About this Episode:
In this episode, Joseph is joined by our special guest Brennan White, he is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cortex (Techstars Boston 2020). Through Cortex he continues the mission of helping improve consumers’ lives and helping companies use data to improve their creative processes.
Brennan discusses how branding content has changed over the past decade, specifically through the need for an exponentially increasing quantity of content, for every new avenue of technology and social media that is created.
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Connect with our host Joseph Franklyn McElroy:
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SHOW NOTES:
SEGMENT 1
Joseph explains the new resources that Google is offering now to help with video SEO, the topic of today’s episode. Within the resources, Google explains the four things that they take into account when ranking videos through SEO, with a new focus on structural data, and the metadata behind a piece of video content. Joseph introduces the guest of today’s episode, Brennan White, the CEO and Co-Founder of Cortex. Brennan explains his journey to where he is today at Cortex, about how he is a creative person, how he originally was a music composition major, and how he then started working at tech startups, where he realized that most people didn’t realize how to probably make use of social media for digital marketing. He realized that he could have created better content for a lower price than his superiors at the tech startups, so he did and went on to start his own business. The two discuss Brennan’s pivot to making use of AI in creating content, as a way to create a higher quantity of high-quality content. The cortex makes use of machine learning to get a better understanding of what one’s audience wants, including niche creative details.
SEGMENT 2
Joseph and Brannen discuss how branding content has changed over the past decade, specifically through the need for an exponentially increasing quantity of content, for every new avenue of technology and social media that is created. Brannen discusses how several brands have made use of online and online video content, and gained an entire audience that other larger brands were not reaching, allowing them to thrive and succeed compared to other more well-known large brands. Brennan explains how many companies in the present day are trying to succeed in the branding environment of the new day, and how many new brands are thriving where older brands are struggling to make the leap to digital marketing and branding. The two discuss what sets the brands that are succeeding with their online branding from the rest of the brands who are not quite as successful. Brennan specifically discusses how these successful brands respect their audience and have a good grasp on what their audience wants and what they want to see. Joseph and Brennan discuss AB testing, and how it is still an industry standard, even though it is not the most efficient strategy in online branding.
SEGMENT 3
The two discuss the process of creating visual content, and how if after one already invests in visual content without having data on what one’s audience wants, all the time, money and effort went into creating that visual content has gone to waste. This visual data, the kind that Cortex specializes in, is vital when deciding what kind of visual content your company wants to invest in for branding. Joseph and Brannen also discuss how many people are now treating visual content through the same perspective of AB testing, which like AB testing disrespects the audience, as it bombs the consumer with a large amount of repetitive content. Brennan brings up the importance of personalizing content based on what one learns that the audience already wants, not what they want after viewing a multitude of versions of the same content. The two also discuss what kinds of content are found to be the most successful among audiences, and Brennan discusses how this is affected by how easily it is to change aspects of certain types of content. The two also discuss how cookies are being phased out, and what this says for the future of digital marketing and branding.
SEGMENT 4
Joseph and Brennan discuss how in 2020 Cortex sponsored a study in ROI, which provided unexpected takeaways. One of these takeaways is that 76% of CMOS are already using or planning to use AI in marketing for their business, with an average of eleven separate projects related to AI being implemented. The two also discuss a speech Brennan had made on how SEO and content creation teams should work together to make the content, as visual content and SEO are sisters to each other and go hand in hand. Brennan discusses Cortex, its current state, and its future ventures.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:31.050 –> 00:00:40.980 Joseph McElroy: Hello thanks for joining us on this week’s episode of wise content creates well you’ve heard that content is king will wise content rules, the world.
00:00:41.610 –> 00:00:50.400 Joseph McElroy: This podcast is about understanding how you can make and utilize wise content prove to improve your financial success and your company’s bottom line.
00:00:51.030 –> 00:01:00.810 Joseph McElroy: I am Joseph Franklin McElroy and i’m a marketing technology expert who has built a multimillion dollar business and i’m also an award winning content producer.
00:01:01.560 –> 00:01:08.370 Joseph McElroy: My company is Galileo tech media a leader in providing wise content and smart seo.
00:01:08.970 –> 00:01:21.330 Joseph McElroy: Our wise content is content that incorporates semantic science behavioral science Ai and data to make content that converts better and gets better rankings.
00:01:22.290 –> 00:01:33.600 Joseph McElroy: So today we’re going to dive a bit into video and content analytics So the first thing i’m going to point out is that Google just offered up some new resources.
00:01:34.230 –> 00:01:48.750 Joseph McElroy: for doing video seo So if you head over to google’s search central blog which is developers.google.com slash search and slash blog you’re going to find an article on new resources for video seo.
00:01:49.380 –> 00:01:57.810 Joseph McElroy: And it first, and so the resources are essentially information and and there’s some very insightful information at one point.
00:01:58.320 –> 00:02:07.470 Joseph McElroy: So there’s a new video and lightning talk on the topic of video seo best practices by Daniel marsha there’s the product manager at Google.
00:02:07.860 –> 00:02:14.040 Joseph McElroy: And then second there’s an updated help section on video best seo best practices.
00:02:14.520 –> 00:02:22.440 Joseph McElroy: Now what they did what Google gave gave us in this information is, what are the signals they actually use to understand and ring video.
00:02:23.010 –> 00:02:34.050 Joseph McElroy: So and there’s four there’s four areas essentially there’s on page text such as page titles headings and captions near the video, which is fairly standard practice.
00:02:34.620 –> 00:02:39.840 Joseph McElroy: there’s referral links which are the signals from other sites linking to the video.
00:02:40.290 –> 00:02:56.100 Joseph McElroy: there’s the video files themselves, they they actually now really scan those files and understand the audio and visual content and, most importantly, they now are really looking at the structured data, the markup that communicates video metadata to Google to Google.
00:02:57.180 –> 00:03:14.910 Joseph McElroy: And there’s a video Meta tag now I forget the exact definition of it, but you can go to that site I referenced to find it but it’s pretty important now unstructured data is become more and more important in understanding what is the signals that.
00:03:15.960 –> 00:03:24.870 Joseph McElroy: Google uses and as we discovered in a previous podcast they call the metadata as decorations for the search results.
00:03:25.380 –> 00:03:35.640 Joseph McElroy: So they you know decorating is like putting up the five stars are putting up extra questions and things like that, so they understand the context you reference from the data, but then they also use use it to decorate.
00:03:36.750 –> 00:03:44.010 Joseph McElroy: The results so that it’s more informative to the user, so that being said, let’s now move on to our guest.
00:03:45.330 –> 00:03:57.720 Joseph McElroy: Brendan white is a serial entrepreneur and the leader in the Ai for marketing space Brendan founded cortex the first Ai for creativity, how are you doing brennan.
00:03:58.860 –> 00:04:00.660 Brennan White: can complain Thank you so much for having me.
00:04:00.930 –> 00:04:03.420 Joseph McElroy: yeah sure thing so Brendan you told me that.
00:04:04.410 –> 00:04:16.650 Joseph McElroy: Since founding core cortex you have been focused on spreading the word about the benefits of Ai to creatives and marketers and empowering them to get ahead of the technology curve and taking back their data.
00:04:17.340 –> 00:04:23.850 Joseph McElroy: What was your before that, before you got on that mission What was your journey before founding cortex.
00:04:24.780 –> 00:04:43.380 Brennan White: yeah i’ll go into that background, I was a creative person in my undergrad in my studies, I actually a music composition major at vassar college in poughkeepsie New York and so went immediately after college directly into tech startups as a sales and marketing guy.
00:04:44.670 –> 00:04:58.740 Brennan White: And from there saw my CMO at one of the startups I work for try to use YouTube for marketing he spent $100,000 great one YouTube video, which was a nine minute song about excel spreadsheets.
00:05:00.720 –> 00:05:02.280 Brennan White: Not i’m not even joking you this is.
00:05:03.300 –> 00:05:09.150 Brennan White: True, in fact I haven’t looked for a while, but i’m sure it still exists right Internet never forgets right so.
00:05:09.840 –> 00:05:21.060 Brennan White: So, as the resident 23 year old you know they didn’t ask me but, as the only one who actually used YouTube at the time, because I was like the right demographic I was just sitting there and shaking my head saying what the know.
00:05:23.610 –> 00:05:31.980 Brennan White: And so I founded a said, you know I can be a consultant on this like they spent more on that one video that i’m going to make this whole year as a sales guy so.
00:05:32.400 –> 00:05:39.030 Brennan White: um so I hung my shingle out there with a Co founder, a friend of mine from childhood we actually found it would end up being.
00:05:39.480 –> 00:05:55.020 Brennan White: One of the first social media agencies in the United States kind of before Facebook even had business pages before Twitter was even launched and it ended up working out really well, and so we were there for many, many years is actually still running it was.
00:05:56.250 –> 00:05:57.390 Joseph McElroy: A pandemic labs.
00:05:57.420 –> 00:06:01.500 Joseph McElroy: pandemic loud sort of sort of ironic turtle title right now but.
00:06:02.130 –> 00:06:03.150 Brennan White: The timing yeah.
00:06:04.260 –> 00:06:06.600 Brennan White: that’s a there’s a whole story there about the name.
00:06:07.620 –> 00:06:13.200 Brennan White: But yeah it’s a funny time for the having that name but yeah basically the long story collapsing 15 years.
00:06:14.010 –> 00:06:14.730 Brennan White: 30 seconds.
00:06:14.970 –> 00:06:16.770 Brennan White: We saw the same problems.
00:06:17.910 –> 00:06:23.340 Brennan White: We sold mostly to the world’s largest brands like Marriott and post, it notes and three on three.
00:06:24.510 –> 00:06:32.430 Brennan White: Direct TV dunkin donuts and big brands that we all know that we help them figure out how to navigate content in this new content world.
00:06:32.880 –> 00:06:39.450 Brennan White: As things were changing so rapidly and they all have this exact same problem and I first thought you know we kind of went to our vendors.
00:06:39.780 –> 00:06:48.780 Brennan White: Are tech vendors that we were using were like which one of us working on this, and none of them work and so that it was either you know don’t have the problem solved or do it yourself and so.
00:06:49.680 –> 00:06:57.450 Brennan White: We went that route, and my co founder matt and I both moved to cortex raise some funding i’ve got a tech team involved got data scientists involved and.
00:06:58.170 –> 00:07:00.120 Joseph McElroy: So you when you when you when you launched.
00:07:00.180 –> 00:07:12.780 Joseph McElroy: I saw I saw a press release from 2015 you launched and you called it a cortex and an artificial intelligence program for social media marketing that helps brands increase their return on investment in social.
00:07:13.170 –> 00:07:24.690 Joseph McElroy: But now you’re focused I think what your focus is what you say, it is a an Ai analyst for images and videos is that different than when you started in or more precise, or what was the evolution there.
00:07:24.990 –> 00:07:32.190 Brennan White: hundred percent yeah the customers, we do the social angle very well because that’s what we’ve been doing for 10 years prior.
00:07:33.450 –> 00:07:38.370 Brennan White: And so to us what seemed like a social media problem.
00:07:39.390 –> 00:07:45.480 Brennan White: Very quickly, when, as we started selling the customers they started using the product they started using the data and the insights.
00:07:45.840 –> 00:07:54.330 Brennan White: For all of their creative decisions that involve visuals and so you know, of course, we can kind of Perk your ears up we asked them, you know how are you using that, for your.
00:07:54.630 –> 00:08:03.210 Brennan White: In store ads you know what are you trying to achieve, and it was the same problem, the same problem that everyone was having in social, which we can go into detail, but it kind of summarizes.
00:08:03.750 –> 00:08:09.690 Brennan White: We went from creating you know hundreds of pieces of content year in a content group had a brand.
00:08:10.110 –> 00:08:23.610 Brennan White: To to 10s of thousands over a very short period of time right so so every brand had to all of a sudden, become a giant content engine and they didn’t really have a way to do that, and so they were all suffering for the same exact problems that come along with that.
00:08:24.810 –> 00:08:37.800 Brennan White: And so you know, realizing that that wasn’t unique to social and that using the insights that we were providing to to help make better content and social they wanted to use those insights everywhere.
00:08:38.400 –> 00:08:43.920 Brennan White: Not even on just the limited their advertising, but even beyond and product and packaging and everywhere and so.
00:08:44.310 –> 00:08:52.020 Brennan White: cortex real and we realized very quickly that the opportunity wasn’t social the opportunity was anything visual, but when you when your audience is going to see something.
00:08:52.740 –> 00:08:57.900 Brennan White: and their impact and reaction to seeing that is going to impact your business.
00:08:58.410 –> 00:09:09.240 Brennan White: You want to be able to de risk and optimize that and so very quickly realized Okay, the same tech, you know it’s the same tech we added a lot of data, once you realize that, but it was the same exact technology just applied to a different data set.
00:09:10.080 –> 00:09:21.720 Brennan White: and wider data set and so yeah we could have entered through the social door, but very quickly our customers were made it very clear that it was a there’s a much bigger problem than that and we had just initially we’re kind of seeing through the keyhole just a little piece of it.
00:09:22.020 –> 00:09:25.950 Joseph McElroy: Now, do you still do the social or is it mostly just now image and video yeah.
00:09:26.400 –> 00:09:33.360 Brennan White: yeah I know that the way cortex works is it uses machine learning to understand what your audience wants.
00:09:33.540 –> 00:09:49.890 Brennan White: In terms of visuals right before you’ve created any content, so you know, like before a B testing where even to exist or even an idea your team is committed or come up with a concept right it tells you what your audience wants down to the nitty gritty visual creative details right.
00:09:50.220 –> 00:09:52.800 Joseph McElroy: So I love that little story, you told me that.
00:09:53.910 –> 00:10:03.450 Joseph McElroy: Sometimes you create a video or an image and then the CFO comes in and says, well, I don’t like that blue sweater and you can’t answer it, you can actually answer that right.
00:10:04.200 –> 00:10:11.520 Brennan White: Oh yeah yeah no every creative I don’t know you know what kind of people are listening, but every creative person, regardless of what they do, whether.
00:10:11.940 –> 00:10:15.150 Brennan White: You know, I was music before right advertising any anything.
00:10:15.690 –> 00:10:24.660 Brennan White: they’ve had that experience, where they’ve studied stuff they’ve worked their whole career on something they put a lot of work into a campaign or a project or a work of art or whatever they do.
00:10:25.320 –> 00:10:32.160 Brennan White: And then, at the 11th hour the boss some other person in in the influence circle.
00:10:32.580 –> 00:10:42.000 Brennan White: comes and expresses an opinion you know, we should change this to blue, as you said, or we should you know refilled this, but with a different family and or whatever the thing is.
00:10:42.570 –> 00:10:51.540 Brennan White: And as a creative that’s an extremely frustrating experience, because the way we have traditionally treated creativity and therefore kind of.
00:10:51.960 –> 00:11:01.380 Brennan White: Creative things in general, even when they’re in business is that they’re entirely subjective, so what that means is anybody with an opinion that i’ve ranks you your boss.
00:11:01.800 –> 00:11:09.750 Brennan White: Perhaps your wife, you know something in your life that outranks you, you have to traditionally kind of give in to that opinion and.
00:11:10.410 –> 00:11:18.510 Brennan White: And so, regardless of how much work, regardless of your qualifications versus there’s even if it’s someone not in the marketing discipline right they can come in and express an opinion.
00:11:18.900 –> 00:11:28.290 Brennan White: And derail your efforts right and everyone hates that, and the reason that is simply because there’s no are traditionally there has been no rigor and data.
00:11:29.010 –> 00:11:44.520 Brennan White: to validate your choices right you can’t say I did this because you said, well, I had a good idea, and then I worked on it for a while and who cares right they’re like well great change it change it anyway, and so that’s one of the things that cortex sauce.
00:11:44.730 –> 00:11:54.930 Joseph McElroy: Great when we come back, I want to talk a little bit about your experience with content over the years and how its evolved and what can set that brands apart cool.
00:11:56.010 –> 00:11:57.840 Brennan White: The budget to talk radio.
00:14:51.960 –> 00:14:58.860 Joseph McElroy: Hello is Joseph Franklin McElroy back with the wise content creates well podcasts and my guest red and white.
00:14:59.430 –> 00:15:03.120 Joseph McElroy: So Brendan revenue for the break you were you were talking about various things in the.
00:15:03.750 –> 00:15:09.990 Joseph McElroy: Content space and you mentioned, you know how all of a sudden, you went from the hundreds of thousands and 10s of thousands of content.
00:15:10.440 –> 00:15:19.590 Joseph McElroy: yeah so you’ve been around this content, creating informing content for brands for a while and seeing some changes, how does a house brand content changed since you started.
00:15:21.060 –> 00:15:24.150 Brennan White: Oh dramatically in the past 10 or 15 years we.
00:15:25.200 –> 00:15:34.170 Brennan White: You asked him anyone who’s been at a brand for a while they went from creating dozens, or you know a few hundred pieces of content, a year but TV and.
00:15:34.680 –> 00:15:43.740 Brennan White: and emails and things like that to to literally 10s of thousands, right now, we have everyone’s got a phone in their hand everyone’s consuming more content than ever.
00:15:44.730 –> 00:16:00.930 Brennan White: there’s been an arms race and everyone at a brand is creating content for all of those new channels, plus all the old ones right, so the content has become you know 100 X more numerous, so the workload for these people dramatically exploded in a very short time.
00:16:02.040 –> 00:16:09.330 Brennan White: And the type of contents dramatically changed towards the instant engagement, you know thumb stopping will call it, you know you’re scrolling.
00:16:09.750 –> 00:16:17.370 Brennan White: you’re kind of not paying attention what gets you to just you know grabs your attention and kind of activate your brain, so the contents change dramatically.
00:16:17.850 –> 00:16:23.340 Joseph McElroy: hmm but that you know I think the thing I always wonder, you know is.
00:16:24.420 –> 00:16:39.930 Joseph McElroy: You know, all these new content channels do our brands actually doing every one of them are they are do they do, they do, they use your analytics to discover which ones, they should be on and which ones they don’t know how do they know which which which which channels to just like ignore.
00:16:41.220 –> 00:16:52.050 Brennan White: Well yeah they do use analytics like cortex to kind of prioritize, however, they are on almost all of them and the way they view it as kind of like a castle right before you had a castle.
00:16:52.620 –> 00:17:01.980 Brennan White: And you know let’s say you’re a market leader in your space your Castle, with five gates to guard right if somebody better TV ads on you.
00:17:02.310 –> 00:17:07.440 Brennan White: They were storming that that gate so you had to also put resources to guard that game.
00:17:07.710 –> 00:17:15.360 Brennan White: same with Radio same with the other content gates now there’s 25 gates right in there, adding more every year at now tick tock matters and every brand cares about that.
00:17:15.630 –> 00:17:27.090 Brennan White: And they haven’t stopped hearing about snapchat and instagram and Facebook and all the all the other ones, so the problem is there’s if you’re the guy or the Gala the brand that owns a space.
00:17:27.780 –> 00:17:37.230 Brennan White: Every new angle is a way for you to be disrupted right, and so they have to play there, like the famous story that they all are afraid of is you’re familiar with.
00:17:39.300 –> 00:17:41.790 Brennan White: I forgot the name of the brand the dollar shave club.
00:17:42.060 –> 00:17:43.260 Joseph McElroy: yeah right.
00:17:43.500 –> 00:17:43.800 They didn’t.
00:17:46.050 –> 00:17:47.220 Brennan White: They didn’t invent razors.
00:17:47.340 –> 00:17:47.850 Brennan White: They didn’t.
00:17:47.910 –> 00:17:51.060 Brennan White: make new razors there wasn’t anything there, the thing that they did.
00:17:51.540 –> 00:17:59.070 Brennan White: Was they said gillette and all these people aren’t playing on online video where the millennials hang out, so we can go get that whole market.
00:17:59.310 –> 00:18:06.420 Brennan White: By making a few awesome videos and then they’re not the bias for a billion dollars and you’re right and so effectively, you know gillette’s gates.
00:18:06.930 –> 00:18:19.470 Brennan White: Were stormed that they weren’t defending right so so if you’re a big brand you have to play on these gates, and they are, and so, for them, they feel like it’s a treadmill that’s you know speeding up it’s getting up beating up, but they have to you know, keep pace with.
00:18:19.980 –> 00:18:28.470 Joseph McElroy: You know, I was, I was, I was big and I was working with a big media buyer at one point that was doing direct direct response advertising on TV.
00:18:29.040 –> 00:18:38.910 Joseph McElroy: And there are people that were doing these commercials we’re seeing a decrease in leads generated by the commercials yeah they pick up the phone calls and they measured by the phone calls.
00:18:39.360 –> 00:18:50.850 Joseph McElroy: And they started realizing after a while that 35 to 50% of the calls they used to get we’re now being driven online because people weren’t remember in the phone number.
00:18:51.090 –> 00:19:01.710 Joseph McElroy: They were remembering the the content of the ad and whatnot and they effectively built, you know, there was one company, who spent in $17 million in TV ads.
00:19:02.190 –> 00:19:09.900 Joseph McElroy: And they built a competitor because all the competitor did was optimized for whatever they were doing their commercial for and was capturing all those leads.
00:19:11.160 –> 00:19:14.100 Joseph McElroy: So talk about disruption it happens in everything.
00:19:14.130 –> 00:19:15.060 Brennan White: So everywhere.
00:19:15.330 –> 00:19:25.290 Joseph McElroy: With all that content, you know, and you know I know a little bit about this, but I want to hear your perspective, how are most brands, creating all that content now.
00:19:27.000 –> 00:19:34.470 Brennan White: Well, interesting luck, they they really haven’t adapted well yeah, and this is a generalization some of them are great, but that is the.
00:19:34.830 –> 00:19:44.760 Brennan White: The top 2% have a whole new process they’ve completely pivoted most brands just added some bodies, you know they subscribe to a few technologies here and there.
00:19:45.000 –> 00:19:48.930 Brennan White: And they just have their agencies and their teams work much harder right.
00:19:49.320 –> 00:19:58.530 Brennan White: And they also lower the bar for the content, but they may grant that they just Okay, we don’t have time to spend a month on each commercial now we have maybe a few hours, we have to put.
00:19:58.830 –> 00:20:05.970 Brennan White: Two pieces out today, so you know the bar gets lowered so that’s that’s really the problem right is is branding wins.
00:20:06.660 –> 00:20:17.670 Brennan White: Even traditionally but especially now, by a CD to see brands that are brand new they have no business beating the incumbents who have 100 years on them in terms of brand love yet.
00:20:18.030 –> 00:20:26.700 Brennan White: They create some cool content they go direct to consumer they sell one product, really, really well they nailed the content and they’re eating the lunch of everyone else right and so.
00:20:27.810 –> 00:20:32.010 Brennan White: The brands most brands still haven’t made that leap well.
00:20:32.430 –> 00:20:38.100 Joseph McElroy: No, I mean you know that the reason I created the concept wise content it’s just about that you know.
00:20:38.430 –> 00:20:47.400 Joseph McElroy: You know, up until now, you know, and probably for the foreseeable future, creativity is a wisdom that really you know is what humans excel at but.
00:20:47.910 –> 00:21:05.700 Joseph McElroy: What is happening now is that creativity can also be driven by data and science and analytics and behavioral behavioral things and semantics so there’s going to be tool sets that that brands can use right to to help design.
00:21:06.660 –> 00:21:18.720 Joseph McElroy: That content, but so the you mentioned, there are some major brands is doing it right, so what sets those brands content, apart from the rest is just the creativity or i’m imagine it’s more than just the creativity.
00:21:19.680 –> 00:21:31.110 Brennan White: know they respect their customer they nail what the audiences want right it’s not it sounds it sounds so pedestrian and so obvious but.
00:21:31.560 –> 00:21:42.780 Brennan White: Most companies, most people are self service they kind of put their business goal and they work backwards and say Okay, we need to talk about this new product next week, and so they make it a piece of content about that product.
00:21:43.080 –> 00:21:54.840 Brennan White: And here they are off to the races and then a big you know content generation process starts where they go get their agency, they they come up with an idea, they funded they do a photoshoot you know weeks happen.
00:21:55.380 –> 00:22:05.580 Brennan White: And there’s content about that product and they never they never tried to or past the problem was they couldn’t ascertain reliably what the audience wanted to see.
00:22:06.210 –> 00:22:12.270 Brennan White: Before they put in all that effort that’s where cortex plays right as we use machine learning to tell you exactly what the content.
00:22:12.870 –> 00:22:16.470 Brennan White: You know the details your audience wants prior to spending any of that time.
00:22:17.040 –> 00:22:26.310 Brennan White: And the best brands do that that’s part of their processes is trying the hardest either using cortex or they’ve got their own way to try to get at what the audience wants.
00:22:27.000 –> 00:22:31.560 Brennan White: and giving them what they want, because nowadays as we’ve seen there’s so many places, I can go.
00:22:32.010 –> 00:22:42.720 Brennan White: I can look I get my content from everywhere, I can go to different I can switch the switching costs between effectively any brand is almost nothing if if you create content that pisses me off in the slightest.
00:22:43.410 –> 00:22:49.230 Brennan White: i’m leaving right i’m going to cancel you and go somewhere else we’ve seen that everywhere, and so, making sure you know exactly what they want.
00:22:49.920 –> 00:22:58.350 Brennan White: And figuring out the venn diagram of what your audiences want what we want and finding that overlap and creating that content is really the name of the game.
00:22:58.980 –> 00:23:05.880 Joseph McElroy: Now we know when they’re creating this content, do you think that that I mean you’re there, so you know do.
00:23:06.990 –> 00:23:15.330 Joseph McElroy: I don’t you think the best brands create content, you know, use the same ideas and the concepts for the audience that they plan a bunch of content.
00:23:15.660 –> 00:23:28.140 Joseph McElroy: around the concept like you know there’s gonna be snippets there’s going to be tweets there’s going to be, you know there’s gonna be social media posts there’s going to be a video there’s no and is that is that whole universe part of what you guys also analyze.
00:23:29.100 –> 00:23:39.660 Brennan White: yeah yeah totally that’s part that’s that’s the danger right if you commit to right now, the process is they come up with an idea, they commit to it.
00:23:40.260 –> 00:23:48.030 Brennan White: They funded they budgeted the time starts where if it’s a big series of content, it may take weeks or months to get all that content together.
00:23:48.930 –> 00:23:55.890 Brennan White: Then, after they have all the tweets all the videos all the YouTube everything, then they start to get feedback that it was a bad idea.
00:23:56.550 –> 00:24:00.270 Brennan White: The ship has already sailed right they’ve already run the process they’ve already spent the time and the money.
00:24:00.690 –> 00:24:06.720 Brennan White: And so the danger, there is the way content has traditionally been done and the way most brands still do it.
00:24:07.290 –> 00:24:14.700 Brennan White: Is it leads to a lot of those car crashes where you’re kind of like trying to save something that was not a great idea to begin with.
00:24:15.420 –> 00:24:23.310 Brennan White: And it’s too late right, you can Maybe you can eke out a few, but you know ab test correctly, you kill the bad ads and you do focus groups, maybe you can.
00:24:23.550 –> 00:24:29.730 Brennan White: You know, get 10 more percent out of it or something, but you still you know if you went in the wrong direction you’re still going in the wrong direction.
00:24:30.030 –> 00:24:39.030 Brennan White: You lost the the opportunity cost of of really crushing it right which is that’s where the delta in performance really lies, if you can get your content.
00:24:39.420 –> 00:24:50.340 Brennan White: aligned with what your audience wants from the get go, then you don’t have to try to you know not fail, but you know get 5% more at the at the at the back end of the process.
00:24:50.940 –> 00:25:03.300 Joseph McElroy: So you know you mentioned a B testing is sort of an ancient to tool now right, and you know it’s a bit it’s been the way to refine content ideas for a while, what, what do you think is wrong with that approach.
00:25:04.800 –> 00:25:09.480 Brennan White: it’s it’s still the state of the art for a lot of brands right so it’s not an ancient it it’s.
00:25:09.510 –> 00:25:11.220 Joseph McElroy: Absolutely, I mean it’s.
00:25:12.480 –> 00:25:13.650 Joseph McElroy: Still yeah.
00:25:13.770 –> 00:25:22.080 Brennan White: yeah right yeah it’s crazy that it’s still the way to go, but yeah you’re it’s kind of like what I just said, where a B testing shows up after.
00:25:22.500 –> 00:25:30.360 Brennan White: you’ve put your name behind it internally, so you get all the political ramifications you’ve put the budget into it, you select the time.
00:25:30.870 –> 00:25:42.090 Brennan White: Then we have content to show to people and of course it doesn’t respect the audience right by showing them 1000 versions or 10 versions, or whatever, and just filling their their plate with.
00:25:42.660 –> 00:25:48.090 Brennan White: You know crap pardon my French and then figuring out Oh, you know here’s the best piece of crap.
00:25:49.050 –> 00:25:55.380 Brennan White: Right that’s not that doesn’t respect them right respecting them and saying i’m going to take the time to figure out what they want first.
00:25:55.830 –> 00:26:05.850 Brennan White: And everything I create is going to be in line with what they’re asking for right and so that everything that they see there may be some versions, better than others, but by by a small degree, but it’s all.
00:26:06.210 –> 00:26:20.760 Brennan White: Something that they left, right and so that’s a big difference in a B testing you’re you’re kind of self serving from the get go by nature and the best thing you do is save you a few percentage points on the back end it can’t change a failing campaign to a winning campaign.
00:26:21.660 –> 00:26:22.170 Joseph McElroy: yeah I mean.
00:26:23.400 –> 00:26:30.210 Joseph McElroy: It really fails, most people on the on the mid small sized companies because there’s not enough data to really tell you much.
00:26:31.680 –> 00:26:37.080 Brennan White: So many problems, not enough they’re not sophisticated enough it’s too late there’s so many problems with it.
00:26:37.350 –> 00:26:43.560 Joseph McElroy: Right all right so look when we come back we’ll talk more about how data can impact the creative process all right.
00:26:44.160 –> 00:26:44.520 awesome.
00:29:31.710 –> 00:29:44.190 Joseph McElroy: hi this is Joseph Franklin McElroy back with the wise content creates well podcast with my guess Brendan white of cortex the leader in Ai creativity.
00:29:46.890 –> 00:29:57.300 Joseph McElroy: So I you know we’re going to talk about data, and I was gonna mention it, I was you know, one of the things that we do we’re in the seo spaces, you know we use data like search console beta.
00:29:57.750 –> 00:30:05.880 Joseph McElroy: To help determine which contents performing and which content we should prune because bad content can really affect your.
00:30:06.420 –> 00:30:12.690 Joseph McElroy: seo results and even use it to suggest you know further titles and things like that, from the keyword data.
00:30:13.110 –> 00:30:26.070 Joseph McElroy: So you know data, I know, can have an impact on many parts of the brand’s creative process and you’re in a lot more spots and I think we are with your analytics so where have you seen it most effective.
00:30:27.900 –> 00:30:33.360 Brennan White: that’s a phenomenal question i’d say another way to put that is.
00:30:35.160 –> 00:30:42.180 Brennan White: it’s important to understand for a lot of listeners might not realize that when you’re making content at a brand some of the content.
00:30:42.600 –> 00:30:53.400 Brennan White: can be remade quickly right so text content rebels things like that it doesn’t take a lot as soon as you find new information to tweak it right so.
00:30:54.150 –> 00:30:58.110 Brennan White: It may have a huge impact right maybe you find a new word or phrase or something that changes.
00:30:58.410 –> 00:31:06.630 Brennan White: email open rates by 100% who knows that’s awesome but the downside is never quite as severe right, but when you’re talking about visuals.
00:31:06.960 –> 00:31:15.660 Brennan White: videos, in particular, but also photos right you’re talking about a much longer process usually weeks, sometimes months to to.
00:31:16.080 –> 00:31:25.500 Brennan White: come up with an idea to get it approved get it budgeted hire the models, you know book the photographer you know rent the you know get a permit for the section of beach you want to shoot on.
00:31:25.770 –> 00:31:42.900 Brennan White: Right and and create content, if you find out after that that that is a bad idea, and your audience hates it there’s a huge cost that you’ve already sunk does he use time that you’ve already sunk so the data that can save that from happening is really, really valuable data.
00:31:43.290 –> 00:31:52.020 Brennan White: Right, so what we see and what cortex focuses on is visuals For that reason, or one of those in For that reason, so so for us.
00:31:53.430 –> 00:32:03.570 Brennan White: It depends on the brand it depends on the audience, it also depends on the Channel and even then the tastes change over time so there’s very few.
00:32:04.020 –> 00:32:11.790 Brennan White: rules that are universal, like you know people should be facing the camera or away or you know things like that very few specific pieces of data that.
00:32:12.030 –> 00:32:24.600 Brennan White: That always have an impact in the same direction, but we find that visual data has a huge impact in some cases, several hundred percent impact on performance, so the being you know night and day different.
00:32:26.190 –> 00:32:37.320 Brennan White: If you follow the data and especially if you’re combining different visual data choices into your outcome and it’s a big huge impact, but that’s of course bias, that is what cortex does.
00:32:37.830 –> 00:32:46.110 Brennan White: We don’t look as much into other types of decision making, when it comes to creativity visuals are our focus, but because of all the visual data.
00:32:46.830 –> 00:32:55.350 Brennan White: All the time strong colors two things in the image to how old the humans and the image are or how many humans, you have or or the product standing or.
00:32:55.830 –> 00:33:04.620 Brennan White: sitting right there’s literally thousands and thousands of things that matter and the it’s hard to predict in advance which ones will matter most hmm.
00:33:05.070 –> 00:33:11.040 Joseph McElroy: Well, you know what’s mattering a lot in the seo space is now personalization because results are getting very personalized.
00:33:11.370 –> 00:33:22.140 Joseph McElroy: So I think companies are focusing on being very customer centric and how to do mass personalization and it’s I think it’s an avenue that show you a lot of promise for them so.
00:33:22.950 –> 00:33:34.860 Joseph McElroy: What do you think how do you get proud as company, how do companies get personalization right while they’re still being efficient with the resources, especially in things like video and images which can be changed, all that easily.
00:33:35.940 –> 00:33:45.750 Brennan White: yeah it’s funny it’s absolutely the path forward hundred percent right if I could have a video or a piece of content made for me, based on what I like.
00:33:46.260 –> 00:33:49.920 Brennan White: And you can have the same brand could create something for you, based on what you like.
00:33:50.550 –> 00:34:02.250 Brennan White: We are both most likely to like the brand to take an action to to engage right, that is the best case scenario, so that is absolutely the path that we need to travel down, however there’s a giant danger here.
00:34:02.610 –> 00:34:08.310 Brennan White: And we see a lot of brands make this mistake, they try to go to mass personalization.
00:34:09.060 –> 00:34:18.210 Brennan White: They try to treat that the same way they’ve treated a B testing, which is there software there’s the services out there that try to create 1000 different variations of the video.
00:34:19.170 –> 00:34:27.300 Brennan White: And we blast them out all out to people and we we figure things out that way right and that again that disrespects the customer right.
00:34:27.840 –> 00:34:34.050 Brennan White: And so maybe at the end of your campaign you you, you know you’ve created an efficient or algorithmic way to tweak.
00:34:34.410 –> 00:34:41.880 Brennan White: The background color of the video or the message, or something like that you know some various features of the video and you’ve arrived at a better performing outcome.
00:34:42.660 –> 00:34:50.880 Brennan White: than you would great right that’s that’s great, but the audience has has has had to sit through thousands of terrible versions right.
00:34:51.870 –> 00:34:59.940 Brennan White: Perhaps, and perhaps the idea in the first place again this is based still on an idea that someone had that then gets turned in diversions right so.
00:35:00.390 –> 00:35:08.490 Brennan White: that’s still disrespecting the customer it’s still not saying what does the customer want let’s start from there and run the process that way and so.
00:35:09.210 –> 00:35:19.740 Brennan White: that’s the big dichotomy and some companies, I find are going, you know the taking that fork two words let’s carpet bomb the customer with endless amounts of content, which, of course, you know.
00:35:20.250 –> 00:35:27.810 Brennan White: it’s funny because, even those people at that brand making that choice their consumers also right, so they know that that would suck for them.
00:35:28.500 –> 00:35:33.180 Brennan White: You know, on their drive home and they’re going to hear some radio ads or they’re going to check out YouTube right.
00:35:33.840 –> 00:35:47.820 Brennan White: They would hate that but they don’t some you know a lot of brands make that mistake, and so it is a great opportunity if we recognize that we should be Personalizing based on what the audience wants in the first place that’s how that’s my opinion.
00:35:48.300 –> 00:35:56.940 Joseph McElroy: cool that’s it well that’s a good response, I mean I like that you know being responsive to the customer, I mean it’s a sense it’s moving towards.
00:35:57.330 –> 00:36:07.860 Joseph McElroy: You know, business in general is there’s this sort of this, you know, looking forward, and retro you know thing the customers first right instead of you know, the the shareholder.
00:36:09.390 –> 00:36:09.780 Brennan White: yeah.
00:36:09.900 –> 00:36:11.160 Joseph McElroy: Oh, the customer first.
00:36:11.190 –> 00:36:13.170 Brennan White: philosophy, I think about business exactly.
00:36:13.410 –> 00:36:23.460 Joseph McElroy: yeah so you know, in the space of data and what different types of data are showing that are showing to be the most effective, I mean what is the most actionable of what is it.
00:36:25.110 –> 00:36:27.690 Brennan White: yeah i’m in our world.
00:36:30.630 –> 00:36:39.600 Brennan White: there’s, as I mentioned before there’s kind of like tears of how easy things are to change right when you think about the content creation process for visuals.
00:36:40.080 –> 00:36:49.560 Brennan White: The hardest to change is the concept to begin with this prestigious at the strategic level right if you chose to we think our audience will like.
00:36:49.800 –> 00:36:56.730 Brennan White: A family installing gotta beat so you did all the things required to get a permit and get a photographer and a family to a beach somewhere and you’re filming that.
00:36:57.870 –> 00:37:03.930 Brennan White: To change that after the fact, is expensive and time consuming and a pain, but if the thing we can change.
00:37:04.320 –> 00:37:20.100 Brennan White: That has a really big impact is the text to put over that image, or that video after or the call to action or the background color of the text right that’s actually a designer change that can that can be done after but that can be done it no relatively redone with with less pain.
00:37:20.250 –> 00:37:38.130 Brennan White: Right so that’s the spectrum, we see is is there are impact changes all around, and of course the again the single biggest delta and performance is getting the concept right getting the strategy right so using data to do that correctly, is the best thing you can do, but.
00:37:39.330 –> 00:37:49.380 Brennan White: If you don’t have that data or if you’ve made a mistake in with your with a downstream choice, like the background color of this thing is really garish no one likes it no one’s clicking on it.
00:37:49.800 –> 00:38:02.220 Brennan White: that’s not that troublesome to change right designer can redo that maybe a day or a couple hours and so that’s how we think of things is you know okay vapes they have a lot they think of this almost like a.
00:38:03.360 –> 00:38:12.600 Brennan White: Like a production facility, creating you know many units of a bottling facility, creating lots of Coca Cola right it’s a lot to change the facility.
00:38:13.320 –> 00:38:24.630 Brennan White: And earlier on the process causes more downstream changes as a pain so so the later on, the easier it is to change and so most effective information.
00:38:25.710 –> 00:38:32.610 Brennan White: is getting the beginning right getting the strategy right knowing your audience better knowing exactly what they want the analogy, I always like to use is.
00:38:33.630 –> 00:38:42.030 Brennan White: If you’re opening a restaurant it’d be really phenomenal to know what ingredients your audience knowing what the audience is going to visit the restaurant before you open it.
00:38:42.570 –> 00:38:50.790 Brennan White: knowing what ingredients those audience like best in knowing how to combine those ingredients for that audience right that would make a killer restaurant right.
00:38:51.300 –> 00:38:56.760 Brennan White: Most brands aren’t doing any of that they’re just opening the restaurant and then trying to figure stuff out and so.
00:38:57.300 –> 00:39:11.520 Brennan White: For us the most valuable data is is kind of the earlier data, because that saves you from the biggest problems and then it’s hard to predict, of course, the taste changes and the taste of the audience before you actually get out there.
00:39:12.810 –> 00:39:30.330 Joseph McElroy: Well, you know a lot of a here’s a question I have that i’m you know in my space i’m also dealing with a big you probably are you know thinking about this with cookies on the way out How does that impact the kinds of customer insights that you can get from your content.
00:39:31.530 –> 00:39:39.630 Brennan White: yeah no good that’s a favorite topic of mine, because I don’t think a lot of people realize how much is about to change or really, as you know, changing now.
00:39:40.680 –> 00:39:41.160 Brennan White: Currently.
00:39:42.900 –> 00:39:57.000 Brennan White: The way I enable I kind of like explain it to people is before if you’re a brand the most the highest Roi the best choice you could make is to stock your prey around the party.
00:39:57.570 –> 00:40:08.220 Brennan White: Right, you have all these creepy ways to follow them around and show up at each conversation and show up at the next party that they go to, and that was the best return on investment available to you.
00:40:08.670 –> 00:40:16.590 Brennan White: Not only is that going away, but of course that doesn’t respect the customer either right that’s creepy we all kind of feel icky about that to various degrees.
00:40:17.160 –> 00:40:23.220 Brennan White: Now, with machine learning companies like cortex and other companies like cortex and in different spaces.
00:40:23.790 –> 00:40:31.380 Brennan White: You can create the party that the audience wants to go to in the first place right respect their opinion, allow them to choose to come to your party.
00:40:32.130 –> 00:40:38.910 Brennan White: And if they find themselves voluntarily at your party right they’re very open to what your message right like.
00:40:39.420 –> 00:40:49.020 Brennan White: This is the cool part I want to go to i’ve gotten around my own volition let’s partake in conversation or business Whatever the case may be right that’s the analogy because right now.
00:40:49.530 –> 00:40:57.570 Brennan White: With cookies going away the stalker option is getting worse and worse and less and less profitable, so there has to be another option that brands.
00:40:58.020 –> 00:41:06.480 Brennan White: available the brands luckily that’s that’s you know the cookies going away and couldn’t have worked better for us right we’re positioned on the complete opposite side we’re.
00:41:07.140 –> 00:41:13.650 Brennan White: revealing what your audience wants right so that’s really good for cortex and I think, just as consumer really good in general.
00:41:14.370 –> 00:41:20.940 Joseph McElroy: yeah I think it’s I you know I, personally, from a personal point of view, I think it’s a great thing you know it’s a.
00:41:23.160 –> 00:41:27.810 Joseph McElroy: lot of people scared by it, I wonder how you know we’re going to do things like retargeting.
00:41:29.010 –> 00:41:36.120 Joseph McElroy: yeah which is you know when getting people to land on the site, then how you know now you’ve gotten sort of permission.
00:41:36.510 –> 00:41:50.220 Joseph McElroy: To follow them around, but you will really be able to the way used to so you know there’s a there’s a new future we’re all looking at to make things effective, but you know, I think that you are in the right space.
00:41:51.480 –> 00:42:00.240 Joseph McElroy: So when we come back we’re going to talk a little bit more about the industry, and you know and then how people can find out more about you alright.
00:42:01.170 –> 00:42:01.620 cool.
00:44:19.230 –> 00:44:28.800 Joseph McElroy: Hello it’s Joseph Franklin McElroy back with the wise content creates wealth podcast with my guest brand new life.
00:44:29.280 –> 00:44:41.910 Joseph McElroy: So brennan in 2020 you sponsored cortex sponsor to study on the Roi of Ai and enterprise, I thought that was really interesting I overheard 1200 companies were interviewed.
00:44:42.330 –> 00:44:49.620 Joseph McElroy: And they got a lot of times, it was fascinating and surprising and Info So what do you think are some great takeaways from that story.
00:44:50.970 –> 00:44:56.670 Brennan White: Well yeah there’s a ton of takeaways and depending on the audience is kind of interest.
00:44:57.570 –> 00:45:12.840 Brennan White: There might be some relevant to their industry, their role various things so they can actually go to cortex website and find the whole details there but but actually yeah there’s some crazy takeaways that blew everyone’s hair back, we ended up presenting those at adweek in Asia and.
00:45:13.950 –> 00:45:19.290 Brennan White: Mark tech conferences in Belgium various other places, of course, by zoom this year but.
00:45:20.040 –> 00:45:24.420 Joseph McElroy: The average, the average enterprise spends $38 million on Ai.
00:45:25.140 –> 00:45:25.710 Brennan White: that’s true.
00:45:26.490 –> 00:45:26.940 Joseph McElroy: easy.
00:45:27.240 –> 00:45:40.230 Brennan White: Last year that’s going up a lot more that’s a big one another one that blew people’s back, especially in the content space is that 76% of CMOs are already planning or using Ai.
00:45:40.830 –> 00:45:55.530 Brennan White: And by 2023 those same set of CMOs 97% of them said that they will be implementing some sort of Ai by 2023 so two years from now effectively every CMO will have Ai and market.
00:45:56.430 –> 00:46:04.170 Brennan White: And the other thing that kind of goes hand in hand with that Stat was it’s not that they will be dabbling or that they’re even dabbling now.
00:46:04.440 –> 00:46:14.310 Brennan White: The average CMO that is doing something, and he now has 11 separate projects underway currently so it’s not like oh we’ll try one thing, the one vendors got.
00:46:15.030 –> 00:46:22.680 Brennan White: It they’re trying it for chat bots they’re trying it for content they’re trying it for a website they’re trying it for their mobile APP Detroit where they’re trying it everywhere.
00:46:23.400 –> 00:46:32.430 Brennan White: Because I think everyone understands that it’s going to have Ai itself is is kind of like an electricity level impact on the Academy, and no one’s exactly clear.
00:46:33.090 –> 00:46:39.270 Brennan White: Where it’s going to have the most impact so everyone’s trying to get ahead of you know doesn’t want to get completely left in the dust I.
00:46:39.630 –> 00:46:47.130 Joseph McElroy: Think it’s I think you’re exactly right, I mean by that one of the reasons I decided to make a move now to do this wise content criswell podcast is that.
00:46:47.790 –> 00:47:00.000 Joseph McElroy: If the time is now right, you know i’ve been you know I actually I won’t mention my age, but it’s well enough that I was at the beginning of Ai and Duke university doing alpha beta searches.
00:47:00.570 –> 00:47:12.630 Joseph McElroy: alpha beta algorithms for Ai so you know i’ve been in Ai a long time, but you know I never got the opportunity to do it professionally but now it’s kind of bringing me full circle, to be involved with it.
00:47:13.860 –> 00:47:14.280 Joseph McElroy: You know.
00:47:14.790 –> 00:47:25.080 Joseph McElroy: i’m in the seo space, I saw last year I just had to ask you about this, you did a speech on the conference how content and seo teams to work together, any key insights you could let me know about.
00:47:26.400 –> 00:47:36.000 Brennan White: Sure yeah I so there was a plug for for non cortex company there’s a company out there called market views who we’ve actually partnered with a few times.
00:47:37.080 –> 00:47:46.050 Brennan White: I frequently will say they’re the cortex of text as a shortcut they completely different tech, you know very different actually in detail, but.
00:47:46.500 –> 00:47:56.970 Brennan White: The to the end user they’re using machine learning to understand the google’s knowledge graph how Google thinks of concepts and then tell you what to write about.
00:47:57.270 –> 00:47:57.480 Right.
00:47:58.620 –> 00:48:00.900 Joseph McElroy: they’re coming on the show and a cup few weeks yeah.
00:48:01.770 –> 00:48:12.600 Brennan White: that’s awesome there’s a few people there that I really like Jeff AKI hopefully one of those guys is coming on but anyway cool i’ll be sure to watch but um but yeah they.
00:48:13.440 –> 00:48:24.420 Brennan White: They are experts at this, so they can certainly kind of expound for an entire hour on it, we are seo and and visual content are effectively sisters right.
00:48:24.750 –> 00:48:31.200 Brennan White: When we say we don’t care about text we don’t focus on that we’re kind of lying right we care a lot about the text.
00:48:31.590 –> 00:48:43.950 Brennan White: That goes along with a visual right so and increasingly that’s that’s the majority of pieces of text right like a the capture that goes with the YouTube videos as you talked about actually in your intro.
00:48:44.340 –> 00:48:53.850 Brennan White: Right, the captions that go along with YouTube actually have a giant impact on discovery of the video and and and, therefore, how it performs and so.
00:48:54.090 –> 00:49:01.170 Brennan White: For us to say we’re using machine learning to optimize for YouTube, we have to care about that text to so so there was actually quite a.
00:49:02.070 –> 00:49:11.250 Brennan White: tight relationship, but we don’t play in tech specific stuff like market news owns that right, then, and vice versa, but yeah in terms of in terms of the.
00:49:11.670 –> 00:49:19.830 Brennan White: kind of philosophy it’s it’s effectively the same right the way one thing we haven’t really talked about i’ve been focusing on about creating the content for the user.
00:49:20.520 –> 00:49:28.680 Brennan White: and respecting the user, but what market means does and what cortex also does is each of these platforms has algorithms.
00:49:29.340 –> 00:49:37.740 Brennan White: Right and so, even if I created content was perfect for you, if you put it on Facebook and the Facebook algorithm disagrees.
00:49:38.190 –> 00:49:45.000 Brennan White: they’re not going to show it to you right so there’s actually a second layer it’s creating content that you know, respecting your audience could have gotten your audience wants.
00:49:45.510 –> 00:49:57.000 Brennan White: But, making sure it’s the kind of content that that algorithm will show to that person so it’s actually slightly more complex and so market muse does that perfectly cortex does that as well, and so an seo.
00:49:57.990 –> 00:50:07.350 Brennan White: you’re kind of playing the algorithm and the person at the same time right there’s kind of two games going on and that’s true as well with what we do, and so I say that’s the biggest.
00:50:08.490 –> 00:50:13.830 Brennan White: thing that a content creator needs to realize is it’s not as simple as what is Google say.
00:50:14.670 –> 00:50:21.930 Brennan White: Right it’s not as simple as what is my audience wants is actually the combination and unfortunately the algorithm is changing.
00:50:22.680 –> 00:50:30.240 Brennan White: Sometimes unannounced sometimes announced and the taste searching right, so it actually ends up being a thing that humans are particularly bad at.
00:50:30.930 –> 00:50:37.470 Brennan White: Understanding both and as they changed the relationship, but, but he is great at that right hey I can stay on top of that easily and.
00:50:37.770 –> 00:50:45.720 Brennan White: You know me as a marker content guy I don’t have to worry about it anymore so it’s actually well suited to to kind of give yourself over to a I eventually so.
00:50:46.860 –> 00:50:53.100 Brennan White: But it’s an interesting problem and, and you can talk about it for a long time because there’s so many aspects of the interplay between those two pieces.
00:50:53.580 –> 00:50:59.820 Joseph McElroy: So we’re getting close now, so what is the current state of cortex and what’s your near future look like.
00:51:00.720 –> 00:51:11.100 Brennan White: yeah we’ve just entered the so far the most exciting part of the journey, so far we closed some capital, towards the end of last year, we close them capital again two weeks ago.
00:51:11.730 –> 00:51:15.750 Brennan White: we’re we’re growing rapidly, both in kind of headcount and and customers.
00:51:16.650 –> 00:51:21.210 Brennan White: And so you know it’s very fun it for a while there, it was getting like you, as you heard it was.
00:51:21.570 –> 00:51:34.080 Brennan White: Coming with an idea, proving that it worked realizing the customers wanted to use us kind of an a broader set of problems building for that and then getting it out there optimizing so now we’ve solved all that now it’s just growing rapidly and so.
00:51:35.280 –> 00:51:41.640 Brennan White: Now we’re just basically getting in front of as many customers, we can try to give them a taste, we find the best thing we can do.
00:51:42.120 –> 00:51:46.530 Brennan White: is put it in their hands have them have that while moment themselves right because.
00:51:47.490 –> 00:51:56.910 Brennan White: they’ve never had this data before right they never were able to definitively say you know what what kind of creative combinations of things.
00:51:57.390 –> 00:52:09.270 Brennan White: would drive performance and even when they thought they had something right they may have done an A, B test, you know is red better or is blue better or is green better they were the one that set that test up.
00:52:10.050 –> 00:52:17.250 Brennan White: Red blue green the shade of green they chose the shade of blue they chose the shade of red they chose influence the data that they got.
00:52:17.580 –> 00:52:23.250 Brennan White: The fact that they didn’t choose purple or orange or yellow also influenced the data that they got using machine learning.
00:52:23.670 –> 00:52:31.560 Brennan White: To remove all that bias and all the work but remove all the bias get you the truth, where the actual, what does the data say.
00:52:31.860 –> 00:52:38.760 Brennan White: about that in this case we’re talking about colors right but there’s there’s thousands of different things and there’s combinations of those thousand things and so.
00:52:39.390 –> 00:52:56.340 Brennan White: that’s the that’s the exciting part is when people see that on their data or their competitors data and they can learn from that immediately and test it that’s the moment so we’re really just didn’t the many brands and experience the moment as possible.
00:52:57.510 –> 00:52:59.820 Joseph McElroy: How can people find out more about you and.
00:52:59.880 –> 00:53:00.630 reach out.
00:53:01.740 –> 00:53:15.300 Brennan White: yeah meet meet cortex calm is the website there’s a lot of information there as you heard you can get the entire Roi of Ai study there you there’s a ton of content that we publish on our blog meet cortex.com slash blog.
00:53:16.200 –> 00:53:18.090 Brennan White: Really easy also they can follow me.
00:53:18.540 –> 00:53:25.530 Brennan White: or cortex on Twitter cortex is at meet cortex i’m at run nomics on Twitter.
00:53:27.240 –> 00:53:27.720 Brennan White: And so.
00:53:27.750 –> 00:53:29.340 Brennan White: yeah that’s a great way to find us where.
00:53:29.430 –> 00:53:32.850 Brennan White: I speak at a lot of conferences, a lot of podcasts things like that so.
00:53:33.930 –> 00:53:42.690 Brennan White: And also i’ve just joined the international advertising Association, the board and so i’ll be putting out my own content shortly under the I.
00:53:43.260 –> 00:53:52.950 Joseph McElroy: Thank you for Thank you, thank you for being a part of this show and and I look forward to promoting this content that we just produced here all over the place.
00:53:53.340 –> 00:53:58.290 Joseph McElroy: I want to mention that we’re on the talk radio dot nyc network and there’s a lot of great shows.
00:53:58.890 –> 00:54:10.560 Joseph McElroy: The show I think proof for cygnus one is Jeremiah fox on the entrepreneurial where you can find out more about this show at wise content creates wealth calm and my company is Galileo tech media COM.
00:54:10.890 –> 00:54:22.350 Joseph McElroy: it’s a leading provider of seo services and thoughtfully managed seo services that will transform your business, I will have another great show next week, and thank you again brother.
00:54:24.030 –> 00:54:24.420 Brennan White: Thanks.