Transcription
****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

[intro music]
Shark 0:16
Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I am Kenneth "Shark" Kinney, your host and Chief Shark Officer.

Shark 0:22
Let me tell you about amazing sponsor who makes the show possible. I hope that you'll take a look at Drips, the founders of conversational texting where they use conversational AI to help you reach your customers where they're most responsive, and that's on their phones. And working with major brands like Three Day Blinds, Liberty Mutual, Credit Repair, and Ganesco, Drips is leading the way for some of the biggest brands in the world to improve engagement rates and outcomes for their prospects and customers.

Shark 0:48
And now back to the show.

Shark 0:50
How do we use culture and commerce to get people to adopt behavior as marketers, culture today can be such a landmine for brand tomorrow, many marketers aren't used to those relationships that extend beyond personas. So how should marketers lean into the culture that can help them develop relationships with our customers?

Shark 1:09
Dr. Marcus Collins is a clinical assistant professor of marketing at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, as well as the head of planning at Weiden + Kennedy, New York. Marcus is a super guy I've got to know for some time now.

Shark 1:21
And on this episode, we'll discuss bridging the academic and practitioner gap of marketing the culture of marketing and identity congruence information and intimacy, data and insights perspectives, where we get our news and information and how it shapes our worldview, Sasha Fierce and the Beyonce business, Marcus in the X Factor, Eddie Murphy and Delirious Swedish culture, Wolverines, sharks, and hangtime, and a lot, lot more.

Shark 1:45
So let's tune into a doctor of marketing with a doctor of shark whose PhD is pretty hungry and determined on this episode of a sharks perspective.

Shark 1:58
Marcus, thank you so much for joining us today on A Shark's Perspective. Tell us a little bit about your background and your career to date.

Marcus Collins 2:04
Awesome. Thanks for having me, Kenneth. I think of myself as a one who bridges the academic practitioner gap, I have one foot in the world of academia, being an assistant marketing professor here at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. But I also run strategy at wind, Kinney, New York. So I'll put ideas in the world as an advertiser, but people in the world as an academic, and that provides me a unique perspective, I think, with regards to how we come up with ideas, that I don't only move business forward, but uses culture as a vehicle to do such

Shark 2:38
Elaborate on that, because I remember reading that on your profile in your background about how you're doing that from a cultural perspective,

Marcus Collins 2:44
yet, so I'm a firm believer that culture is the governing operating system of man, that is, culture dictates what is acceptable. It dictates what people like us do. And as Emile Durkheim puts it, that people act in concert with people who are of the same culture in an effort to promote social solidarity. So when people like me do something like this, I do it also. So for a brand that becomes a really powerful vehicle to get people to adopt behavior that oh, people will buy, or people will visit, or people will eat or people will go, not because of the value propositions which hopefully are parody, at least, but they'll do it because of their identity congruence. So culture becomes a really powerful way to drive commerce. In fact, my doctorial research was done in a field called consumer culture theory. That is how consumption and culture are inextricably linked. And if we can then as marketing practitioners use this connection happens between culture and commerce to get people to adopt behavior, which is our job as marketers as core. So I'm a marketer by trade. But I didn't start off this way. I actually started off studying engineering, I was a materials engineer. So I went to school for an undergrad. And while I thought that polymers were super cool, without polymers were kind of dope that these carbon chains come together and create novel things that we use, like pins and glasses in the like, I didn't see myself doing that for the rest of my life. And my parents in their wisdom, a mother's an academic as well. She's like, wait to get to your major, you'll love it, we do your major. And my second year, when I was in my major, I was like, I really don't want to do this. So I took some music theory courses, to offset my failing GPA cuz I was a musician in as a kid played piano in church and sang and went to jazz band, and whatnot. And I fell in love with major sevens. I was like, Oh, this is what I want to do. I want to be a songwriter, and went home and told my mom and dad, I want to be a songwriter. They said, You must be smoking crack. There's no way that's going to happen. So I finished my degree in engineering after I graduated University of Michigan College engineering. I went into the music industry did a startup that was doing okay until it wasn't because the music industry sucks, went back to school to get my MBA, and then end up going out west to do partner marketing at Apple for iTunes magically shipped with Nike sports music and some college marketing efforts. It was right around that time that I ended up meeting Matthew Knowles, who has a daughter named Beyonce. And he's like, let me get this straight. You're an engineer started a music company. You work at Apple, you have an MBA and you're black. Like dude, who are you? You're You're not real. You're unicorns. I'm real. He says, Well, you should run digital strategy for Beyonce. And I said, Yes, sir, you are correct, I should do that. So I ended up running digital strategy for Beyonce. This is in the I am Sasha Fierce days, Single Ladies days, which is like an awesome time to be the Beyonce business. There's never a bad time to be in the Beyonce business, but in particular, is a great time because she was making this huge transition to go from Beyonce to Queen Bee. And then from there, I ended up moving into advertising and been there since being a big fuel spent four years of translation Steve Stoute agency building the social practice their launch campaigns like Cliff Paul campaign for State Farm, move the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn to become the Brooklyn Nets. Launched by Platinum for for Bud Light, launched the main American music festival for for Budweiser, then moved to New York to run to run what we call it the connections kitchen, at donor. And now I'm at Wine Kennedy as the head of planning in New York office.

Shark 6:41
One of the disabilities I know that you suffer from also is SEO, in that you personally were not a runner up on The X Factor five or six years ago with some guy when I was Googling you to get some more stuff. I mean, obviously, we know each other, but try to get some more stuff. And I pull this up. And there's Marcus Collins, the singer, who was on a show, and then he bought the URL at the right time. So he did it. He had the right people in place, because ain't nobody, you'll never hear of him. But they'll hear of you. So Marcus Collins, he's the guy

Marcus Collins 7:12
that comes up. And plus, he has like a six pack that I wish I had. So he stays winning.

Shark 7:17
Yeah, no kidding. Well, maybe there'll be somebody with a bigger, you know, to leader than what I carry right now. Think Google me? Well, one of the things I'm interested especially not only from a marketing perspective with what you do, but also as a professor teaching, with a love to believe these young minds who are open to everything. Not always true. And a lot of adults did, it's, I'm sure as well. But a lot of times when this happens, the way we look at culture today, it can be a landmine, for a business, and for how we market and what's appropriate today, even when meant innocently can really get you into a lot of trouble, say two, three or five years from now.

Marcus Collins 8:01
That's true. He This is the gift and the curse of culture, in that culture is contextual. And it is time bound in that what's acceptable today may not be acceptable tomorrow, me I grew up watching Eddie Murphy loved Eddie Murphy, Ra delirious larious, I could quote those movies like forwards and backwards. And I remember going back to rewatch them maybe a year or two ago before COVID. And clutching my pearls the entire time saying you can't say that like this is so wrong, and then even find it as funny as it normally was, because of these new frames. And that's the thing about culture, like culture is this constant negotiation and construction that we go through with people who are like ourselves based upon these exogenous shocks to the system that happens in the world around us. And I think that when it comes to marketing, and maybe just our normal lives in general, we tend to have a narrow view of what culture is, like, oh, what's in culture? As if culture is a monolithic? Or is that culture is just sort of what's popular. But that's, that's actually quite irresponsible, if not just wrong, I think bubble culture is I borrow from Raymond Williams, who's a cultural theorist from back in the day. And he said that culture is a realize signifying system, which essentially means that culture is the realize meaning making system is the way that we make meaning of the world. And what things things that meant something yesterday, necessarily mean the same today, by its very nature, right? Like, you know, my wife said the other day, she's like, oh, man, that's the bomb. That was like, a Yeah, and it's 2001. Like, what are you talking about, like, go like this, that the kind of that that language has to have the same meaning. And that it's just not it's not contemporary enough, which means then for marketers who want to benefit From the power that resides within culture or through culture, it requires marketers being very, very close. You can't jump in it today because, you know, you may miss what it means tomorrow. But brands who are part of the culture, they actually whatever the culture they're interested in, they're close to it the entire way. So that while they say something three years ago, it's like, well, we're not on that anymore. We have moved, we've evolved with you, as opposed to just jumping in today then jumping out.

Shark 10:32
The reference Teddy Murphy's brilliant. I was just thinking about this recently, I was talking to a friend of mine just yesterday about the stuff I used to say when I did stand up decades ago. I could never say that today. Yeah. And it wasn't even offensive. It's just Eddie Murphy is an African American. And he wouldn't say the same stuff. I mean, I think of these people like Andrew Dice, clay and Don Rickles, Dave Chappelle, yeah. It's amazing how they would be labeled something in the fact that you brought up Eddie Murphy and I need to go back and watch delirious just to feel good, I don't think he could fit in that red leather, cool suit he had either for the for the raw video, but it's still, the thing that I find interesting is having lived in a lot of different cities, spoken a lot of different languages lived in several foreign countries, I've been able to, luckily to travel the world has been been a godsend for me. And, you know, most I'm thinking about it from where I get to dive with different kinds of sharks more than any. But I think about this from a reference with culture, about how most people haven't had that opportunity. So they get contextually what they find, unfortunately, just on social media, and then it becomes stuff that heats up at the moment. And I don't know how to expand everybody's perspective, because there's not not a way to necessarily, I mean, you can listen to people on podcasts and learn from others. But social media, again, is not the greatest place to really experience culture. And so for brands that are trying to fit not only if their global brand, it becomes an even more complex problem, because most other cultures don't go through it. They don't have any kind of shared history of what we've gone through. That's right. So how do you what kind of guidance do you give those?

Marcus Collins 12:12
I mean, you're so spot on. I mean, what you're speaking about is, is intimacy that, you know, you can read about Sweden, you can watch Swedish movies, but you don't know what it's like to be a Swede you go, and you touch it, and you visit it, right? Like, I can look at New York from an aerial view. I don't know New York, it's like walk the city. Right, you got to be close to it. So you know that the communications literature refers to this as public pedagogy. That is the media that we consume, helps shape what we consider to be reality, or at least our view of what things are, is it accurate? Probably not. But it provides a shorthand. So you know, if before I went to Dubai, for the first time, in my mind, Dubai and Saudi Arabia were the exact same thing,

Shark 13:00
like not at all. Yeah. Like,

Marcus Collins 13:02
I did that exact same thing. So when I got off the plane, I was like, I feel like I'm in Europe, this is completely different. They're both 200 degrees. Exactly, exactly. But it's not what I thought I was, I it was because the media I consumed helped shape what I thought reality was going to be, but you don't know until you experience it. So to your point, you know, relying on social networking platforms as the only way to, to sort of create frames by which you see the world is, is probably going to give you only one side of it. Now the discourse is powerful by doing the wrong discourse that happens on social media platforms are really good. But for brands who want to be close, you got to go visit for brands who want to connect with a particular group of people, like you got to go chop it up with them, you got to go be a part of them to really understand. And this is an issue that I think marketers run into because we have so much data at our disposal. We've talked about this before. So much data are disposable our disposal, we feel like we know people, but then no information intimacy are two totally different things. If you have a meeting coming up, you go on to LinkedIn real quick, so I can know who that person is. But you don't know them until you actually talk to them. And the same thing goes for for marketers, we don't know people until we actually invest ourselves in it until we immerse ourselves in the culture, which is the equivalent of going to Sweden as opposed to I just read about it.

Shark 14:38
You do know what it's like to be somewhat in Sweden considering that in your winners. It's also negative 200. So you're getting the same.

Marcus Collins 14:46
Here's the interesting part about that. So I was in Sweden last I think in 2007 2018 and I never been to Sweden winter never before is my first time being there in the winter. And I was so shocked. because they don't, at least in Stockholm, they don't plow the streets. There's just snow there just just kicked up snow on the streets. I live in Michigan and at time it snows we're like plow this thing as fast as possible. So we can drive. But people just drive on top of the snow like they have sleds on their, on their cars. It was the It was wild. Especially as a Michigander were, were very to your point very much used to smell it, those little small things that make all the difference in the world. I mean, there were parents that were pulling their kids literally pulling the kids on sleds, to school, I was like mind blown, because in Michigan, it just doesn't happen that way.

Shark 15:42
Well, it always looks a lot cleaner. And I think about it in most of northern Europe where they get too much snow. But I remember being in Michigan, one week in Minneapolis another week into in New York, all within three weeks. And there was a snowstorm that had come through during that period, sort of from Midwest to the east, and the snow was dirty, it was plowed over and it sits there for six months until it melts. And it just looks dirty, nasty. And then you go to Sweden and it's like say like snow with kids and Kid people pulling their kids out on sleds. Unbelievable. One of the spot on points I think you have that is such a problem for marketers today. And I think so many people are remissed and don't understand this is that marketing for the most part doesn't get close enough to actual people. Yeah. And I constantly am shocked at how much distance there is. and lack of intimacy I use one of the things that I've often brought up at conferences, that probably makes sense only to me, and nobody else looking at this graphic. But I remember walking through a store, I want to say it was a Walmart and it was the picture frame aisle, I took a picture of the picture frames all set out on the shelves. And because I had this you know epiphany and put it on a slide. And I told people instead of just posting pictures of yourself and your pets and your your hiking trips, you know that you put up in your cubicle, take a picture somewhere, metaphorically speaking of a customer, and put that get to know your customer really get to know them. Yeah, and I find so often that people have created such a distance. And we haven't really figured out how to bridge that distance for most people. And I don't know how much of its culture, how much of its social how much of it's not, it's not an age thing. It's just Yeah, marketing is a practice doesn't get close enough to actual people,

Marcus Collins 17:27
I think because it takes a lot of time. And I didn't realize this, or I realized it before, I didn't really come to appreciate it until I got on the academic side of the world, where you know, we we interrogate everything, rigorously interrogate everything, and like, try to suss out meaning and, you know, when we look at something we observe something was the standing in for we do that with great, great rigor on the academic side. But it also takes a long time, like, three years on one study, that we don't have that sort of luxury in the world of of practice. And because the timetables are so short, and we're trying to meet the next deliverable. As practitioners, we're kind of like, what's the fast way to do this. I mean, that's why we look at people as demographics, as opposed to who they really are. Because getting to know people take a long time. I mean, it takes you a long time to get to know your wife. Like, it takes time. But that's how relationships are formed. And I feel that because it takes time, we try to find the most efficient way. But there's no such thing as an efficient relationship, not a meaningful, efficient relationship. It takes time short, lightweight interactions over a period of time. And as marketers, we typically don't have that much time we had a meet our numbers by next quarter, or, you know, we had a new launch and like, you know, the thing needs to have this much penetration or market share in X amount of months. Read time ago, take your time to go meet people get to know people. Again, that's a folly, which is why and why didn't it lease, you know, we're spending a lot more time like slowing down, to get to know who these people really are.

Shark 19:12
One of the things I wanted to ask you about though, was this bridge with students and knowing that you're also teaching at a university level, the discussions you have with people today, what do you see is the value really, for what colleges and universities provide to marketing students to help move them forward? I'm a big proponent of a college education or again, but at the same time, there's so much out there that people sort of feel like they can learn on their own from an online standpoint. Yeah,

Marcus Collins 19:38
I think that what the technology has provided for us is a disruption to what we consider traditional like ivory tower Academy. That is, academics are meant to acquire knowledge and disseminate it. Right. That's our job we rigorously study finance manaan in the world, and we get all that information, then we disseminate it through our publishing through classroom. We teach it. But I think that that, that is a, that is a framework for yesteryear. And for me, at least, the most powerful thing that I can provide in the classroom is perspective, a way of seeing the world, right, because I believe that things aren't the way they are things the way that we are in the way we see the world for the way that we behave in the world. So if I can provide students with a perspective, then whatever information that they get, they can read on or online, they can get from Coursera. They can see in YouTube, these these things, they'll constantly continue to grow their repertoire of information. But these things will all be filtered through a perspective to help them make meaning of the world. So my pedagogical approach comes from a gentleman by the name of John Piaget, and John Piaget would say that people learn when they're in a state of cognitive disequilibrium. That is, when the worldview that we have is disrupted, we go, Whoa, what's going on here. And then we allocate all our cognitive energy to put the world back together again. And putting that world back together again, creates a new universe for us to which we operate. So the classroom experience for me is how do I break people's worldview? Give them the tools to help them put it back together, but do it collectively with other people who are also experiencing this broken worldview? Right, this broken schema, as psychologists describe it. So the classroom is not just a place where information is disseminated. Classroom, the classroom becomes a curated environment, where people learn when people are putting the world back together again. And I give them some information to do that. I also give them exercises to do that kinetically, right, they can arrive at it through doing but I also provide the proper stimuli least I think, the proper stimuli that allow them to get there through discourse through talking about it, like why didn't see it that way, I saw it this way. And then Oh, I get it now. And classrooms are at their best when they're designed for that kind of learning, not for a place where information is disseminated, because that can be easily done through the World Wide Web more cheaply, and probably more bespoke, because I'm looking for the things I'm specifically looking for, as opposed to marketing in general,

Shark 22:39
that me somebody that went from engineering to marketing your perfect example, I'm sure you pull a lot of the practices from an engineering perspective in the marketing. But you know, you didn't need to cover four P's of marketing.

Marcus Collins 22:53
I don't remember anything about grain boundaries from materials engineering. But I do, I did develop a way to think in a very sort of logical sort of mode, a modular way of approaching problems like that, I learned a perspective of how to solve through engineering. Again, I don't remember hexagonal, close packed, sort of crystallization systems. I don't remember that I'm not a measure, sort of tensile testing. I don't remember those things. But it's certainly I know about networks because of carbon chains. And ironic Vegas not so ironically, that my approach to marketing is all based upon networks, and how things are shared between these dyadic ties that connect people the same way electrons are shared between the ties that connect carbon atoms.

Shark 23:44
One of the things we've spoken about before and I know you spoke at a conference where we met about data, and it's I know we had a offline conversation about as well. But really, it's data driven insights. And, and I'd like you to kind of give your viewpoint on what marketers are doing today with data.

Marcus Collins 24:03
So here's, here's the deal. Here's what I call the data paradox, that we have more data available to us than ever before. reams and reams, and reams, and reams, and reams and reams of data. However, while data has exponentially increased over time, we've only marginally increased our ability to extract insights out of it, extract meaning from it, right? So the data, data acquisition graph looks exponential. And then the Insight graph is just sort of gradually increasing that a linear level, but we're not like super better at understanding people. You know, we have more data. Why is that? Because we mistake information for intimacy. So how do we fix that then? Well, the first is that we had to look at people as people, not zeros and ones which helps us sort of capture what people are doing or what they feel what they believe what was going on their lives, but we look at them as human beings, which requires a tremendous amount of empathy. So as we get closer to understanding who they are using different forms of, of data, not just zeros and ones, but like from having conversations and extracting meaning out of it, we then have to apply some empathy. Right, some empathy, like so how are these people seeing the world empathy is very it microadventure describes he says that this is self aware perspective taking, I'm gonna take my glasses off, and put on your lenses to see how you see the world. And by doing that, I can better understand who you are. Because you and I can look at the exact same thing and see two totally different things, not because the thing we're looking at changes is that our worldviews are different, our frames are different. But I don't understand that unless I understand you, and how you see the world in our demographics, we'll never express that, right? Our age, race, gender, household income never captures that. But that's how we describe people. That's what the data provides us, you know, African American male, from Detroit, he's probably going to do this, that the third, that's the data says, but like, African American males at a certain age from Detroit, they're not a monolith. But the data is good, that kind of nuance people do. So the challenge for marketers then is, how do we make meaning of the data? How do we extract the frames by which people live their lives? So we can look at the data to say, Oh, here's what really is going on here. We use data for validation, we use data for testing, we use data as a snapshot of what's going on. But snapshots are our only moments in time. Right? They're like, they're literally static. We're thinking about the way people make meaning of the world where people's cultural subscriptions guide how they understand what they see, or how they, how they make sense of what they see, that is fluid and dynamic. Which means for marketers that we got to move beyond the zeros and ones and get closer to the human side of things. And that sounds like a bit like it feels like a bit cliche. The cliches are cliches for racist, because they are.

Shark 27:30
Well, what's your advice then on how to bridge that gap? Because for most people, that's really all they're ever going to lean into, is the data only

Marcus Collins 27:38
guess that's where the empathy side comes in. Right? That's like, Hey, I see what the data says. But who are these people? Let me go talk to them. I mean, this is where ethnography come into play even ethnography, right? My doctoral research, I only use Reddit data, right. But I know this community really, really, really well. Because I invested myself I immerse myself in it as if I were a part of the community. And by the way, my research is about cultural contagion and meaning making how we make meaning of the world. And the idea there is that like, the closer we get to it, the better we understand it. So how do we get beyond that? ethnography is net geography using anthropological means Anthro being about people, but society, like using these means by which academics, researchers that are outside of the commercial world get to know people, we borrow from that, that's how we know about who we are as as a species, is through those means of research. So we should do that, to not just do this, we can check the box to say we did it, but to really, really, really get at understanding who these people are. And by the way, they're not the persona that you've given them. Great point.

Shark 28:54
So Marcus, you're in a part of the world that does not see a lot of sharks, but I asked everyone who's a guest on A Shark's Perspective, because of my own personal passion. What is your favorite kind of shark and why?

Marcus Collins 29:06
Oh my favorite kind of shark has got to be the great white because the apex predator, great wine is a monster and it gets super crazy hang time, and I'm terrified of them.

Shark 29:19
Good answer. I was I'm always curious to when somebody has children. I want to know what their answer is also going to be because it's all over the board. Sometimes it's Baby shark is the But Marcus at that special time the show? Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions you're going to be asked today? i Let's do it. All right. You are teaching at University of Michigan, so this question will make a little bit of sense. Who would win in a fight? Iron Man or Wolverine? It's a good Marvel Comics, University of Michigan type question.

Marcus Collins 29:53
So I had to go with Wolverine. If nothing else then like whatever Iron Man dishes out, he'll be able to heal from them and his claws will be able to be able to go through the suit at some point. I mean, Tony Stark is just a dude. He's brilliant. Just a dude though. And pound for pound at some point. Jarvis and all of his, all of his like, technology is going to run a battery. It will really just keep going. He's too worried. It's gotta be Wolverine. And plus, I'm a Michigan Wolverine. So you know.

Shark 30:29
Alright, number two. So Beyonce question. Yeah, Single Ladies are crazy and love

Marcus Collins 30:35
Wu. Single Ladies.

Shark 30:38
It's one of the video. I mean, and the parody video with Timberlake. It's one of the greatest it

Marcus Collins 30:43
is it is two four videos. So ladies has so much cultural gravitas because people know what this is. Yeah, yeah. There's a there's

Shark 30:56
people that are not watching the video. He's waving his hand.

Marcus Collins 30:59
Yeah, exactly. There's the hand wave is the A we know that is off off rip. But also, there's the there's the language if you like to you should put a ring on it. Like all that came out of the song then there's the video that's that's ridiculous as well as unbelievably phenomenal. It's gotta be it's got to be single ladies put a ring on it for sure.

Shark 31:23
Alright, number three, and you brought him up earlier. So I gotta ask Eddie Murphy question. Beverly Hills Cop or coming to America.

Marcus Collins 31:30
Coming to America all day every day. Coming to America might be one of the top 10 Greatest Movies made it's one of the best definitely one of the best comedies

Shark 31:43
ever. I should have asked Beverly Hills Cop two or coming to America to

Marcus Collins 31:49
Belize Beverly Hills Cop to record to his trash.

Shark 31:52
That's why That's why I was thinking about this questions. Beverly Hills Cop. Those two three was a little rough but the first two were

Marcus Collins 32:02
Yeah, they listed Beverly Hills Cop to give a British Nelson exactly as that but yeah, though, coming to America to was it was so hard to even like accepted because coming to America one is like it is a national treasure that night like yet I go and Beverly Hills Cop to versus coming to America to

Shark 32:25
Alright, number four. One of your favorite animals, Wolverines or owls. Oh, and going back to your temple days. I mean,

Marcus Collins 32:37
I suppose an owl over Wolverine Wolverine is actually at least in my mind. There so like, on inspiring they you see like a little thing like little

Shark 32:48
roads right with it, but it is the one that provides you a check also. So

Marcus Collins 32:52
that's true, but like an owl look, looks looks kind of majestic. And it's you know, I gotta go with it now.

Shark 32:58
All right, number five. And the most important question that you're going to be asked today is, drumroll please. biscuits or cornbread?

Marcus Collins 33:05
Oh, that's actually a really good question. You

Shark 33:10
should write a thesis on this get University of Michigan to give me some money. Let's do a doctoral thesis on this.

Marcus Collins 33:16
biscuits or cornbread. Oh man, that is hard. That's really hard because because biscuits has more. They're more occasions. Biscuits. You can have breakfast you can have dinner your biscuits lunch. But cornbread. Oh man, congrats so classic. I think I had to go biscuits. Okay. I feel like I'm I feel like I'm cheating on cornbread with that one. But

Shark 33:46
we both have such a relationship with both of them. So Mark is working more people find out about you. Follow your thoughts and leadership, hear you speak at conferences or in a University of Michigan classroom and more.

Marcus Collins 33:59
Totally, you can find me at mark to the sea ma RC tothec.com also at mark to the sea across all the social channels. There

Shark 34:11
Marcus, again an honor. Thank you again so much for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective.

Marcus Collins 34:15
My pleasure. Thanks for having me. It's great.

Shark 34:23
So there was my conversation with Dr. Marcus Collins, a clinical assistant professor of marketing at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, as well as the head of planning at Weiden Kennedy, New York. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from my conversation with him.

Shark 34:36
First, as I mentioned earlier, the way brands lean into culture for many of them. It's like tiptoeing through a minefield while wearing a blinder. So many make the wrong reference at the wrong time. As Marcus said, culture is contextual and it's time bound. What is acceptable today may not be tomorrow. He goes on to remind us that culture is not just popular. It's how we make meaning of the world. So just keep that in mind before you leave. too far for the wrong reason.

Shark 35:02
Second, Marcus is a really good speaker. And I've heard him speak about data and insights before one of my favorite topics because my own background, use as much data as possible, but get closer to your actual customers. And don't rely on personas in the data that comes just from campaigns. We need intimacy. And of course, that can be hard to scale, but get to know your customers better. As he said, information intimacy are two different things don't rely on only information just to replace the other.

Shark 35:29
Third, love the references as well as to getting closer and how that applies to culture and perspectives and how what surrounds us helps shape our reality. For example, He said, You can read about Sweden, you can watch Swedish movies, but you don't know what it's like to be a Swede, until you go. That's a great point. You've got to get closer to people and their problems and the reason they consider your brand to really experience them. That's a big problem a disconnect, if you will, that a lot of marketers especially digital ones have today. Social media is one way but it's a surrogate relationship at best. Get to know them way beyond a persona and make sure you carry a jacket because they get a lot of snow and it's cold there.

Shark 36:07
Got a question send me an email to Kenneth at a sharks perspective dot com.

Shark 36:11
Thank you again for the privilege of your time, and I'm so thankful to everyone who listens.

Shark 36:15
Thank you to my sponsor and the team at Drips.

Shark 36:17
Please consider writing a review and letting me know your thoughts on the show.

Shark 36:21
So I think it's time for me to add a little more culture my own life. I think I'm gonna go do it though from 60 to 75 feet below in the water. So join us on the next episode of aA Shark's Perspective.
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