Hello, and welcome to the Theory of Marketing Relativity Podcast. I'm Jess Burton, a marketing specialist here at Epic Marketing Consultants Corporation. Let's talk all things marketing and merchandising with our Epic team. On today's show, we have Epics Futurist-in-residence, Peter Shankman. So, since you are futurist, we're going to tap into your futuristic brain for Q3 of 2021. So, let's talk setting goals for the third quarter of this year. Where should we begin?
Peter Shankman:I have no idea. I don't know, like, keep coming to me for these questions. Now. Um, where should we begin for Q3? Well, we have definitely turned the corner on the pandemic, for real this time, as opposed to, you know, March or 2020, when we thought, you know, when we were told was gonna be over and, you know, five days, we're starting to see international open up to Americans, again, countries are starting to realize that despite how much they hate us, and despite how we are our own worst enemy, countries are realizing that they simply cannot survive without American dollars, whether it's tourist or commercial, or whatever. So we're starting to see, borders open up. Europe has recently opened slowly, but they're moving. So we're gonna see a lot more of that. I predict that by the beginning of Q4, 80, and 90% of the world will be open to Americans, you know, the countries that were open before the pandemic. I don't I don't see North Korea inviting us over for tea anytime soon. So we should make note of that, right? If we've paused a lot of our international advertiser and international dollars, we should understand that those are gonna be coming back. And we're going to want to be aware of sort of where we're putting our money, I think that we also want to see, or we also will see, consumers have been saving a lot of money. You know, they have been, they've been saving a lot of money, because it's essentially this 2020 into the first half of 21 was the ultimate rainy day. And, but it was it was funny because they save all this money for that rainy day. And when the rainy day came, it took 16 months and don't want to spend any money anyway. So I think that this summer, as we move into Q3 for Q3, and even into Q4, we're gonna see a lot of travel, airlines, and airports reporting. Every weekend, it seems their numbers are bigger than they were at any time since the pandemic hit. Obviously, they're not where they were before the pandemic hit, but they are certainly getting bigger. Every week, I can tell you that I've been on several planes and every flight has been full. We will see more of that we'll see things start to get back to quote unquote normal in that regard as well with more and more people traveling more and more people going to resorts. I think that one of the things if you work in a front facing environment. You know, a year and a half ago when we started talking about that it was about making sure we kept the place clean and you know, we're gonna our plates gonna be spotless and it's gonna be sanitized it. You know, now, I think we're kind of at the place where it's like, no, look, we know the virus still exists, we know that more than 50% of America is vaccinated. So keep your place looking good. Keep your place you know, I don't think you have to spray Lysol every 30 seconds, right? It's, it's that image of the of the waiter who, who is right there. When you pour the water right, let's say you take one sip of water, he fills his glass right? I don't say you're gonna have to use Lysol the second someone breathes wrong, but you're going to want to showcase the fact that your consumer facing corporation, company, restaurant, hotel, whatever is clean, and that you do take this stuff seriously. That being said, consumers put up with a lot and they were understandably affected by the fact that the majority of things they wanted to do no longer existed. You couldn't order room service, you couldn't go to the restaurants, food and beverage didn't exist. We're still seeing that doesn't exist, but it's starting to come back. The Westin Times Square still has no photo reference, right? So you get you know, but they get their hotels are filling up. So you have 1400 people in a hotel, all of them have to leave the hotel and go to the corner to get a slice of pizza. So that's starting to change and go back to normal as well. So I think that we're moving very much towards a higher level of normalcy that we've seen since February or March of 2020. And if you are looking to grow your business and looking to start expanding again, now is the time to start reaching out to those customers and reaching out to potential new clients say hey, we know you are Going to be shopping again, we know you're looking for that new car when you're looking for that new vacation, whatever. Now's the time. And so go start going after immediately.
Jess:I would agree with that 100% I think, especially I've noticed in like my own life, as things start to reopen all of the because I am that age demographic, I am a millennial, all of those weddings that were supposed to happen last year are now being rescheduled for this coming fall. And like you said, like, we have definitely looked at hotel accommodations, Airbnbs the whole nine yards and like we're seeing a shift in how they're handling what I affectionately referred to as the gray area of hospitality, as we speak. I know at least here in Delaware, the mask rules are kind of, we're not enforcing it, but we're going to strongly suggest if you're not vaccinated, you were one, but we're not going to make you if you don't want to. So I never really to one of the things is just having that super open super up to date line of communication.
Peter Shankman:I think that, you know, it's interesting. Only in America, could we polarize something as simple as a mask, and it is amazing to me, you know, for someone who travels internationally so much, it is truly amazing to me how stupid America looks on the world stage. Right? That. I mean, I spent so much time in Asia and and a mask is is, you know, it's part of what you put on when you leave the house. It's nothing new. And it is just amazing, amazing to me how stupid we look as a society. Because for whatever reason, we're not willing to wear a mask. So I think that, that, you know, it's at the point now where I think businesses need to understand that it is more than Okay, to take a stand, right, I'm at the point now, where if my clients you know, if I'm somewhere and I walk in and I'm wearing a mask, if I get crap about it, I'm not shopping there and I will continue to wear my mask, right? It is a little tiny piece of fabric, it doesn't cost anything, it doesn't hurt anything. There is literally no reason not to wear it. You know, I was at Equinox and Equinox has dropped its mask rule. But the majority of the people there yesterday when I was there were wearing one, you know, and I mean, the the the the hysterical part about this is I went to Equinox yesterday to swim. And so I'm in the I'm in the pool, not wearing a mask and coming out I'm able to sit in the Whirlpool in the hot tub without a mask. Right You know, it's just it's it's a it's a double standard all the way around not any fault of Equinox just sort of the way we are. But you know, if someone wants to wear masks, let them if they don't want to mask you know, I'm vaccinated, you know, if you want to be stupid, and take your risk, go for it. But I think that it hopefully should become less of an issue. But if I'm a company, and I want to keep my employee safe and stand up for what matters to me, yeah, I'll tell my, my customers wear masks when they walk.
Jess:Absolutely I think that's the transparency is super important. I know, it's the mask wearing is such a such a hot button topic that people are ready to like jump on each other for um, but I think that like as we move into whatever this nor post pandemic normalness is, just the up to date mess of communications will be important. Now, do you have any suggestions if people want to, you know, start really putting, you know, money into their advertising or their marketing where they should put all of that? Or some of it?
Peter Shankman:Yeah, I mean, you know, people are antsy to get on the road, they're antsy to get to start moving. So I think that anything related to travel, anything related to outdoors, we're gonna see a lot more people in cars going across the country again, so you know, outdoor spend is going to go up as well. Yeah, I think there's a lot of things you can see, I would be looking at less about indoor stuff. So I'd be looking at less television, I'd be looking at less, I'm looking more about, you know, I consider putting some money on XM, right people gonna be driving, they're gonna be listening to satellite radio, I would look at you know, putting some money into satellite look at putting some money into again, outdoors. You know, and you can never go wrong with mobile ads, you know, everyone's gonna be on their phone, they'll be looking, if you have a business that gets a lot of traffic, either foot traffic or car traffic, you know, they accept ads on Waze they accept ads on Google Maps, things like that, look, that kind of stuff. That's what people that's I think sort of a missed opportunity for a lot of businesses is that if you are relying on foot traffic and relying on visitors to come to your store or come to your location, you know that everyone who drives by you is using a map, right? And there's, they're using a traffic app, whether it's Waze or Google Maps or whatever. And they're advertising opportunities on there. Also look at advertising opportunities on what people are doing, when they're on their phones outside. So I think we're gonna see a lot more TikTok a lot more Snapchat, things like that. And there are a lot of I'm advertising possibilities as well i'm uh, I still am a huge believer in, in Snapchats geo fencing where you can own an area, I think being able to own Central Park this summer is gonna be huge.
Jess:Absolutely, I think that would being getting outside getting out of your house. Um, I know, I was just having a conversation the other day with like, using, like the review apps like Yelp, and like Google, my business and all that kind of stuff, as you know, businesses have closed, but also new ones have opened. Um, I know like, I've been to Philadelphia, I can, I could a million times. And still, like, I will go and look up is this restaurant, like, especially now. Is this restaurant open? Is it closed? Can we do we have to make a reservation? So I think having ad spends where people are like Waze and those kind of things, but also in conjunction with that making sure that your information is up to date. And utilizing those what I like to refer to as like secondary, not exactly the primary social media sites and the primary go to apps like Facebook and Twitter and whatnot. But those secondary applications that you know, help you stay relevant.
Peter Shankman:I mean, I think that at the end of the day, relevance is always key relevance will continue to be key and being able to understand that relevance is key and go after, you know, what did what did Casey Stengel say about winning baseball games, you hit them where they ain't right, the opposite is true on social, you know where they are? Right? So you you figure out before, before time flies and oh, my God, we need an ad, figure out where your audiences, right go after your audience where they are. God I've say, you know, I've been saying this for years, and people still don't do it. But figure out where your audience is and go after them. It just makes it so much easier. Your life will get so much simpler, you'll save so much money, the money that you do spend will actually be useful. Yeah. I've always said that. And it's just amazing how people just they claim to hear it. They don't actually listen, you know, and they sit there like, Oh, we should totally do that. Definitely. And that's really important. And then they go and do something else. And they complain that it doesn't work, which is my favorite part.
Jess:100% I think I I started to adopt that mantra when I talk to people I'm like, well, you got to find where they are, and serve it to them on a silver platter right where they're at.
Peter Shankman:100% 100%
Jess:Um, so as we move into Q3, are there any other predictions that you have regarding anything in general, that you think might be relevant?
Peter Shankman:Ethereuma at 70,000 coin. Um, no, I can't. No, I think that, uh, you know, we're definitely would look here, we're definitely move. I don't think it's gonna happen in Q3, but we're definitely moving towards the concept of one currency world. You know, I'm involved with a company called Rally and Rally is creating creator coins. So if you are a celebrity of any capacity, you could have your own coin, I have a coin called Shank. And you know, it's currently worth about four 445 a coin. 4.45 a coin. Imagine, I imagine a day, you know, in the near future a couple of years from now where I'll be able to walk into 7-11 and buy a soda with Shank coins, right? And it will be paid for, you know, assuming 2 million people have their own have different coins, you're not going to have for 7-11 cashier have to look up 2 million different coins and what their value is. So instead, you know, we're going to run on one based payment platform. So the concept of like, I hope, I think it's a Ethereum. But the premise that, you know, I pay with my Shank coins, it's automatically derivative Ethereum in which I'm not given the cash and the 7-11 guys paid. Right? I don't have to think about it. The best products in the world are the ones that solve a problem without you having to think about them. And so when you're looking towards what you can do, look at what you can do without having to where you can make it easier for your customers without having to think about it. I think that payment systems you know, clear the service that lets you skip the line at the airport. I just rejoined them well, A because it was free with my credit card but also B. because not so much for the airline I have I have, you know, status my airline anyway, I never wait in line but but the premise that clear is branching out to like baseball games and concerts. Imagine being able to scan your retinas and it'll tell the venue, okay, he's vaccinated, he doesn't have any weapons. And I walked right through, right, anything that saves the consumer time, especially now that we're getting back out there after having lost a year of time of our lives. Right. So anything that's anything you can do to save your consumers time is going to be very, very beneficial.
Jess:Yes, we've lost a year of times, if you can save me as much going forward as possible. I'll take it.
Peter Shankman:Yeah, exactly.
Jess:Peter, thank you for joining us today with all of your great predictions. If people would like To find you, or connect with you, where should they look?
Peter Shankman:My life is at shankman.com. I am @PeterShankman, and all the socials. And my Linktree is
https://linktr.ee/petershankman, you can find everything there.
Jess:Amazing. Thank you so much. Always budget guys. Thank you all for tuning in this week. We hope this theory is relative to your marketing needs. Make sure you subscribe to get notified of our latest episodes.