From Stan McChrystal’s character formula to brain science that explains why your brilliant marketing idea might be too clever for its own good, we explore why authentic conviction trumps contradictory cleverness every time.
Stan McChrystal reveals why character equals conviction multiplied by discipline – and why this military wisdom transforms how we approach marketing authenticity in a world obsessed with quick wins.
Andy Clark’s neuroscience research exposes how our brains work as prediction machines, explaining why marketing messages that create massive prediction errors trigger emotional retreat rather than engagement.
A classic case of consumer confidence collapse in the US demonstrates why sitting still during uncertainty isn’t staying neutral – it’s choosing entropy.
TAA’s spectacularly awful airline advertisement becomes a masterclass in how not to talk down to your customers while claiming to care about them.
Get ready to take notes.
Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes
01:00 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
Stan McChrystal’s Character Mathematics
When a four-star general who cleaned up military messes in Iraq and Afghanistan distils his life philosophy into a simple formula, smart marketers listen. Steve and David unpack Stan McChrystal’s deceptively straightforward equation from his book “On Character“: character equals conviction multiplied by discipline.
McChrystal’s insights from military selection processes reveal a profound truth about human nature – success isn’t about brilliance or superhuman abilities. As he explains, most people who attempt elite military training don’t fail; they quit. The differentiator isn’t talent but persistence, the willingness to keep showing up when everything screams at you to stop.
David draws fascinating parallels between military selection and business success, noting how former elite soldiers consistently excel in civilian careers. They bring that same commitment to convictions and discipline to turn up every day, dramatically increasing their likelihood of success. The hosts explore whether we should develop conviction or discipline first, concluding that while we all have beliefs, true convictions require deliberate thought and commitment – the kind that’s worth applying discipline to achieve.
The McChrystal snippet in the podcast is taken from the Chris Williamson interview. How To Actually Build Discipline, here:
10:30 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Your Brain as Marketing’s Ultimate Gatekeeper
Andy Clark’s revelatory book “The Experience Machine” fundamentally changes how we understand consumer attention. Steve and David dive deep into the neuroscience of perception, revealing that what we experience as reality begins as our brain’s best guess about what’s happening next.
Our brains function as sophisticated prediction machines, constantly throwing out expectations about sensory input and checking whether reality matches. When there’s minimal difference between prediction and reality, we coast through life on autopilot – think about driving home from work and arriving with no memory of the journey. But when prediction errors occur, our brains snap to attention, demanding energy to reassess and adjust.
This has profound implications for marketing creativity. Small prediction errors create delightful “aha” moments that make audiences feel clever and engaged. But massive prediction errors trigger our limbic system, shifting us from rational thinking to emotional self-protection. David emphasises how this explains why slightly novel marketing succeeds while bizarre creativity often backfires spectacularly.
The hosts connect this to comedy, noting how masters like Robin Williams and Billy Connolly create accessible novelty – talking about ordinary life with slightly unexpected twists that include rather than alienate their audience. The lesson for marketers: be more like a welcoming restaurant than a snooty maître d’ who makes customers feel inadequate.
The Andy Clark snippet is taken from his interview on The Dissenter, here:
23:30 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
When Waiting Becomes Worse Than Acting
Drawing from recent economic uncertainty in the US, David highlights a critical business lesson disguised as current affairs. When President Trump’s policies triggered consumer confidence drops and credit rating downgrades, American businesses and consumers responded predictably – they waited for things to improve before making important decisions.
This seemingly rational response masks a dangerous reality: not making decisions when problems exist isn’t neutral positioning. Problems don’t pause politely while we gather courage or wait for better conditions. They accumulate, compound, and often become more expensive to solve over time.
Steve and David frame this as essential self-audit territory for business owners. What decisions are you postponing because the timing doesn’t feel right? While you’re waiting, your customers and staff are watching, potentially interpreting inaction as incompetence or lack of direction. Sometimes the cost of imperfect action is far less than the cost of perfect paralysis.
The segment serves as both economic observation and business therapy, reminding listeners that entropy doesn’t wait for convenient timing.
26:30 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
TAA’s Spectacular Marketing Disaster
Nothing illustrates the gap between intention and execution quite like TAA’s cringe-worthy business class advertisement from the 1970s. Steve subjects listeners to what he calls “the hardest ad I’ve ever had to endure” – a masterclass in how condescension masquerading as care destroys brand relationships.
The advertisement features a woman with an affected British accent explaining TAA’s understanding of business travellers through a series of uncomfortable vignettes. Flight attendants invade personal space, straighten passengers’ bow ties without permission, and place fingers under noses to prevent sneezing. The overall tone reeks of superiority disguised as service.
David and Steve dissect how the advertisement contradicts every principle they’ve discussed – it creates massive prediction errors that trigger discomfort, demonstrates no authentic conviction about customer service, and talks down to the very people it claims to understand. The hosts wonder whether TAA thought they were being ironically funny, but conclude that customer service messaging is never the appropriate venue for comedic risks.
The segment concludes with redemption – TAA’s earlier “Up, Up and Away” campaign that Steve remembers fondly, demonstrating how the same brand could create genuine warmth and connection when they approached their audience with respect rather than condescension.
Transcript This transcript was generated using Descript.
A Machine-Generated Transcript – Beware Errors
TAMP S06E08
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, is this the right room for a contradiction?
David Olney: I think so. Are you sure?
Steve Davis: Well, I have a conviction that we could handle a contradiction. You have a conviction. You can handle a contradiction. I do. Are you sure though? You weren’t sure before? Now that’s a contradiction to your conviction. But I’m more sure about my conviction
David Olney: now that I’ve considered the contradiction.[00:01:00]
Well, that’s convincing. Glad you think So,
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. Oscar Wilde,
Steve Davis: attention Soldier David. I’m gonna challenge some Stan McChrystal. Now a man who should make any of us shiver a little bit because he seems to be just that perfect. Hero character who does what he says he would do, believes what he says He believed. He, he seems a one of a kind
David Olney: put what he seems like a one of a kind to us because so few people like him end up on tv, but yeah, he, it’s a hard act to follow someone who tries to do the right thing and when it doesn’t work, he falls on his sword, [00:02:00] apologizes gets up and then gets back on with trying to do the right thing again.
Steve Davis: So this is in the person segment that we’re talking about. Some thoughts from Stan McChrystal’s book called On Character. Just flesh in a little bit of the background for Stan McChrystal.
David Olney: Stan McChrystal is one of the only. People I’ve never met who I’d like to sit on a 20 hour flight with and probably drive him mad to the point where he’d throw me outta the plane for not shutting up.
He was a soldier for 35 years. He took control of counter-terrorism operations in Iraq in 2004 and overall operations in Afghanistan in 2009, and was one of the generals who tried to clean up the mess. That US presidents and politicians made after nine 11, and he’s just a remarkable person. ’cause he keeps learning and he keeps admitting when he gets things wrong and he keeps trying to do better and he doesn’t assume that his [00:03:00] answer is best.
He tried very hard throughout his military career and then his business career after to go, well, you’ve got a better idea than me. How do we implement it? How do we scale it? How do we teach it to more people? He’s just got this wonderful combination of, of discipline and generosity towards other people.
Um, that
Steve Davis: makes him a hard actor follower. So he’s written this book called On Character with a title borrowed from, I think the original book on character from Yeah. From the 1850s. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, what’s your prey of this book? What’s his core message?
David Olney: The core message is having had his military career and then his business career and then, you know, having gone through COVID and spent a lot of time at home and gone Wow.
I’m in my late sixties. How do I sum up my life? How do I sum up what I believe? How do I sum up what gets me up in the morning? What makes me make decisions during the day? What [00:04:00] makes me call some things the right things to do, and some things the wrong things to do? And the book is really about a simple formula.
Your character equals conviction multiplied by discipline. In life. Eventually all you will be remembered for is the things you did in front of people that they saw and they were affected by. Uh, so if you don’t decide what you believe in and don’t work out how to be disciplined, so you keep implementing your beliefs, you’re not gonna leave very much behind.
And what you leave behind won’t be very impact impactful.
Steve Davis: So you’re saying that whether we have discipline or not. We find our balance and we keep showing up doing things in a certain way, that is what we’ll be remembered for. Even if the words coming out our mouth are trying to spout some other aspiration that won’t really be remembered or sink through.
Because what people will see and [00:05:00] remember is what we actually end up doing. Yeah. So me, me saying I’m gonna reduce some, uh, drinking of alcohol and every day you check in and Yeah, I had a little glass of wine last night. It’s, it’s that constant drinking that you are going to remember before, not these, these aspirations.
David Olney: Exactly. We talked about it a couple of episodes ago when you decided to go to gym, and it started as one day a week, and it’s now three.
Steve Davis: That’s true.
David Olney: And that’s something that everyone who knows you, knows that. All right. If it’s a crazy week, it might be down to two. But you’re gonna be there next week with the aim of it being back up to three
Steve Davis: and it’s actually swung around.
I, I can’t function, I can’t even fathom the idea of not going. Mm-hmm. And so we’ve got this, this, um, formula, character, equal convictions, time for discipline. The discipline thing is interesting. I’ve got a little piece here of Stan Crystal. Talking about it,
General Stanley McChrystal: you’re not just born with discipline. I think part of it is learned through [00:06:00] experiences. A lot of people look at the special operating forces, Navy Seals, army Delta Force, army Rangers, and they see these people who are super human, physically, and brilliant, they can do all of these things, and that’s not true at all in every one of those organizations.
The actual standards to get in. Are not very high. The selection processes, like for the Army Rangers, a a nine week school is torturous. I mean, it is just the most annoying nine weeks of your law and less than half of all people who start complete and get the Ranger tab, but the vast majority quit. Only a very small number fail.
Have you got any idea what the percentage is typically? I, I would say that probably about 40%. Or at 35% get the tab and maybe 5% flunk. The rest, all self-select out. Wow. The only thing different is who decides not to quit. [00:07:00] And that’s the same with the seals. That’s the same with others. So that’s what they test for The, the selection processes are designed to see who’s persistent, who won’t quit, because that actually shows up later.
In times when you really need it. Again, you don’t need brilliant people. You need people who commit themselves to something and then won’t turn away. And that’s a lot of, that’s a lot of what courage is. Courage is, I will do something because I know I need to do it and I’m gonna do it even though I’m frightened.
David Olney: It’s lovely hearing Stan talk about selection because. You know, several of my former students have been through selection for Australian Special forces, and I’ve taught a whole pile of people, you know, within our elite military units who’ve been through selection. And it’s so interesting meeting such a diverse range of people who get through what is essentially a test of, can you keep turning up?[00:08:00]
Can you keep, you know, putting a smile on and going, well, this is really hard, but I don’t wanna quit at the end of the day. No one can train you to being committed. No one can train you to being disciplined. But if they can find the people who’ve got those things, they can train them to everything else.
So by the time you meet an elite soldier with five or 10 years of experience, they’ve built so much on top of their commitment to keep turning up and their discipline to just keep doing the work. And you know, like Stan McChrystal going from a military career to, you know, a business career. I’ve seen the same thing in a lot of the elite soldiers I trained who are now in their next career in business.
And they do exceptionally well because they bring that commitment to their convictions and that discipline to turn up every day and do the hard work to everything they do, which means their likelihood of [00:09:00] succeeding is just so high.
Steve Davis: I know it’s not a pecking order, but if you had to pick conviction or discipline, would you suggest we start working on discipline until we find that we’re able to stay the course on something and then I.
Sharpen up our convictions? Or is it not that linear?
David Olney: Look, I’d rather people develop the two at once, but at the end of the day, we always have beliefs and I think it’s a very deliberate choice. In the book that Stan talks about convictions, not beliefs. ’cause we all have beliefs. Even if there are unthought, you know, in the book when he talks about what does he mean by conviction?
He means things you’ve thought about for an extended period of time and decided these are the things I want as guiding lights in my life. And that doesn’t mean I can’t learn better ideas, better concepts, but you know, I’ve done the work to be convinced that these things are worth using my discipline [00:10:00] to, you know, expand, extend, and implement them.
So yeah, we’ve all got beliefs. M most people don’t have discipline, but if you’ve got some discipline and you apply that to turning your beliefs into convictions, you’re pretty much, you may not get the end you want, but you’re gonna do a pretty good job of being alive and, and being a model for other people of what character looks like.
Very
Steve Davis: good at ease soldier.
Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps. Number two principles. You can never be overdressed or overeducated. Oscar Wilde.
Steve Davis: David, why do you look like an orange elephant With the marmalade eyes? You’re on roller skates. There’s a pink smoke in the air. What? What’s happening?
David Olney: This raises some [00:11:00] very interesting questions about what experiences you’ve had in your life that are informing your current prediction of what I look like at this moment.
Steve Davis: I. I’m actually just looking at myself in a mirror. Um, now Andy Clark is a, a very learned man. He’s written a book called The Experience Machine, all about the human brain. Uh, you’ve basically forced me to put it onto my listening list on Audible and what I was riffing on there is one of his insights and the way our human brain works is that what we perceive in the world.
Is actually part and parcel. It starts off as a hallucination if you like. You are probably itching to have a few things to say about it, but why don’t we give Andy the floor to begin with.
Andy Clark: So expectation here, I use the word, [00:12:00] um, pretty much synonymously with prediction here. So I need to locate the microphone right now in space ’cause I’ve decided to look at it. I. And if I was gonna pick it up, then I need to understand, pre understand stuff about where the heavy bits are, um, how I should pick it up, if I want to use it in a certain way.
And all of that information is the sort of interlinked structure that, um, that if you like. Gets sent out towards the sensory peripheries so that it can meet incoming sensory information and work out whether all of those things were adequate or not. And if they’re inadequate, then my brain will have another go.
Um, and if I judge them to be adequate, then my whole brain body system will probably have a go at picking it up. And if I got it wrong, then prediction error signals will gain result. So there are lots of places along the chain here where, [00:13:00] um, where the world can correct me if you like, it can correct me just by I take a better look.
And it now looks a little bit different. I didn’t get, get the contour quite right first time. Or it can correct me because I actually tried to use that information and couldn’t, and sort of failed to pick it up properly. So that sort of, it’s an interlinked data structure where everything is already bound together.
That is. Trying to predict the flow across the, the time locked flow across all of the, the sensory interfaces, sight, sound, touch. And that’s of course a, a very complex and difficult task, but one that brains like ours, sim enormously well adapted to, to perform.
Steve Davis: Wow, that is mind blowing to think that what the brain tell me if I’m getting this right, the brain is. Well hallucinating is one way of saying it. It’s throwing out there what it is expecting. It’s [00:14:00] then getting back information from what it’s reading in the real world, and if it’s a match, life goes on.
Nothing really much happens, but where there’s difference between what was thrown out as a hallucination and what’s come back as information where there’s difference. The brain goes, oh, I better get outta bed, put my slippers on, and go and have a look at this.
David Olney: That is the essence of it. That our whole experience of being alive allows us to shortcut how much effort we have to put in to making sense of the world around us.
So, you know, we are sitting here in your office at the moment recording a podcast. We’ve got a lot of experience of doing this. We can predict most of the time if it’s the noise of the front door, if it’s the noise of the wind on the roof or the window. Cars going down the street don’t really attract attention because unless they slow down and come up your driveway, they’re not really relevant to us.
So the whole time sitting here, we could pay attention to everything, but that would be a waste of a lot of energy and time. Or we can [00:15:00] just predict that each of these things is the thing we think it is. The real significance of this is to realize that unless the prediction error between what we’ve predicted and the sensory data we get is really big, we do the minimum thinking possible.
We trust yesterday’s experience to get us through today, which is kind of a freaky idea. ’cause we want to think we are so in control. We’re putting in so much work. We are so present moment aware. But unless we get a high level of prediction error, we are not necessarily doing much more than checking in with the world.
Steve Davis: And we are about to land this fair and square in the room of marketing and how it intersects with that. But before we get there, just this little aspect of the prediction area you’re talking about. Here’s our hallucination. It’s checked with what’s coming back. Is there difference or not? The brain in other stuff that Andy’s been talking about, [00:16:00] even places, bets well, doesn’t place bet it knows when the odds are more likely to be in favor of accuracy or not.
He said. On a foggy day, our brain will still be doing this, but it will know that it’s likely to make some mistakes because we can’t see everything. Versus on a clear day, our hallucination we anticipate is gonna be pretty much a hundred percent unless something weirds in the world.
David Olney: Yep. A, a good way to understand this for all your people who can drive is think of the simple thing of driving to pick the kids up from school, driving to the shopping center, driving home from work.
I. And getting home and go, what did I just do? How did I just do it?
Steve Davis: Oh yes. I feel like that all the time.
David Olney: Because your prediction machine worked so well because it was so much like the last time you did that same thing, that you were only aware enough of what you needed to know. And that is nothing. Here is a large prediction error.[00:17:00]
I don’t need to be any more aware than I am, and that’s not very aware. So as a motorcyclist or pedestrian wear bright clothes. Oh yeah. You need to make sure that you cause a prediction error.
Steve Davis: Oh, I’m a prediction error. Wouldn’t that be a great t-shirt? I will wear it if you get it made. That’s fantastic.
Now, where this lands with marketing, we were talking about this in the cars, is people might want to have a really outlandish, crazy idea that they bring to market, but Andy Clark’s work. Would suggest that could be a bridge too far. It’s better to stay within the realm of novelty, rather in the realm of a, an extreme right hand turn.
Do you wanna unpack that?
David Olney: Happy to. So the big thing is with a small prediction error, I. Where we think we know what’s gonna happen next, but we’re a little bit wrong. Our brain just makes another prediction, and then it’s either right or wrong. So we’ve paid a bit more attention to correct the prediction error.
So if there’s only a [00:18:00] beard of novelty in an ad or a beard of something we don’t understand, we go, oh, we readjust our prediction and go, oh, we’re right. Or if we’ve still got a little prediction error, we have another go. But. This is part of getting extra experience. So our brain quite enjoys the fact that it’s getting more experience at predicting.
But if we encounter something really weird, then we get a huge prediction error. We try and predict again, we keep getting huge prediction errors. And after a few huge prediction errors. The problem is we go from thinking in a rational way to, we hand over whatever’s going on to our limbic system and we start having an emotional response.
And that emotion begins with, I dunno what’s going on, what if this is a threat? What if this, you know, this ad is making me look stupid. What if I am stupid? And suddenly we’re not thinking anymore. We’re not paying attention. We are reflecting on our discomfort and what our discomfort [00:19:00] says about us. And if you do that, you’ve really not just lost your audience.
When they do understand what’s going on, they’re gonna remember you as the thing that made them
Steve Davis: uncomfortable. And we know from a previous discussion, we are hardwired to avoid. Being embarrassed. Mm. And made to look foolish. And also, the way you described that reminded me of Wild Creature Mind by Steve Alph, who talks about that part of our brain, the right hand side, which is non-verbal, but it’s absorbing everything.
Everything. And that’s what’s picking up this yucky. Yep. Little yuck, which we don’t want, if we’re. We’re wanting to use a bit of novelty to grab attention for our brand. Uh, we don’t wanna go into the ick. Yuck. You are an idiot factor. We want people to be able to catch up really quickly. Yes. And so they feel like, oh, I just had a little success.
Look at, I put two and two together. Aren’t I good? Yep. And I laugh and I remember now that you made me feel good. Exactly that. Interesting that also [00:20:00] apply. I mean, just think about standup comedy. There are comedians who are way out there with really bizarre ideas and it’s a fine tightrope if, if you’re not good at that, you’re just gonna make the audience go, just get off.
You tosser you, what’s going on? Versus those ones who surprise and delight. And then of course you are the ones that just play the most predictable stuff all the time. And the way they still get laughs is they drop F-bombs. Um, that’s there, that’ll get out of jail. Free card. So this applies, and there, of course, it applies to branding.
It probably applies to everything, how you behave at family events, that this is quite a proof I, I, I can understand now why you forced me to put this book, um, the experience machine into my playlist.
David Olney: Yeah, it’s a very important book. And to just jump back to the example of the standup comedians like Robert Williams.
You know, brilliant album Live at the Met and you know, the classic Billy Connolly, uh, tour of England from the early nineties. [00:21:00] You know, both of those things stand up 35, nearly 40 years later. In the case of Robert Williams, because they’re talking about ordinary life and pointing out all these weird little novelties.
You don’t ever have to have been in a shipyard. You don’t ever have to have been to some of the places in New York that Robert Williams is talking about. ’cause they’re talking about everyday people having slightly weird things happen to them.
Robin Williams: A little sip of Perrier here. I had to stop drinking alcohol ’cause I used to wake up Newton hood of my car with my keys in my ass. Not a good thing. Hi, can I. No thanks. It’s just flooded. I’ll be okay. Beautiful baby. Beautiful. Yeah. Don’t you see you’re sucked into believing that beer’s a healthy thing.
’cause all the time they’ve got these beer commercials showing manly men doing manly things. You’ve just killed a small animal. It’s time for a light beer. Why not have a realistic beer [00:22:00] commercial? What’s the realistic thing about beer where you go, it’s five o’clock in the morning, you’ve just pissed on a dumpster.
It’s Miller time
David Olney: and it gives it immense power because our prediction machine continues to engage going. I think I know what he’s gonna say. Oh no, it went somewhere else. But hey, that’s really funny because I’m not lost. I’m not confused. He’s not taking the piss, he’s not making me feel little, and I’m being included in this great new insight that’s growing my experience of how amazing the world is.
Steve Davis: Just landed on an analogy, which we can finish with in this act of communicating such ideas. I. We want to be more like, was it 11 Madison Avenue? That fancy restaurant? Yes. Where they warmly drew you in. Just like Robin. William, hey, come into my tent. You’re welcome. Versus those matrices that are [00:23:00] so bold, upright, and look down and snotty.
And the snotty. That’s the same of, huh? My idea is probably too smart for you. You won’t get it. Exactly. And we get all this from Andy Clark’s work and. I think that’s a sien point for us to remember in our realm of marketing
Caitlin Davis: our four Ps. Number three problems. I asked the question for the best reason possible. Simple curiosity. Oscar Wilde
Steve Davis: In the problem segment, we typically talk about problems that people have emailed us about needing some help. And if they’re universal, we, we share the outcome. Today, we’re shifting our gaze to a problem that consumers have had in the US where David spends half his week. David, what happened earlier this year in the us and then [00:24:00] what is the problem we can all learn from?
David Olney: What happened earlier this year is President Trump started implementing unusual economic policy. I. That frightened, lots of people frightened the market, frightened The bond market has resulted in the US having their credit rating downgraded, which is a pretty big deal. And whether you agree with any of this or not, the significant thing it did is it reduced consumer confidence in the us In March alone, consumer confidence dropped 3%.
So people you know in very large numbers in the US are going. Oh, I’m not gonna make that big financial decision about my business now. I’m not gonna take action to improve this situation. Now I’m gonna wait and see what happens. I wanna see if things get better first. It’s a really dangerous thing to watch people wait for things to get better when the [00:25:00] problem they’ve got keeps accumulating, keeps growing when it keeps making their customers go.
What are you doing? When it keeps making their staff go, what are you doing? That in reality, sitting still isn’t remaining in the same place. Not making decisions to solve a problem is actually a form of entropy. By not making a decision, you are making things worse.
Steve Davis: So the nature of this segment of problems, we are just raising this as a little self check for all of us, a little audit.
Is there anything that we are putting off because we just don’t feel like we’ve got the head space for it now. And what you are saying David, is, well, you know, you’ve got every right to do that, but problems don’t go away. They, they may, they may stay the same, but they’re likely to get worse and get a little bit harder to solve while the rest of the world.
Rushes [00:26:00] forward at exponential rate.
David Olney: Exactly. And probably the, the biggest thing to keep in mind from a small business perspective is all your customers and all your staff see if you’re not taking action, and that potentially risks them starting to lose their trust in you. And that is a whole new problem.
You do not want.
Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps number four per sy. The one duty we yo, to history is to rewrite it. Oscar Wilde
Steve Davis: up, up and away. Hey, am I beautiful balloon. How was that back to the seventies? I like it. Uh, that was a, a big hit. I think Fifth Dimension had that as a hit in the seventies, but it was also borrowed and used by an Australian airline, which is now defunct, uh, TAA, [00:27:00] was it Trans Australian Airways? I think it stood for.
I’m glad you know that. Hmm. I I was a big advocate. Of TAA despite being too young to even fly. Uh, I just, you know, what was a cool ad? It was there, there was some cool stuff. However, I’ve got such fond memories of TAA and then across my feed this week came the ad. That has been the hardest one I’ve ever had to endure in my life.
Do not hate me. Dear listener. I’m about to subject you to it
TAA Ad: in here, team. Mind you head Schwartz. Now here we have a typical TAA business flight, but is there a typical business person? This gentleman, for example, elects to travel economy and despite the free drinks up front and exactly Armstrong, you’ll be on the [00:28:00] moon one day. They’re cute. Then there’s the workers who fly TAA business class ever to be disturbed for coffee break.
Very good wiggles. Ah, yes. And those businessmen who demand immediate attention, those who are to be left alone. Validity please. Ah, the managing directors felt like basketball players who require TAA first class legroom. You’d understand that, wouldn’t you? Schwartz?
Robin Williams: Yes.
Steve Davis: Not to mention
Robin Williams: the privacy.
TAA Ad: All I can say is that their business is our business and you should make it your business to help them go about it.
Now the rest is up to you. CAA, the friendly way
Robin Williams: I’m going about your business.
Steve Davis: David, we talked about contradictions at the beginning of this episode. This is a flying contradiction because we’ve got a woman. Representing TAA, putting on, I think, what did you call it? [00:29:00] A, a fake,
David Olney: an affected British accent. Accent is awful.
Steve Davis: Trying to, in a haughty, but supposedly fun way show how much they care for their business travelers.
And it’s condescending. It’s horrid. It is exactly the opposite of what we’re just talking also about you are not in my tent. I’m too smart for you. I just hate every single thing about this ad. There’s nothing redeeming. This could well have been one of the straws that broke the camel’s back.
David Olney: I really don’t think that ad helped.
And I wonder if they thought they were being ironic and people would laugh the whole way through. But that is not a risk to take when you’re saying we care about people and we wanna understand what you need. That is not. The time to try to be funny.
Steve Davis: And that was haughty the way it was done? Yeah, it was.
It was sniveling looking down their nose at their people. So a couple of the [00:30:00] visuals of the gentleman reaching up to put his jacket into the overhead lock and about to sneeze, and the air steward placing his finger in under the guy’s nose to stop the sneeze Now. That’s weird. Even if you’re in the same family, you’re let alone on a plane.
Yes, definitely. Weird post COVID, but that was weird. Um. And they talk about the, oh, the businessman, who doesn’t want to be touched. And one of the women leans down and straightens his bow tie. Yeah. Which makes the sort of dozing man look up and, and look around a little bit.
David Olney: Yeah.
Steve Davis: And it’s just, ugh, I would’ve ripped up if I still had my paper TA, a ticket, I’d wanna rip it up and go to Anset and, and buy something.
It was just. I don’t think that ad could work today. No, no, I don’t think it worked then.
David Olney: Yeah, and, and that’s the question. It would be really interesting to know how long it ran for Then. Did it run on tv? Did it run at cinema’s, drive-ins? And how fast, you know, did it get taken off? It seems a [00:31:00] big misfire.
Steve Davis: Yeah, it was. Aren’t we clever? Aren’t we too smart? And we are saying we care about you, but it’s not what we’re, it’s what we’re doing. We were talking about that earlier as well. How people, yeah, look at what we do. Do more so say what we say. Yeah. And here they lose on both counts. So normally we have a nice happy ending, don’t we?
In in purpose, purpose, purity. Um. There’s not a happy, or actually, I’m gonna finish. Would you like a happy ending, David?
David Olney: Well, look, the problem is TAA didn’t have a happy ending, so it’s very hard to put a happy ending on this, but feel free to try.
Steve Davis: Look, I’ll give you one because we’ll go out with this. Uh, in the early seventies, fifth Dimension had that great song up, up and away.
TAA used it as did an, an airline in America as well. They used a variation of this for their ad, and that’s what I remember fondly. That’s why I loved the brand. Um, thank goodness I [00:32:00] didn’t see that. Abomination of an ad in my life the first time around. But this one is beautiful.
TAA Ad: When you want fly, come fly the friendly way. When you want fly, come fly with ta a. We’ll get you where you want, go and give you extra care up in the air.
Up, up and away with taa. A friendly, friendly way goes when you fly with a, give you extra when you fly The friendly way.[00:33:00]
Steve Davis: David, don’t undo your seatbelt till I turn the light off. Okay.
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 being talked about and that’s not being talked about.