Carl: Hello and welcome to the SaaS growth podcast. I'm your host, Carl Anderson. This week, we're here with Jesse Wroblewski. He's the author of a new book called marketing for supervillains, as well as running an agency called Decommoditize, which focuses on branding and specifically differentiating your branding in a crowded market.

So how are you today, Jesse?

Jesse: I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me.

Carl: Great, let's talk about your book. Marketing for Supervillains. So what does that mean?

Jesse: Good question. So if you imagine a marketing agency run by a James Bond villain, right? So taking everything you know about marketing, putting it into action. And when we talk about, when you're entering a market or you're part of a market, there's usually always a name brand, right?

The super brand or the superhero in the marketplace. And the superhero usually has Huge public favor. Everybody loves them. They usually have big budgets, which in marketing is, big muscles equate to big budgets. And when you're the smaller guy entering the market, To go head to head with that superhero or super brand and try to outspend them, try to do more social media than them.

It's usually a recipe for failure. So if you think about it from the mindset of a supervillain, supervillains usually don't have huge muscles. They certainly don't have public favor. They come at it from an underdog perspective. They have to use their brains. They have to outsmart or outwit the bigger guy in the fight.

So with that spirit we take. All of that spirit. We look at uncommon or unconventional examples in the marketing industry. Things that have affected my life as a, I consider myself a differentiator and I tried to make it, nothing you've ever seen in a marketing book before.

All the examples that, the tried and true examples, we toss them out the window and try to usher in a new era of marketing unicorns.

Carl: Can you give us a little sneak peek about one of your techniques that you cover in the book? 

If Sure. So the book focuses on differentiation, right? Finding your one special thing. And that's not new. Most marketing books will say they call it a USP, unique sales proposition, or find your differentiator. And then they leave it at that, right? That's an incredibly monumental task of finding that one special thing.

Jesse: And then the second part of that is How am I going to tell the world about this one special thing? So the majority of this book is I've codified how to find your one special thing. And we've done that through something called the universe of differentiation. And it's basically a picture of a solar system and there's 12 planets.

So if you think in order to be different, you have to be crazy and outlandish. You'd be the funny guy. There's actually 12 different ways that major brands have successfully found their differentiator brands like Rolex brands like Tiffany all the way down to GI Joe right how these brands have differentiated themselves and it's not through one crazy commercial or something like that.

There's actually 12 tried and true methods All phases, all walks of life, all styles of brands that you can utilize to help differentiate yourself. So it's really, the bulk of the book is figuring out and guiding you through the process of finding your differentiator. Yeah,

Carl: there's one trick you think would help people find their differentiation factor, what do you think would be the most important thing for them?

Jesse: The most important thing, and it's a little, It's a little tired but being authentic to, to what it is. So your differentiator should feel absolutely authentic to what you ultimately choose. I don't know if you can tell from my background, I've always been, into the eclectic.

The super villain thing, not only does it have a lot of parallels with business and marketing, the super villain thing just rings true with me. I'm not, I'm the last person on earth to post the social media post. If you believe it, you can achieve it. Like all that positive affirmation stuff, it's just not for me.

So I'll embrace the role of villain and post the anti positive sentiments and make sure people get get to work, something. So something for everybody out there, not just the the kumbayas of the world.

Carl: Fair enough. So if we loop back onto your agency, Decommoditized, and the sort of work you do helping companies brand. Aside from being authentic, so what does that process look like of building up a brand for a new company, especially, and how does you get established in the market?

Jesse: Yep. So I came up with the name decommoditized. I realized that a lot of people don't know what becoming a commodity means. And basically what a commodity is when the special, that unique special feature, all of a sudden becomes difficult for the customer base to tell one apart from the other.

So an example I use is if you think about like in the 1980s, airlines were prevalent. To choose a, choose which airline you were going to fly. It was basically based on price, right? Cheapest ticket I'm going to go. And then one genius airline came up with the concept of, Hey, we're going to offer frequent flyer miles.

And the more you fly with us, we'll give you free trips. So their brand went through the roof, right? Everybody was able to say, hey this airline is special. And then all of a sudden, everybody said, hey, that's a great idea. We're going to offer frequent flyer miles. And all of a sudden, that decommoditized brand came back down and everyone became commoditized, became a commodity.

And it was difficult to tell apart one brand for another. We're waiting for the next genius to come along and really differentiate themselves. So what we do is, we come in for specifically brands that they say, you know what, we're really not that special. We're a ton of competitors entering the market.

And we're racing to the bottom to try and cut costs and be the cheapest. We become in and help them, accentuate their differentiators and actually be able to charge a premium for the same services that they were, trying to cut costs on prior.

Carl: What does that process usually look like?

Jesse: So we have a four week intensive process called the DOA, the decommoditized opportunity analysis. And we go through, brand history and figuring out who the audience is. And then we apply that universe of differentiation. We choose three of the top 12 planets. And then from there, that kind of helps us zero in and we'll figure out, what feels good, what feels right?

What do you think your audience is going to respond to most? And then from there we create the plan. And sometimes, based on budget and say, Hey, we can't, we'll never be able to get this message out to a wide enough audience with our budget. But however, this planet, it's a lot easier and there's a smaller, but more passionate fan base.

We could definitely go after that. So there's a lot of data behind it. As creative as it is, it's very data driven.

Carl: I talk a lot about these planets and I've got, I'm curious can you, and I know this is like the selling point of the book, but can you let us in on what some of these planets are?

Jesse: Absolutely. I don't know if this is going to be video or strictly audio, but I can pull

Carl: It's audio. Yeah.

Jesse: Okay, I'll pull up a screen share just as a visual aid for yourself.

So this is the universe of differentiation. It's available on our website as well, and it's just basically a visual guide to all the ways that you could potentially differentiate yourself. One of my favorite stories of the past week is process, right? So everyone says if there's a special or unique way that you actually make the product or provide the service that you do, you should accentuate it.

And make it known to the public. So one of my favorite stories is this company called sweet amber distilling company. So they wanted to partner with a rock band, Metallica, and they were both like Metallica. And the distillery was like, you know what, there's so many rock bands. There's so many just celebrities throw in their face on an alcohol product.

We don't really want to do that. And they were all in agreement. So they came up with a process that made it completely unique. And the process was they got Metallica on board. They created this product called blackened whiskey, which is based on a song by Metallica and they actually had Metallica create what's called a black noise, right?

It's low frequency, the opposite of white noise, this low frequency hum that was created by Metallica. And they play it nonstop in the distillery. over the years and the thought process behind it is the vibration from this black noise helps the whiskey get into the, the essence and the grooves of the wood of the barrels.

And it helps for an aging, a more, woody type of flavor to the to the product. So whether it's true or not, it's a pretty bad ass story and boom, now you have a completely differentiated whiskey. Not only based on the identity of Metallica, but also the process of how it's made. Pretty cool.

Just an example how, when you think differentiation, you may not think of process overall, but these are the types of things we tried to bring into the book. These stories that you don't typically hear. They're very unique. But when you drill down, it's very powerful.

Carl: Do you have any examples relating to software companies you've worked with? Because it's more relevant to my little sphere and my little audience.

Jesse: Absolutely. We had a a very, a company of engineers, very technical. Obviously, there's a software side to this, but they built a sensor. And I'm not going to go into, how great the sensor was. It's truly revolutionary, but they were going to a trade show and they knew this trade show is going to be wall to wall engineers and engineers aren't really wooed by pretty pictures.

And, they like data and data. Most of the time isn't sexy. So we took this sensor. And basically, long story short, it is, it had the ability to detect aggression. And the thought was, you put it in prisons, you put it in schools, and when it detects a certain level of whatever in a person's voice, It's supposed to proactively prevent a fight from happening, right?

So you send security or whatever to the jail cell, to the prison to the school when that sensor goes off. So we came up with the concept of getting a UFC fighter, getting a WWE wrestler in a ring, having a face off. And then not being able to properly verbalize their anger towards each other because the sensor keeps going off.

So it was this big thing. It helped demonstrate or illustrate what the product did in a fun way, made it more approachable, and it was very, lit. It was, very look like a boxing pay per view. So having that on a big screen at a trade show. Made them the stars of the show.

So rather than going to the show and talking about this feature and this benefit and these megahertz and all that stuff and the software behind it, making it a little bit more approachable, a little bit more easy to digest without a 60 second sales pitch.

Carl: Something you see a lot in marketing is a lot of bold claims and over promising. So what are your thoughts on that and its role in branding?

Jesse: Yeah, I think. I think it's exactly overdone. So our, we have a couple of litmus tests that we utilize in our overall process. So the first process, a low bar that we set is anything we create as far as marketing, as far as social media, we ask ourselves, would somebody share this voluntarily?

Without being asked to, right? So if you go out and say, Hey, we're the best. We've got the best customer service. Our clients love us are, it's the equivalence of white noise, right? So creating that content around your brand. And again, it's a lot easier when you find your voice and your differentiator finding something that someone would say, Hey, you know what?

I'm going to share this with so and it was pretty clever or it was very interesting. I'll share this with, with my following base, the high bar that we set for ourselves is creating a brand that resonates so well with people that they would actually be willing to get it tattooed on their body.

or wear your t shirt without you asking to them not just because you gave them a free t shirt make them feel so aligned with your brand that you know what yeah i would get that brand tattooed on my body and you see it you know with brands like liquid death i don't know if you have that in new zealand but it's basically canned water right but they've created a brand that's so cool it's created this cult status that high bar was it was definitely meant.

So obviously not. It's not one size fits all. It's not one size fits every industry. But those are some kind of the benchmarks that we utilize when creating our messaging for clients.

Carl: in the modern age, AI has really kicked off in a lot of content creation. How has that impacted what you do and creation of those sorts of messaging?

Jesse: So it's funny because I think this is just going to amplify it. But in 2016, this sounds it's a lot more easy to accept now, but this sounds like complete craziness. In 2016, I went to a conference to pitch a movie. And there was a data guy talking about, the trends of the industry.

And he pointed out that something happened in 2016. That never happened in the history of humankind before. And that was people were more than willing to pay more to get less. And it seems natural now, but thinking back, eight years ago, people were willing to pay more for let's say the BBC channels.

So you go to your cable, you go to your cable provider, they're going to give you 200 channels for a hundred bucks. That's 50 cents a channel. And people were saying, you know what? I'll pay five bucks for one channel. I want the BBC. Because it's curated for me, right? So we're getting to this tipping point where there's too much content.

And actually I'm willing to pay to cut some of that content out. Like I only want the good stuff. So I call it human climate change, right? Where back in the day you would say, I want all the channels. Now we're moving to the point where I need a filter between me and all this content. So our school of thought for the past eight years was, if you're just putting out.

Content for the sake of content, we call it commoditized content. You're actually not, you're no longer just entering the conversation to be in the conversation. You're actually potentially damaging your brand to the point where people are going to say, you know what, let's put a filter on it. I don't want this content unless it's really good.

So that's been our mantra. And now it's starting to, I think this AI avalanche is going to make people automatically or accelerate that filtering or curation process where. If that content's not stellar, keep it off my radar. I think it's just going to accelerate that just killing off crap content just for content sake.

Okay.

Carl: Do you have any tips for being on the right side of the filter and what you need to do to create content that people want to engage with?

Jesse: Yeah, it can be tough based on your specific industry. Some of the examples you may have heard, um, when Guinness, the beer company, realized that people were spending less time in bars and sales were going down, they did a survey and they realized that people like trivia. And if they can talk about trivia more, they'd spend more time in bars and they would buy more beer.

And that led to. Them creating the Guinness Book of World Records. I didn't know that Guinness, the beer company, actually published a Guinness Book of World Records. While they're not out there creating content about beer, you have the ability to become the curator for your industry.

Same thing with the Michelin star, right? They wanted more people to go out and, utilize their tires. So they buy more tires. So they created a guide to restaurants, telling people they had to get out and use their car to get to these restaurants. So it's not always a linear path of, you're a SAS company and you have to create amazing content based around your specific product, your industry, you can become the curator for the entire industry or a completely different industry, michelin tires does with fine dining. It just takes dedication and a unique perspective.

Carl: So if we talk about, again, this is a messaging, there's something you've, I know that you specialize is direct mail marketing. So it's something that a lot of SaaS companies do, especially early on because it's, one of the best ways to find new customers. How do you approach direct mail marketing in a

Jesse: So it's, that's a great question because I work, I consult with one of the largest direct mail manufacturers in the world, right? And I've done what I've consulted with them for over 25 years. And that 25 years encapsulates It's the birth of the internet and email and it was like the writing's on the wall.

Direct mail is dead, and in the next 25 years, this is going to be over. And direct mail right now is bigger than it's ever been. And if I was a betting person, I would have lost all my money. Because direct mail is, it's super powerful people. It's guaranteed delivery. It's not like a display banner ad where you, people, wonder if people saw it or not, it gets into the mailbox, it gets into their hand, regardless of how long it stays in their hand, it's a guaranteed impression.

There's not a lot of channels that can guarantee an impression. So on one hand. It's almost a exercise of, getting as many of those guaranteed impressions as possible and being decommoditized isn't as. Important as it is in the digital world, right? Because now just getting that impression is almost being decommoditized in and of itself but you know be you know Decommoditizing your message in direct mail.

Obviously it can help but it all filters down to your same brand messaging that applies to digital and every other channel out there and with direct mail coming from my experience, it's always You It's always a budget type of thing. So if you can make it a little smaller and get an extra 10, 000 impressions out there by getting into more people, I would definitely go that route.

As opposed to, doing some crazy big time door bust mailer.

Carl: So something you've done apparently is you've turned the traditional method of direct mail marketing into something called the conversion factory. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Jesse: Sure. Sure. So this is an example of. A direct mail manufacturer that felt, it's almost synonymous with commodity, right? So when you go to direct mail, you want the cheapest production. You want the cheapest postage. It's all about budget. It's not really about quality messaging or anything like that.

So when you're a salesperson for a direct mail manufacturer Aside from price, how do you start a conversation? How do you say, Hey, Carl, we should talk about direct mail. And you say, I already have a direct mail guy aside from me saying I'm cheaper. What could I possibly say to get you to, have a conversation with me?

So we created this fun behind the scenes. Willy Wonka esque video series called the conversion factory. The firm that I was working with came up with a bunch of new formats. One of them super cool. There's a red window and you can't see what's in the red window But if you open it, it says the offer so you can have you know An arrow pointing to the window saying your your savings is this amount And it's like a like an x ray vision type of thing.

So they came up with all these cool things, but the sales people would get on a phone and say, Hey, Carl, I got some new formats for you. Let's have a conversation. They'd be like, nah, I'm good. I'm good. And I've got the cheapest, I've got the best. And what we did was created this, more approachable, more entertaining angle on the direct mail.

Manufacturing process and we gave people an inside look as to how we created the stuff and why we're different and why we deserve a couple minutes of their time. It was just a, an overall fun project. One of the product. One of the format was called the marsupial. So we got a, an actual live kangaroo, which is rare here in New York.

I don't know about New Zealand, but we got a kangaroo in the office and just created, more of these outlandish attention, getting things where in a, in an industry where people just do not care about anything, but the cheapest price, we got to turn some turn some heads and get some eyeballs on our product.

Carl: How important do you think those sort of novel approaches are in marketing and branding, even compared to from B2B and B2C sides?

Jesse: Yeah, absolutely. It depends on the overall brand message, right? So if you are super serious IBM. It's not going to work for them, which is why Mac exists because you're going to get, that, that part of the part of the population. So it really depends. We in our universe of differentiation, we call it approachable distinction, right?

So if you think of it as an island, if your product is an island, let's say you're selling Ferraris and the general public is Okay. I feel funny going in and asking how much a Ferrari costs and I don't know the question. I don't know what horsepower is and I don't know, the ability for you to break down those barriers and create those bridges through either comedy or, build that rapport.

It makes sense. It makes the customer a lot less anxious and it makes you a lot more approachable. I use the example Ferrari, which isn't the best example because they want to have an elevated, almost, if you think about that Island, they want the drawbridge because they don't want everybody to be able to access the Ferrari, but.

If you're looking to, appeal to a wider crowd it might be the right way to go. We have, we work a lot with distilleries and we learned that you go up to a bar and you ask for whiskey and the guy says, what kind? You gotta know what the hell you're talking about to ask, what type of whiskey, I don't know, just give me whatever you have, right?

So there's a little bit of anxiousness. You may walk up to the bar, not, not have all the confidence in the world to ask for your favorite drink. So we try to make, our brand as approachable as possible to break down that, that anxiety factor when someone were to go and ask for the particular brand that we were selling.

Carl: If you could give one piece of advice to people just starting out in their business, there may be only be one person working on the company. What would it be to establish their branding and get their marketing off the ground?

Jesse: Yes, there, there's usually two types of people. The first type of person is The type of person that can't read the writing on the wall because they think I'm special and I'm in that group. So I had a giant agency, tons of really unique minds running around pinball machines, and someone said, Hey, there's going to be a flood of web designers entering the market.

You guys are going to become a commodity really soon. And I thought, ah, we're special. We're quirky. We got the cool office where we're special. And sure enough, the tidal wave came and, we had to lower our prices and figure out a way to reposition ourselves to stop becoming stop from becoming a commodity.

So there's those people. If you're one of the, I'm special you know, take the stimulus from your environment and figure out if you're really that special, and if you are, figure out a way to articulate it to the marketplace. Don't just keep it inside and think, walk around like.

You're the best kept secret because the best kept secrets, they don't make a lot of money. So if you're, if you don't feel you're special, rest assured that absolutely every brand with enough courage can be decommoditized or differentiated. It's just a simple process of figuring out how.

Carl: Thanks for coming on the podcast today. I've really enjoyed this chat.

Jesse: I appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me.

Carl: this is Jesse Wroblewski and the author of Marketing for Supervillains. Where can people find the book, Jesse?

Jesse: Anywhere online, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, hard copy, soft cover, Kindle available should be easy to find.

Carl: Awesome. Thanks. Thanks for this chat.

Jesse: Thanks so much, Carl.