MrBeast's mega influencer video lessons, Paramount Ads Manager's AI for small businesses, and more

I don't know if your kids follow influencers yet, but did you see the MrBeast Mega Influencer video this past Saturday?

Dude, I got a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old. You think they're on social media following influencers? I don't know.

I don't know. Neil gives his kids everything, so I don't know what you think.

Not devices. Not devices.

The devices like really screw you up.

Yes, they do.

So MrBeast did a video and this I'm going to send. So the only person I subscribe to, I do a paid subscription on X too, is actually MrBeast. 'Cause I like it when he shares his numbers. So I pay $20 a month for this, guys. So this is MrBeast over here. It says 50 YouTubers fight for $1 million, or maybe it was 100 YouTubers or so. But you can see in the first— so those of you that can't see on the screen, it says this is the first 1 day. This is basically the first 2 days. Then this is looking at his most— he's like top 10 videos on YouTube, right? And usually when you have a 1 out of 10 over a certain period of time, That's the big winner. And this, his 1 out of 10, his most recent video, in the first 2 days, 97 million views. The second one had 73 million views and then it fell down to 67 and then 64, right? So if we do the math on that one, that's about a 33% increase just by getting all these influencers. And I'm actually keen to know how many views that video has now. So MrBeast 100 YouTubers fight. Let's see what we get there. So, okay, here we go. Okay, he's got 135 million views on this one. Okay, and you look at the— here, you can see down here, right? So there's this guy down here, G Deon, right? This one has 2.7 million views. Chunks. These are all the influencers that appeared in this video. And they also, they just basically competed for the million. And they all were not allowed to bring their cell phones or any other devices into this cube. But they were all given kind of like a handheld, like one of those selfie cameras, and they recorded the experience and they all posted it to their respective YouTubes. So cumulative, let's say this video will get like, I don't know, 200 million views over time or 300 million views or so. That doesn't factor in all these other influencers that are posting their experience of this competition, so to speak. So I thought this was really interesting. And it just goes to show you again, the power of collaborations. In this case, he reached out to all these people and he's like, look, we're going to give $1 million to your subscribers. You can do whatever you want with it. And this also shows the power of getting like-minded people together. In the past, I've always talked about, it's beautiful if you go join a mastermind or you go join a peer group, or you put together your own little thing where you get people together. Because I watched some of these videos where like Logan Paul like released a video where he was just talking, he squashed a bunch of beef with these other YouTubers that used to like call him out. And, you know, he got to have deep conversations with a lot of these people and then he'll probably end up doing a lot of collaborations in the future because he just got to know a lot of people that he otherwise wouldn't have met. So those are just a couple interesting threads that I found from this video.

MrBeast has done an amazing job of leveraging virality. If you go back to the image that you were sharing earlier, You know, and he's made a lot of money doing it too.

Which image?

The top 5.

Oh, the top 5. Yeah, let me pull that up real quick. And by the way, before I pull that up, Neil, look at this. You can see this graph over here. The blue is this video in the first 7 days. It is crushing his typical views.

Yeah, it's crazy. But if you look at that image that Eric shared, they have something in common. They're all really consumer-based. 50 Top YouTubers Fight for $1 Million. I Survived 7 Days in, you know, Aban, I don't know what that is.

In Abandoned, I think it's Abandoned Island or Abandoned City.

Okay. World's Deadliest Obstacle Course is my guess, is that one?

Yes.

Ages 1 to 100 Decide Who, I don't know what that is. Wins $250K. Yeah.

See, I've watched all these clearly.

Yeah. So if you can see, they're all viral consumer videos. What you'll find is you can get a lot of views, you can build a brand really quickly. It's hard to build a large corporation like an Apple, a Microsoft, et cetera, doing that. But it doesn't mean you can't make hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars from it. But if you're trying to build a personal brand, going into B2B or B2C, it doesn't matter. Your goal should just be virality. And that means it's probably going to be B2C and something that everyone can relate to. That's the quickest way to build a brand.

Yeah. I just think this is tough for the vast majority of people if you want to be a content creator because each video you have needs to top the next one. And it's almost like you're creating a spectacle, right? And to be fair, he is evolving his content format. He used to do 10-minute videos, 15-minute videos. This one was like a 41-minute video. There's storytelling. And he brings in like Miranda Cosgrove and then he brings in Joey Chestnut, the hot dog eating champion. There's like a lot of collabs that he has happening. Also, dude, in this video he gave away like 10 Cybertrucks too. So there's a lot of like twists and turns. And so I think he's got, he's, the good thing about Jimmy, MrBeast, is that he's evolved over time. He's not exactly a one-trick pony and that's led to Feastables, which is actually, you know, he has equity in that business. And then ViewStats, which I think will be significant. It's like his Social Blade competitor for helping you level up in YouTube. I got to take a minute to tell you about the Agency Owners Association. This is a peer group for agency owners. Think YPO or EO, but for agency owners. And I just wanted to read you a couple of testimonials. So this first one comes from Carrie, and we asked her, what do you like most about the group? She said, having a group of people to discuss and bounce ideas. The leads are great too. Yes, we share leads in this group as well. This one from Aliyan, he says, the ability to really post whatever I want and need, and the group responds. Great experienced members. Getting a lot of insights from conversations with other members. Getting a lot of value from sessions from Eric. Getting advice from others as well. And so if you want to grow your agency faster and you want a peer group to To do so, just go to marketingschool.io/agency. This is a group that both Neil and I created, and our hope here is to create a vibrant community of agency owners and do a lot more with it in the future. So again, marketingschool.io/agency, and we'll see you inside.

Did you see Paramount Plus or Paramount started adding an SMB platform where marketers can just go and start buying ads?

Yeah, I heard about that, but go on.

So it's funny when you look at most of these ad ecosystems, A lot of them make their money from the Fortune 1000, Global 5000, et cetera, right? Because it's like there's only so many companies out there that can spend the amount of money that like an Amazon or eBay can spend on paid ads, right? But what they actually need, and most people don't realize this, especially SMBs, yes, they need you to spend money and it does add up for them, but what they really need you is for the auction-based system. So imagine this, you have a handful of Coca-Colas, General Motors, you know, Amazon spending an arm and a leg. The way you get them to spend more is not telling them to spend more, is you get a lot of Neils and Erics and SMBs and mid-sized businesses. We're actually very tiny compared to some of these trillion-dollar companies. We're a spectacle or a piece of dust, you know.

Yeah, you're not a spectacle, you're a speck.

You're a speck. Thank you, Eric. And what ends up happening is, is when we bid, it creates an auction-based system where it drives up the price for anyone else who's spending money. So if they don't want to lose some of their views to us, what do they have to do? Well, we're bidding, even if it's for a fraction of their views, it causes the CPCs to start going up. That's why the Googles of the world, the Paramounts, the Netflixes, et cetera, they all need us SMBs. We drive up the price and we do spend a decent chunk of the revenue, but what they really need us for is to drive up the cost per clicks.

Yep. Makes a lot of sense. I think we're going to see more opportunities like this where people can kind of go direct to these platforms and they need to monetize. We need to help our customers better, you know, acquire customers. So it makes sense across the board. Incentives are aligned.

All right. Do you want to know what CMOs are really worried about? I think it was Ad Age that published an article that was breaking down what the CMOs are worried about. For the rest of 2024. So the 4 things that they're really worried about is that they think is going to affect marketing is AI, DEI, presidential election, and tracking. There's a 5th one in there too. I'm missing one, but I know those 4 are.

I'll pull it up. I have it here. I use, by the way, everyone, if you guys don't want to pay for this stuff, just go to removepaywall.com and then put the URL, slash URL after. And if that doesn't work, use archive.is. So that's what I use. Neil, you probably pay for a subscription for Ad Age, I'm assuming.

Yeah, I pay for most of my subscriptions.

Okay, let me read it for you. Okay, so we got DE&I shifts. Okay, there is also growth of Ozempic, so GLP-1 drugs. That's right.

That was a random one. I was like, what the heck is this?

Yeah, my friend was actually quoted in that one. Jeremy.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, let's start with the DE&I shifts first. I think that one's interesting because that goes into one of the topics that I have, or you know what? Let's save that for the last one because then that'll dovetail into the topic. So you pick here your poison here. Let's start with the— go ahead.

Tracking, this is the easiest one. I agree with tracking and worrying about that. Dude, tracking is actually going backwards where it's going to become harder and harder to track what's actually driving your ROI.

Good.

It actually benefits agencies And, you know, just being super transparent here. But, um, I of course also liked it when it was easier to track.

Also me. I do.

Yeah, I also do prefer people having their rights to whatever they want from a data and privacy and a tracking perspective. So I totally respect that. Um, and I think they should be able to even control more than what they're able to control right now. Uh, but when you look at it from that perspective, yeah, it's getting tougher to track and People need really good analytics teams and data attribution teams to really figure out what is driving the ROI, what's helping you increase brand recognition, what's getting people in the door, what channels are actually causing people to convert, right? Because you look at a lot of the data and it can be skewed. Oh, this person came from email. Well, how'd they get on your email list? Oh, well, they found us from a Google article. They found us from social media. They clicked on the bio link and then they opted into the email, right? You got to do multi-touch attribution to really figure out what is driving you your ROI. But I do think this is a valid concern. And I do see a big investment in analytics, you know, going forward. And when you combine AI, you know, I know that's a concern, but AI can also help you analyze the data faster to give you more insights, which I think is a beautiful thing.

I want to take a second to tell you about my podcast co-host's agency, so NP Digital. Neil Patel Digital. What they do is they do a whole host of marketing services and they are global. They're worldwide. They have SMB services as well. They have mid-market to enterprise services as well. They cover the entire gamut. So you could just go to mpdigital.com to learn more about it. And now back to the episode. Yeah, let's move over to the presidential, the looming presidential election. So it says here, look, there's hundreds of millions of dollars already spent to promote their candidates. I think this is going to be one of the most hotly contested elections in a long time. A lot of money raised, right? And so availabilities when it comes to ad inventory will go down, which means prices will go up, right? Because everyone's competing for attention at the end of the day. And so, you know, I think this is an inevitable thing. I mean, it's just about, you know, some people have turned their ads off. I don't know about that. But do you remember in 2020, Neil, what happened? I mean, 2020 seems like yesterday, but—

What happened with presidential ads?

No, I'm trying to think like, what did our clients do? Like some dialed it back, maybe some kind of kept it going. So maybe we can give some patterns here.

So majority of the people spend, they don't really adjust. Majority of the companies, because you got to still hit quarterly earnings. We work with a lot of enterprises, but even SMBs, you need to hit those numbers to pay for rent and things like that. What we also see a lot of people doing is they take a lot of the budget and they spend it right after the elections are over versus spending it like upcoming weeks. So they'll shift when they're spending it, which helps with the ROI as well. So you're still spending it within the month, within the quarter, but you also this year you'll have the elections combined with, what is it called? Black Friday.

Yep. And by the way, so let's move over to the AI piece too, and we can end with the D&I piece. So a recent Forrester report found that 45% of CMOs said AI will lead to smaller marketing departments. In recent months, several brands including Lego, Under Armour, and Toys R Us have already turned to AI for ads. While Toys R Us' 60-second brand video was created using OpenAI's Sora, it was lambasted for its quality by the creative community. But, you know, at the end of the day, It is something to keep an eye on, but I think in the next year, it's still not something that's going to just change everything drastically. I do think there are going to be smarter and smaller marketing departments over the next decade or so.

Yes. And I think a lot of the spend will shift to actually ads.

Yep. The Ozempic piece, I think we can touch upon this quickly. This is interesting. So Havas Health Network. So Havas is a big agency network. They debuted a dedicated consultancy to advise brands on strategies for the GLP-1 shift. So GLP-1, everyone, just it's Ozempic. So it's a weight loss. Is it an injection? It's an injection, right?

Yeah, it's an injection. From my understanding, you're injecting yourself to lose weight.

Yeah. And what it basically does is it inhibits your appetite. And so you just eat less calories. So that's how you lose weight, right? So Jeremy Lowenstein, this is the guy that I know, CMO at Milani Cosmetics, used to work at MeUndies. So he said his beauty brand is not currently engaging in any GLP-1-specific marketing, but he is paying attention to make sure Milani is in tune with new trends and consumer demands. So whether it's accessibility of Botox and fillers or Ozempic, women and men are now starting to say they have a new version of themselves and are potentially going to invest in new makeup looks, he said. We want to make sure that we have the right product message for what they're looking for. So it's just, this is a matter of just staying on top of trends. I feel like they just probably needed to add something in here, so they just threw Ozempic in here.

Yeah, it's the question of how long is this Ozempic train going to last, or is it going to keep pushing forward and becoming more and more popular? Because there must be massive side effects for taking a drug that just suppresses your appetite.

Dude, there's always trade-offs to everything, right? We all think there's a magic pill, but whatever you do, there's a trade-off to it. Yeah. If you're working with SMBs, okay, there's a trade-off. If you're working with enterprises, there's also a trade-off. So everyone thinks that there's a perfect solution to everything. Everything's just trade-offs. So let's move over to the D&I piece. So CMOs are closely watching industry shifts on DE&I initiatives. In late June, rural retailer Tractor Supply Company did an about-face on diversity initiatives following pressure from conservatives. The chain announced it was eliminating its DEI roles and retiring its DEI goals. Marketing leaders say DEI spend is on the decline. 41% of marketers predict diversity and inclusion will be a marketing priority in the next 5 years, a decline from 2021's 59%, according to the CMO survey, right? Tucker said that DE&I programs should be led with inclusion rather than diversity, and that CMOs should have marketing teams and agencies in place that reflect the consumers to whom they're marketing. That is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe. Also go to marketingschool.io/agency if you want to grow your agency faster. That's the community that Neil and I have to help agency owners grow faster. And, you know, one more caveat I would add, don't join the group unless you're at 6 figures or above. We're seeing that as a trend. It's not really a group for people that are under 6 figures. So that is it for today. We'll see you later and goodbye. Bye.