Alabama's Morning News with JT
Scott Baradell on the anti-Woke economy
Hey guys, it is Ryan. I'm not sure if you know this about me, but I'm a bit of a fun, fanatic when I can. I like to work, but I like fun too. And now I can tell you about my favorite place to have fun. Shumba Casino. They have hundreds of social casino-style games to choose from, with new games released each week. You can play for free, and each day brings a new chance to collect daily bonuses. So join me and the fun. Sign up now at ShumbaCasino.com. Sponsored by Shumba Casino, no purchase necessary, VGW Group. Forward, we're prohibited by law, 18-plus terms and conditions apply. Welcome back to Alabama's Morning News. My name is Jon Mounce. I'm filling in for JT today, and I saw this coming. There is basically, we're all fighting against this whole woke agenda, and now there's a new anti-woke economy emerging. Joining me now to talk about this is Scott Baridault. He is an expert in branding and trust. Scott, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So how is it that now we're realizing that we can't constantly have this woke agenda dictating to us how we're going to live our lives, and we have to see Procter and Gamble tell us about we're supporting Pride Month with this product and that product, and now there's an economy of people saying, "No, we've had enough. We're going to buy stuff that's not woke." Yeah, I mean, there's even a website called buywokefree.com where you can go, and it rates all kinds of brands on a scale of very woke to not woke at all. So there's definitely a whole movement, and an economy might be too big a word right now, but it's certainly growing, and in the case of the Daily Wire, that outlet mostly thought of a media outlet, but it actually earned 10% of its revenues, over $22 million last year from selling products, and that was products like Jeremy's razors, which was an alternative to the woke Harry's razors, selling novelty items like liberal tears, dog goals. So it's very much, and so it's not just the wire. So that's $22 million the Daily Wire made last year, and there's lots of other conservative activists and groups getting in on the act. Well, I saw where Mike Lindell, the guy with the MyPillows, he, they were being distributed all over the place, and then somebody got the idea, wait a minute, that guy's conservative, and he got canceled out of all these other stores like Bed Bath and Beyond, or all these places where he used to be sold, and now he's not sold there, but he's kind of making a comeback in conservative circles advertising on conservative media and reaching out to conservatives, because turns out everybody likes to put their head on a pillow, not just liberals. That's right. That's right. Well, and the truth is, you know, he did a great job with my pillow, obviously, but things like pillows, razors, coffee, you name it, these are commodities. And so if you can find some way to differentiate your product, and if it's through values or politics, that can work really well, because it's something that helps you stand out. And Scott, the thing is, for me, I don't really care about the political ideology of the people who make my shampoo, or who make my law mower, name a product. I don't particularly care about anything other than now, if it's a product that like, say, involves ideology, like a book or movie or something like that. Okay, then yes, I care. But just a regular consumable product, I don't care who grew my carrots or grew my apples, as long as, you know, they're healthy and they're not full of pesticides. Beyond that, I don't care. So why is it we've gotten so caught up on the political ideology of the person who's selling us our product? Well, I think part of it is, is we're on such different wavelengths in terms of definitions, facts, what's what's objective truth and not. And so what's one person's ideology is another person's just trying to be inclusive as a brand. So if I'm a brand and I'm Bud Light, I could say, well, including transgender people in our advertising is just being inclusive. But someone who doesn't agree with that might say, well, you could be inclusive without promoting right. And so this is the kind of back and forth we have. I genuinely believe there are brands that have been labeled as woke that are trying to be inclusive and not necessarily be political. It's just where do you draw the line? Well, it seems like so many of the the word inclusive has become a code word for actually exclusive, meaning they want to exclude certain people on the right saying that we're very inclusive and tolerance and as such, we're going to be we're going to only support things that support our ideology. And somebody says, Hey, I've got some my pillows here. Nope, nope. That's that's that's that's bad. That's conservative. We can't possibly have that we're going to exclude that. So those who wish to include or actually excluding, at least that's what it looks like to me. Well, I certainly it's a it's a very reasonable argument to me because people the truth is what's what's often considered kind of the default position in corporate America is is considered just as you describe by by many people. And so I think what we encourage at my agency is just research your audience and do what's best for them. So in the case of Bud Light, they would have been a lot smarter to have not done that promotion because obviously their audience didn't like it. In the same month that Bud Light did its promotion with Dylan Mulvaney, that was so disastrous. Nike did a sports bra promotion with Dylan Mulvaney. So and there was no backlash there, right? So, you know, hey, do what you want in terms of values and politics, but you're just going to treat yourself in the foot. If you don't do your research first to understand how your audience is going to receive that. If you're going to sell me coffee, sell me coffee, sell me beer, sell whatever, but sell the product. Don't sell an unnecessary side thing. Scott, thank you so much for joining us this morning on Alabama's Morning News. Thank you. It's time for today's Lucky Land horoscope with Victoria Cash. Life's gotten mundane, so shake up the daily routine and be adventurous with a trip to Lucky Land. You know what they say, your chance to win starts with a spin. So go to luckylandslots.com to play over a hundred social casino style games for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Get lucky today at luckylandslots.com. Available to players in the US, excluding Washington and Michigan, no purchase necessary. VGW Group void reparhibited by law 18 plus turns in condition