VOICE Round Up: Josef Hapli on confident brands and how to avoid getting burned on Twitter

It's Machine Learning from Assist. It's a podcast where we think and dream about the future of AI, the talking internet, and how we're reshaping our culture. This chapter is an excerpt from our interview with Josef Hapli at the 2018 Voice Summit, the largest gathering of the conversational technology world. Josef is one of the many folks we interviewed, people who are thriving at the front edge of brand, UX, research, and design. Joseph is the founder and CEO of Ether, a DC-centered creative agency. In this excerpt, Joseph lays out the flares for why brands who play it safe in the age of voice are courting irrelevance. This is just a taste, so make sure you grab the full episode and subscribe so you never miss a single Machine Yearnin'. Joseph Hapley.

So for, you know, really since the '80s when sort of brand management became much more three-dimensional and really emerged as its own discipline. The idea of persona, you know, what is the personality of the brand, came online. And now we have little persona that are being built.

Actual personas, like you got chatbots that you, you know, that you can talk to. Persona is key because you don't want to be the blah safe brand. I would rather be beloved by a, you know, a small fears few than just kind of be like lukewarm to everybody. Because then it's like, you see it, you forget it. It becomes a utility at that point, as opposed to this trusted part of your life.

That's the conversation that all the brand people and the agency people have when we kind of get together and we're—

Yeah, yeah, we're drinking our own Kool-Aid.

We're talking each other up before we go into the pitch.

But then you like, but how do you—

Get in the room with the client.

Yeah, how do you do it?

How has that conversation changed? Are the clients really getting there these days? Are they recognizing that the stakes have shifted and there's, if everybody's spicy, then that becomes bland.

True. You get a lot of that, of the, give me the flavor of the month. Like, yeah, I saw this thing that so-and-so did. It's pretty much, it's a lot of like, do that for me. And it's a hard conversation to try to steer away from because most people don't like the answer, and the answer is the shoes that fit Michael aren't necessarily going to fit Yosef, and vice versa. So you have to— you can build up to that same level of engagement, but you got to do it in your own way that's, you know, that's authentic to your brand and, you know, your core values.

How do you start talking to people about getting honest, about stripping away how much crap that's both these digital executions and all these marketing tactics?

It's one word: no. It really is. It's— you got to—

Say no to the client.

Yeah, absolutely. Say in the most direct and professional, honest way that you can is, nah, I appreciate that idea, but I don't think that's the right move. No. And the way it goes over when you say no is that not only are you on the line, I'm also on the line too. So I'm, if you're not successful, then I'm not successful because success to me is, you know, proven out by you calling me back for the next gig or for, or you referring me to your colleague who's, you know, works over at XYZ organization, you know, or you've touched, you know, X number of lives. So you can only do that if you are, you know, if you're being focused. And, you know, chasing, you know, the shiny new object, it might be in line with your brand. A lot of times it's not. You got to start by saying no. And then if you back that up with the data, then the numbers just make the case for you. So yeah, no is very powerful. It's hard, but it's a very good tool that keeps you from chasing a shiny new object.

So we're just spending a lot of time looking at agency and representation, who's in the room, how are these decisions being made, because who's on the inside?

How much time you got? Okay.

So as you're talking to brands, you're leading them, when you're building these sort of representative teams, how are you talking them through that process?

Whew, that's, let me tread lightly here.

I told you we were gonna dig in.

Yeah, yeah, you did, you did. And I'm glad you are. So I will say, I'll speak to the ad agency industry because I've spent a good bit of time there, spent some time on the brands, marketing side, and then also in the nonprofit and government space. The conversation has absolutely changed and elevated much more recently. I think we're doing a much better job with, I'll say within the past 5 years or so, you know, than we ever have. I remember very vividly in some cases being not just the youngest person in the room, but the only person of color. And I remember also being a little bit, hesitant with speaking up at things where I didn't think— I wouldn't necessarily say that they made me uncomfortable, but things that I think were not necessarily representative. And we did in ad agency land a lot of the same. You know, we call up the same talent, the same vendors. And what happens when you get the same? You get the same result. But I think there is a, you know, a broad swath of the world that is not blonde hair, blue-eyed, white girls. I'm sorry, that's just what a lot of the ad agency was. That was sort of like the safe customer persona. And I think once we started to get more representation, no disrespect to blonde hair, blue-eyed, white girls if you are one, but I think we've done a really good job of representing you. And so when we started to change the dynamic around the table, start to just take off those blinders, and bring more people of color, more women, more LGBTQ representation, all of these things around the table and actually say, hey, there's a business case for diversity. It's, you know, because a lot of those people were there that fit in all those different categories that I just, I just mentioned, but I don't know if they necessarily felt comfortable or felt safe voicing that position. And but now it's something that is absolutely on the table. It is discussed, it is open. And I can only hope that more, you know, companies, more agencies and organizations, you know, do more of the same.

You know, it's one thing to move from being part of the consumer base because you just like, somebody's got to buy soap.

Yeah.

Somebody's got to buy toothpaste.

Yeah.

To having representation in the room around some decision-making to actually have agency to be guiding the decisions.

Mm-hmm. Actually have a choice. To bring this full circle, how do we, you know, talk about this within the voice space? You know, like, what does Siri sound like? What does Alexa sound like? Do we have people who are native language speakers who are on the development side or on the QA side? Do we have people, you know, who can speak to accents and be able to, you know, to clarify those things? We, you know, there are some You know, little cultural nuances. I think the more intentional we get about it, the more successful brands will be, the more successful we'll all be.

So people get that at the intellectual level now. They get it at the gut pain avoidance level, 'cause they've all seen the social media fails.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, nobody wants to be that.

And now you've gotta get 'em to where they move beyond it being sort of surplus brain space. It's like, I'm gonna do my core, business activities, and then I'll think about that diversity thing.

Yeah, add a little sprinkle on the top. Right, right, right.

Yeah, that's our final 5%.

Yeah, yeah.

And so now you're like working with people to get to that being the central part of the work, meaning like it's just baked into the middle. Yeah, just like everything else, right?

I heard a quote, it's, uh, I can't remember where it came from, but it's, uh, You know, if you bake a cake and you forget to put the sugar on it in the recipe, you can't just throw it on top after the fact and it has the same taste. No, you gotta bake it in. It's gotta be part of the mix. And I think that happens at an institutional level. You know, I think that happens at a leadership level. It has to be intentional. It has to be thoughtful. It has to be, if you put it into the process, then it makes all the difference and it shows. But I think people really just, I would say maybe even need to be pushed a bit to step up and to say, bring your full self into this. It's okay to be who you are because that's part of the definition of talent. It's you, it's not just the pedigree or the school that you went to or the degrees that you have and blah, blah, blah. You know, you bring your full self into it. So I think where people feel empowered to do that, you're going to have messages that resonate better with, you know, with customers. You're going to have better reviews. You're going to get more repeat customers. So example, I just went to Essence Fest, I guess it was 1 or 2 weeks ago in New Orleans, and you have some like really big brands there. And I was impressed with the with their level of authenticity. Essence Magazine, it's, you know, the core audience is Black women. And you could look at it and tell, it's like, this comes from, you know, that authentic experience. And I gotta give it, I'm talking about like some of the top 10 brands out there, they did an excellent job of, you know, of representing that story well. They didn't appropriate it. It was the real deal. And that's just, you know, that's just one example. So it's—

A brand that's going to go to Essence Fest is a confident brand.

You better be.

Why are agencies still struggling so much with this?

I think that they want to do the right thing, but maybe the execution has fallen flat. It has to be in the people, it has to be in the culture, and it has to be played out as a positive business result. It cannot be— it has to be looked at as something that actually makes sense and dollars and not just something that's, you know, a feel-good, nice to have that we do during Black History Month in February. It's, you know, if you, if you bring it, you know, into the people and that's just, you know, that's Black people, that's, you know, Latinx culture, Asian, you know, whatever, whomever, especially now. I mean, well, let's, let's talk about the elephant in the room. I mean, we have migrant culture in the US. Today, like that is a hot button issue. How do we address that responsibly and do so in a way that says, I see you, I acknowledge you, I support you, and you are core to our business. We don't survive without you. And I think the brands that are brave enough to have that conversation are the ones that are going to continue to thrive. I think the ones that kind of shy away from it are going to be, you know, the, the Johnny-come-latelys, you know, and the Jane-come-latelys. But, and, and it'll be clear. And then the ones that don't, uh, talk about it at all, I think they're going to honestly go by the wayside. Or again, they, they might get fried on Twitter for not doing enough, for not acknowledging things like that. It has a lot to do with just being brave enough and, you know, and taking a stand. I'd rather be, you know, bold and wrong than just like, again, like lukewarm and right. Because you say like, ah, I didn't lose too much. Yeah, but you lost the point.

Thank you.

You know, I sincerely appreciate it. Thank you so much for the, you know, for the invitation. I love the fact that ASSIST is investing in this and that you are pushing this, you know, this conversation. Absolutely. Love it.

Thanks for listening, and we hope you take a second to share this episode with with other members of your team. And make sure you check out the other chapters from this week's episode, or what the heck, just grab the whole thing. It's worth it, we promise. Next week, Kathy Pearl from Google, Bree Glaser from the Mars Agency, and two folks who are doing fascinating voice technology for kids, Patricia Scanlan and Avva Levin, all from The Voice Summit 2018. Get in touch on Twitter @assist, DMs are open. We're super interested to hear who you think should appear on the podcast. Machine Yearning is made by Paul Ciuffo and Michael Alsesser for Limina House. Have a great day.