind of just makes it like this company doesn't take themselves too seriously. That's when they really find their audience.
Tim Kalinowski [:Yeah, for sure. I mean, you see it with. I mean, Wendy's is phenomenal at that. You have to follow them on social.
Sara Lohse [:Like, I think my, like, dream job at one point was to be the person that handled Wendy's Twitter.
Tim Kalinowski [:It's so good.
Sara Lohse [:It's so good. So good.
Tim Kalinowski [:And, but, but, you know, they do it in a. They. They flip the story on its head a little bit and have some fun with it and poke fun at other people and they get attention because they're willing to be bold and different.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, No, I love that. Well, we are almost at the 40 minute mark, and Larry is going to kill me if I don't wrap it up. So where can people get in touch with you, find out more about what you do and work with you if they want to?
Tim Kalinowski [:So in the best of storytelling, we chose the name Lore for the business just because everything should be some kind of lore that's existed over time. Right. So.
Sara Lohse [:And it also sounds like a Taylor Swift album. I love it.
Tim Kalinowski [:I. I'm gonna go with that's a compliment, but I never thought of it that way. That is actually kind of unique, and I don't have a thing against Taylor Swift, that she's something that everybody should probably pay very much attention to her 100, you know, you just, you can't deny that. So, but anyway, yes, Lore is the name of the business. Loretold.com is where you can find us. And of course. But, you know, if you look up me on LinkedIn, it's Timothy Kalinowski on LinkedIn. You'll find me and the business and we can go from there.
Sara Lohse [:Awesome. Well, if you guys found some value here and want to continue telling your stories, which I know you do, hit that subscribe button. And thank you so much, Tim, for being here. And we'll talk to you next week.
Tim Kalinowski [:Perfect. Talk soon. Thanks.
