Turning Fans into Customers with David Meerman Scott, Bestselling Author of 12 books, including “Fanocracy”

EPISODE SUMMARY
In this special 100th episode of The Next CMO podcast, we speak to David Meerman Scott, author of 12 bestselling books including “Fanocracy” and “The New Rules of Marketing & PR”

EPISODE NOTES
In this special 100th episode of The Next CMO podcast, we speak to David Meerman Scott, author of 12 bestselling books including “Fanocracy” and “The New Rules of Marketing & PR”

David Meerman Scott is an internationally acclaimed business strategist, entrepreneur, advisor to emerging companies, and public speaker. He is the author of ten previous books, including “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” (now in its 6th edition and in 29 languages). In his spare time he surfs and travels around the world for great live music.

Learn more about David Meerman Scott

Learn more about Fanocracy

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Peter: The next C M O podcast explores topics that are on the minds of forward thinking marketing executives from leadership and strategy to emerging technologies, and we bring these topics to life by interviewing leading experts in their fields. The next CMO is sponsored by Planful for marketing. A leading marketing performance management solution that automates marketing, planning, financial management, and ROI optimization, and hosted by me Peter Mahoney, an experienced C M O C E O board member and executive advisor.

In this episode of the next C M O podcast, we have a special guest for a hundredth episode. I’m pleased to welcome David [00:01:00] Meerman, Scott. David, you may know, is a very well known author. He’s written 12 books, including the New Rules of Marketing and pr, which is in its. Eighth edition. David’s most recent book, theocracy, he wrote with his daughter Reco, which is an amazing story in its own.

We talk about the concepts of how you build a fandom to your, for your company, the impact as a cmo, the new world of generative ai, and how it’s gonna influence everything about our jobs. And of course, we end with David’s advice for current and future CMOs. I’m sure you’re gonna enjoy this special edition of the next C M O.

Thanks for joining us.

Hey David, super excited to have you on the next C M O podcast and this is a special one for us. This is a special recording for a hundredth episode. And I know all of our listeners know you quite well from the great work you’ve done over the years, but for the one or two who may not know David Merman, Scott, give [00:02:00] us just the nickel tour of what you’re all about.

David: Sure. Hey, thanks Peter. It’s really great to be here. I can’t believe the hundredth number one. Congratulations. Number two, I’m honored. That I’m number a hundred. So, I was a cmo, although we didn’t use that title several different times. I was Asia marketing director for a company in Tokyo, in Hong Kong.

It was in the financial information business. And then I moved back to the US and I was vice president of marketing, essentially the CMO of several different publicly traded companies in the tech space and was fired back in 2002. And that’s when I started writing and speaking about marketing and public relations and sales.

I’ve written 12 books. Several of them are international bestsellers. Probably best known for a book called The New Rules of Marketing and PR Now in the eighth edition. And my latest is called Fano, which I wrote with my daughter Reco and that one came out a couple years ago. Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Peter: Excellent. Well, that had to be fun by the way, doing a collaboration [00:03:00] with

David: what, it was great. It was fabulous. Do you have children, if you don’t mind my asking,

Peter: I, I do, I’ve got three and my oldest is about to turn 27.

David: Ah, the perfect age. The perfect age. Reco. Reco was just starting medical school when we started to write, so she was 25. And and it was a fabulous experience because we had to write as equals. And that was the thing that was so great about it because I could, we couldn’t come into the father daughter dynamic and I was the boss telling her how we’re gonna do this.

We had to do it as equals. And it was a fabulous experience. And then I had one of the best phone calls in my entire life when I. Rang her. I happened to be in Las Vegas speaking at a Tony Robbins event. I rang her up, I said, get your cup of tea and come back and sit down. I have something to tell you.

So she did. I said, you reco are a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. So, there’s a lot of cool, very cool things about writing that book. I.

Peter: That’s, [00:04:00] it’s fantastic. And it’s just great to collaborate with anyone in general, but obviously with with a a child like that, an adult child. And I understand she’s now, is it B m C or

David: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Thank you for remembering. She’s she is in third year residency in emergency medicine at Boston Medical Center, which is the Safety net hospital in Boston. She deals with people who don’t have insurance who are homeless. And it’s a fabulous learning experience.

And what’s really interesting about as we work together on this book is it’s about fandom. And so I’m huge fan of the Grateful Dead. I’m a huge fan of surfing. There’s a surfboard behind me if you happen to be seeing any of the clips that might come out from this. And and reco of is a huge fan of Harry Potter, and she’s a huge fan of Korean pop music, K-Pop.

So we have a middle-aged white. Man who loves the Grateful Dead writing, co-writing with a mixed race millennial woman who’s an emergency room doctor who loves Korean pop music. And [00:05:00] as was a kind of a fabulous collaboration to, to figure out what is this thing about fandom and why do marketers, why does CMOs need to understand the concept of fandom?

And it was a super fun thing to dig into.

Peter: Well, it’s in incredible and the book was great. And and I think you, you mentioned the Grateful Dead, I think, and the Grateful Dead is probably prob one of the easiest examples to get your head around as far as a a good working sort of concept of what this book is all about. But give people just the highest level of the thesis for the book behind it,

David: Sure. Yeah. Well, we decided to write it because we were seeing so much chaos and digital chaos. We called it. In the world around you know, you connect with someone on LinkedIn, they’re immediately trying to sell you something. It’s the spam is a huge problem. The AI algorithms that the social networks, especially Facebook and YouTube, are using breeding polarization and conspiracy [00:06:00] theories.

There was so much going on in the online world. That felt negative to us, but we both my daughter and I came back to this idea of our fandoms, the things that we love are super important to us. So, what we dug into and she did an un, my daughter did an undergraduate degree in neuroscience at Columbia prior to med school.

We looked at the neuroscience of fandom, why, what’s going on in our brains as we become fans of something? And it turns out it’s actually a survival technique because we all wanna be a. Part of a tribe of like-minded people because when you’re with your tribe, you’re safe and you’re comfortable and you’re protected.

But when you’re not with your tribe you feel vulnerable. So, so setting up as a business, setting up this idea of creating a tribe of like-minded people, not just a Not just selling products and services, because if you do, then you become commoditized, but rather creating a community, creating a [00:07:00] tribe of like-minded people.

So, the idea of the neuroscience of fandom was fascinating to us. And really it’s also about bringing humanity back to business. And when we were writing we touched a little bit on ai, but now it’s exploded. And and so. You know, it’s the opposite of humanity. Artificial intelligence, it’s right there on the name.

But the idea of fan, yeah, it’s, well, exactly. It’s well-branded. But the idea of fandom is how can you bring a humanity to the way you’re doing business? How can you treat people as people rather than as numbers? And that’s also by the way, possible for large organizations, not, we’re not just talking about meeting people face to face, although that could be an element of it.

But it’s things like, you know, when you someone calls your phone, you either pick it up or you don’t make them on ho stay on hold forever. I mean, there’s just so many elements of it. But it is a super fabulous way to grow a business is around fandom. And we have a ton of [00:08:00] examples in the book from companies like an insur an automobile insurance company that has tons of fans software companies that have tons of fans.

And we go f. Of course had to talk about the Grateful Dead in K-Pop as well, because you know, you gotta do that. So, so lots of fun examples of fandom and humanity and treating people with respect.

Peter: And even a skateboarding dentist that you have to go into the detail for that one. So one of the things I really like about the book is that I just really connected with a lot of the foundational principles behind the book. And a lot of it was about, you know, getting close to your customer.

I mean, shocking things. Those things are and I spent a lot of time in my career stating the obvious. By the way and it’s actually an okay thing to do to remind us of these fundamentals.

David: By the way, Peter also stayed in the obvious with raising children, so just had to throw that in there.

Peter: Exactly. So, [00:09:00] so, the, this connection to customers, obviously criti critical, the idea of authenticity. Is really important. I wanted to come back to that when we’re gonna talk in a couple of minutes about this world of artificiality, which is sort of at odds with that. And and the last thing that I’m a big fan of is the idea of truthfulness.

And so these are three key themes that really came out to me that said it’s what I’ve been telling marketers for a long time that they have to think about and I’d love you to. To tell me in your own words, what you think the truthfulness part is all about when it comes to fandom.

David: Yeah. A very important one, and it was a fun chapter to write actually, because how many organizations do you work with you’re a customer of or you’re familiar with or blows up in the media? Where something comes out and they just throw up a smoke screen, you know, like you get an email to, due to something beyond our control, your data was compromised.

Or [00:10:00] because a third party company did something, your data was compromised. And the idea of just telling the truth, we screwed up. We’re really sorry and we’re gonna fix it. Is something that can be that can be really actually helpful. And in this world where where so many people just don’t tell the truth from, you know, all the way in the top of the political spectrum, people don’t tell the truth.

The idea of actually telling the truth means something you know, don’t. Have a recording on your telephone system that says, due to unexpected or due, due to greater than usual call volumes. We can’t answer your phone. That’s bullshit. Excuse my language. The reason that you’re not answering my phone in a timely manner is somebody somewhere figured out that they can save a little bit of money by having a few.

Fewer customer support reps on at that point. So don’t lie to us. We’re big [00:11:00] boys and girls. We can take the truth. And when you tell us the truth, we feel really good about it. And one of my favorite stories in the book is actually, we talked about Kentucky Fried Chicken in the uk.

They l they ran out a chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken in the UK ran outta chicken and they didn’t try to blame it on their supplier and it was actually their supplier’s fault. They ended up using a different trucking company than they were before, and it was their fault, but they didn’t blame it on the somebody else.

They said, we screwed up, we’re a fried chicken company without chicken. And they made a joke of it and they said, we’re gonna make it right. And they set up a website that says, here’s what we can tell you. Where the restaurants are that do and don’t have chicken and they came out of it with more fans than when they went into it.

And that would not have happened if they tried to weasel their way out of the situation.

Peter: Yeah it’s amazing, David, and I think the companies often have this first instinctual reaction to sort of hide behind something. And I can remember back, and I [00:12:00] can use this example now because I think it’s beyond the statute of limitations. Earlier on in my career, I worked for a company called Nuance the voice and AI people, where I was the Chief marketing officer.

And one of my other jobs there, I was the general manager of their their direct to consumer business called Dragon Naturally Speaking, if you’re familiar with that. And I remember at the time we we when I took over the business I said, well, I wanna hear what customers are saying. They said, well, you have to go through customer support.

And I said, well, there’s this new thing at the time called, Twitter I want to create a Twitter thing and let people, and they said no, you can’t do that. You can’t open the floodgates because you’re just gonna get people coming in and expecting support. And I said, well, why not?

And it, it just turned around a relationship to open the door. I mean, it was just an amazing thing that people had. Again the, if you look at the tactical short term financial income, Impact, it felt like the right decision but to strategically think, just [00:13:00] take your perspective out a little bit longer term, and it seems like an obvious thing to do to just listen to your customers a little more.

David: funny thing that listen to your customers a little bit more. Yeah. You know, the interesting one that I love telling the story of is American Airlines and everyone loves to bash the airlines. You know, it’s really easy to say that the airlines stink for variety of reasons. But American Airlines has done something remarkable with me.

And I don’t have any other company I do business with that has done this. They’ve triangulated my frequent flyer number with my Twitter id. They know that if I tweet them. As on a direct message or a public tweet, they know who I am and they can tie it directly to my frequent flyer account and know what flight I’m on, and I can say, Hey looks like this flight that I’m on is has been canceled.

Can you get me on the next one? I’m do this. I’m doing this on a Twitter direct message, by the way. They’ll say, yes, bang, and do it for me. I don’t know any other company where the customer service [00:14:00] department has figured out that my customer number and it’s fine. I’ve got a customer number. American Airline is a huge company, is this, and it’s also the same person on Twitter who is DM Scott.

Well, I love that. Love that. And that’s part of humanity. That’s part of being honest. That’s part of all of these things around developing fans of a business and. I’ve flown three point something or other million miles with them now because they treat me right. And yeah, once in a while they screw up.

But, you know, they’re an airline. It’s part of their job, I guess.

Peter: A good reminder to follow DM Scott, while you’re at it actually,

David: Do you like how I, do you like how

I put that in there.

Peter: I do. That’s embedded advertising which is very effective. So, no. Very good. So, so let’s talk a little bit about from the idea of fandom. So position to me is fandom, just like NPS on steroids.

David: I don’t know about that. I think that might be a result of [00:15:00] fandom, but I think fandom, what’s interesting about it is that. And this is, I’m quoting my daughter here. A fan is somebody who is so, a part of an organization or its products or its services. And furthermore, the company that they’re a fan of recognizes this is a tough one for a lot of CMOs, by the way.

Once you put your product or service out into the world, It no longer belongs to you, it belongs to your fans. And that’s a really tough one. And, you know, your story about being at Nuance and getting onto Twitter you know, that’s something that’s scary for a lot of CMOs is, oh my gosh, my product is out there.

It no longer belongs to me. People can say whatever they want. And do whatever they want and, you know, review us or not on the various platforms or talk about us on the various social networks, or [00:16:00] build a fan site somewhere, or create a LinkedIn group. I mean, all of these things are absolutely things that people who are fans or maybe not a fan do about a proctor service or company.

And so I think a manifestation of great fandom can be reflected in an NPS score, but I think it’s actually a lot more fundamental, the idea of fandom, the idea of . Of, of how does an organization relate to its customers? How does an organization relate maybe to its potential customers? And you know, I mentioned it earlier, but I love the sharing the example of Haggerty Insurance.

They insure classic cars. And when I’m doing a speech, I always say, Hey, how many of you love auto insurance in the audience? And nobody raises their hand. People don’t love auto insurance. And yet Haggerty has something like 3 million fans. That’s how many people are members of their driver’s club?

They’re the number [00:17:00] one classic car auto insurance company in the entire world. They went public on the New York Stock Exchange about a year ago. They’re crushing it with fandom. They have over a million followers on their YouTube channel. They release all of the data that they have about how much classic cars are worth.

Imagine this they’re a company that because they ensure classic cars, they have the best database probably on the planet for how much classic cars are worth. They release all that data to the public. So, so many things to build fans. They go to classic car auto shows and they’re there as a participant sharing information.

And people love them. And the ultimate, I mean, it’s not necessarily part of an NPS score necessarily, but the ultimate manifestation of that fandom and I happen to have a 1973 Land Rover Series three. It’s insured by Haggerty. Is that even if a lower cost competitor comes around and if somebody is a cheaper supplier of classic car auto insurance and says, Hey, we can [00:18:00] do it for 25% less than Haggerty.

I’m not gonna do it because I’m a fan and I’m gonna stick with them.

Peter: Yeah you’re getting into the business impact of fandom that I want to talk about in a second, but before I get there I was curious about your view of the difference between sort of, personality versus personification. So, I don’t know if you know this, you know, bright young guy by the name of Dave Gerhardt.

Dave is a. Marketing guy has exit five. He was a HubSpot guy early on and Drift guy and things like that. And he wrote a book called Founder Brand, and it’s all about sort of building a brand around a personality. So what do you think is the difference between that idea of a cultural personality versus the personification of these ideas within a brand?

David: Interesting. So I think they’re separate. I think that some brands can have a personality. A person personality. All brands do have personalities themselves. [00:19:00] And I think that, but I don’t think that’s something that’s a requirement. I think it’s something that can happen and you know, sometimes it can be a challenge if it’s all around one personality.

You know, Elon Musk comes to mind, init immediately. Steve Jobs, you know, he was the very much, the personality around Apple. And so I think that can be something. But but I think ultimately what I think is a better app, I mean, they’re two different approaches. I’m not saying one is best, shouldn’t say one is better, but the approach that people can absolutely become a fan of.

A company and you know, you just mentioned HubSpot. So HubSpot does come to mind and it’s actually an example I’ve shared a number of times. I’m on the board of advisors of HubSpot, joined their board of advisors back in 2007, right around the series A round. And. And I’ve seen them build that fandom from square one, from Zero before they even had any customers.

And they do tons of things to build fans and [00:20:00] people are fans of HubSpot. They might know that Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Schoff. Founded the company. And they have, Brian and Dharmesh both have lots and lots of followers and they are very distinct personalities within HubSpot. But people are fans of HubSpot.

They’re not necessarily. Part of a cult of personality around the founders of HubSpot and ultimately, and now they were founded back in oh six and they’re still going super strong. In fact, once this once our recording is over they’re ac the, they’re doing their earnings announcements.

So I gotta bolt into the other room and listen. But they’ve been doing fabulously well over, over that 16 or 17 years. However, it’s however long it’s been. Because they have focused on the brand, the company, the products of services, the idea, the free content that they deliver. They have a ton of fans who aren’t even customers because they love HubSpot Academy, because they love the blog posts, because they love the YouTube [00:21:00] videos.

Peter: Absolutely. And they made a beautiful transition when Brian went to chairman

David: did. They did, absolutely. And she is great. And Yemeni and had it been too much of a cult of personality around Brian as the initial CEO in its first sort of 13, 14 years history, that would’ve been a way di more difficult transition, but it was a very seamless and transition and she is doing a great job.

Peter: So let’s briefly touch on the idea of the economic impact. What would you say is the value of this whole concept of the whole concept of cracy.

David: So I said it earlier, but briefly, but I think I’ll come back to it, the idea that when somebody’s a fan, They have a, an emotional attachment, an emotional relationship with an organization and or its products and services. They feel and they [00:22:00] feel as though they’re a part owner in that fandom and they’re willing to support the company even if they screw up.

They’re eager to share. Their love of that fandom with other people online, in person, what have you. Even if there’s a competitor that’s better, faster, cheaper they will stick with the company or the organization or project service that they’re a fan of. And that’s ultimately an incredibly valuable asset.

The idea of fandom, it’s it’s just an awesome thing to have, whether you’re an automobile insurance company, Haggerty a software company, HubSpot a band now 50, whatever years into its history as they started 1965, the Grateful Dead Harry Potter. The Harold Harry Potter franchise that my daughter loves.

You know, those and many other organizations, companies ideas, thoughts, books are [00:23:00] things that have developed incredible fandom and it’s the ultimate way of growing, building a profitable business is having the fan. It’s a place where fans rule.

Peter: Amazing. A and I wanna spend just a couple of minutes, David talking about this unique period of time we’re in right now. We’re in a, and we’re probably 30 days from from recording this to when we actually publish it. So we’ll see what happens by then.

David: is like 10 years in AI dog life, right?

Peter: Exactly. We’ll be on chat g p t 14 by then, I think. So who knows what’s gonna go on, but we have this combination of factors where it’s a really brittle time in, in sort of the economic terms, obviously in geo geopolitical worlds. And we’ve got this. Incredibly accelerating beast of generative ai. And how do you think this AI world is gonna impact the whole idea of [00:24:00] fandom?

And the thing that worries me is that, The focus that CMOs are gonna have, especially is they’re gonna say, oh, content. And it’s, it feels like there’s gonna be this focus on synthetic content versus kind of productivity enhancement. So where do you think the right line is for people to lean in on these new technologies and not lose the authenticity along the way?

David: Yeah, sure. So, I always tell people, I always love this actually blogged about it recently, the idea of what is artificial intelligence? Real simple. It’s data plus math. And whenever you evaluate this idea of ai, always be thinking, whose data is it? Whose math is it? So most people, as they begin to understand AI recently are thinking about chat G P t as you’ve already mentioned, which is the math is from OpenAI, is the company chat, G P t.

And the data is from the public internet. And so a lot of the [00:25:00] initial talk about text-based AI has been around, how do you use chat g p T to create content, text-based content? I think what’s way, way more interesting is thinking about what you can do with your own data. And this is the future of and the future is here, but this is the future of what CMOs need to be thinking about.

This is the future fe the future of what CEOs need to be thinking about as well is how can you take the, your proprietary data and figure out a way to apply math to it to apply. Artificial intelligence to it in order to create something that’s super interesting which can benefit fans in many ways.

I and I’m actually doing this myself and I’m working with several different companies to be able to do this. So, I’m an investor and advisor in a company called Lately. What does lately do? It takes long form text or video content. For example, my blog posts or my videos of my speeches, [00:26:00] let’s say, and then cuts it into social media ready pieces of content tweets or Instagram ready pieces of video.

Super cool. It’s my content that’s being used. The math is from this company called Lately ai. I also personally created a a closed database only I use it which is my content 19 years worth of blog posts and six of my books. And I use that as a starting point to create new blog posts.

So that’s some ideas for using your own content, your data, plus math to create content, but thinking about it in a different way. And you’re, you specifically asked around helping people and building fans, how can you use your content and math artificial intelligence to do better customer support or to do better product development?

So think about customer support side. Imagine taking every ch every online interaction your [00:27:00] company has ever had. Dropping it into a closed proprietary database. And then applying an AI engine on the top of that, the math, and then allowing your customer, ser services reps to be able to access that as a way to figure out way quicker and with way more accuracy what’s going on when somebody has a service call, or maybe eventually even releasing that database with that AI interface.

To customers so that they can solve the problems themselves or. You know, marketers like you and I have talked for a long time about personalizing down to the individual level, and it’s always been super hard to do that. You know, could we create a way to email people where everybody’s individual email that they get is not what we wanted to send them that day, but is specifically tailored to them and what they’ve done in the past, and what their interests are, and what kind of buyer [00:28:00] persona they are, and, Using artificial intelligence.

Intelligence that might be possible. Again, it’s your data. With the artificial intelligence on the top of it. Referencing our friends over at HubSpot once more, they developed something called Chats spott, which is a super cool way to use chat GPTs Math on the top of your HubSpot data. I happen to be a HubSpot client, so I’m able to use a chat interface in artificial intelligence interface to be able to query my.

CRM data, which is on HubSpot, but using natural language so I don’t have to remember how I do the keystrokes to figure out what I want to learn from my crm. I can just say how many people were added to my email subscriber list in Q1 2023 who are located in Europe. Boom, push the button and it comes back just like imagine chat G p T, which is what it’s powered by doing that query for me as [00:29:00] opposed to trying to remember how to do it.

Using the interface that exists today. So I would encourage everybody to be thinking, you know, sure. Use chat g p T as it exists now and query the public database to learn how it works, but then figure out how you can use some AI tool and there’s a bunch of them out there to figure out how to.

To use the data that you already have, your proprietary data in a really interesting way to help make things better for your customers and turn them into even more of a fan than they are now.

Peter: Well, it, it’s amazing amazing examples and I, by the way, I’ve played around with lately, it is very cool. I’ve not played around with the latest Dharmesh experiment, which is. The, that interactive chat thing, but I’m anxious to to do that before too long too. So thanks for sharing those really specific examples, David, too real, really helpful along the way.

So at the risk, I know we have very little time left and I want to [00:30:00] be cautious with it, but at the risk of opening up a giant can of worms, I want you to just comment briefly on what I see, and I know you’ve. Talked about this before as a risk in all this area is the idea of bias. Tell me what we should be thinking about when it comes to bias and how we should be protecting against that as marketing leaders and as a, so society in general.

David: Yeah, I mean, I mean clearly the artificial intelligence engines out there have a tendency to do, in the term that people use is hallucinate. They can bring in. Examples and ideas that are factually incorrect. So that’s the first thing to think about. That’s not really bias, but do keep in mind that that there’s errors.

I saw an article recently which was the top 10. Most wealthy people in Massachusetts, it was generated by chat, G P t, published by a company not fact checked, and it was dead wrong because I, you know, I was like, oh, [00:31:00] cool. I live in Massachusetts. I’m, you know, Peter, you do too. I think what, this is cool.

I wanna find out who is, who are these the top? And I’m like, what? I mean, Abby Johnson, I get, you know, from Fidelity, but who are these other people? It was wrong. It was dead wrong. It was not fact checked. But then the other aspect is that because these AI engines are using The public internet and the public internet data they can retrieve data that originally had bias in it.

And some, you know, some examples that I’ve talked about are, for example if you use an AI engine in one of the the Pho stock photo sites like, you know, shutter stock or Getty or whatever, and you say, I need a, an image of a ceo. Although they’ve done a better, much better job than in the past.

I mean, at one time they would surface only white men. And and so that’s clearly bias. If you are using the AI engines around [00:32:00] social media advertising, Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn and whatnot. And you’re figuring out the demographics you’re trying to reach, there can be bias that surfaces in that as well.

So you just need to be aware. That when you’re creating and using the creating content creating marketing programs, using these tools, that there is that possibility that bias will be introduced and you just need to be careful about it, as well as being careful about just plain old incorrect facts being entered as well.

So definitely get out there and proofread anything before you put it up That’s been generated by ai.

Peter: Well, I think I have about a hundred more questions left and we don’t even have a hundred seconds, so maybe I’ll ask you to wrap it up with my favorite question, which is the one that we wrap up every episode with is what advice would you give to current or aspiring CMOs, David?

David: Two things. First you know, just experiment with all this AI [00:33:00] stuff. It’s it’s fun, it’s interesting. The more you know, the better. I believe strongly that AI. Is likely to begin taking away people’s jobs. And it’s likely to happen, not because your job is eliminated because of artificial intelligence, but rather if you don’t understand artificial intelligence well, there’s gonna be someone who comes along, who’s a marketer, who does, who might take your job.

So, credit Paul Reitz are from the Marketing AI Institute with that concept to begin with. Second thing is have fun with it. I mean, I always, as always, when you have fun with this stuff, you want to dig in even more and you want to. Developed even more knowledge and interest and use for this kind of technology.

Peter: Well, great. Well, thank you David really generous with your time and your wisdom here. Thanks again for being on the show. Really appreciate it.

David: My pleasure, Peter. Thanks for having me on.

Peter: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you all for [00:34:00] listening to the podcasts. Make sure you follow the next CMO and planful our sponsor on Twitter and LinkedIn.

And if you have ideas or topics for future shows or guests, just drop us an email at the next cmo planful.com. And thanks again, David, for a great show.