Post Malone: A Lesson on Digital Marketing

It's early Tuesday morning. I just stepped foot inside my office. Monday Night Football kept me up later than usual, so the shot of espresso I added to my morning cup of Joe is the only reason my eyelids are even slightly open. I sit down at my desk, and start to determine what my work day will look like. A few hours of graphic design to start the day? I can dig it. But not without some background noise to help keep the back half of my scattered brain occupied. A podcast should work for that. Upon pulling up my podcast app, I receive a few recommendations that I might be interested in. An interview with comedian Theo Von and musician Post Malone piques my interest. A fan of both personalities, I press play and start listening while gathering assets for my first design of the day. About an hour goes by, the designs are flowing, the espresso has kicked in, and I’m about 15 good laughs into the podcast. As I am listening, Mr. Post shifts the conversation and starts making some interesting claims that make me stop what I am working on. Here is the (edited to keep the blog family friendly) clip for context:

Clip courtesy of This Past Weekend on Youtube. View full episode [Here]

Now first things first, if there is some technology I am not aware of that allows you to place a pixel into a smartphone user’s brain, then please disregard the rest of this article and send me the link immediately. Otherwise, let’s break this down.

Is it possible that Post was coincidentally shown an ad at random? Yes. Is it possible that he was included in a geofence ad? Yes. But I don't think those are likely scenarios. With that said, one thing is for sure, Post Malone’s claim that he only thought about Jet Skis in his head before receiving ads is about as believable as the AI rendering of him at the top of this page. He assumably did something to trigger the advertisements. Odds are that at some point, Posty either visited a website, searched for a website, viewed an ad, visited a link, or preformed some action related to Jet Skis, and simply forgot about it. According to recent data, the average Google user performs nearly 48 searches per week. [1] This number doesn't include the number of links visited and other internet activity preformed by an individual within a week's time. With that amount of unique internet actions, you can imagine how hard it would be to remember what you searched for or clicked on 5-7 days ago, especially when you are busy traveling the world being a pop/rap/country/rock icon. Once he preformed this action, he was placed into an audience for retargeting by an unknown company that I will refer to as Company X. A while later, after he had forgotten about his Jet Ski inquiry, he started to receive advertisements from Company X about offers on Jet Skis. Upon seeing these ads he was freaked out and started to develop his own conclusion that the internet was reading his mind.

Any marketer will read this scenario and understand that this is a classic case of retargeting based on a predetermined user action, set up by Company X. But after hearing Post’s recollection of the event, it forced me to reflect on how customers feel about these types of retargeting advertisements. Post Malone is actually not the first person I have heard claiming that they felt “stalked” or “violated” by these types of ads. Friends and family have complained that the item they viewed on Amazon is now following them around everywhere they go in the form of banner ads. This proves that if a retargeting campaign is too aggressive, then the campaign begins to “Fall Apart” (see what I did there?). But what actions should we take to help avoid creeping out our potential customers? These ads can be ultra effective because they target users that have already shown interest in the product, so we need to be calculated when determining how much aggression will cross the threshold between being useful or creepy to the viewer. To help, let’s try to tap into the mind of Post Malone and think about trust and consensus through his prospective.

Trust and consensus are two major factors that can determine how an end users views a retargeted ad. Let's just say, for example, Post Malone "thought about" Rolex watches. In reality, he preformed an action that placed him in an audience to receive retargeting ads set up by Rolex. Assuming that he fits within the demographic that can afford a Rolex, it is very likely that Post has owned or currently owns one of Rolex's luxury timepieces. This is where the trust comes from. It is also safe to assume that many people in his circle of acquaintances own Rolex brand watches too. This is where the consensus comes from. Now, upon seeing these ads, Post doesn't feel uncomfortable because he is familiarized with the brand and he probably enjoys seeing ads that relate to something he knows.

Now let's flip back to Company X. Chances are that Company X is unknown to Post Malone. So when he made that brief action that triggered Company X to capture and sort his data, nothing about the brand stuck in his head enough for him to remember it. Thus, once he started receiving the Company X ads, he did the logical thing and concluded that his thoughts were being monitored.

Let's Discuss:

1.) What can you and I consider doing to avoid this type of customer reception of our retarget ads when planning our overall marketing strategy?

2.) What are some things you and I can do so that brand awareness building comes before retarget ads in the customer's journey to purchase?

Whether you are a college aged intern or a marketing employee, sometimes the best advice doesn't come from your Professor or CMO, it comes from people like Post Malone. Normal people. The consumer. People that will be the viewers of your ads and, hopefully, the purchasers of your products and/or services. So on top of his 8 diamond-certified records, and umpteen other awards in music, I would like to say "Congratulations" (I did it again) to Post Malone on possibly his greatest achievement yet; becoming a case study on Digital Marketing.