Want Better Ads? Stop Selling and Start Storytelling

People like to buy, they don't like to be sold. And the idea that you have to push that value through the numbers is actually lowering the brand value. You don't see that on top brands. You don't see that on Prada. You don't see that on the Lamborghinis.

I think right now the authentic connection from a brand to the consumer, that chemistry is more valuable than ever.

Welcome back to the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast. Once again, another wonderful guest today that we got connected to a little bit ago who's in the space of storytelling and the narrative of crafting information around cinematic approaches, the narrative and storyline, and of course brand storytelling, which if you're paying attention to anything on this podcast, you know, we talk a lot about that in relationship to creating content, product videos, images, graphics, anything to produce a great product or services. Specifically for us around private label and brand building. I brought this gentleman in here today because I feel like he's got something to say when it comes to, you know, some of the processes and steps that I think every new builder and aspiring entrepreneur needs, needs to hear when they get out there and want to balance life. They want to, you know, balance the, the business and relationship struggle or the family struggle, anything of opportunity in that. And I'm very excited to have my guest on today. And we're going to go through some of that topic here in the next 20 minutes or so. So buckle up guys, as we get into the details and as always, like, subscribe. Comment, share, put snide remarks and comments in the thing. I don't care. It just helps big, you know, helps us beat big tech when we get this media out to everybody who needs to hear this message today. Axel, thanks for joining me, brother.

Yeah, thank you for having me, Neil. I'm super excited about this.

All right. So for the folks who are listening, give us, you know, give us something that's happening right now. Something that you see that somebody who's, you know, in this idea of building businesses, e-commerce, physical products, or content building around anything in that brand. What is like the one major thing you're telling people right now they need to know?

Well, right now everyone is super excited about AI and everyone is talking about that all the time. And I think the pushback that I've seen with end consumers and entrepreneurs is that, you know, we really want things to be authentic. So we have decades upon decades of advertising, video media, all types of content pushing people on products. And we just want to, companies just want to make more money. So they're gonna push anything down your throat to make a buck out of you. And we as humans, we have gotten really good at knowing whatever medium you're watching, the moment an ad comes in, you just like disconnect completely.

Yeah.

Now with AI, the production of all of those ads, it just skyrockets because you have, before you needed a full team, like a full production team, full marketing team, full agency team. Now you get 2, 3 people doing e-commerce. They can go use 2 or 3 different AI tools and they're able to produce the same volume of ads that it would take a team of 10 people and maybe like $50,000 a month.

Yeah.

3 years ago.

Right.

Now the thing that is really interesting is It doesn't matter how much volume of content you're doing when you're using all of these tools that have a little bit less soul. You can have 10 videos like that and then use one video that is made for a human to consume and is made from the point of view of a human, and you're going to get a complete different return on that ad, return on the story. And building that brand in a different way. So I think as much as we're going ahead in technology, the storytelling, the baseline of that, now it needs to be even more human than ever. Before, we all wanted to be like making special effects, loaded transitions, like cool tricks and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Now you see that people are just kind of moving away from that. because they have been bombarded with that type of content. And now there's a resurgence of something that people are calling FaceTime content, where you see, especially like on the social media side of things and creators, they're just like talking to the camera as if they were doing a FaceTime call with a friend.

Yeah.

And it's funny enough, like you and I, we're having this podcast, maybe like 5 years ago, you would have gone completely about this promotion of your business and who you are and your personal brand. By using traditional PR magazines and your book and like doing that kind of thing. Now we're doing like a conversation, like I'm here in my apartment, you're in your office, and we're just having like a one-on-one conversation and we, we could have hundreds and thousands of people listening to what we're talking about. I think right now the authentic connection from a brand to the consumer, that chemistry is more valuable than ever.

Yeah, I think you're right. It's the sincerity of the message. It's people want to feel there's authenticity now. I think they kind of always did. But so much of the media and marketing pushed people towards, you know, the CGI push, the, you know, I think in some cases, we were just talking with this about my girls the other day, you know, some of the Star Wars episodes they didn't like in the newer versions because they were too heavy on the CGI and too much on the graphics and stuff. And they didn't really tell the storyline. So their favorites are kind of the older Star Wars. Has the storytelling, it has more action, it has a humanness to that. And I think you're right, people are sort of missing that in the race to AI. They are not really seeing the connection to the person and people are mistaking it all the time, you know, because they're asking, are you an AI? Are you fake? Are you real? Or, you know, is that really you behind the camera? And it's getting so hyper-realistic. There's the concern about deepfakes and things of that nature. Are you dealing with some of that in your business too?

I'm definitely concerned about that because For example, I do a lot of production in the podcast space, and before you really needed to create that moment, have the chemistry, the conversations are really long, and that's where you find the gems. Now you can almost like reverse engineer all of that, model a person, and then try to do the AI thing with them. And I'm always looking into that and trying to figure out how to learn it, do it, understand it. So I am concerned. At the same time, the skill of telling the story still has to be something that you are in charge of. Now the tools are just making it easier for you to do your clips and your editing and like all the menial tasks that we don't want to do. Yeah, it's getting a little bit scary. And personal brands, we're in this weird like limbo right now where Some people are saying, you know, your personal brand now is more valuable than ever. So you need to go ham on creating content, getting your face out there, giving a face to every company. And we have seen that with COVID and then the few years after COVID, how all companies are using influencers and all that. But at the same time, now you could go create an AI model, like go on Midjourney, create the face based on some characteristics. And then you can turn that into an AI model that you could make videos.

Put it in to clean and get a video out of it that looks, you know, hyper-realistic. And they're shooting movies and sequels and trailers and things now using AI. That's, it's cool that one person can literally do that. And we're on the rise of some really fascinating things. You know, you talked about the ability of a single person to do certain things, a forced multiplication of time, time compression. The quality of the graphics are getting more and more, but doesn't it reach some point where there isn't Any connectivity to it that people are just kind of possibly gonna reject it all? I mean, if they're— are they gonna listen to podcasts where they come to realize it's just 2 robots talking to each other?

I think the interesting part is going to come where you accept it. Like, for example, we had a guest on a podcast that I produce. His name is Andrew and he's creating this AI connecting like bot called Bordi. And it's really interesting. You call up the number and you start talking to this AI model that speaks to you. You can tell that it's fake, that it's AI.

Yeah.

But, you know, as you keep talking, it's asking the right questions about what you do. And it's almost like having the same conversation that you and I are having with some of the quirks of the technology not being there yet, but the sentiment of the conversation and the way it follows and pulls the threads on the interesting insights that you might have. Like, I caught myself feeling like I was having a conversation with a real person.

That's kind of scary. The next thing you know, you're going to be having an actual relationship and you're like going to get married to AI or something, right? People are going to go off the deep end.

Yeah, I don't think it's going to go that crazy. And at the end of the day, you're going to have— I think we're going to live in a world where you have both.

Yeah.

Right now, like, if I have to go to Florida, I might jump on a plane and go there, or I could go in a car and do a road trip. They're both valuable and they're both different experiences, and you're going to use them in different settings. So, you know, like a 1955 Ford, it, it might be as valuable to someone as a like 2025 Lamborghini, and they're completely different machines, and yet we enjoy both of them. So I think we're always going to have, you know, both sides.

There is, yeah, I can see it in the way that, you know, people are pushing, and even Tesla's pushing the automated driving cars, automated taxis, right? And then there is, of course, FSD within the Teslas that allows it to do the self-driving. And while that sounds cool and all, there's still a part of me, and I'm not that old. I'm Gen X, but I grew up with the internet and technology and I'm like, you know, I enjoy driving the car. I don't think I ever want to really give up, you know, that connectivity. Do you think there's a younger generation behind us that also feels that way or are they ready to give up all that control?

I think it goes back to the time and place and the experience that you pick. Like my, my son and my daughter, they love when we do the autopilot on the Tesla and they're like, oh, that is so cool. But also like one time we drove by and there was like a, an older Lamborghini and like my son was so excited to like take a look at it. We spoke to the owner, he sat in it. Like that car has very little technology in comparison to the Tesla. So I think it's kind of silly to go extreme on both sides. I'm kind of in the middle and you won't get that many views if you're not extreme. But I think it's kind of silly just to go too extreme either or just for no reason. We are going to have a mix of both. The same way we, like in marketing, we still do billboards and they are valuable as much as anyone wants to tell you that they're not. There is a time and place to use them and there is a utility to it. And also like Google Ads and Meta Ads and like content and all of that is extremely useful. So Yeah. I think learning how to mix both and having, you know, 10, 20% of your time exploring the new thing, but not let the new thing, the new shiny object take away from the basis of great branding, great storytelling, and connecting to people that you're trying to sell them something, but you still have to appeal to like that human side and like the friendly way that you would come and talk to someone or ask a girl out or ask a friend to come to a party. Like, we need to keep that in check. You know, we need to, and I think, you know, America is, we're so capitalistic and we have so much marketing and it's so much out of that coming from the companies that it's really difficult not to want to be genuine and you don't want anyone to be selling you. But at the same time, that's tough. works. And yeah, it keeps everything going and it keeps our lives going. And I love both of it. Like, yeah, I come from a third world country, so America to me is amazing. Like, I love this country and I love capitalism and business and being able to like create something and sell it to people and they enjoy it and they have fun and they give you money. And then with that money, you undo the same. So yeah, super exciting times. I think people utilizing technology Mixing that with human connection and storytelling.

Yeah, authenticity is big.

Yeah, it's the best time ever to do that because before it was so difficult and so expensive to go and create a campaign and you could only do one idea and you had to put like a million dollars towards that TV ad. Now you can take that million dollars and you can literally create 100 different versions of the ads to touch all the different angles. And this is something that, you know, creative relevance and creative iteration is something that I do a lot with the companies that we work with creating content for them. We don't have to have just one idea anymore. So for someone creative like me, now it's a lot easier because I can say yes to having multiple ideas. And for the business owner, You know, people are always trying to drive sales on their marketing efforts and it makes sense because they need to hit their goals. But for me as a, as a marketer, as a storyteller, I'm like, nobody wants to see like your big ad with the big discount. Like that's like, oh, that's gross. Like I don't wanna—

People like to buy, they don't like to be sold. We say that quite often, right? And the idea that you have to push that value through the numbers is actually lowering the brand value and lowering the perception. You don't see that on top brands. You don't see that on Prada. You don't see that on the Lamborghinis. They just— people know their price point. And I think too many people try to push that race to the bottom pricing or that race to the idea that marketing is some sort of, you know, wham bam, thank you ma'am. If I don't get them to buy at the first click, I've lost them.

Yeah, well, the beauty of it now is I get to test 10 different creatives. And I'm going to do the ugly ad that the salesperson wants. And I'm also going to do the super creative, weird thing that I want to try, and I'm going to do something in the middle, and then I'm going to recycle something old, and then I'm going to use something that is weird for that medium, and then just let it run.

Let the law of averages kick in and figure out which one's most attractive. Yeah. And at the speed at which you can implement nowadays, there's no excuse for not trying. I mean, some of my best creatives came off of just iPhone, you know, ads, just literally a screenshot or a video. Because it's just simple, it gets to the point. And it's not a lot of flashiness that people kind of maybe get turned away from in the world we're in. And in the physical product world or the digital product world, what are a couple of things you would suggest to somebody who's kind of thinking about a brand and narrative and storytelling? What are some things they can do to kind of put their mind in the right frame?

I think you have to start knowing who your customer is. I think the biggest mistake we make when taking our own persona into the company that we're trying to create is the only lens that we're seeing through is our own lens. And then you become very myopic because maybe you love sports and you want to do a brand collaboration with your jewelry and someone in sports, but Who is actually buying your jewelry? If it's a female, 35 to 55, who lives in like this side of town, maybe that lady's not interested in the football player that makes you feel excited that that guy's wearing like your logo or whatever. So I think knowing who your customer is and who's that person, and then try to think, how would you talk to that person?

Yeah.

Also be curious, like, how is that person consuming media? It's very different. Like, there are huge differences between age range, genders, like women and men, we consume media completely different.

Very true.

Every time I see my wife's Discover page on Instagram, it has nothing to do with my page.

It's very tailored, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

And that's the beauty of like all of these algorithms that we're using. So just having the curiosity to learn who is the actual person, and it might take you a while. And I think for me, because I come from filmmaking and I try to take my filmmaking into the marketing side of things, I'm always thinking about the characters. Like in my head, I'm trying to think, okay, my ideal customer is this lady who's interested in like, how is she gonna make her home look when her in-laws are coming to town? And like for Easter, she's gonna buy this outfit. And like, I try to create like a little story in my head of who this person is.

Mm-hmm.

That's my ideal customer.

Mm-hmm.

Then, you know, I try to think, how does she How would she react to this video? And, you know, we're always creating content to advertise that is interrupting an experience that people are already having. So if I'm trying to advertise jewelry, this lady might be looking for videos on her YouTube channel about outfits and like spring outfits or summer outfits. I need to lead with that. Like, I don't need to tell her that I have a blowout sale and it's 25%. So like that, she's not interested in the sale until later.

Right. Once she has that emotional connectivity, which is a little different, uh, the buying, and we call the psychology of the buyer is what you're referring to as, is, you know, different for men and women. It's different at times. It's different for age groups. It's different for, you know, socioeconomic classes. You have to really get into that narrative. You make a very good point. What we'll do is kind of try to get somebody into the frame of mind of coming up with a person in their life within their circle of confidence that they can name and maybe speak about that person and say, is this a person who will love my product? And because they love my product, what kind of person are they? What do they like? Are they married or not married? And what are their age groups? Do they have kids or no kids? And you start to kind of try to talk about them and build that structure, build that, you know, understanding of what they are. And then I tell them to go out and just start speaking into the Facebook app and then watch and see the different advertising that comes back because it's listening to you.

Yeah.

My wife will be talking, we'll be having a conversation, And she'll be talking about something she likes, you know, with the kids, the homeschool or whatever and all. And then I start scrolling through my Facebook and boom, there's ads that are targeting me because of the conversation we had, right? So that's great product research.

Amazing. Yeah. And I think that's great. Like, I'd rather get ads for something that I'm actually interested in getting than getting random ads for like foot surgery or like some weird med, like medicine or painkillers.

Something not totally not relevant to you whatsoever. Yeah. I have those pop up every once in a while. I'm like, this, this, what? This has nothing to do with me. They somewhere is listening to me or following me. I don't know. They do that all the time, don't they? Yeah. And those are great tips. And, you know, for the growth aspect and somebody who's getting their narrative dialed in a little bit, what would you suggest to them? You know, how do they expand? How do they grab more reach? What do you guys do for more distribution?

Yeah, for that, the biggest thing that I would tell people is don't fight the platform.

Yeah.

So you need to figure out what is the platform that you're like targeting, they're all different. They are all very, very, very different. So what works on YouTube is based on an entire different algorithm than Instagram. So especially with influencers and talent, and you know, that's one of the fastest ways that you can blow up a brand is by using someone else's audience. And sometimes people want to do that, but they're looking at the wrong platform. Like if this person is super famous on Twitter, but you're not selling your product on Twitter, like you have to let it go. Like it's just not going to work. And the same happens with YouTube and Instagram. So for example, we help a lot of podcasts try to scale and we do it with a combination of strategy. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

The cast that they're using, and then the actual execution on the filming and the editing. So all of that plays a role into the reach that that podcast is going to get on YouTube. And the same goes to like regular content, like non-podcast content on YouTube. So if your channel, like the information and the answers is always in the data of these platforms. So if your channel, you're getting your top views are coming from these 5 videos, that's who your channel like appeals to. So if you want to go on a different direction, you need to know that, hey, you're not going to get views. You're not going to get results. This is a very fine-tuned machine. So if you want to grow and get more reach, you basically have to stay in this pocket. Now that, you know, that's not fun to hear. And sometimes you want to go in a different direction, then you just have to know the data. I think, you know, I come from a background of more like artistic and images and all that. So the last few years I was a producer for Impact Theory and we were running like a 4 million follower channel and we were having episodes hit like a million views in a month. It was an amazing experience.

Yeah.

A lot of the success of our team came from actually understanding the data. And that's something that I, now I live in a world where I really love being creative, but I need the data to inform my creativity so I don't waste my time. So that's the biggest thing that I would tell people when they're trying to grow in a specific platform, they need to look at their numbers. and understand what story are those numbers telling. So then you can try, test, and pivot. And it works like every time. And we have been able to do that with a few different channels where you can almost predict, okay, in this many, like in 90 days, this is what is going to happen with this channel if we move this lever and this lever. And it's super fun to do.

Yeah, it's always those little tweaks that we call them the 2 millimeter shifts, right? And something that you're doing that you just do a little tweak and something just goes crazy and you're like, wow, look at that, it actually worked. But you got to make a lot of those shifts and you got to put in the effort, right? Which is what you're saying. You got to put in the effort to test, figure out what works, and then double down on what's working. And then just keep shifting until you see something pop off and then repeat the process when it works, right? Repeat the process to scale. Great insights, dude. And how long have you been at this now in your business?

So I started my production company when I was in college back in 2014, so a little bit over 10 years. And before that, I was making films and like learning on my own in Cuba. So I was talking to my wife the other day, I've been doing media and filmmaking and all of this for about 20 years now. So even though I'm young, I'm actually a veteran at doing this. And it's super exciting because like Every couple of years, everything will shift. Right now, the landscape in Hollywood and film and all of that is being rocked by the streaming wars that happened a few years ago. And now social media has taken over bigger than ever. And we have AI. So it's super interesting. And it keeps changing all the time. So you have to keep up with everything that's happening. So that's why I love listening to podcasts and always like trying to get a little bit of insight from people like actually doing things and making moves and changing things. So that's where we're trying to be really like specific in what we do with my production company. So I love marketing. I love the ads. I used to collect TV commercials back when I was in Cuba and I had no internet. And I love movies and filmmaking and I'm a filmmaker and I've directed And I have one of my films on Apple TV. So I love that connection, that intersection of storytelling and business, and it's super interesting and super exciting. So I'm really happy we got to talk and, and get into it a little bit.

Dude, for sure. Put the show notes and stuff, make sure you check it out below, guys. Go check out what Axel's doing. If you've enjoyed this podcast today, like and share it to somebody who needs to hear the message of narrative, brand copy, Making sure you talk to the right audience with the right message, continuing forward to pivot until that message shows up correctly, and then doubling down on it and watch your YouTube results, your brand results, your sales hopefully go up. For those of you who are driving it forward, and I really appreciate you showing up today, Axel.

Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for having me, Neil.

Well, guys, as always, remember to like, comment, share, and engage. Help us beat big tech. Comment below anything you need help with or any questions you might have. Check out the show notes below. And on all your favorite platforms, whether you like us on YouTube or anywhere else, subscribe, comment, and engage and help us continue to bring great messages. Take care. We'll see you on the next episode.