From Rutger Bregman’s moral ambition to Jefferson Fisher’s communication wisdom, we explore why directness beats dancing around difficult conversations while pondering whether forced ice cream sharing still works in our increasingly individualised world.
Rutger Bregman challenges us to create ripple effects from small personal changes that benefit entire communities.
Jefferson Fisher revolutionises everyday communication by eliminating power-draining language and embracing uncomfortable directness.
A hotel chain’s tone-deaf Mother’s Day spam highlights the need for sensitivity in seasonal marketing.
And Golden North’s Giant Twin ice cream becomes a lens for examining whether sharing still resonates in modern advertising.
Get ready to take notes.
Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes
02:00 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
Creating Space for Moral Ambition
Starting with Rutger Bregman’s “Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference,” our hosts explore the delicate balance between self-care and societal impact, thanks to Bregman’s appearance on the Making Sense podcast with Sam Harris. Steve introduces the concept of a “Draper Day” (inspired by Mad Men’s Don Draper), suggesting we all need occasional disappearances for genuine recharge – not just mental health days, but proper disconnection.
David connects Bregman’s philosophy to the recent Australian federal election, where voters rejected divisive politics that “pointed fingers” and embraced competition over cooperation. The discussion reveals how entropy means nothing maintains itself without effort – whether that’s democracy, business culture, or personal wellbeing. As David notes, every day requires doing “the next necessary thing” to make life better for yourself and those around you.
11:30 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
The Art of Not Apologising (And Other Communication Revelations)
Jefferson Fisher’s “The Next Conversation” provides a masterclass in communication refinement that had both hosts reconsidering their linguistic habits. This young Texan attorney’s approach centres on three transformative principles that challenge comfortable communication patterns.
First, stop cheapening apologies – replace “sorry I’m late” with “thank you for waiting.”
Second, eliminate minimising language like “just” that undermines your right to participate. David recalls teaching university students, particularly women, to stop diminishing their contributions.
Third, deliver difficult news directly – the segment’s most confronting lesson involves firing an employee without false pleasantries that raise cruel hope before crushing it.
Steve’s admission of chronic over-apologising and David’s observations about gendered language patterns reveal how these seemingly minor shifts dramatically alter perceived authority and confidence.
24:00 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
When Mother’s Day Marketing Hits Raw Nerves
Michael Mills’ scorching Facebook post about receiving multiple Mother’s Day lunch promotions after his mother’s death launches a necessary conversation about marketing sensitivity. The hotel chain’s spam campaign represents a broader failure to consider diverse customer circumstances during emotionally charged holidays.
Our hosts highlight positive examples, including Café Belgiorno‘s thoughtful approach acknowledging that for some, Mother’s Day involves cherished memories rather than current celebrations. Etsy’s proactive strategy emerges as best practice – sending pre-emptive emails asking if customers want to opt out of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day promotions entirely. This segment underscores how genuine empathy in marketing requires anticipating customer pain points, not just chasing seasonal revenue.
27:30 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
The Evolution of Sharing (Through the Lens of Ice Cream)
Golden North‘s marketing journey provides fascinating insight into changing social dynamics through their iconic Giant Twin – an ice cream designed to be snapped and shared. From early provenance-focused ads emphasising their Laura, South Australia heritage to clever visual gags of see-through cows, the brand’s evolution mirrors broader advertising trends.
The revelation comes in a 2021 video featuring twins recounting childhood Giant Twin memories – many involving tears and tantrums over forced sharing. This “scarily refreshing” honesty acknowledges that their sharing-focused product often caused conflict rather than fostering harmony.
Our hosts explore whether modern campaigns should embrace our increasing individualism (couples buying two) or remind us of sharing’s value. Steve’s vision of children using protractors to divide ice cream mathematically captures both the absurdity and truth of human nature. The discussion ultimately questions whether the “mini taste of sacrifice” inherent in sharing still resonates in contemporary culture.
Transcript This transcript was generated using Descript.
A Machine-Generated Transcript – Beware Errors
TAMP S06E06
Caitlin Davis: [00:00:00] Talking about marketing is a podcast for business owners and leaders. Produced by my dad, Steve Davis and his colleague talked about marketing David Olney, in which they explore marketing through the lens of their own four Ps person, principles, problems, and pers. Yes, you heard that correctly. Apart from their love of words, they really love helping people.
So they hope this podcast will become a trusted companion on your journey in business.
Steve Davis: David, can you tell me what this sound is? Okay,
almost there. One more bit. Oh, he didn’t make much of a noise when I snapped it into. What do you think that was, David?
David Olney: [00:01:00] Um, it sounded like someone snapped some sort of dessert.
Steve Davis: It’s a golden North honey giant twin. Although it started off solo, it’s now a twin. ’cause I’ve snapped it into. How long do you think that would’ve taken you to guess?
I haven’t, hadn’t given you a clue.
David Olney: Based on the fact that all I got from this end was a little type sound, it could have been a very long time.
Steve Davis: Well, there’s a reason I’m doing this. Mm. Pardon me. Oh, it’ll become clear. Okay, when we get to our purse per cassity segment, but we’ve got three to get through between now and then.
So I’ll just finish this and we’ll start,
David Olney: and I’ll just be here being sad, seeing oatmeal and we couldn’t be in the same place and I couldn’t eat half the ice cream.
Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps, number one person, the aim of life is self-development to realize one’s nature perfectly. That is what each of us is here for. [00:02:00] Oscar Wilde.
Steve Davis: David, if I said to you, stop wasting your talent and start making a difference, would you expect me to have been talking to you directly or perhaps reading the subtitle of a book? I
David Olney: suppose it’s a bit of both ways, because again, I know it’s a subtitle of a book, but also. I think it’s nice to challenge your friends occasionally and go, are they living up to their standard they claim to care about?
So I’d, I’d take it a bit both ways.
Steve Davis: I can see the value in that, but I would want you to rest assured that I’m a big fan of, uh, Stephen Covey, seven Habits of Hard Effective People. I would never. Correct. Anybody publicly, that would be a private conversation, not one I’d have on a podcast. Hey, there’s such a thing as editing.
We are talking about, uh, Ruka Bregman. He’s got a book called Moral Ambition. Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference. And I wanted to bring this up in our person [00:03:00] segment because I think all of us, as you were just alluding to from time to time, we just, we benefit from taking stock and having a thought and.
What he does is he comes to this from a, a broader perspective and, uh, you were saying, David, that this book, while it sounds like it’s going to be interesting and you’ve got it queued up to listen to a, a previous book of his was quite excellent.
David Olney: Yeah. His second book, humankind, is one of my favorite books because he pretty much said it out.
What will people do when you give them the time, space, and resources to do what they want to do? And what he found is that when you give people time, space, and resources, the vast majority of people are kind to each other, look after each other, empower each other, and create things together they couldn’t create on their own.
So it’s the most amazing book to remind people what’s possible. And I assume this new book, moral Ambition is [00:04:00] gonna be to try and take it a step further to say, Hey, if you don’t have. The time and the opportunity and the resources, and no one’s let you do with them what you want. What are you gonna do to try and get to that better place anyway?
Steve Davis: And that’s the dilemma or the situation we come from. ’cause we’re talking to particularly, um, business owners, small business owners or leaders because that initial book, if you had a vast staff among you being able to create that culture. Where people have the, the time, the space, the resources.
Magnificent. It can happen in smaller entities too, don’t get me wrong. But I think for us, the, the focus on, hey, I’ll be giving ourselves that time, space, and resources. In fact, um, uh, a friend of mine and client, I won’t name him in case he doesn’t want to be outed for this. He did talk about a concept he’s come across, um, for fans.
Of Mad Men, uh, Don Draper would often just disappear for a day, [00:05:00] uh, and indulge himself in a little bit of time out a bit of pleasure. And so he and I are talking about the need. You know, we talk about having a mental health day every now and then. This was a draper day. Well, you just disappear and you just do something to recharge all your batteries and not even with that focus just to be with yourself.
I think that in meshes with this Bregman stuff, but perhaps at a very practical level, David, I.
David Olney: Ger Breckman is always going to look at the big picture. That’s the kind of guy he is. He wants to work out what you and I could do individually, that if lots and lots of us did it, would it affect whole societies, and if it affected multiple societies, would affect the whole world.
Like he’s the best form of Utopian. I think his first book may have even been called Utopia. I can’t remember anymore. But yeah, you want to be able to see the link between the small and the big. And that is if you find a little bit of time for yourself to get perspective back, to get energy back, to get enthusiasm back, then what can you [00:06:00] do?
With those found resources to empower the people around you to get those things back again, and what will they be able to do? Like what’s forever? What is the flow on effect you can create from a little thing you do for yourself and the small circle around you?
Steve Davis: We are recording this not long after the federal election in Australia, 2025, where a lot of pundits are saying that the very surprise pouring of votes heading the way of the a LP and away from the Liberal National Party was perhaps.
The LMP got a little bit close to the aura of Trump and there was that fear that made us sort of retract ourselves from, from that branch of, uh, the political spectrum. And that brings us to this a little snippet I wanna play from Moral Ambition. Well, actually it’s from a conversation that Ruku was having with Sam Harris on his Making Sense podcast.
’cause Sam said in your previous book you say about, Hey, in history things always get better. And what I love, there’s a [00:07:00] nuance here. He, he basically says, yes. Big picture, things are getting better. Things are a bit scary at the moment with some of the backward steps happening in the US and it’s both things at once.
Let’s have a listen.
Rutger Bregman: So the first line of my very first book, utopia Realist, was that in the past everything was worse. You know, when we zoom out. We see that we’ve made tremendous progress in many respects. I mean, you know this, right? Yeah. The massive decline of child mortality, of extreme poverty, especially since the 1980s progress has been speeding up.
So that is wonderful news and. This was more than a decade ago when I was a bit frustrated that it seemed we had arrived at the end of history. And most of my friends on the political left, they mainly knew what they were against, against growth, against austerity, against the establishment. But they didn’t really know what the next big thing was gonna be.
So in that book, I wanted to say like, come on, let’s, let’s think about. What could [00:08:00] be the new utopian milestone? There’s this beautiful quote from Oscar Wild who once wrote that, you know, a, a map without utopia on it is not worth even glancing at. Mm. Because it leaves out the one island where humanity’s always landing.
Now, I guess I got what I wished for. Uh, things are not boring anymore. Mm-hmm. But not really the direction I had hoped for, I guess. So, um, I’ve always loved this statement from Max Rosa, from our World in Data, uh, you know, the fantastic website that collects all the data on, on the state of the world, basically.
And, um, I think it’s just correct that on the one hand, yeah, the world is really bad. We could do so much better. The world has become better. That’s also true. We have made progress. Um, yeah, it’s all of that. At the same time, I would say I just like you, I’m really, really terrified of what’s going on in the United States right now.
Things are also happening, happening quicker than I expected, and yeah, it’s one of the big lessons of history, right? There’s nothing inevitable by the way we [00:09:00] structured our society right now. It can radically change and sometimes, sometimes quite quickly, both for the better and for.
Steve Davis: So I take from that David, that despite some things being challenged around us, like the world order and the, the, the alliance between the Allied nations, um, we, we have to focus on the things we can have control over ourselves. But it’s also that reminder as he pointed out towards the end, that there are things we take for granted.
That maybe we shouldn’t because they’re not here for all time. They need maintenance. Would that be your takeaway as well? And I suppose in a small business scenario, um, there’s some relevance as well.
David Olney: I think I’ll link it to two things. I’ll go back to the example of our federal election ’cause it’s a good one.
What does it really mean that the LNP were too Trump-like? Well, what it really means is [00:10:00] they did mean politics that excluded people. They pointed their finger at people and they said, it’s all about you competing with each other. And Australians quite profoundly said, no, that’s not the Australia we want wanna live in.
And that’s the really significant thing here is things don’t stay the way they are. Entropy means things always deteriorate unless you make an active effort to keep them the same or make them better. There is just no coasting along. Things don’t coast. That’s not how entropy works. If you don’t put energy into things, they deteriorate.
They disintegrate, they’re gone. And Rucker Breckman is a firm believer in it might be difficult or bad. But you know what we have to do remains exactly the same. Get up and do the next necessary thing to make it better for yourself and the people you care about, and your small business and your staff, and your community.
And it never ends up being any different to that. You just do [00:11:00] that every day, and some days you get a much better outcome, but every day at least you can be proud that you did the right thing.
Steve Davis: And we’ll set our compass north, aligned with utopia. We may not get there, but we can keep heading in that direction.
Caitlin Davis: Are four Ps. Number two principles. You can never be overdressed or overeducated. Oscar Wilde
Steve Davis: in the principles section. What a great book you put me onto David. The Next Conversation by Jefferson Fisher. Uh, did you just get this out of a lucky dip? It was such a beautiful unicorn of a book to read.
David Olney: No, I was actually specifically looking for a book to help train the client services team in my American job to how to better deal with [00:12:00] American attorneys who were struggling through the current economy.
And lo and behold, I found this book written by a young American attorney who loves communications, and I’m like, wow, I wish we had a hundred clients like Jefferson.
Steve Davis: He brings. A spatial awareness to the act of communicating with others. And I, I think that is a really pertinent way of saying, if I dare say so myself, because when, when I boiled down what he’s on about, he acknowledges that many of the times we wear blink, we go into conversations wearing blinkers, we’ve got preconceived ideas.
We’re waiting for our time to speak while the other person’s speaking. And we also, um, pay homage to some habits that might not be, uh, the best for clear and concise and effective communication. That’s my meddling, muddling way of [00:13:00] trying to define it. How would you succinctly describe Jefferson’s approach to the next conversation, which is what this book is about.
It’s getting us ready to make the next conversation better than the previous one.
David Olney: I think I’ll use his description from early in the book where he’s deemed old enough to go away, you know, with his uncles and his dad and his granddads and his great-grandfather for the first time on sort of the family hunting trip to the, the family hunting cabin.
You know, he is not big enough yet to, you know, be trusted anywhere near firearms or anything like that. This is not. A weird American family. This is just, he’s now old enough to go along and be involved and the thrill of this first trip for him is sitting around the cabin in his pajamas when he is eight or nine, and his uncles and his dad and his grandfather and his great-grandfather are all telling stories about their lives.
And everyone’s a lawyer or a judge, and it dawns on him. Wow. My whole family are involved in the [00:14:00] law, but what they all actually love is storytelling. They all love communications and it meant that from that point onwards, you know, he was sure he was going to be an attorney, but he was also sure he was gonna be an attorney who listened to what people said and communicated in a way that tried to be as open and inclusive as possible so that he would, you know, have the impact on people that his uncles and his dad and his grandfathers and great, great-grandfather had had on him when he was little.
So I really loved the fact that he had sort of worked out roughly what he wanted to be, even though he didn’t know how to do it as a child, and just kept heading in that direction.
Jefferson Fisher: The first night was an experience sea minted into my memory. As dinner finished, my grandfather put down his plate and scooted to the edge of his couch seat. He began to tell a story, something about his [00:15:00] job, a judge, and a courthouse. I immediately recognized it as the same story he had told my dad earlier that day, while we were fixing an old deer blind earlier, though the story was more matter of fact, his voice came out plain as he told it while searching for some green paint in his truck bed.
But this was special. It was the same words, but it was a very different story. I was entranced watching as he stood up to reenact the scene. I. He used his hands and face to give texture to his voice. His volume went up on the exciting parts, low and slow on the intense parts. Even his tone changed. Could this be the same story?
He captivated the room for nearly 10 whole minutes, and after a long pause, he delivered the punchline and the room filled with laughter. I felt as though I had seen a magic show. The whole evening for me had been the [00:16:00] discovery of something new, yet strangely familiar as if I had seen it all before. I remember it immediately felt right to me like a shoe that fit the first time you tried it on that night.
And for the next 10 years of opening weekends, I received my family’s inheritance. A passed on identity dedicated to advocacy through storytelling. I realized with each year gone by that law was only the family profession. Communication was the true family passion.
Steve Davis: So one of the reasons I wanted to bring this up in principles is there are three little things from the many things he talked about in the book that I’ve been trying to apply in my own communication. ’cause I fall out of them and he brings great arguments to the table as to why they’re worth pushing back.
Against [00:17:00] and, and changing my ways, and one of them is saying, sorry, I say sorry a lot. And not always mindfully, never disingenuously, but, oh, sorry about that. Or your, oh, sorry. Uh, oh, sorry to disturb you X, Y, Z and he said it just undermines your, your credibility and you genuineness when you cheapen the word.
Sorry. So his argument is, and you can step in and correct me if I go off on the wrong tangent, David, I’m sorry if I do, uh, his. The main thing he says is, well, let’s keep sorry as a word for when we truly are sorry and it has its power. Aside from that, let’s have more positively couched conversation that is clear.
For example, if you were running a few minutes late for a meeting, instead of coming in saying, oh, sorry I was late. You [00:18:00] could actually say. Thank you for waiting for me. Let’s start the meeting. I think that’s one example that springs to mind as well as just those accidental and incidental uses of the word.
Sorry, that we sometimes don’t even know we are saying. I am consciously trying to remove them from my vocabulary. Anything you’d add to the sorry ness?
David Olney: Just I think the fact that he really wants, sorry to have a positive violence. You are saying sorry, ’cause it’s the right thing to do. But again, your example there of thank you for waiting for me is a brilliant way.
To give things the right violence where possible start things positively, not negatively. And the other side of it, seeing one of his key points is to always speak from a position of control and confidence is saying, sorry, is immediately giving. Some of your credibility and authority away and in his profession as a personal injury attorney in Texas, [00:19:00] that is not something you do, you know, in a deposition room or a courtroom with attorneys with a 40 years of experience when you are a young attorney who’s walked away from a big firm, is setting up a a one man firm and is making little videos about communication in the front seat of your truck on the way to your next client.
Steve Davis: I just found a little summary here where it says. Basically he’s saying don’t drain your power by saying, sorry. Yes. For things that don’t require an apology. Instead, he says, express gratitude or state your needs directly. And here’s two examples. You say, thank you for your patience instead of, sorry I’m late, or I need a moment of your time instead of, sorry to bother you.
And I think, I think we both agree that’s that’s a much more valid way of moving forward. Absolutely. The second thing that I wanted to bring up here, and again, I just wanna stress David and I aren’t sitting on top of a mountain saying to you, you must learn this. I’m, I’m talking to, we are talking to [00:20:00] ourselves as we all need reminders of all these little things as we continue on our journeys towards utopia.
The second one is about eliminating, minimizing language, and if you hear yourself using the word just. A lot that could be the red flag that brings this into play. So for example, he says, if you say things as, oh, I just wanted to check in. He said, why are you saying just there? Why don’t you just say. I wanted to check in.
You are, you are minimizing, you’re playing down your right to even be part of this conversation. This is a big one. It’s an insidious one that can slip in. Almost unbeknownst to us,
David Olney: and this is one that I very much saw when I was teaching in universities. It was very much the difference between the guys who would rarely say just, and too many of the girls who would say just far [00:21:00] too much.
And, and you know, I learned to sort of be hot on getting him out of the ha habit. ’cause like no, they had just as much of a right to talk and they normally had something more valuable to say and had thought about it for longer. No diminishing language of any kind is acceptable.
Steve Davis: Hmm. And this is just something to be mindful of and work through.
So if you find yourself saying just all the time, think about how you can rewrite this. I might follow this up with a blog post at some point to share some thoughts, Dave, but you might have some thoughts to tip into that one as well. Happy to add the third, one of the three we’re just drawing out for the principles.
Um, section is one where he talks about if you have bad news to deliver. Don’t beat around the bush to do so is actually crawl. It’s unkind. He uses a great example of someone having to let a person go and he, in his first example, he [00:22:00] has the boss welcome Sally into the office and say, Sally, how. How are you today?
Good. How, how have you been enjoying it here? And she goes, oh, uh, well I really, I’ve got off to a slow start, but I’m feeling really good and, and blah, blah. And then she says, well, I have to tell you that I have to let you go. And suddenly I. It makes the whole thing worse because she would’ve known intuitively that this day was coming.
She hasn’t been off to a great start in her new job, but that lovely pleasantry of opening gives her a sense of hope, and then that’s just crushed. Alternatively, what he would like that boss to do is say, so he come in, look, this conversation’s going to be an uncomfortable one. We do need to let you go and then explain why, and then have that conversation so that.
Uh, you are not raising any false senses of [00:23:00] trying to be hospitable when the other person knows you’ve got a job to do and you’ve gotta deliver this news. It actually undermines your integrity. You, you would
David Olney: agree with this, David, I’m sure. Uh, absolutely. You’ve gotta set legitimate expectations for what’s happening in a conversation.
Otherwise, in something like. Jefferson’s first example where you start with all the sunshine and light, it could be perceived that you are literally having fun torturing the person and they’re walking away thinking not only is that a sad day, but that they’ve just been put through the ringer for someone else’s entertainment.
And whoever wants to accidentally make someone think they’ve been put through the ringer for your entertainment.
Steve Davis: I hope that was a helpful section, uh, for us all to reflect on if it hasn’t been. Then, I’m sorry, I’m not
Caitlin Davis: R four P’S number three, problems. I asked the [00:24:00] question for the best reason possible. Simple curiosity. Oscar Wilde
Steve Davis: in the problem segment. Uh, I’ve got a Facebook post that was publicly shared, so Michael won’t mind. Michael Mills, he runs heaps good productions. Um, a friend of mine, he’s been a client, uh, and he’s never short of coming forward to say what’s on his mind, and he has this post. It came up just before Mother’s Day 2025 saying, note to beginners in marketing.
It’s not a good idea for your hotel group to spam me with multiple emails from each of your many hotels suggesting I book in for a Mother’s Day lunch. Also, as I pointed out in my reply email to you and in my review, my mother is dead, so maybe go away. I’m looking at you, the group that owns the Cremorne Hotel.
Hoof, I [00:25:00] think message delivered. David,
David Olney: I think the problem is with a message like that, he’s delivered it very strongly. But will they listen?
Steve Davis: Well, it depends if he, he really just needs to unsubscribe really at that level to solve the immediate issue, but there is a deeper one. And it came up a Cafe Belgiorno in Mount Gambia, dear friends and clients of ours, we did a little ad for them for Mother’s Day lunch and dinner with a, a video vignette, which showed some of the disturbing things in the world, just lightly just touching on them, the ups and downs with the stock market in relation to all what’s been happening with tariffs, um, some images of conflict, and then reminding us that.
No matter what the world is throwing at us, for many of us, we’ve got the, we can salvage the thought that we’ve had. Our mom, our mom’s been in our life, and then there’s lovely little vignettes of moms caring for their kids, teaching them, showing them how to do things. And then it mentions about the, the beauty at Mother’s Day being able to share.[00:26:00]
Some time with your mom or share, share some time remembering your mom. And this is a, a nuance that’s increasingly being used in advertising and marketing around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is acknowledging that for some people. Their parents aren’t there. Now, for some people, uh, they have only bitter negative memories of their parents.
That’s problematic. But I think there’s a sensitivity for those who are looking to be positively embracing these days to acknowledge that for some people it’s a memory. For some, it’s a chance to actually connect. And this is in the problem segment. ’cause I think it’s something that should be raised to be considered and every business needs to make its own decision on that you are particularly fond of the way Etsy handles this, David.
David Olney: Yeah, I really like the way that Etsy send out emails before the Mother’s Day and Father’s Day period, asking people if they would like to opt out of any ads about these [00:27:00] holidays. So if it is a sore point for them or they’re grieving, they don’t have to see the ads like for a big platform, that’s such a good way to handle it.
Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps, number four per per Cassidy. The one duty Weta history is to rewrite it. Oscar Wilde.
Steve Davis: Finally, David, the purse ity segment where we think about thinking, we think about how we used to do things and whether they still hold to the test of time, whether things need to change. And because we’ve been looking after the Golden North Ice Cream website for many years. I think it’s, if it’s not 10 years, it’s not far off that, uh, ice cream was on our mind.
And this is why I had the giant twin at the beginning of the show. It’s why
David Olney: he ate the whole [00:28:00] giant twin.
Steve Davis: Well, interestingly, he ate my half. That will become a pertinent point in just a moment. But we like to look at old ads and then just reflect on them. And here’s something I, I haven’t been able to date it, but it’s an ad about having a golden day with your little piece of Golden North.
Let’s have a listen to it. Uh, the voice is the voice of the recently retired Trevor Pomery. I. Who was the, apart from being a shareholder in Golden North, their, their head of marketing.
Golden North: At Golden North, we’ve been making our ice cream since 1923, here in the country, town of Laura South Australia. Nestled between the Flinders Ranges and the Barossa Valley, and we still make it like we did back then in the golden days with fresh milk and fresh cream. So you can taste the golden days in every Golden North ice cream and make any day a golden day.[00:29:00]
Golden North. Make it a golden day.
Steve Davis: Now, David, what do we think of this as an advertising message? Really looking at, uh, the, the base in the lo the, uh, the connection to land and country here. Uh, the, the fact that all these beautiful products that have come from our farming. Sector have been fashioned into this product. We’ve got images of, uh, all sorts of families and young people enjoying the product.
Where would you peg this in the realm of, uh, the sort of style of marketing message?
David Olney: It’s an interesting one ’cause there’s sort of two things going on simultaneously. Like if the ad is perhaps somewhere around 20 years old, which was, you know, your best guess without us having a firm date. It’s a really nice early use of provenance.
But with less detail than we would probably put [00:30:00] in now. Like Providence has gone a lot further. We would get into, you know, why we do things the way we do it. Who does it? Showing how it stayed the same, rather than just saying it stayed the same.
Steve Davis: And by talking Providence, we’re talking about that connection to the origin of, of the particular product.
David Olney: Yeah. Essentially if it was wine, we’d say, you know, you know, what is the ground it came from? What is the terroir?
Steve Davis: And we even see the big supermarket chains, not just saying, we sell Australian produce. That we’ve, you raped and pillage, uh, the growers over their price. Mm. That we actually name. Well, here’s Fred Smith who grows our beans.
That’s a, that’s what you are talking about. The way that this
David Olney: Yeah, it was an early version, it seems to me. So now it would still work, but it would need to be much deeper.
Steve Davis: Mm. And then there was another ad that I remember seeing as we were t trawling through the Golden North. Uh, library available online of this black and white cow.
In the middle of a field, a farmer walks up, sits down back to us, [00:31:00] and starts milking the cow. And as we hear the milk coming out, it’s like there’s a level of content inside the cow that is draining into the bucket, which means the white bits. Get diminished as the level inside. It’s almost like they were a little see-through window into the creamy goodness inside the cow.
Not biologically correct, just in case there’s anyone with primary school students watching and they’re doing this as a project, but it’s. It was actually a nice little visual cue, David, of the, just reinforcing that the stuff comes from cows and there’s, you know, that, that engagement with the farmer and that’s where it’s coming from and that’s what you’re reading.
David Olney: Very cute ad and I think cute ads are always gonna be enjoyable, but my question with cute ads always comes down to whether it’s, you know, probably 30 years ago or now. 10 years ago and now it doesn’t really matter. Will I remember the cute ad for being cute or will I [00:32:00] remember the product related to the cute ad?
And my fear with this is the cow’s entertaining. But do I link the cow immediately to Golden North? I do. ’cause I grew up in Goler in the 1970s. Looking forward to the next amazing flavor of Golden North in the specialty flavor line. You know, as a little kid, I was addicted to the lime flavor. I was probably the only person who was
Steve Davis: I, I think, I don’t know.
I, I. I couldn’t eat lime all the time, but it’s just a wicked treat every now and
David Olney: then. Yeah, at times it’s brilliant. In my family, I was the lime person, which meant I got the whole tub over a month. It was awesome.
Steve Davis: You mean you got the lime share? I did. Thank you. Boom, boom. There was a third piece that I found online.
I think we’ll bring into, particularly for this segment, what we think about what we would do next, and I refer to the the giant twin. Which is one of their iconic products. It’s a big, long stick of ice cream, which you can snap into to share. Hence one becomes the twin. And there’s a really interesting [00:33:00] video that Golden North shared in 2021 of interviews with different twins recount in their memories.
Let’s have a listen to this in this bit in particular.
Golden North: Well, first memory of giant twins would be our birthdays. These were treats and we were given one. Which I thought birthday, you get a whole one. Our parents had a, uh, cafe in Murray Bridge, so giant twins. As a kid growing up, I remember them really well, probably from the sixties growing up. Our nana, who always had a deep freezer full of Golden North giant twins, and I don’t think it’s because she had twin granddaughters.
I think she genuinely absolutely loved the brand. Well, our grandparents used to buy ’em for us after swimming lessons when we were little. We used to share one and we were to share it and. You don’t do that to a little kid on their birthday, [00:34:00] that’s cruel. And if she made you share them, it was not a good day.
All I remember is that it usually ended in tears and it did end in tears. That’s all I remember.
Steve Davis: There’s something. Really scarily refreshing about this being shared by the brand itself, David, of allowing people to say how much the snapping and having to share this ice cream caused fights amid nostalgic remembrances. It’s a daring strategy, probably more so now because we seem to have become more selfish than ever before.
David Olney: There was a time where at the end of the day, you may not have been happy that you had to share unless you were a totally outta controlled toddler. You ended up pretty happy that you got half the giant twin. There’s a real power in the honesty [00:35:00] of this, that actually most people were pretty unhappy about having to share ’cause they enjoyed it that much.
It was the birthday, there should have been two giant twins.
Steve Davis: I, I can feel Trevor Erie’s hand in, in here of being a little bit, ’cause we, you and I talk a lot about how the brains a prediction machine and it’s trying to predict and it’s gonna predict. That if Golden North’s sharing this stuff, it’s just gonna be nice and sweet and then we go, hang on a minute.
David Olney: That’s
Steve Davis: interesting. Yeah. Here are some people being unhappy about the product.
David Olney: Well, unhappy about the fact they couldn’t have the whole product. Yes. So it’s an interesting contrast. What’s clear is they enjoyed the product so much they were willing to get stroppy, you know, or they got upset ’cause they couldn’t have more, which is such an honest human and childlike thing.
Steve Davis: So at the time of recording in 2025, if we were suddenly given, uh, a chance to sit down and think about what we would do for tapping into some enduring [00:36:00] messaging for Golden North, I mean, we can see it’s got the pedigree within the community and we can see that those who are in. Are really in and almost don’t want to share, do we continue with that message being extrapolated about sharing?
Because over time, and this comes back to the the book we talked about right at the beginning about how things have changed historically. You could almost imagine that if you had an ad now with a giant twin, a couple meeting and having their first date. The snapping of the ice cream, the sharing of it, I think would be done happily.
There’d be no, you just want to give each other as much as possible. And then maybe they get married or they’re living together for a long time and gradually we see they have one each. Yep. Is that to be celebrated? Is that okay or is there something. That this reminds us, you know, [00:37:00] there is actually joy to be had in that mini taste of sacrifice.
David Olney: I personally think it’s better to make people smile and see the couple going in and buying two. But then the fun thing would be to fast forward that image. Yes, five years later and they’ve got a 4-year-old. What
Steve Davis: do they do then? Do you the parents have one each? No. What would the parents share? One and give the 4-year-old.
The, that’d be too much for a four. That’d be too much. So
David Olney: what I’m assuming is the, the parents probably have, you know, uh, three quarters of one each and, and the little one gets half and, you know, one bit gets teeth marks in it. ’cause the parents share. It’s all a bit messy, just like life. But I think it is a, a wonderful smile worthy way to look at the fun conundrums of life.
We’re on a date, we share, we are married and we really like, we’re a long term couple. We have one each. Oh, now there’s a rugrat. Uh, how do we solve this one?
Steve Davis: [00:38:00] I like to think it was Stephen Covey. Who shared this example, but it might not have been, I might be conflating my memories of how to deal with sharing stuff in a family environment where everyone’s close and you’ve got competition and he talks about cutting up a pie to share.
And what you do is you give one child the role of cutting it up fairly, but they get to get their piece last, which makes them do it fairly. It, it might have actually been lots of people who’ve talked about this. Can you imagine? The giant twin that is going to be shared where you say, right, you can snap it in half.
’cause although it’s, it’s made to be snapped in half, there’s that jagged little slight difference that’s gonna go one way or the other. You get one child to do that, but they have to get the peace that’s left over. Now that would show, uh, the, you could actually have a really slow ad. In nice and close on the earnestness of the child carefully doing this, [00:39:00] knowing they’re gonna get second dibs while the other one watches on it.
You, it would be intense.
David Olney: There’s so much potential with this idea of you can split it in half, but then how do you share. Yeah, just ’cause it’s two halves doesn’t mean that automatically means we know exactly how we’re gonna share.
Steve Davis: That’s right. And if you are like 16 or 17 year olds engrossed in homework, maybe you’re sharing, doing some homework together with a friend.
Or heaven forbid, two friends. Then you’ve gotta get out your protractor on your compass and try and divide it up evenly. Yeah, or just grab it and run.
Caitlin Davis: Thank you for listening to talking about marketing. If you enjoyed it, please leave a rating or a review in your favorite podcast app, and if you found it helpful, please share it with others.
Steve and David always welcome your comments and questions, so send them to [email protected]. And finally, the last word to Oscar Wilde. There’s only one thing worse than [00:40:00] being talked about and that’s not being talked about.