- Speaker #0
I tried to go and do my research, and every single piece of research that I found said that they were selling 80,000 units a day. But, yeah, that's crazy.
- Speaker #1
Wait, wait, wait. 80,000 bottles per day.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, that's why.
- Speaker #1
That's $12 billion a year. You're watching Marketing Misfits with Norm Farrar and Kevin Kane. Mr. Farrar, wait, we got to start this podcast out with a salute. The Coke Zero salute, hey! Whoa! Coke
- Speaker #0
Zero!
- Speaker #1
The Coke Zero salute. From my snowy balcony to your snowy whiteout.
- Speaker #0
My whiteout.
- Speaker #1
Your whiteout at your place. And I'm not talking about your beer.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. That's a friggin'grayout.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's crazy. So the other day I showed... norm a little picture of uh a little bit of snow and uh then norm shows me a picture of this this crazy thing uh at his house i'm like all right there's no comparison um but you said something like you're gonna go out in your a real man goes out in his shorts and actually sits on that balcony full of snow and smokes a cigar so are you a real man yeah of course i want to see a picture picture of that one i you
- Speaker #0
I have.
- Speaker #1
You can't go up there with a heater.
- Speaker #0
I can remember plenty of times where I've been. In fact, I'll tell you a story that happened. Connie always picks me up, my wife always picks me up at the airport whenever I'm coming back from your place. So I don't want to bring a jacket in wintertime, so I just wear my T-shirt. I go down to your place, you know, I just take it off, walk across the parking lot, or just drop off at Toronto Airport, and... No problems. I came back the one time. I've told you about this, I think. I walked outside and Connie was stuck in traffic. So I'm sitting out there and I'm sitting, okay, she's going to be here anytime. She's going to be here anytime. And I finally jumped in the car. Well, I turned on the radio and the announcer said, whoa, this is where Fahrenheit meets Celsius. It was minus 44.
- Speaker #1
Minus 44 Celsius.
- Speaker #0
Oh, it's the same as Fahrenheit.
- Speaker #1
Both of them are the same. Oh, so negative 44 in Fahrenheit is negative 44 in Celsius. Yep.
- Speaker #0
Lots of fun.
- Speaker #1
Oh, yeah. And then,
- Speaker #0
you know what?
- Speaker #1
I bet everything was blue on you.
- Speaker #0
Things were falling off. But, you know, my dad and I, he likes his cigars, too. And I remember when he used to come down for Christmas. We only go down there now to see them. But when it was Christmas time up around our neck of the woods, we would go out in the snow and smoke a cigar.
- Speaker #1
Well, you told me you set up a tent.
- Speaker #0
No, we had a little cabana.
- Speaker #1
And we had a folding lawn chair or something in there. And you can go in that little thing and smoke your cigar.
- Speaker #0
That was a little gazebo for pool equipment. Yeah. But I didn't always have that. I had another house that we just had like a porch. And you'd sit out there and literally just freeze. And by the way, I got to congratulate you about something. Our last podcast that we did just recently, I really want to give you like a two thumbs up. You know, a big hug, a virtual hug. I didn't hear you swear once. And I didn't have to go in and edit out all your bloody swear words. So thank you for that, Kevin.
- Speaker #1
Who says this is PG? This is not some PG thing. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
but you're not the guy that has to go through and do all the edits so we can put it on YouTube.
- Speaker #1
Oh, man. Well, that makes it. So we need a director's cut then. We need a director's cut where I'm saying it the way it is.
- Speaker #0
Yep. Yep. So, you know.
- Speaker #1
Those are $99.95. Get yours here at marketingmisfits.directorscut.com.
- Speaker #0
There we go. That's it. As soon as you start to say anything, I'm just going to boop. So I don't have to go back and edit.
- Speaker #1
I don't think it's when I cuss that embarrasses you or makes you bad. It's the part where I start talking about certain people.
- Speaker #0
Oh,
- Speaker #1
don't do it. When your eyes get big, you're like, he did not just say that.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, you've done that a few times.
- Speaker #1
He did not just say that.
- Speaker #0
Oh, man, today we got a great topic.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I mean, what's in here? You know, when you and I are. at conferences and events and doing stuff you know we always sit down in the restaurant And, you know, they always come out. The first thing they do is some guy comes around with a pitcher and, like, starts to fill the water cups. I think me, you, and my buddy Mark Dawn that produces all my events and stuff and partners in another company with him, we always, like, we don't need the water. No water for us. No water for us. We stick to Coke Zeros.
- Speaker #0
Get to the hard stuff, yeah.
- Speaker #1
Get to the hard stuff really quick. But, you know, when it comes to... There are some fascinating stories from the marketing world when it comes to water and drinks. It doesn't have to be just water, but some of the energy drinks and stuff and some of the creativity that they dunk because water is water. Water is basically water. It comes out of the ground in different springs and different places and may have slightly different minerals to it or whatever, but how do you sell water when it's just water? Water.
- Speaker #0
It's a commodity.
- Speaker #1
It's a commodity. It's like back when during COVID, I was selling hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer is hand sanitizer. Same couple of ingredients in each one. You can change the smell, change a few things around here or there, but it's basically the same thing. So I was digging around, just reading some of my newsletters and different things that I get, and I saw some fascinating stuff about like Red Bull and liquid death. And... You mentioned something when you used to live in Hawaii for a while, something about Hawaii, some Hawaiian water that I never knew of. It's a fascinating story how these people are actually marketing this stuff. I mean, you take something like Red Bull. Do you know the story of Red Bull? Do you know how Red Bull got started?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah. It's a great story. It's a great case study.
- Speaker #1
So... So you know that the guy, the dude that started, I can't even pronounce his name, Dietrich something and something. He started Red Bull, but he took a trip to Thailand and he had jet lag. And so he grabbed some like local drink there that somebody recommended to him. And he's like, holy cow, this kind of like gave me some energy and cured my jet lag. So the guy ends up going and licensing it and changing the taste a little bit. I guess, I don't know, must not have been too good, more towards Western standards. And. and launches this drink called Red Bull in the United States. And that drink goes on to become, you know, a huge, I mean, everybody knows Red Bull now. I mean, you're a big F1 fan. They're sponsoring, you know, they got a whole team on F1. That's not cheap. That's hundreds of millions of dollars to have a team, I think, on F1. But just come from that. And how do you market that when there's all these other energy drinks out there and all these sodas and all this stuff? And it's a pretty cool story. Hey, what's up, everybody? Kevin and Norm here with a quick word from one of our sponsors, 8BIG. Let me tell you about a platform that's changing the game for Amazon sellers. That's right. It's called 8BIG. On average, sellers working with 8BIG grow up to 400% in less than a year.
- Speaker #0
8BIG offers both funding and free tools for e-commerce growth and cash flow management. And here's how it works.
- Speaker #1
8Fig provides flexible, data-driven funding tailored to your exact needs. You know, they could fund anywhere from up to $50,000 all the way up to $10 million.
- Speaker #0
8Fig gives you free tools to forecast demand, manage inventory, and analyze cash flow.
- Speaker #1
Visit 8Fig.co, that's 8Fig.co, to learn more or check the link in the show notes below.
- Speaker #0
Just mention Marketing Misfits and get 25% off. Your cost.
- Speaker #1
That's 8fig.co, 8fig.co. See you on the other side.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, especially when the rumor mill hit. And supposedly there was a touch of bull sperm in the in red.
- Speaker #1
You said you remember.
- Speaker #0
I remember.
- Speaker #1
When was that?
- Speaker #0
That was in the... Yeah. In fact, Red Bull was sponsoring this boat show I was at, and they were handing out, I don't know if you remember this, but Red Bull Cola. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
I remember that. I remember that, yeah.
- Speaker #0
And I liked it. They took it off the market, unfortunately. But that's where I heard the rumor, and it was like, am I going to drink this? Does it have that in it? And so, yeah, it was... We heard that it had sperm or bull semen in part of the ingredients. It was proven false.
- Speaker #1
It was just a rumor. This is before the Internet was really a thing, where social media, this is like back in the day.
- Speaker #0
We actually did the Moorish Chord, like the, you know, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee over the wire.
- Speaker #1
The Moorish Chord, like. do do do do do bullsperm and uh morse code that's gonna be but yeah so that was but you know what that would freak me out if i was launching a brand new product and putting all this money behind it all of a sudden people like oh yeah kevin uh your your new drink is full of bullsperm i'm like what do i gotta do to counter this but what dietrich did was he just went with it he just like he didn't say anything people are coming to me the past is coming to me is this true he's like all I don't know. I don't know. What do you think? And he just kind of rolled with it. And that actually was a stroke of misfit marketing because it just got people talking about it. Everybody's like, well, does it or does it not have this?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, forget about the hundred bulls in his backyard.
- Speaker #1
He's like, I don't know. There's some bulls out back. Yeah. Hey,
- Speaker #0
what the hell?
- Speaker #1
Does your drink have a little foamy top or not? I don't know. But, I mean, that was, I mean, just to roll with that and just let it go. And then, you know, it got disproven, like you said, it got disproven eventually. But that created a buzz around it. And I don't, maybe he planted that. Maybe that was on purpose. Maybe that he planted that and just strategically did that. But, you know, before that, I think, to get it going, he didn't have a lot of money to get this going. Didn't have all his big investors, didn't have all his distribution. So, I remember... He went, I think it was in London, I think it was.
- Speaker #0
You're right, London.
- Speaker #1
Where he's like, well, how can we, you know, who's our target market for this? Oh, these are the people that are out partying, the people going to the nightclubs. They're going to be like drinking, want to have some energy to stay up all night, to do the boom-da-bing, the bomb-da-boom, and whatever. And so how can we actually sell this to them? The clubs were like, no, we don't want that. I don't know what this is. We're good. We got it. stuff so he started take had hired a group of people to take empty empty cans and put them in along litter them basically along the streets here and there look make it look natural and put them in trash cans and all over the place so that people would start seeing these things everywhere going damn there's a lot of this red bull thing what the hell is that in all these cans and that trash can on the sidewalk what is it they pick up the can look at oh red bull shoot there's a lot of people drink this maybe i need to actually try this And so people started trying it because of that. That was brilliant.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Do you remember, it's got to be 20, 30 years ago, but Red Bull really got into the extreme sports market before anything. Yeah. They got tons of promotions.
- Speaker #1
Their slogan was like, it gives you wings or something like that.
- Speaker #0
It still is.
- Speaker #1
It still is. Yeah, their slogan is it gives you wings. And so, yeah, like you said, they got into the extreme sports.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And. got really well known plus the the people that were involved with extreme sports um like like the boat show i wasn't a boat show it was a boat event this was a boat like a scarab um race that we were at and uh yeah they started handing it out everywhere so they got really well known and by doing that i don't know how much they had to pay in sponsorship but it was probably a lot less than ads that they'd have to put out because the word of mouth just spread like crazy. And the other thing.
- Speaker #1
Well, I think that was like deliberate. I think one of their strategies was instead of buying ads and going on other people's shows and having a 30 second spot or 60 seconds spot or whatever, or having their logo just appear whenever the camera happened to spin around all these networks, that's around the time that ESPN was coming up and you had ESPN two, ESPN three, ESPN 27. And, and all these different little regional sports and they needed content and they needed shows and they just didn't have the budgets to go out there and like cover all these obscure sports and you know they all had the NFL budget and the college football and basketball and stuff like that but they didn't want to go do uh you know extreme uh surfboarding or something like that so Red Bull said why don't we actually create these sports or create these events we'll sponsor them and we'll give them to the tv stations free We'll edit them. We'll put them all, and we'll give it to them as free content. Instead of us getting a 30-second spot, now we have a, whatever, 60 minutes or 90 minutes that's basically the Red Bull show. And both of them won. And that was brilliant.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, and at the event, guess what you were drinking? Red Bull.
- Speaker #1
Drinking Red Bull and all the signs is Red Bull. People were wearing Red Bull jerseys and everything.
- Speaker #0
And they gave it away free, Kev. I don't know if you've ever been to one of these extreme sport events, but. But back in the day, they just had, I don't know, just all these Red Bull cans that would be set up with ice. And they were just handing out Red Bull left, right and center. Never paid for. for it back then.
- Speaker #1
Well, I mean, speaking of the cans, I mean, that's something else they did. That was really smart is they made the can a different shape. They didn't make the can. They didn't do a six pack. They do a four pack. For example, uh, when you buy them, you know, when I get them at Walmart, we're still in like a four pack, not a six pack. And then the cans are this like skinny, uh, different shape. So it kind of stands out. Uh, and you can actually get more of them. If you're to the convenience store or something, you get more of them in the, in the cooler as well. Uh, So that was a differentiating factor. So, I mean, it was really brilliant marketing, what Red Bull did.
- Speaker #0
Well, the last thing I want to say about Red Bull, talk about brilliant marketing. They took an unsuccessful, failed racing team that did nothing. And now when you say Red Bull, what do you think of?
- Speaker #1
You think of power. You think of strength. You think of... excitement, energy, because of the Red Bull racing team.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, and they spend tons of money on it.
- Speaker #1
Do they do are they one of the better teams or they were the
- Speaker #0
They're a top team. They've been a top team forever, yeah, for the last few years. But even before the World Championships, they were coming in second. But I remember When they came out, they didn't do well. I think it was Sebastian Vettel that actually made the team. He started coming in, scoring some points. This is back, you know, a few years. But look what they've done. And I really can't believe that they went from these crap. It was just a crappy team. And it was owned by Jaguar, by the way. It was a Jaguar team. And Jaguar sold it to... Red Bull.
- Speaker #1
I didn't know that.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
And now Jaguar's gone pink, and so Red Bull's giving you wings. It's their whole marketing thing. That's a whole other topic.
- Speaker #0
Yep. You know, Jaguar out on their tricycles while...
- Speaker #1
Well, you know, it's not just Red Bull, though. I mean, if you look at the drink market, that's a very competitive market. I see people going Shark Tank sometimes, and they're introducing some sort of new wellness drink or whatever. All the sharks are, in your case, what's it called, Dragon's Den up in Canada, and they just roll their eyes. They're like, oh, that's so competitive. It's so hard to stand out. But water, isn't water just water? I mean, water is, I mean, yeah, it's coming out of a different place, and maybe there's a couple different minerals in it, and there's some, or you actually were telling me, I'm telling her smoking cigars or something, and you're telling me about this crazy water in Hawaii, when you were out in Hawaii. sells for like two thousand dollars a gallon or like this bottle right here this little eight ounce bottle is like 120 bucks or coke i think the one you have you i think you had the time one of those big plastic ones you're like this thing is like whatever
- Speaker #0
400 bucks or something for this what what is that water yeah so this is crazy and it's not even sold here so they've got an exclusive in japan sold in
- Speaker #1
The U.S. or Canada?
- Speaker #0
No, yeah, it's not sold in North America.
- Speaker #1
But it's made in Hawaii.
- Speaker #0
Hawaii, yeah, it comes out of the ocean. It's 2,000 feet down, I believe, and it gets What's that?
- Speaker #1
So it's 2,000 feet down in the oceans off of Hawaii?
- Speaker #0
Ocean surface, yeah, off the coast. It's seawater gets desalinated. uh what's supposed to happen well first of all i gotta tell you the bottle yeah for this 402 dollar bottle of water is a green ugly bottle with a cap and a big black label it's
- Speaker #1
ugly it's like a plastic bottle or is it like some like like uh crystal crystallized like no not just that price but
- Speaker #0
No, I believe it's a glass, but you know what? You remember the old 7-Up bottles?
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
It's just a cylinder with a black top, ugly, ugly, ugly labeling, but they've represented this brand. First of all, the Japanese love Hawaii. Anything Hawaii, they love.
- Speaker #1
It's one of their favorite places to go.
- Speaker #0
Right. But also, this has some health claims associated with it. Like it... from and i believe me i'm not saying it does but it states that there's some weight loss benefits from it um stress um digestion and even some skin tone improvements but there they also claim about the types of mineral like it's a mineral rich um uh deep sea water and uh i don't know they're all 400 a bottle yeah a bottle
- Speaker #1
A regular, like a regular, this is not like a gallon container.
- Speaker #0
This is like a, like this size.
- Speaker #1
What's the name of it?
- Speaker #0
It's called Kona Nagari water.
- Speaker #1
So can I,
- Speaker #0
and that's, that's, if anybody wants to check this out, like this is no bull. It's Kona, like the town of Kona in, in Hawaii, Nagari in this N-I-G-A-R-I water. And per 750 milliliters, so almost two bottles of eight ounce Coke, that's 402 bottles. Now, I don't know if this is correct. I think I was trying to get this information over to you, but I have all sorts of sources that said this, but I have a hard time believing it. I've been told, and when I used to live in Hawaii, I was given an 80,000 unit, but I wasn't 100% if it was a day or if that was a year.
- Speaker #1
Selling 80,000 units per day.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, and I went on, I tried to go and do my research, and every single piece of research that I found said that they were selling 80. 80,000 units a day. And I don't know if that's correct. I really don't. Maybe they're all these news sources are getting it from the same old piece, outdated piece of news. But yeah, that's crazy.
- Speaker #1
Wait, wait, wait. 80,000 bottles per day just going to Japan. So they're basically taking the whole supply. Let me just look here. That's like $12 billion a year.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, that's why...
- Speaker #1
That's $12 billion a year.
- Speaker #0
Yep. Now, a quick word from our sponsor, LaVonta. Hey, Kevin, tell us a little bit about it.
- Speaker #1
That's right, Amazon sellers. Do you want to skyrocket your sales and boost your organic rankings? Meet LaVonta, Norm and I's secret weapon for driving high-quality external traffic straight to our Amazon storefronts using affiliate marketing. That's right. It's achieved through direct partnerships with leading media outlets like CNN, Wirecutter, and BuzzFeed, just to name a few, as well as top affiliates, influencers, bloggers, and media buyers, all in Levanta's marketplace, which is home to over 5,000 different creators that you get to choose from.
- Speaker #0
So are you ready to elevate your business? Visit get.levanta.io slash misfits. That's get.levanta.io. A N T a.io slash misfits and book a call and you'll get up to 20% off Levanta's gold plan today. That's get. Levanta.io slash misfits. Now, even if it was.
- Speaker #1
Where is this in Hawaii? Do you still have the map to this place? Me and you are taking a trip because we're doing the wrong thing here.
- Speaker #0
You know what?
- Speaker #1
Deep sea diving. Get our scuba certificates. Get our little submarine.
- Speaker #0
Let's go in the frigging, what is it called? The Red River in Austin.
- Speaker #1
Oklahoma. No,
- Speaker #0
it's Colorado River. Oh, the Colorado, yeah. So we'll go in and we'll start taking some water out of that river.
- Speaker #1
Barbecue flavored water.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Central Texas.
- Speaker #0
There we go. There you go. But the thing about this, and again, we're not sure of the numbers, even if it was just 80,000 units for the year, that's still substantial. But I really do feel it from what I've seen. It's a day. So, and they also market, they do some marketing about around sustainability. I think that's pretty brilliant. Like they're taking it out of the ocean. It's pretty sustainable.
- Speaker #1
That's crazy, man. Yeah. That reminds me of Liquid Death and their whole sustainability thing. Most water comes in plastic bottles. I think there's a water sold here in Texas in all the HEB grocery stores and stuff. All it is is Houston tap water. uh you know they put in these plastic bottles but i remember liquid death when it first came out one of their big schticks was the sustainability thing like look we're an aluminum can no other water was an aluminum can at the time we're an aluminum can because it's it's recyclable the infinitely recyclable only part of the plastic bottles are not the whole thing and that was part of their whole thing too you remember yeah yeah i'm you know we you kind of talk we've we've talked about liquid death in the past and i just can't give up my money for liquid death like i keep thinking come on murder your thirst you don't want to murder your thirst and you know you're you're not edgy rock and roll you're not like uh one of those kind of guys yeah no you get it your buddies with zz top i mean you what is it no no sharp dressed men yeah but they did do something so they from what i understand you touched on it right it had a rock and roll background so it's counter call it's like counter to everything everybody else was selling water is the healthy spiritual yogish type of thing and they're like no let's make this a true like rock and roll mean or not mean but edgy type of thing and It freaking worked.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, and the founder, like the story behind it is that that founder was on a rock tour watching rock bands drink out of rock star cans filled with water. And that's how he got the idea.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think they must have had like a, I think it was, they had a sponsor. I think it was Monster. What was that?
- Speaker #0
That's what it was. It was Monster Cans. Yeah, that's what it was.
- Speaker #1
I think Monster must have been sponsoring the band, but maybe the band members, I don't know if this is true or not, but maybe the band members didn't like the taste of that energy drink or it was getting them too pumped up or too riled up. They'd just rather have water. So they're dumping water into the Monster Cans and drinking that on stage. And he got the idea, like, wait a second, what if we actually do this for real and actually put water? in aluminum cans and that's exactly what he did and then when he launched it he it's like i don't know if this is going to work well people buy this in aluminum cans so he went on facebook and he spent a few grand and he did did some photos and made a post on facebook and the product didn't exist yet he hadn't manufactured he hadn't got a manufacturer lined up he kind of knew some basics but he hadn't actually launched the product and he started running ads on facebook and and i think I think the story goes he spent a couple thousand bucks and almost overnight he grew that to like three million views or something like that and had like 80,000 people follow him or join a Facebook group or something. So he basically had this like built-in audience just by doing this edgy kind of entertaining kind of tongue-in-cheek kind of deal on Facebook. He's like, holy cow, I've got something here. I actually need to actually figure out how to do this. That was smart too.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, just that. skull on the can the name i wonder how long it took him to come up with that brand name like liquid when i saw it for the first time was murder your thirst i mean everything they've done is around the entertainment it's liquid death murder which is like rock and roll you know i think back to my days as motley crew and acdc and that's something that they would say it's
- Speaker #1
and then the slogan you know just like red bull had a really cool slogan uh gives you wings he's like murder your thirst it just fits into the whole play of everything and you know then like we said about the sustainability it was a you know death to plastic or whatever uh as well uh you know and it just rode that that sustainability wave and that's edginess that people were seeking and you know people buy things because of the way it makes them feel you know that's something people forget about sometimes it's not always they buy it because out of necessity they buy it because they make them feel so someone if i'm sitting at a party and There's someone with an Evian bottle or a Fiji bottle, and I'm sitting here with my liquid death can. It almost says something about me like, hey, you know, I'm not one of these foo-foo, up-to-the-up people from society. I'm this down-and-dirty, rock-and-roll.
- Speaker #0
I'm a rebel.
- Speaker #1
Rebel type of person, and it plays. So that's something I think people don't remember in marketing is. when you're marketing, you need to market to remember people buy because of how they feel. When someone, when a woman buys a,
- Speaker #0
a Louis Vuitton purse for $7,000 versus a very similar purse that'll do the same damn thing at Walmart for 50 bucks. She's doing it because it makes her feel a certain way. It makes her feel accomplished. It makes her feel like she's part of a group or part of society or she needs to show off. She's made it. It's the same thing when it comes to differentiating commodities like water.
- Speaker #1
You know what? I'm going to go down a different rabbit hole because I got to see what you say about this. You're talking about the Louis Vuitton purse, okay? It makes you feel special, right? I spent... whatever thousands of dollars on this purse. If you get a counterfeit purse, does that person feel the same way?
- Speaker #0
Some do because sometimes it's fake it till you make it. But the quality, it depends.
- Speaker #1
And I'm not talking about quality. I'm just talking about that person that's not willing to spend the money on Louis Vuitton and they can get it. uh you know they know somebody that can get a counterfeit purse i'm not saying go out and get a counterfeit purse but uh that does that what are they like yeah i wondered that because my ex-wife was big into this expensive stuff she wanted louis
- Speaker #0
vuitton so i'm very familiar with the price of louis vuitton purses and bergen bags and all this kind of shit stuff um but um so and i did buy her one time a seven thousand dollar purse literally from Louis Vuitton. And I sat there and thought about what, you know, we were in New York one time and there's the guys on the streets, you know, the guys that had the blankets spread out and they all, and when the cops come, they fold it up really fast and run. There's one of those guys selling similar stuff, but she didn't want that. And her, I was like, why, what's the difference? And she's like, well, the quality, this is going to fall apart. I'm going to buy this for a hundred bucks versus I know the $7,000 one is official and it's handmade. And you know, they, it's, it's, serious quality you know birkin who makes makes uh bags their bags you can't just go into the store and buy one you actually have to be invited to buy one and you have to spend a certain amount of money and there's a whole process to do it and and they actually they don't have a marketing department birkin does not have a marketing department the product market itself they when the in the manufacturing process if there's a flaw or they catch something or more in quality control there's a string they don't just fix it or tear it apart for parts or sell it to the aftermarket for half price at the outlet mall or something, they burn it. They destroy it, the whole thing. And that's how they keep it. And they don't make more to meet the demand. They could sell a lot more of them, but they keep the supply low so the demand stays high and the price stays high. So that's part of their strategy. So to answer your original question, she didn't want it because… she also felt that the quality was there and it made her feel, I don't know. That's a good question. I like to dig into that a little bit more. Why?
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Why did, why did that actually also matter?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. And I talked to somebody that had a counterfeit purse. I mean, there's a ton out there and she was very, she wasn't willing just to go out in public with it because she thought that. Going back to your point about quality, that people with Louis Vuitton purses, like going to the airport, they could tell. And so why get the purse? So it was a darker leather or the stitches were in a certain way, but she just felt that going out in public, people would be able to tell. So,
- Speaker #0
all right. People that are into that can definitely tell. I mean, the people that. If that's their thing and they're one of these society people and that matters to them, they can definitely tell if something is fake or not. I mean, there's companies like the RealReal. The RealReal, R-E-A-L, R-E-A-L, buys designer stuff. So there's a whole market now for secondhand designer stuff. They have some retail stores around or you can ship into their California warehouse. So I've actually done this with some of her ex-wife's stuff. send it into them they they have some sort of system where they authenticate it and thank you kevin i've bought quite a bit from you oh you're welcome huh yeah i say a seven thousand dollar purse you got it for uh two two grand huh no no no it was uh 199 oh you're the dude that screwed me on my commission yeah oh man um but yeah so there's a whole secondary market where people will buy used ones and their stores i've seen in the mall and places like that um you So it's a whole big business with these luxury brands. You look at one of the richest guys in the world is over in France, and he owns what's I can never get these initials right LMVH. uh moette uh it's louis vuitton lvm from moette and some other initials but that's the name of the company but it's like he's like the second or third wealthiest person in the in the world because he owns like tons of luxury brands he owns like 15 or 20 you know tiffany's louis vuitton and all these different things and then moette champagne and all this and that they're super super successful in that space especially in countries like the u.s and and parts of europe and china even the chinese but they know where the land of where all the fakes are made one of the biggest markets for true luxury goods is actually in japan because they want the real thing they don't want the status it's status so that's that's that water is you know and red bull and the the guys are buying this stuff out of hawaii probably just for the fact that they did some sort of marketing that said this has got all these benefits to you and maybe maybe it does and So it's going into probably 80,000 bottles a day. It's probably going into some sort of health. Yeah. Or something over there. But I don't know if you realize this to people or something.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. So you could get your Louis Vuitton purse or you can get a coach purse. Right. So thousands versus hundreds. Well, they did the same thing. Same company. I believe it's the same company said, all right, here you go. Here's your 80,000 units, $402 per bottle. but we're missing a market. It's still very expensive water. It's $34, but we're going to give you access to it. And they sell a ton of it. It's called Kona Deep. Same plant, same processing plant. And anybody can buy that. In fact, just before we came on the podcast, I wanted to see if I could buy it on Amazon and it was out of stock, but its current price. lifetime of the price was uh 34 34 a bottle a bottle yeah that's still a lot of bog yeah but it's kona deep and it's the same story but
- Speaker #0
it's for people who can afford it and outside of japan oh so you can buy kona deep okay that's why you check down the sun okay um man um $34 for a bottle of water.
- Speaker #1
You know what? That's nothing. So I wanted to do a little bit of prep before we came on here because $402 is a lot of money. But do you realize there's a bunch of companies out there, but Beverly Hills 90H20 Luxy, so L-U-X-Y Collection. They have a diamond edition bottle. Now, with Kona, you just had glass. It wasn't anything fancy. You know? But with this,
- Speaker #0
it has like-I thought it was a green plastic bottle.
- Speaker #1
What's that?
- Speaker #0
I thought the Kona was a green plastic bottle.
- Speaker #1
No, I wasn't sure if it was glass or plastic, but it's just a green cylinder, right? And this one is $100,000, but it has- 14 karat. Yes.
- Speaker #0
For a bottle?
- Speaker #1
For one bottle. Are you looking to quickly boost new Amazon product launches or scale up existing listings to reach first page positioning? The influencer platform Stack Influence can help.
- Speaker #0
That's right. Stack Influence pushes high volume external traffic sales straight to Amazon listings using micro influencers. that you only have to pay with your products.
- Speaker #1
They've helped up-and-coming brands like Magic Spoon compete with Cheerios for top category positioning, while also helping Fortune 500 brands like Unilever launch their new products.
- Speaker #0
Right now is one of the best times to get started with Stack Influence. You can sign up at stackinfluence.com or click the link in this video down in the description or notes below and mention Misfits, that's M-I-S-F-I-T-S. to get 10% off your first campaign. Stackinfluence.com.
- Speaker #1
But it has diamonds in the I'm not kidding you. It has diamonds in the cap. It has gold. I think it even has gold.
- Speaker #0
Come on, Mark. I've got a bridge in the desert to send you, to sell you.
- Speaker #1
Okay, I'll buy it. But yeah, $100,000 for one bottle. And then there's another one in here. I'm going to test. I hope Leo Scovio is listening, our buddy. I'm going to try out my Italian. Acquia de Crisotello Tributo e Magadalani.
- Speaker #0
All right? I understood. You like that?
- Speaker #1
You like that?
- Speaker #0
See? Yeah.
- Speaker #1
This one, it really is art. The bottle is handcrafted. It has 24 gold karat gold with gold dust in the waters, five milligrams of... gold dust in the water but if you don't want to spend it on the hundred thousand dollar one but you can get this one for 60.
- Speaker #0
i wonder if there's water collectors you know there's like wine collectors and whiskey collectors and stuff like that i wonder if there's water collectors so you know what but just they just buy it to never open it they buy it you're joking about this right but you know they get some mansion to buy and right in the middle of the hallway is a one of those little museum shelves and it's right there with a light shining down on it. So just when they pass by, oh, that's my $100,000 bottle of water.
- Speaker #1
I was in California, in Los Angeles. I went to a restaurant and this guy gives me a wine list and I don't drink. And I said, oh, I don't drink. He goes, no, that's our water list. I go, are you frigging kidding? A water list. It was a whole... And you can... pay a lot of money or you could pay a little bit so it's like waters of the world yeah so you know this has so and you can get you a fiji or evian or something or you can go with some special water from some spring in the middle of mongolia or something okay so when i almost passed out i thought i was being punked he says uh he was a water sommelier really and i said are you kidding me? Just give me some tap water. I don't even drink water. Give me Coke Zero.
- Speaker #0
Give me some dirty water. Dirty block water. I don't want this pure crap. I want some dirty block water.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, that happened.
- Speaker #0
I just was at a whiskey thing recently. It was a $1,000 whiskey tasting. It was a fundraiser for the Wizard Academy in Austin. Some guy donated these bottles of this... kind of a series of rare whiskeys and so you paid a thousand bucks and you got to taste eight different whiskeys and some of these whiskeys i was looking them up i was there with uh mark and amy and we were looking it up uh as they came out to see what the price was and one of the bottles the last bottle we had is four thousand dollars a bottle uh but but they uh and we got you know a little sip and then at the end they put the bottle up on the table at the end of the two hours and you could just go up and refill on on whatever you wanted it's pretty cool but one of the things they said which is interesting marketing is that there's this company makes a bottle of of a blended whiskey or blended scotch that is available only in three airports it's la new york and dubai and the only way to get it is to pass through customs and get it in the uh duty-free shop and so because that's the only way to buy it you can't buy it anywhere else and you have to fly through those three airports to get it and you're limited in duties you know with one or two Whatever the number is for the kind. In the U.S., we can bring two bottles back. In Canada, probably something similar. Except you'll have to pay six times the tax or something. Of course. What's done is create this whole scarcity thing. In the marketing, this is the only way to get it. On the secondary market, those bottles have shot up in price. I don't know the exact price. So I don't know if it's like $100 in the duty-free and on the secondary market it's $1,000 because that's cheaper than taking a plane or something and going through duty-free. I don't know what it is, but it's become this collectible thing. That's smart marketing too, to make something just exclusive. And there's actually an extra, it's not like you can just walk in there and buy it. It's not like you just said, hey, this is only available in this one store in Toronto and this one store in Dallas. You got to actually be flying through there duty-free and have your passport and everything. put these extra barriers to be able to get it. It's kind of on the same lines what Birkin does with their bags. You can't just walk in and buy one, even though you can walk into a Birkin store. It's interesting marketing.
- Speaker #1
So I got to ask you a couple of questions. So you came up to Canada recently. Unfortunately, the idiot government of Ontario has banned all cigar lounges, right? So we decided because of that, no. Just because we wanted to meet in Montreal, we went to Montreal. Wasn't it tough? Like in Canada, we've gone to tons of cigar lounges. Wasn't it tough picking a cigar? Not seeing the label.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I mean, we go to the cigar lounge in Montreal where they're legal, unlike Ontario where Norm's at, which is the Toronto area. But in Montreal, which is Quebec, they're
- Speaker #1
More European.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, a little bit more European. So we go in the cigar bar, which is open until like 3 in the morning. I think we close it down every night.
- Speaker #1
Every night.
- Speaker #0
Before we make a McDonald's or bagel run. But, yeah, the cigars, because of it was weird. I was like, Norm, I want to pick out a cigar. You go into the humidor, everything's covered up. Everything's got an additional label on top.
- Speaker #1
A brown label.
- Speaker #0
A brown label on top. I was like, well, how am I supposed to know what this is? Norm's like, you just got to ask. The lady knows. They got some system. Then once you buy the cigar, they take this. It's almost like if you're going to buy a dirty magazine. The dirty magazines in the airports, the Playboys or penthouses or hustlers. And sometimes, you know, they're on the shelf and you can kind of see the color. But other times they've got that black shrink wrap around them. They're up on the top shelf in the back. So only the adults can reach up there or see it. It's almost kind of like that with cigars. It's like there's this label covering them. And once you got the cigar, though, you could peel a label off. You're like, oh, this is a David off. Okay, so blah, blah, blah. And I was like, what is the point of this? And you were explaining it to me. And I was like, man, this is crazy.
- Speaker #1
You know, the... I found it really challenging. So I know a lot about cigars. I know a lot of the different brands. And I usually smoke cigars. I bring them back from the States. But a lot of the times we go to U.S. lounges, which are awesome. But in Montreal, I know my cigars, even though they have a label, even though it says it was a Padron or whatever, in the same... font, you know, as every other cigar in that humidor, it was tough to make a decision. I need to see a label and the, the label definitely has an effect on you, but you know, uh, Perdon has a certain label, uh, some of the, well, Fuentes or whatever you go, you're drawn to them because, oh yeah, there's the Fuentes section, but when they all look the same. How do you pick? So making that decision on the hundreds of cigars we smoked in Montreal was pretty tough.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I mean, cigars are another one where there's a lot of marketing involved in cigars. I mean, cigars are tobacco. And, yeah, there's different, you know, Cuban tobacco is different than Nicaraguan, different than Guatemalan. There's the wrapper. It's a Connecticut wrapper. It's a Nicaraguan wrapper. There's a lot of little subtleties that definitely make a difference. But a lot of times, though, the market is… But people buying cigars a lot of times are not cigar smokers. They're someone buying it as a present or buying it as a gift for someone they know is a cigar smoker, and they don't know what to get. So they're judging it based on how cool looking is the box or how expensive is it or what's the label look like or the logo look like on the label. And some inferior cigars look pretty damn cool. And some of the best cigars just look like... they should be three bucks each, but they're actually 150 bucks each. So marketing, when it comes to people look at stuff with their eyes, they eat with, as my buddy Mark Dawn used to say in photography, people eat with their eyes first. And so if you're not appealing to that sense, it's going to be difficult to get to the next step in the conversion cycle.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I remember we went to the big smoke and big event for cigar smokers. And it was the first one we went to, Kevin. And I don't know if it was Padron or Fuentes that were talking. I think it was Padron that said that the father had a hard time believing that you could take a 25-cent cigar and sell it for a crazy amount of money. And of course, just like wine or anything else, like water, you can sell it for this large amount as long as the marketing is around it.
- Speaker #0
I mean, they get creative in cigars too. I mean, we were just at another event and a guy was sitting around smoking one night and the guy tells me, oh, have you seen these Michelin star chef cigars? I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, David. I think it was Davidoff. Davidoff. Yes, Davidoff did a series. of cigars was like a series of seven cigars and each cigar was was inspired by a michelin star chef so i guess as you smoke the cigar it had some sort of tinge of his like style or or flavor profile or whatever that he likes to do in his food i was like that sounds cool Just because of that, just because of that, I wouldn't try to find these cigars. I went online, searching everywhere, and they're sold out everywhere. And it was, I think it came out originally in like 2014 or something like that. And then they did another edition in like 2019. They both sold out. But that's marketing right there. Just because I'm into nice food and I smoke cigars with you and I want quality, I wouldn't try to find them. I couldn't find them. But that, that. the marketing is what did that. That differentiation is what led me to go hunt these things down that I couldn't find.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's surprising. And just going back to what we started talking about with this water, water's frigging water. How can you spend $402 or more on a bottle of water or take a look at liquid? I just want to go back to liquid death for a second. Another question for you. If you were part of the Dragon Sharks tank in the US, and they came up and they said, you know what? We got this great marketing idea. We're going to come up and we're going to put water in a can and we're going to sell it. And we're going to sell it. It's going to be expensive. Would you buy in? Not knowing what you know now. Not testing it.
- Speaker #0
No, not initially. I'd be like, good luck with that.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
But, I mean, part of what they did is it's in the edginess. I mean, they hit it on several edgy branding. They really emphasize, like, the entertainment side of things. And, you know, and then they're also playing the same with Red Bull. They're also playing off of curiosity, just like another example, the cigars, the Michelin chef cigars. I was curious. So they're playing off of curiosity. as well and then i think both you know i don't know about this these guys in hawaii but the red bull and and liquid death for sure both play around um sporting events or concerts or you know events based marketing with liquid death and the concerts and red bull and the f1 team and all the extreme sports and both of them are i think proud of who they are and they're authentic to themselves. And they're like, if you don't like us, that's fine. We don't care. This is who we are. This is what the brand represents. This is our people. You're either with us or you're not. And I think that's part of what works. It's too many brands, especially in this. You're seeing this change a little bit now with companies backing off of this, but especially when all the wokeness started happening, everybody was afraid to offend. Everybody was afraid to actually offend somebody. And if you're not. I always say if you're not making somebody upset or you're not offending somebody, then you're not doing a good enough job. I mean, you look at someone like Perry Belcher in the internet marketing space. Brilliant guy, really cool guy, cool cat. But when he's at events, you know, I'm part of his driven mastermind. Some of what comes out of his mouth is like, oh, did he just say that? You know, it's, Norm, I say stuff sometimes. This guy is like way next level on some of his stuff. And that might bother somebody, and he don't care because he knows who his crowd is and who's cool with it, and he sells out his stuff. He's got 103 people paying $35,000 a year in this mastermind. It's supposed to be just 100 people, so a couple people extra in there. But that's $3.5 million a year, and that's his people, and he's fine. I think that's what you got to do when it comes to branding and when it comes to Trying to stand out is be different and don't be afraid to find your your crowd Your group and that's what Red Bull does. That's what the guys in Hawaii did with the Kona water and that's what liquid death has done.
- Speaker #1
And that's what we're doing with our collective mind society
- Speaker #0
And that's right in a collective mind society is actually if you haven't heard of collective mind society That's a group that Norman I have is a mastermind group that we'll be announcing soon as well as we do experiential trips um where it's not presentations it's not conferences but we do stuff like go to f1 races or take a train across the rocky mountains of canada or our next event looks like it's shaping up to be this fall and probably here in the u.s and florida and a big cigar smoking um event around cigars uh in the tampa area we got a lot of cool stuff that we're working on so you That that's being different and standing out and finding our crowding. I remember I mentioned to my buddy Marks, hey, it looks like the next CMS. is going to be in Tampa, and there's a lot of other cool stuff to do that we're working on there. And he looked at me and said, why Tampa? Why not Cuba? I said, well, because Cuba is actually not the best place for cigars anymore. And I went through all those reasons, and he's like, well, what if you don't smoke cigars? What are you supposed to do? I said, well, you don't come. Or you come and you just hang out. That's okay. He's like, well, about the people that were on the last trip, a lot of them want to come. Some of them don't smoke. Well, that's okay. They don't have to come. Hey,
- Speaker #1
look, about the F1.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
There was a group of like-minded individuals that came out and had a blast at the F1. Yeah. You know, if you don't want to join us, like you said, there'll be some people that are probably offended that we're doing the cigar thing, but who cares?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. That's... That's business, that's marketing, and enjoy your life. Don't try to appeal to everybody and don't try to bend to everybody and be a one-size-fits-all. And that's what I think these brands have taught us, is that being mysterious, being intriguing, making decisions now that are more for the long term, and being authentic is cool and is important. Even partnerships, people always ask me, Kevin, how do you do all these different things? It's because I partner strategically. I partner with people like you that already has experience and already has a team of VAs and people that are doing stuff like what we're doing with Dragonfish. I partner with someone like Steve that has this and that, or like Helium 10 that has a big audience of people. And I think that's what Liquid Death and Red Bull and... These guys probably in Kona have done too. They've partnered. There's probably some health facility in Japan that's buying most of that water and then giving it to their patients as the holy grail of water or something. That's where you can differentiate and can stand out. And I think that's an important lesson for a lot of people. Don't try to do it all yourself.
- Speaker #1
Very good, Mr. King. Very good.
- Speaker #0
Be different.
- Speaker #1
Be different. Just like Mr. King.
- Speaker #0
That's right.
- Speaker #1
I think that's the end.
- Speaker #0
That's the best compliment I've ever received. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
there we go.
- Speaker #0
I was on an airplane once 15 years ago. I was talking to the guy next to me. You know how you chat up sometimes, the person next to you, and we're talking about different stuff. And somehow it came up that one of my dates, I had done a date, and the date that I did was I flew the girl. Our date was not go down the street and have a pizza. and go see a movie it was get on a plane and go to kauai that was the date it was a three day it was a weekend so we left on a friday came back on a monday and it was a three-day date and this is the first i knew i had known her but it wasn't a um wasn't so it wasn't brand new or something but um and we went on a date and i was telling him the whole story and he i remember when we got up to say her goodbyes you know grab her over bag out of the overhead and everything he turns to me and goes nice chatting with you nice meeting you I just have to say one thing. I was like, what's that? He said, you're not normal. And I was like, best compliment I've ever gotten in my life. Hey, Kevin King and Norm Farrar here. If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits, thanks for listening this far. Continue listening. We've got some more valuable stuff coming up. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player. Or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of the Marketing Misfits.
- Speaker #1
Have you subscribed yet, Norm?
- Speaker #2
Well, this is an old guy alert. Should I subscribe to my own podcast?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, but what if you forget to show up one time? It's just me on here. You're not going to know what I say.
- Speaker #2
I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair too. And we'll just, you can go back and forth with one another. But that being said, don't forget to subscribe, share it. Oh, and if you really like this content, somewhere up there, there's a banner. Click on it and you'll go to another episode of the Marketing Misfits.
- Speaker #0
Make sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like Norm.
- Speaker #2
So let me see. You kept with the marketing theme and you were marketing yourself as some major stud.
- Speaker #1
Well, I was sitting at first class, but I didn't pay for that. I got upgraded. Well,
- Speaker #2
the lady you were trying to walk and dine. Two snaps and a Z.
- Speaker #1
I just wanted to go to Hawaii and I didn't want to go by myself. So you want to come with me? I got a free ticket. I got a free ticket.
- Speaker #2
Next time you want to do that, point it this way.
- Speaker #1
Your boobs aren't big enough.
- Speaker #2
Oh, they are.
- Speaker #1
I don't want to know. Okay. TMI, that's too much. We'll just have to cut it right there.
- Speaker #2
I think that's it for today.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, that was cool. That was good. I always enjoy geeking out on marketing.
- Speaker #2
Yeah, especially on water. I think I'll go upstairs, turn on the tap, get some free water.
- Speaker #1
There you go. Just go bathe in it. You just got to go splash your face. I'm like, this didn't cost me $100,000.
- Speaker #2
Yeah, just think about it. But I can if you want.
- Speaker #1
Or you can just go outside and grab some of that snow in that rural Canadian winter and just say, this is from the skies above Lake whatever that lake is that you live on. Lake Temco. It's Lake Temco Snowfall. It's Lake Temco Snowfall. The marketing strategy is this originally sat in the lake. And me and my boys with shovels and special machines, and we grabbed it all, put it in the
- Speaker #2
put it in our little tent where we smoke cigars and smoke smokes this water no no no i i harvested it kevin i harvested it on the balcony while i was in a speedo smoking a cigar in the middle of winter man
- Speaker #3
i hope you had a brawl just imagine that i'll send you the picture
- Speaker #1
Oh, that's okay. Oh,
- Speaker #2
I just might do that right now.
- Speaker #1
You could save that one. No need to send. No need to send. So if people want to listen to the next episode, how do they do that, man? How do they check out the past episodes or listen to another episode of Marketing Misfits?
- Speaker #2
Simple. They can go to their any main podcast platform. So Apple, Google, whatever it is, Spotify. Or you could go to YouTube if you want to see. us in person, the video, or you can always check out our website. Our website is just marketingmisfits. What is it, Kev?
- Speaker #1
It's.co, not.com,.co.
- Speaker #2
Marketingmisfits.co.
- Speaker #1
Make sure you hit that subscribe button. Share this episode if you liked it with a friend. Leave us a comment, too, or leave us a review. Actually, those reviews can help us if you leave a review on YouTube or on Spotify or Apple. Uh, those are all great. Make sure you check out the channel too, on YouTube or here on Apple or Spotify, where you're listening to it because there's a lot of other episodes. We have a new one that comes out every single Tuesday. So check out some of those other episodes as well. And, uh, who knows what, uh, Norm's going to say.
- Speaker #2
Yeah, exactly. And don't forget collective mind society. Go over there. Check us out. Minds is with an S.
- Speaker #1
That's right. Collective mind society.com. We'll see you again next week. I think oh, Coke Zero salute.
- Speaker #2
Oh.
- Speaker #1
Coke Zero salute.
- Speaker #2
To the gods.
- Speaker #1
To the gods. Ouch.
- Speaker #2
See you.
