Navigating the Election Storm: What CPG Brands Need to Know

Foreign.

Welcome, everybody, to another edition of CPG Insiders. I'm your host, Mark Young with the co host the Robin to the Batman.

There it is.

Justin Gerard.

Oh, hello, folks. I know you missed us.

You don't like the Robin to the Batman.

Who doesn't love the Robin to the Batman. Hey, Robin became Nightwing. He got his own team. I'm down for that.

Well, that's. I guess Robin did. Did grow up eventually.

He did. He did.

And I think you'd look better in the tight tights with the green underwear than I would.

Yeah, maybe we should. We should do a poll on that.

We could. We'll put one out on X. We'll do it. We'll do an X poll. Who looks better in green tights.

Oh, that's how you get the numbers up, Mark.

That'll help. Speaking of the numbers up, we are in the top five podcast for all things consumer packaged goods.

I, I mean, I'm excited, like, grateful, you know, that's, that's huge.

I am so grateful for that that people take the time to listen to this.

Yeah, I never, I mean, we, when we started this, we had no intentions of reaching any feat like that. It's. It's just been a great show and people continue to listen and like I said, just grateful that we can continue to. To help. Help all.

It is super rewarding when we get calls from people or emails from people saying, I've been listening to the podcast and I learned this and I learned that and I changed this about my company.

Yeah.

And it's like, wow, we're. We're actually helping the entrepreneurial world here.

We're doing great work. So that's exciting.

So we gotta. We have this little thing coming up in the. Here in America coming up here shortly. Justin. It's called the presidential election.

Oh, the election. Oh, I thought you were talking about the NFL football season. Football season is coming up and obviously that's everything. So what else is there?

So here in the United States, politics. And I know we have listeners that are outside of the United States. Right here in the United States, if you don't live here, politics is actually part of our world of entertainment.

Yes, it is.

So it literally is a part of the entertainment machinery.

Yeah, it is.

So it's a little foreign to other people who don't live in this environment with our multiple 24.7news channel. So here in the United States, politics is part of our entertainment industry. It's literally part of Hollywood. And so if, you know, if you live outside the United States. That might seem a little weird to you that we do this now. Interestingly enough, Americans don't really pay much attention. The bulk of America doesn't pay any attention to presidential politics until after Labor Day.

Yeah.

So that's when they start focusing in. So it's a very interesting election. And when we look at what we have going on here, we have a campaign between Donald Trump and campaign between Harris, which is very interesting because we now have a campaign between two parties that actually have a track record.

Yeah.

One is a vice president, one as a president. So it's not so much, I hope I'm going to be better. There's a track record to see you find better.

To make the content a lot different.

It does. So obviously this is more of a campaign about who's already done something than it is who is going to do something. Presidential campaigns can be disruptive to our industry. So one thing, we're already seeing pressure on some of the commercial prices.

Yep.

And that's at the national level. Then on the local level, if you happen to be advertising in a battleground state, the media is almost non existent. And just so people understand, Congress years ago passed a law to lo and behold, help themselves. And I know because what politician would do something self serving shocks me every.

Time I hear about it.

So the law says that no outlet, television, radio, print, whatever the case is, no outlet can sell an advertisement to the private sector for one penny less than they sell it to a politician. So that means that it, if we buy media at a discount, which we do, then politicians have the right to get our price.

Yep.

So what that tends to do, it tends to increase the prices on all the media.

Yeah. Really, really, really, really, really hurts the inventory.

Right. So now we do have certain things we do to get around it and we use unwired networks and we do all kinds of different maneuvers this time of the year so that we can keep our people moving. A couple of interesting things IRI reports. People have heard us talk about Iri. Iri tells us what everybody's selling. There is a big jump in the sale of sausage. Now that sounds humorous on the surface.

I mean, I'll leave it there. I'll leave it there. Yeah, we're, we're a family show and.

Sausage includes brats and hot dogs and all that stuff.

So why is that interesting?

I mean, because it's the cheapest form of protein. Because think about sausage and hot dogs and brats and all that stuff are made out of all the parts of this, of the Animal you can't sell.

Yeah.

So it's the cheapest meat on the market. Now we're seeing other meat products are taking a hit while sausage is increasing. So that tells us that we have a lot of consumers out there that are struggling at the, at the grocery store. They're, they're looking for alternatives for protein sources.

Yeah. I mean, obviously in this country you've been hearing a lot about just the, the income cost of living, you know, increasing in many categories.

And it's so interesting, Justin, because we're watching, we're watching the economy bifurcate.

Yeah.

So, and I'll give you an example. Why, what do. I'm saying that we have families that are switching over to hot dogs and sausage because they can't afford cuts of meat. Okay. Now go try to get a reservation on Saturday night at a, at a great restaurant.

Right, right. It's very tough still.

Right. You can't even get in.

Yeah.

So we're really seeing this, this split between two Americas.

And, and do you think that this trend. How does, I guess, how does the election play into some of these signals that we're starting to see?

Well, elections tend to make people nervous. They make markets nervous because they're unknowns.

Right.

But regardless, we're seeing this bifurcation of two Americans. So as consumer packaged goods manufacturers, this is a reason why we need to have a really close handle on who our core consumer is. Yeah. Because which one of those Americas are we appealing to?

Right, right.

Because how we're going to market, how we're going to price, how we're going to run our business is going to be very different.

Yeah.

Based on which one of those two Americas is buying our product.

Well, and I think that's very interesting too, because when you think about also moving into the election cycle, and you mentioned it earlier, about when we were talking about what we're going to see from what I'll call a linear tv, you know, side of things. Where. And television side of things. But going deeper into the digital space, you know, we're going to be overloaded with political content. And so now understanding who your core customer is, you're going to get a better idea of what kind of content they're constantly going to be inundated with. How do you fit within that content cycle effectively? And is it, is it something where you do take a political allegiance because it will work for you, or do you stay neutral? These are decisions you need to really consider because there's no way to escape it during this time as A, as a consumer, it's everywhere. So it's a reality that we must understand. And how do we fit into that reality from a messaging standpoint? Yeah.

I mean, we look at black rifle coffee. Great example. Focused on military, conservative values, family values, Second Amendment.

I mean, they're very clear, right?

Very clear. They made a decision that we're going to throw a third of the country away.

Yeah. Mm.

We're going to be passionately loved by the opposite third and we're going to be okay with the third in the middle.

Yep, yep.

But they've decided we can afford to throw a whole third of the country away because the third that likes us will really have an ethos with us and really say, I get these guys, they get me. We share values, we can be friends.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, we love, we love our law enforcement, we love our military. We are pro second amendment.

Well, and I think it's also interesting too, because you talked about, like, black rifle coffee. Who. You could just tell that brand, those individuals, they. They were making a political statement, this is who we are. Right. This is just who we are. But. But it had, it had no connection to the product category. There's someone coffee. Right. There's no real political swing in the category.

Right.

But for all brands, you also need to consider the reality of, depending on the category you're in, is there already a natural political element to the environment? And if there is, then you need to understand it, how to engage with the community. If it, if there's a community that is extremely political. Well, even going neutral, you could actually be having the opposite effect, saying, well, we don't want to have this discussion, but our category is having this discussion. I mean, look at beer. Right? Like, you have to understand, depending on who your consumer is and how the category associates, depending on where you sit in that category, there's already political linings and elements to it.

Well, a good example would be Harley Davidson.

Yeah, that's another good one.

Harley Davidson are Trump flag wearing, you know, supporters, conservative, Republican. That's who's riding Harley Davidson.

Right.

And then Harley Davidson recently started moving toward making DEI decisions because they hired a CEO from Germany and they started hurting the brand.

Right.

Because they literally ignored who they were.

Right.

We saw this happen years ago in the restaurant chain Bill Naps and Bill Knapps was the place for senior citizens and small children. So this is the place if you were a sandwich generation and you needed to plan a Sunday dinner for grandma and grandpa and have something for the kids. This is where you went and they were famous for having these great birthday cakes. And you got 1% off your birthday cake and your meal for every year that you were old. So you take grandpa there, who's 100 years old, and he gets a free birthday cake and free dinner. And then they got a new CEO who decided, we're going to make Bill Knapp's hip and cool. And they completely remodeled the insides, started playing loud music, changed the menu. The menu was made up of soft comfort foods.

Yeah, that was their audience.

They had spaghetti, they had macaroni and cheese, they had mashed potatoes, they had, you know, goulash dishes and stuff that was easy. Stuff you could eat with your dentures or without your dentures. And now they changed all it and they added spicy stuff and all this kind of stuff. Well, grandma and grandpa decided, I don't want to go to Bill Naps anymore. But all the cool kids didn't get the memo that they were now supposed to go to Bill Naps. Why? Because everybody, all the cool kids said, why would I go to Bill Naps? That's for old people. Right. I'll go there if I want to take grandma to dinner. So at no point did they convince the public that Bill Naps was no longer Bill Napps and they threw away their existing customer base. Now, by the way, looking back at that, if they'd really wanted to do that, they should have just thrown the name Bill Knapp away.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Need to start a whole new brand.

Right. Because the name was actually dragging them down.

Yeah. At that point. At that point.

Because at that point people would make jokes about going to Bill Knapp because you made jokes about, I'm not old enough to eat at Bill Naps yet. So no one was. All of a sudden it's going to change. Oh, well, Bill Naps is to.

For cool people.

Yeah, I'm going to go Naps now.

So.

So they killed the entire company. Now, by the way, on the left, you have brands on the left too. I mean, Ben and Jerry's for sure. Again, no particular tie to the category, but Ben and Jerry has, have been very outspoken on. We are far left liberals.

Yep. That's what they. Their bully system.

And we don't care if Republicans and conservatives don't buy our ice cream.

Right. And so, I mean, I, you know, be who you are, understand who you are during this political climate. Understand who your customer is and then understand how the political climate impacts them. The messaging they're going to hear, they're going to engage with. Now, one Thing to note, and this is kind of a tactical thing, but remember, especially if you're in the digital space, if you're doing anything within, you know, social media, meta, things like that, you also have to understand that with all the political content that's just going to be rushed into all these platforms. So one thing to understand is that one, if you're trying to do any creative changes, it may take longer to get approval because they're going to be overloaded, the cues are going to be overloaded. But the other thing is you have to be careful that even if it's part of your brand, if there's any kind of political angle, it could start to get blocked because again, everything's going to be hypersensitive. So just be careful when it comes to this time frame that those things could come up just from a tactical level.

Now it's interesting. No one's come up with Patriot Ice Cream.

No, no. I mean there's an opening there maybe.

Because there are a lot of people who, I mean there's so many choices in ice cream, but there's a lot of people who won't buy Ben and Jerry's.

Sure.

Because of who they are. There's 20 other brands here I can buy. I don't have. I'm not limited.

Right.

Harley's a little different.

Right.

In as much as if you're really focused on I want to drive American big steel motorcycles.

Right.

You have Harley and India and you're out of choices. Yeah, but no one would start a left wing liberal cruiser motorcycle brand because those are people who don't ride motorcycles.

It just doesn't. I mean, for the most part, for the consumers in the category doesn't seem to be, you know, a massive market opportunity.

So. No, the opposite of the Harley rider mentality is the Toyota Prius.

Sure. Right.

And by the way, how many Republicans and conservatives do you see running around in a Prius?

I do not know. I couldn't tell you.

They've never met one.

I know I haven't. But it doesn't mean they don't exist. Okay.

Doesn't mean they don't exist, but they're more likely driving a four wheel drive F150 or in this country, most likely.

All right, and, and so like you were saying, you know, when it comes to, from a messaging, a creative standpoint is, I guess the biggest thing to understand is that there is a storm, there is chaos. Don't fear it, just understand it and understand how to navigate it. That's the key. There from that standpoint.

And we have to get people to understand. We've said this before, for many people. We're going to go outside of the expensive restaurant group, and we're going to go to the working families. Your CPG product is now competing with a gallon of gas and with a pound of hamburger.

Right. You might. I mean, elections. You're right. I mean, there's a lot of uncertainty, so there's a lot of fear going on because, I mean, humans fear what they don't know. That's just natural.

So now I've had a lot of people ask me if who do I think is going to win the election?

Sure.

It. By all appearances, it looks like a jump ball.

Mm.

I've looked at the polling data and the polling data. The polling data, I can honestly tell you, has been tilted.

Okay.

So when you look at the polling data, you can look at the breakdowns of who was polled.

Okay.

So It'll be like 1500 likely voters.

Okay.

But if you drill deeper, what it should be is 500 Democrats, 500 Republicans, and 500 independents.

So the sample sizes are equal. Right?

Right. But what we're seeing is 400 independents, 700 Democrats, and 300 Republicans or 400 Republicans. So we know that the numbers that are showing it as being close as it is probably is not as close as it is.

Okay.

The other thing that we have to look at is the betting market. So the Vegas odds makers have been in the presidential election business for decades. You. Yes. You can bet on who you think will win the presidency.

That's. That's not American.

I don't know what is, because it's part of entertainment.

You said in the beginning of the show.

Right, Like NFL as part of entertainment. I'm going to bet on. I'm going to bet on a football game. I can bet on the election race. Here's the thing. The betting markets have never been wrong on the presidential race.

I mean, never. That's pretty impressive.

Never been wrong. And why have they never been wrong? The reason they've never been wrong is because when I go up and I say, I'm doing a survey, I'm taking a poll, who do you think is going to win the presidency? And you're going to say. You're going to say whoever it is, you want to win.

That's your bias.

I come up to you and I say, Justin, bet me $100 on the presidency, which. Who do you want? You will now pick who you think is going to win, not who you want to win.

I Mean, with money in the line. Yeah.

It changes your view. It switches your view over to who do I think is really going to win.

Right.

So as of today, when we're recording this, the betting odds right now are 56 in favor of Trump and 43% for Harris.

Okay.

It's pretty huge gap.

That's a big gap.

Now that's not, that's. They're not predicting the gap in voters. That's their, their betting odds that that's who wins.

Right, right, right. Yeah.

So as of right now, Vegas would tell you Trump will be the winner.

Got it.

And in reality, when it comes to retail and consumer packaged goods, a Republican officer, a Republican office holder is more friendly toward business than a Democrat candidate.

Well, yeah. I mean, high level, you know, when you think about economic policies and things like that, that would make sense.

It is because Democrat, the Democrat model of, of government is bigger government with more regulation.

Yep.

So more regulation means more cost to making product. Republicans, Trump is in specific, is very much about eliminating blocks, eliminating regulations, which makes business easier.

Right.

Republicans will be more about reducing taxes. Democrats are typically more about increasing taxes.

Right. Which increase costs.

Correct. And I want people to, to think of something here too. Right now, we're being told, we were told this by Biden, we're being told this by Harris, we're being told this by Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders. The rich don't pay their fair share. And the polling data shows that the majority of America think that the rich should be taxed more.

Okay.

Now the reason that the polling data shows that is because the polling data always comes out based on how you position the question.

Okay.

The question highly motivates that.

I mean, that makes sense.

So here's the problem with that. The top 1% of Americans pay 40% of all the taxes in the country.

Okay.

The top 10% pay over 70% of all the taxes in the country.

Wow.

Between that top 1 and 10 and between that top 1% and a 10% lie all the entrepreneurs and all the business owners who make all the CPG products.

Right.

They all live there.

Yeah.

Okay. If you raise my taxes, or let's say I'm P and G and you raise the taxes on P and G, does that mean P and G's board is going to go to their investors and say, sorry, we can't make money anymore because of the taxes?

It's not how publicly traded companies work.

No. They have to get a return for their investors. Yes. So they will raise the prices of those new products in direct relationship.

Yeah.

To the new taxes.

They have to get the margin somewhere.

Now, Vice President Harris has also come up with a proposal where she's talking about price fixing consumer products.

Okay.

She wants to put price caps on it.

Interesting how this was attempted.

We attempted this under Nixon.

Yeah. I'm just curious on how that would be possible. And also for anybody who has products, what they should be thinking about it.

It is an enormous failure.

Okay.

When you do it. So when you put price. When you put price caps on consumer products, two things happen. One, you create shortages.

Okay. Yeah. Which you know what that does?

Because the companies who do not have economies of scale stop shipping. Because now you want me to ship sausages and you want me to sell them for $0.05 pound less than I make them for.

Right.

I just have to stop making it.

Yep.

The other thing that you create is you create a massive black market.

I didn't think about that impact.

Oh, no. You make. You create a huge black market. So. And if you think about today, we now have the perfect storm of black market model.

Absolutely.

Called Amazon.

Yeah. It's Amazon.

So you put price caps on manufacturers, you put price caps on the retailers, but nothing stops individuals from buying up product and reselling it on ebay and reselling it on Amazon.

Right.

And charging more money for it.

Right.

So what you end up doing is you end up creating a black market which increases the cost of product and you create massive shortages of products. One, because I can't produce it, or two, I'm going to sell it into the black market.

Yeah. I mean, at least there's something there.

Yeah. I'll wholesale it out. I'll forget shipping it to Walmart. I'll wholesale at the brokers.

Right.

Who will go stick it on ebay.

Right. I'll get more margin that way. Right.

So it doesn't work. None of these things work. None of these things work any place in the world that they've ever been implemented. But we keep thinking that they're going to work. Well, they're. They're not going to work.

Right.

Harris has also proposed rent controls. So she's proposing that what she calls big landlord.

Okay.

And she defines big landlord as somebody who owns more than 50 units, which is hardly big business.

Yeah. That's one building.

Yeah. Easily.

Yeah.

So it's hardly big business.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

As you know, I own many, many, many more than that. And you wouldn't call my operation big business.

No, not in that category.

Right. And I own 12 times that.

Right, exactly.

So the model would be a 5% rent cap.

Okay. Like 5% increase.

The most that I would be able to increase rent would be 5% in any given year.

Okay.

Except in the last two years I've had a 50% increase in insurance. So I've had a 25 increase in electricity.

Yeah.

I've had a 20% increase in payroll.

Right.

I've had a 20 plus increase in health insurance. I can go on and on and on fuel. So I can't rent units with a 5% increase. So what happens, always understand the market will find a way around the government. So price control has been used in New York, it was used in la. And what happens is it creates a big rental shortage. Yeah. Because here's what happens. People who are in the business of renting homes. So people who rent single family houses.

Yeah.

They sell them instead. They put them up for sale.

Yep. I mean, that makes sense.

So you sell the house, you get the money out of the house and that reduced the potential rent. Rental model.

Yeah.

People with large apartment complexes, they turn their apartments into condominiums. Because think about it, what's the difference between an apartment and a condo complex? It's an apartment you own.

Right. I mean. Right. That's it. That. No, that's literally it. Yeah, yeah.

It's an apartment you own.

Yeah.

So all the big apartment players will turn all their apartments into condominiums. They will sell them to individuals and then they will run the hoa. They'll run the homeowners association and run the condo complex, but sell the units. Now, some people will qualify for a mortgage and be able to buy them. But the people who need to rent will be left with no option.

Yep.

So they will be left with only a couple of options. One option to be government housing. So where it's government subsidized. Or they're going to be renting junk.

Right.

Where the landlord can use a 5% increase because he doesn't spend any money on his property.

Right.

And then also these people end up with a lower standard of living.

Right.

By the government saying, I'm here to help. Remember was Ronald Reagan who said the nine scariest words in the English language, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

But I mean to your point, again, for all the brains to consider, and this is, this is really good. If you haven't, then if you're like most Americans, like you start off the show and then you haven't really gotten interested in, in the political landscape until now. It's, it's Very much worth understanding, understanding the positions, understanding what the impact could be again, not only for yourself, but getting back to your target audience and, and what they may be thinking and what may be going on in their, their minds. And, and how can you now understand the, the competitive landscape has now changed. But how has it changed? Right. You have to really understand how it's changing, because competitive landscape is all about decision making. How do I ensure that I'm in that cart or in that home? Right. How do I make the list? But you don't know what makes up the list? And we have to expand our understanding of who we're really competing with to get on that list. And then during these types of times, depending on who your customer is and what their, what the, the election could be doing to them or what they think it might happen, very much impacts that decision making.

Right now we have an election that is basically around some people who want to have good policies. And I say good policies for business.

Okay.

And people who want to vote for somebody who isn't Donald Trump.

I mean, that's happened a lot in our country. Right. Where a lot of people are not voting for someone, they're going against somebody else.

Correct. So as voters, we need to sometimes sit down and analyze. Let's, let's, let's take the personalities out of this. No matter which personality you hate or which personality you like, take the personalities out, think about your business, think about what your future is, and then figure out which one of these policies of these people, which group of policies is probably better.

Sure.

For the country, and it's probably better for my business.

Sure. And also in the same respect, from a brand perspective, I'll even flip that around and say if you're looking at, through that lens, you can't ignore the personalities because if you're connecting yourself in a political way, you are connecting yourself to that personality. Whether you like it or not, whether it is your personality, that is the connection that will be made, especially during this time.

The reality is too many people.

Today.

Are viewing the world through a political lens. You like Kamala Harris and I like Donald Trump. So we can't be friends.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's happened. Broken up a lot of families, even.

I've heard of, you know, families divided, friendships completely ended, people losing jobs, when in reality, politics should be a very small percentage of who we are as people.

Agreed.

I'll tell you somebody who I had the chance to get to meet and get to like, which you wouldn't think, but it was Bobby Kennedy.

Oh, yeah, that's right. You, you mentioned Bobby. You met him a few months ago, right?

Yep. And we gave a speech together and super bright guy, crazy far liberal. By. For my taste, sure. On some of his positions, however, what I, what I learned was here's a guy who's really smart, who really cares about America, very smart, cares about the country. I don't agree with some of his positions.

That's okay.

But you know what I was comfortable with? He cares enough and he's smart enough that if he was president, which he won't be, but if he was president, he would probably make the right decision more often than not.

Right.

Because he loves his country and he's bright, which usually brings people to the right conclusion. And it's interesting because in today's politics, we always hear people talk about we shouldn't be arguing the people, we should be debating the issues. The Founding Fathers actually said that we should not be debating the issues. The Founding fathers actually said the focus of electing the president and electing your leaders should all be one of. About character and values. Because as the Founding Fathers said, as George Washington said, an intelligent, good man, because everybody was male at that time in politics, but choosing an honest, good man to be a leader will ultimately result in good choices.

Well, I, I agree with that. And I guess to take it to the next level and, and, or a different, different conversation entirely is. You use, you use that word values, right? That word values has, has, I, I feel, changed immensely in the country and how people view it, how people define it, and they've, in fact, assigned certain, I'll call values to political parties. In fact, like it's been. So the political landscape, to your point, has become such an entertainment element that people are actually quote, unquote, assigning values to different parties when in fact, they're almost there. Again, they're personality traits in a way. It's not, they're not real values. Nobody, nobody can take a look at the, you know, a value of loyalty or courage and say, you know, that's, that's, you know, that's a conservative, or that's, that's a liberal value. No, that's just a human trait. How you vote is how you vote.

That was a reality. I find that Bobby Kennedy and I share more values than we don't.

Right. And, and again, if you make. And I think that was a great. Maybe you meant or didn't mean to make that connection, but circling back around to CBG Brands is make it about your values, whatever your values is who you Are. Right. That's. Keep the conversation there. And no matter in this time, depending on what those values are, when the environment or ecosystem may try to make it a political conversation. Stick true to who you are. Right. You know what you're about. Yeah.

And be honest with who you are.

Yeah. Stay true. Just stay true to what your values are, no matter what's going on. But like we said earlier, understand that during this time frame, there is the risk of there being a political conversation or angle that's assigned to it inadvertently. So you have to understand that and plan for it, but don't be afraid of it.

If you want to be a political brand, you need to go into that with both feet.

And, and even if you don't want to be, but you have to understand what, what is your message and then understand. Okay. Is there potentially a political angle or swing that's an unintended consequence of this? That could happen. You need to think about. Yeah.

Another example is Patriot Mobile.

Okay.

So they're cell phone resellers. They've got 4 million subscribers, 4 million people using their cell phones.

Yep.

And. And what's their, what's their whole deal? Their whole deal is don't give your money to, to CE cell phone companies that are going to use it to endorse values that you don't believe in.

Okay. Well, and that's. And again, for those individuals, as we talked about. Right. Understanding how to make the list, how to make the competitive set when our, when consumer sentiment and consumer spending is constrained and sentiments down and we have all this fear. Right, right. Being that moment that may differentiate your brand and your product could be. And most likely will be. Right. That connection, that passionate connection that you're making about why you're doing what you're doing and who you are, that is probably going to be the make or break moment for many things. And that's the reason that you actually get into the cart, you know? Well, like you said, it's, it's. This time frame is, is from a media standpoint, from messaging standpoint, a consumer life standpoint. It's. In this country. It's chaos. It's chaos.

We've talked before. I have to get, as a brand, I have to get you to recognize who I am.

Yeah.

I then have to convince you that I'm the solution to a problem you have. I then need to build rapport or trust. And until I get the rapport of the trust, I haven't earned the right to ask you for money.

Yep.

Now I may be able to Earn that trust by convincing you that I'm the most scientifically proven sure product X on the market and that we spend all this money in R and D and we've got 15 patents and we have 5,000 five star reviews. I might, all of those things might bring me trust. Or I might say I'm Patriot Mobile and now what I'm saying is I sell the exact same cell phone with the exact same signals coming from the same towers. But I promise none of your money will be used for democratic events, Democrat policies.

Sure.

That we're only going to donate money to conservative values.

Those are your values that you believe in. Then checked all the other boxes.

But no matter what, I have to build rapport. And trust. Politics is one way of building rapport. So I could say you hate Trump, I hate Trump, let's be friends, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Or the opposite. Or we could build that trust because you saw all my five star reviews on Amazon, Right. We could build that trust because I'm Tom's shoes.

Yeah.

And if you buy a pair of shoes from me, I'm gonna go give a pair of these really crappy shoes to someone else. They really are crappy shoes. The shoes fall apart. I hate to say that, but that's another means of building trust. Or we could say I'm a supporter of breast cancer research or I only use non GMO, organic, certified, all healthy ingredients in my product. There's a number of ways of building rapport and a number of ways of building that relationship and that trust. Politics is one of those avenues.

Yeah, yeah.

But regardless of who you are, you will need to choose at least one, right?

Yeah.

Somehow you need, you need to build a relationship, rapport and trust with that consumer.

Agreed. So I guess, you know, to kind of wrap up the show, if you were going to give any CPG brand or even marketer. Right. What are the top three things that you can do to succeed during this election period?

Stay on the gas in your advertising. Know that you're probably going to spend a little bit more money right now. Stay as far away from the politics as you can. If that's your brand, if your brand is political, then lean in. But lean in with your eyes open. Knowing I'm going to offend a good chunk of the country, but I'm going to attempt to be passionately desired by the other half of the country.

Yeah.

The other thing I would say is elections. As Obama said, elections have consequences. So besides for what we are, besides for the fact that we're CPG manufacturers And marketers. We're Americans or most of us listening are Americans. Your vote matters. Do your research. Don't take what the ads are saying. Don't take what the media is saying. Do your own research and see which candidate. And this is not just for president. This is Senate and Congress and mayor and governor and all the way down which person for each one of these offices most reflects my values, is going to be what I think best for the country and is going to be pro business. I mean, think about it. Would you want to be a CPG company in Venezuela right now?

No.

You know, the Venezuela was. Was the biggest booming economy in all of South America 20 years ago. And it's crazy to think they were the absolute jewel.

Yeah.

Their economy was a jewel. Look how fast that changed.

Yeah. How fast it can change.

It can change very quickly. Much faster than we think.

Yeah.

Your vote matters. So use it wisely.

Yeah.

Don't just throw it away because somebody said that's who I should vote for. Do your own homework.

Yeah. Agree.

Well, this was a different kind of show, Justin.

Yep.

Probably not what people are used to hearing from us.

No. But I mean this is, this is a very important event, you know, in our country and it impacts so many things and happens every four years. So I think it was. I think it was an important show. Show to do.

Well, folks, if you enjoyed today's show, leave us five star review. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. And don't forget, you can also see the show on YouTube. If you're looking to greatly increase sales on your CPG product, don't hesitate to contact us at Jekyll and Hyde Advertising and Marketing. By the way, the only advertising agency with a guaranteed result. Just go to jekyllheidagency.com or feel free to give us a call at 800542.

Sam.