Shownotes
Transcripts
What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.
Sara Lohse [:And I'm Sara Lohse. And this is Branded, your comprehensive guide to creative branding.
Larry Roberts [:And on this episode of the podcast, we are going to be looking at the rise and the fall of someone known as the liver King.
Sara Lohse [:And if you're like me, you have no idea who he is.
Larry Roberts [:Well, you know, it's weird that you don't know. I would, honestly, that you knew who this cat was. If you go over to Instagram, he has about two and a half million followers on IG, so he's definitely making a splash to his demographic now. At the same time, I can kind of dig where you probably wouldn't know who he is.
Sara Lohse [:Not his target audience.
Larry Roberts [:Definitely not his target audience. Yeah. Liver King is. His real name is Brian Johnson, and he built his brand calling him out this government name. We're going all the way back to the birth certificate here, folks, and his.
Sara Lohse [:Social Security number is.
Larry Roberts [:But he built an entire brand on being. Well, lies. Yeah, definitely. But he also built it on being quote unquote, primal. You know, he wanted to get away from modern day living and the comforts that we experience today and go back to our primal ancestral roots. And he did this by mostly eating raw liver.
Sara Lohse [:Even the cavemen had fire. They could cook.
Larry Roberts [:And that's true, you know, but at the same time, he takes it back so far. I mean, he. He ate raw liver. He ate raw bullshit testicles. He ate all sorts of raw meats. And if you look at the cat, he's about five foot nothing. Um, but, like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. I mean, there's muscles on top of muscles on top of abs.
Larry Roberts [:On top of abs. So much so that people accused him of having ab implants because they're so. They protrude so far and they're so defined. I mean, he is just. He's like an anatomy chart that's on steroids. And that's kind of ironic because that's kind of ended up what it was.
Sara Lohse [:It was actually steroids. It makes me, like, you know, Hannah Gadsby, the comedian?
Larry Roberts [:Yes.
Sara Lohse [:She talks about the, like, paleo diet and gets really angry about it because it's like, do you know what the paleo people ate like back then?
Larry Roberts [:I don't.
Sara Lohse [:No, we don't.
Larry Roberts [:Okay.
Sara Lohse [:We weren't there. Why does he assume back in the day they ate raw liver? Like, where does he get that information?
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, I don't know. He came up with this entire brand that surrounded these nine ancestral tenants. And I don't know. All the tenants. I didn't buy into his hype. I definitely was intrigued by his presence, because if you see him, I mean, he's a very distinct looking individual. He doesn't bathe, he doesn't shave. He's got this beard that goes on for days.
Larry Roberts [:And his hair that's, um, less than clean looking. I mean, when you see him in a picture, if you look at his instagram, you can smell his account.
Sara Lohse [:Oh, okay. So how did no bathing muscle, dude.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:Get two and a half million followers?
Larry Roberts [:Well, it's because he built a brand around it is. Is really what it amounts to. He hired a company, and this company is well known. And I'm looking for them right now. They're called one. DS is the name of the company that he hired. And we didn't know this until recently because what ended up happening is that we talked about it was somewhat built on steroids. Well, it turns out that it was 100% built on steroids.
Larry Roberts [:And his brand was 100% completely built on lies. And what ended up happening was some of his emails were leaked. And although he had swore up and down, interview after interview, podcast after podcast, that he was clean, that he was natural, and it was these nine ancestral tenants, and it was this raw liver and raw bull testicles and raw meat and all this other stuff that made him who he is. It was really all steroids. Um, when it came out, he was spending about $11,000 a month to maintain this physique. And that's where it gets a little scary. And that's why we're talking about it here. Uh, on.
Larry Roberts [:On branded is because he literally built his brand on lies. It would. None of it was real. It was all a facade. And it's still even today. Uh, he definitely took a hit when it came to his social media. Uh, and he was exposed and he had to come out and do the traditional. Oh, I'm sorry.
Larry Roberts [:I didn't mean to lie to you. Remember, he had to come back and try to build things back up. And he still got a following. But the bottom line is, is that the following, uh, was built on a facade.
Sara Lohse [:We need to stop making stupid people famous.
Larry Roberts [:Well, and I love that meme as well, because we have definitely came, uh, we've definitely arrived at that point in time where we make a lot of quote unquote stupid people famous. Yeah, because why? Because they build an insane brand. The. The. All these people, whether it's, you know, and I'm not the biggest. I'm not even the slightest, honestly, Jake Paul fan, but he's built an amazing brand. Definitely not a liver king fan, but he built an amazing brand. Not really a Joe Rogan, but he built an amazing brand.
Larry Roberts [:And that's where these. These quote unquote stupid people that we're elevating are able to set themselves apart because they build an insane brand.
Sara Lohse [:See, the thing that, like, does. I don't get with this is. I mean, you and I, we know personal branding. Live and breathe, eat, sleep. Personal branding and personal brands have to be built on authenticity. So when it came out that all of it was complete B's, how did he not lose his brand? How is he still getting all of these followers, all of this attention?
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, it's interesting because honestly, it's super simple. He just kept showing up. He stopped. Can he stop? Why would he stop? Why would he stop, dude. Well, I can appreciate that, but it is. He's. He's still making money hand over fist. The brand is still producing because the company that he hired and his dedication to that brand built something so deep, so strong that it doesn't matter.
Larry Roberts [:It's. It's almost. It's almost like he's a little bulletproof because his brand is so strong. Even today, before we hit record, I went to Instagram, I looked. Still sitting at 2.5 million followers, even after being 100% completely exposed.
Sara Lohse [:It's insane. So now the company that built him. Yeah, they were working on the success model from the book is what. Made to stick.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, yeah. There's a book made to stick and there is a success. It's an acronym success model. And I think it's what it's missing. An s, actually.
Sara Lohse [:Yes. It's succes.
Larry Roberts [:The two s's there. We only have one. So that should tell you right in and of itself that we're already short cutting things. We can't even come up with a real word, but just come up with.
Sara Lohse [:Another s. Just come up with one.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, just one more. Just. Just please. But this just goes to show.
Sara Lohse [:No, you know what?
Larry Roberts [:What?
Sara Lohse [:The final s is secrets. Because it was all secrets and lies.
Larry Roberts [:All secrets and lies.
Sara Lohse [:Or snake oil.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, I like that. Snake oil. Gotta throw just a drop or two of snake oil.
Sara Lohse [:Yes.
Larry Roberts [:In with a little eye of newt and a toa.
Sara Lohse [:Frog.
Larry Roberts [:Frog.
Sara Lohse [:Double, double toil and trouble.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, you gotta have a little bit of. Little bit of sauce in there.
Sara Lohse [:Something we get this way comes. But, yeah, the actual success model. So it's the six principles of what makes an idea sticky or what makes a brand sticky. And it's simple, unexpected, concrete, credible. That's ironic.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:Emotional and built on stories.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And this does make sense to me because, I mean, in my book, I talk about what makes a story compelling. And a lot of this lines up. It has to be unexpected, it has to be emotional, it has to be simple. Not have too many details. So this does make sense. This tracks. But something went wrong.
Larry Roberts [:Well, and go through the. Go through the acronym again.
Sara Lohse [:Simple. So it has to be simplicity.
Larry Roberts [:It was super simple. If we look at the liberty, we go, how simple was it? It was so simple that he took it back to a caveman approach. That's literally what he was doing. He went back to his ancestral tenants, back to the caveman days. Made it super, super simple, because if you look at him, he's definitely a physical specimen. He's definitely a. We'll call him a health influencer, even though he's far from healthy. So you look at him, and again, he's jacked his bam bam bam muscles on top of muscles.
Larry Roberts [:So took it back. Super simple. Said that if you eat raw liver and you eat raw bull testicles, you'll look like me.
Sara Lohse [:I think the simple part is also, like, twofold, too, because not only, like, was his lifestyle supposedly simple, but his message was simple. Like, he was only promoting this whole idea of, like, he is a fitness health person. He didn't have multiple levels. Like, looking at the made to stick success model. It was. The Heath brothers came up with it. And one of the examples they give is, like, southwest is the low fare airline. So they focus on the idea of, like, low fare and transparency.
Sara Lohse [:So that's simple. They're not layering in all of these other things. So, because he just focused on the physical piece of it, that kept it simple. And, I mean, this was the simple isn't anything new. It's a. It's the kiss principle. Keep it simple. Stupid.
Larry Roberts [:We've all heard it more than once. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So keep it straightforward. Keep it simple. And he succeeded in that 100%. What was the. What's the u?
Sara Lohse [:Unexpected. So to get attention, violate a schema. So schemas are like this. Mind maps we have in our brain, like, what we expect to happen, what has been put into our brain, that this is going to happen. So when you go against that, it has that shock factor.
Larry Roberts [:So I guess that's what he did more than anything.
Sara Lohse [:I mean, yeah.
Larry Roberts [:You go to his Instagram right now and you look at liver King, uh, you'll find a picture right there on the front page of him holding a massive raw beef liver. I don't want to see that in the next picture. He's eating that beef liver. Super unexpected. I mean, I don't. I. As a kid growing up, I I I cried on liver and onion nights. I mean, literally, because I hate liver that much.
Larry Roberts [:That as soon as I smelt that liver and onions, uh, grilling in the.
Sara Lohse [:I was never made to eat that.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, my God. I was, and it was.
Sara Lohse [:I don't think anyone in my house.
Larry Roberts [:Would have eaten that was the worst. So I can't even fathom eating raw liver. But that's where it's unexpected. He's sitting there holding a liver in his hand, and he's eating it raw, straight from, uh, the critter. So, uh, very unexpected.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. Across the part of the unexpected piece, it's basically clickbaiting.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:It's. You're just setting it up to sound unexpected, even if the. Whatever you're saying isn't that unexpected. You set it up so that it sounds like it. The way that you just word it, you make it sound like this is going to be a plot twist. And that's why things like clickbait are so successful. We're finally starting to realize this is clickbait. We don't need to actually click it, but for the longest time, that's what it was.
Sara Lohse [:And with him, it's kind of the same thing. His entire brand was clickbait. It's. I only eat raw liver. Like, okay, how does that work? Like, how does this all come together? How do you look like that?
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, yeah. 100%. And I love that there's a meme out there of Tom Hardy from Mad Max, where he looks up and he points up, and you're starting to see, like, on social media, where people will take that meme, and he's saying, that's bait. And that meme is being used to point back to clickbait titles or clickbait posts, and this is just clickbait. This is nonsense. So. But, yeah, he built an entire brand on unexpected clickbait.
Sara Lohse [:So then the next c is concrete. So the way that they say it, I was thinking that concrete had to just be, this is set in reality. It's not figurative. It's just. This is a thing. But what they actually say is that to be concrete, use sensory language. So you're painting a mental picture. So instead of just being concrete, as in, it's just, like, set in a fact.
Sara Lohse [:It's. You have to be able to picture it so that it feels real and feels tangible.
Larry Roberts [:Well, and that's where he took it to the next level. Because if you look at liver King, he looks very ancestral. He looks very like a. He looks like a wild man with, again, the long hair that's. That's knotted up and the long, bushy beard. And again, dude is just chiseled straight out of granite. And again, so much so that they. That people accused him of having ab implants because his abs are so big and they protrude so far that they look fake.
Larry Roberts [:And so far, I haven't heard whether or not they are fake. They potentially wouldn't be surprised. Oh, no, not at all. Not at all.
Sara Lohse [:But else is fake.
Larry Roberts [:But when you look at him, you're like, wow. He is concrete proof that if you eat this raw liver and you eat this bowl of bull testicles and you live these nine ancestral tenants, and you follow his brand, you're gonna look like that, too. So he looked very, very concrete. He backed up.
Sara Lohse [:He looked like he was made out of concrete, 100%. There's fit and there's muscle and stuff, but then there's just. You look like a carnival freak show. Yes, he looks like a carnival freak show.
Larry Roberts [:He nailed option b there.
Sara Lohse [:So what's that other c, credible? This is the ironic one. Ideas can get credibility from outside or from within using human scale statistics or vivid detail. So he used the vivid detail, for sure.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. I mean, you could see him. He. The dude doesn't own a shirt, okay? He doesn't just show up on, like, podcasts or tv shows or. Or events. He does not own a shirt. I don't know that I've ever seen him in a shirt. Except prior to you.
Larry Roberts [:If you. If you dig a little deep, you can find pictures of him before he was deliver king and he owned a shirt.
Sara Lohse [:He was the liver prince.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, there you go. But. But today, I don't. I don't think dude even owns a shirt. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna be honest. If I looked like he looked, probably wouldn't own a shirt either. There's just no need to look like he looks.
Larry Roberts [:I wouldn't either. He's a little extreme, even for a lair. But I can appreciate, like, I may.
Sara Lohse [:Still look like my before photo, but that is. I don't want to get that far after.
Larry Roberts [:Well, and that's the thing, too, is that, you know, he went on all these shows, he went on tv shows, he went on podcasts, and he swore up and down that he achieved this look, by following his nine ancestral tenants and by living out his brand and, well, that just wasn't quite the case. But he went out of his way to build up as much credibility as possible and to get everybody, all of his primals, which is what he called his community. Anybody in his community is called a primal. So he got all of his primals on board by constantly reinforcing the fact that he was credible, by constantly reinforcing the fact that he was legitimate, that he was clean, and that he was doing this by eating the diet that he proposed and exercising the way that he exercised.
Sara Lohse [:Nonsense. So then the e is emotional. So you have to play to the emotions. And people care about people, not numbers. So it's not about the statistics. It's not about the actual science behind. If you eat liver, you're going to look like a Lego. It is just a Lego.
Larry Roberts [:I can see that.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. So with this one, he kind of preyed on just society's beauty standards and how everyone is self conscious now and everyone wants to look like something else. Nobody is happy about what they look like. So he became the extreme and. But he even made himself an extreme that is not attainable.
Larry Roberts [:No, no, not, not legitimately. I mean, who had $11,000 a month to spend on growth hormone and deca and test and trend and all these other amazing steroids that'll make you look like this?
Sara Lohse [:It's amazing steroids.
Larry Roberts [:But he definitely played on everybody's emotions. I mean, even if we take it back, man, I remember as a kid, even in the early eighties reading a comic book, and in the back of the comic book there were ads where this big strong dude was kicking sand in the face of a little scrawny dude. And if you ordered this workout plan, then you could be picking strong too. And, you know, being a little skinny kid, when I was growing up, I was like, oh, bye. That relates to me. That moved me emotionally because I didn't want that big muscular dude kicking sand in my face if I happened to go to the beach. And it's the same thing, man. It's playing on the emotions of the people that he labeled as primals, you know, it's playing on the emotions of the people that want to look like him.
Larry Roberts [:They want to be like him, that want to be muscular, that want to be strong, that want all that attention, that want the 2.5 million followers on Instagram. That's exactly what he and the company that he worked with did. Yeah, played on the emotions of the people that followed him.
Sara Lohse [:And this isn't even close to, like, a new concept. This is how we got an entire generation hooked on cigarettes. This is how they sell alcohol. It's the whole concept of sex sells.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And just using someone pretty, it's. Honestly, it's the whole concept of all Instagram influencers. This person is so pretty. This person is so cool. I'm gonna buy their sunglasses, because then I'll be cool.
Larry Roberts [:Right? I mean, that's why you're on this podcast, is because you're so beautiful, and I can't bring listeners, so I gotta have somebody like you to be on the podcast with me. So the people who listen to the show.
Sara Lohse [:Oh, I love ego boosts in the morning.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, right. For sure.
Sara Lohse [:But no, really, it's. I mean, it's goes back to, like, the Marlboro man, and he was used. Why are you laughing?
Larry Roberts [:Well, we both know why I'm laughing.
Sara Lohse [:Oh, yeah. Cause he's my mom's ex boyfriend. Yeah. He's always. He's always the example that I think of because he. All he was was pretty, and he got an entire generation hooked on tobacco.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And yes, he dated my mom in the seventies, and then, yes, he later died of respiratory failure.
Larry Roberts [:COpd or something like that, was it?
Sara Lohse [:Hmm.
Larry Roberts [:COPD or something like that.
Sara Lohse [:Something like that. He died. I think he died in, like, 2014. I told my mom that. She didn't even know.
Larry Roberts [:It's kind of a lasting impression.
Sara Lohse [:It was. It was a long time ago, as.
Larry Roberts [:A minute or two ago, but that really is.
Sara Lohse [:It's the. Basically the number one principle of how people sell things in modern advertising. It's all just goes down to sex else.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And it worked for him.
Larry Roberts [:He's a sexy beast.
Sara Lohse [:I don't think so.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, probably not. Probably not a beast.
Sara Lohse [:Yes.
Larry Roberts [:Nailed it with beast, for sure.
Sara Lohse [:All right, so more beasts than beauty.
Larry Roberts [:What's that one? Singular?
Sara Lohse [:S final is stories. And this. This one. This one. I stand behind you. You have to tell stories.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And the way that they say it is, stories drive attention through simulation, which is what to do, and inspiration, which is the motivation to do it. And I. I agree with this, but I think it goes past that. It's not just telling you what to do and how, but it's the. It's the connection that it drives, because relate, right. Yes. You need to be able to relate to it. And stories are what form connections between people.
Sara Lohse [:Our brains are wired to connect to stories.
Larry Roberts [:Well. And that's where he was so successful, was that he told stories that allowed people to relate back to him, because if you think about it, it's extremely difficult to relate to somebody that looks like he looks. Because he looks superhuman. It's difficult to relate to someone that eats raw organs. It's not something that I could even fathom doing. But at the same time, I was always intrigued by him because of the fact that he was building such an insane brand on these principles, and it really blew me away. But he had great stories to go along with it. He tied his community back to being primals.
Larry Roberts [:He tied his entire approach back to. Through stories, back to our ancestors, back to the cavemen, back to how they lived life and got away from technology and embraced nature and embraced meat and rawness and just being primal again. So he had all these stories to tie all of that together that brought people to him and obviously captured their attention and obviously sold them on his brand.
Sara Lohse [:So that's really interesting, because you actually answered a question I was about to ask, which, when we tell stories, the idea is to bring out these shared experiences, because shared experiences are how we connect. If we know that this person has been through something we've been through, they can understand us. We feel that connection, but there's really nothing about him that is shared experiences. I've never eaten raw liver. I don't look like you can play the xylophone on my abs. There's nothing that relates. So what he had to do was find a common thread. And because he was so ridiculous, his common thread had to go back thousands of years.
Sara Lohse [:Because one of the basic things that everyone has in common is that we did come from, like, the cavemen and like, the Neanderthals and all of that. Like, that is our common thread.
Larry Roberts [:Neanderthals.
Sara Lohse [:Neanderthals.
Larry Roberts [:Neanderthal what?
Sara Lohse [:Neanderthals.
Larry Roberts [:Neanderthals.
Sara Lohse [:Yes. That's how you pronounce it. No, the h is silent. It's neanderthals. Oh, I took a, like, a archaeology paleontology class. I promise it's true. I knew you're gonna comment on it, though.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:Yes. But that was how far back he had to go to find that common factor, because everything else in the present for him was B's.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:That's so interesting.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, man, he's. He's an interesting cat, for sure. And it's been interesting since he's been exposed, how he still tried to tie these stories in and bring it all together to recover from his exposure, you know, and still maintain that brand. And I think it's just. It's a testament to show that if you've got a strong brand, well, a, look, the lesson here isn't B's people and build a brand on B's. The lesson here is be honest and build your brand based on the success principle, but with. With truth involved. But at the same time, I think it's an excellent demonstration of even if you take his route and build your house on the sand of lies, that with a strong story and a strong brand, you still have a bit of an opportunity to recover.
Larry Roberts [:I mean, he's struggling. He doesn't have quite the following that.
Sara Lohse [:He had, but, yeah, only 2.5 million.
Larry Roberts [:Two and a half million on Instagram right now. That's only Instagram. I did. I didn't do the homework to find out where he's at on every platform. Still doing two and a half million over there. It's insane.
Sara Lohse [:I'll never understand. But I mean, even, like, when talking about the different things that go into personal branding, one of them is a no. Like trust factor.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And you need to get people, let them get to know you and get them to like you and then get them to trust you. So they felt like they know him, they felt like they liked him and then they felt like they trusted him. He lost that trust and I guess the like was so strong that he was able to get past the loss of the trust.
Larry Roberts [:Yep. No, 100% when you look at him. I mean, there is such a huge percentage of males out there that would kill to look like this cat. They think that if they look like this cat, it's going to solve all their problems. They're going to date all the hottest chicks, they're going to make a ton of money. They're going to drive the kindest cars. He personifies in the way he looks. What so many young men look at and think is going to provide them with everything that they want in their lives.
Larry Roberts [:And because of that, he's able to overcome a lot of that trust, or lack of trust factor.
Sara Lohse [:That's insane. Guys, for the record, Shrek made a whole lot more money than magic Mike.
Larry Roberts [:I love that. That's amazing. Yeah. That's an amazing.
Sara Lohse [:It is true.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:You don't have to look like that. Be decent, save us from the dragon, whatever it takes. But you don't need that.
Larry Roberts [:That's so funny.
Sara Lohse [:Have a cute little donkey sidekick because.
Larry Roberts [:I'd still pick magic Mike over Shrek if I was. If I had a genie. He goes, all right, Larry, one wish you could be Shrek or you can be magic Mike. I'm going magic Mike. I'll tell you that right now. But anyways, hopefully.
Sara Lohse [:For the record, guys, this was what not to do. This is what not to do. This is not a, we're not telling you to be kidney King or next.
Larry Roberts [:Week, don't, yeah, don't go eating raw liver, raw testicles or kidneys or anything. Just build a brand on authenticity. Tell stories, work the success formula and you'll find success in your brand as well. So with that, if you found some value in this episode, do us a favor, hit that subscribe button so we can bring you more amazing stories of liver King and beyond on future episodes. So I'm Larry Roberts.
Sara Lohse [:I'm Sara Lohse. We'll talk to you next week.
