Click Tease: Weekly Digest of Branding, Marketing & Content that Converts

MORE ISN’T MORE — Pringles Rebrand, Cracker Barrel Bots, Instant Pot Collapse (Ep. 018)

• Michelle Pualani & Joanna Newton

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 What Pringles, Cracker Barrel, and Instant Pot can teach you about marketing missteps, cultural backlash, and knowing when to stop scaling before it breaks your business.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Why “more” customers, followers, or products might be killing your brand faster than you think
  • The surprising story behind the bot-driven Cracker Barrel controversy — and what it means for online perception
  • How grassroots marketing and in-person connection are outperforming viral posts and influencer deals

Timestamps:

 00:00 – Introduction
 02:30 – Halloween banter & book-to-brand storytelling lessons
 09:00 – Subscriber story: how in-person events still outsell Amazon
 11:30 – Pringles rebrand: why “Once You Pop, The Pop Don’t Stop” works for Gen Z
 16:00 – Borrowing big-brand tactics for small business wins
 23:00 – Cracker Barrel backlash: when bots shape public opinion
 31:00 – The influencer bubble is bursting — here’s what’s next
 41:00 – Instant Pot’s $500M fall: growth gone wrong
 47:00 – “More” isn’t more — the profit leaks killing your business

References & Resources:

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📱 Social: @themichellepualani | @joanna_atwork
📩 Michelle: hello@michellepualani.com
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Michelle Pualani: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Click Tease podcast, where every single week we cover updated marketing topics, how to improve your personal brand, as well as content creation that converts. Today we're talking about how Pringles is revamping their core slogan in order to appeal commercials and social media content around Gen Z, the next generation of entertainment consumption when it comes to marketing. We're sharing a subscriber story from our substack and how she actively grows her brand today in a competitive market, and the fact that more doesn't always mean more, including a case study about Instant Pot that led to $500 million in bankruptcy, which you do not want to repeat. Thanks for tuning in.

I'm Michelle Palani Houston, founder of To Be Honest Beverage Company, as well as business and marketing consultant.

Joanna Newton: And I'm Joanna Newton, co-founder of Millennial Marketer and Agency that helps creators create their own digital products. Let's dive in. 

Michelle Pualani: Today we have a mostly [00:01:00] finished beverage. We started a little on the late side today, which happens quite consistently actually. It's why we block out two hours of time for recording the Click Tease podcast. 'cause both Joanna and I have things that absolutely come up and derail us. So we either start a little late or we start early and then schedule things later.

So it all works out. But I have my smoothie, my husband made it for me today because. Sometimes he does that for me and he's just super sweet and around. Um, it's a really intense smoothie. It's got like protein and creatine and all these other oils and stuff like that, so, but that's what I'm drinking today.

Joanna Newton: Nice. I think that's something from every time I've filmed anything is always planned for more time. That is our first marketing tip of the day. Plan for more time than you expect. That comes for like filming a course, filming anything. It's just not like going into a Zoom meeting. It's just so different. will take the blame. This week I was [00:02:00] late for me, for some home things I had to take care

Michelle Pualani: I am mostly late, so I feel like you get lots of free passes. I'm always like, I need 10 minutes. I need 15 minutes. I'm running behind.

Joanna Newton: It's earlier for you. I think that makes a difference too. Um, but today I'm drinking just some iced tea. Um, fresh, just keeping me going for the day. Um, but I'm excited to chat about marketing and all of the updates we have for this week.

Michelle Pualani: Love it. Also, I wanna comment on the fact that you're wearing a themed sweater today. If you're not watching, it has skulls, black skulls.

Joanna Newton: black skulls

Michelle Pualani: We are Halloween. Love

Joanna Newton: for the

Michelle Pualani: it.

Joanna Newton: season. This,

Michelle Pualani: Love it.

Joanna Newton: the day before Halloween, so I thought it would be festive.

Michelle Pualani: We should have picked topical things based on Halloween. Why? Why did we watch that? Okay. Well, here

Joanna Newton: we shoulda have worn costumes.

Michelle Pualani: have worn costumes. I don't, I don't have my [00:03:00] costume yet, but what are you guys going to be for Halloween this year?

Joanna Newton: Oh my gosh. You're gonna I told you?

Michelle Pualani: No.

Joanna Newton: me, me, my husband and my daughter, the three of us are dressing up as the Sanderson sisters.

Michelle Pualani: yeah, you did tell me. You did tell me. You did tell me. But.

Joanna Newton: You didn't tell the podcast. So my husband will be Mary. Um, so this is his first time dressing as a woman, I think in his life. So he's very excited. We're really curious to see how our neighbors will respond. My daughter decided she would be Sarah, so that makes me winy, which I feel a little weird being the, a lot of times they makes fun of moms who are like. The star of the Halloween costume and like the mom is the main character and the, the rest of the family are the side characters. But it was my, my daughter casted us, so I'm the lead, but she casted us. Um, we always do themed Halloween costumes, all three of us. And normally I'm some random side character, like we did, um, one year we did Wreck Ralph and my [00:04:00] husband was Ralph, she was Penelope. And I was like, Bob the builder, like nobody cares about. So this year I.

Michelle Pualani: Oh, I love it. It's where you're meant to be. It's where you shine. So I'm actually not the biggest Halloween person personally. I'm more of a Thanksgiving, Christmas holiday type person, and my favorite holiday throughout the year is actually Summer Soltice. Big beach baby growing up. So, uh, Halloween is something that I'm like not the biggest fan of, but Jeremy loves putting up decorations.

Jeremy, my husband, he loves Halloween. He loves the whole deal. Like he's thought about planning haunted houses in the past and like designing them and building them like pop-up pounded houses. So he is super into the holiday, which I respect and appreciate from afar. Watching him do his thing. But last year, I've gotta tell you, so if you were listening and you don't know, we've talked about it a couple [00:05:00] times, but in the past couple years, I have super gone down the rabbit hole of romantic and smut in terms of reading and like kind of over the top, because before that it was all personal development, business, entrepreneurship, marketing.

That was all I ever read. Listened to podcasts, watched. Books, anything. We lost our pups and we're on a pretty, uh, lengthy trip to the UK that my husband was taking us on for my birthday, and he suggested I read, what's the book? It's the Dragon book. It's fourth Wing. That's the one

Joanna Newton: Yeah,

Michelle Pualani: fourth wing.

Joanna Newton: read those. I should,

Michelle Pualani: You don't, you don't have to.

But I mean, they're a thing. Talk about trending and talk about like popular culture. If you think about like book talk and where things are headed and if you think about like books that have inspired TV shows, movies, like we're heading in that direction and it's huge. Um, we talked about Hello Sunshine on the podcast, which of you aren't yet?

Hit subscribe for the Click Tease [00:06:00] podcast, but. Reese Witherspoon and what she's been able to do with her book club and then turned and develop those stories into content pieces, movies, success on that front from a media and entertainment perspective. Very powerful stuff. And then you're learning storytelling.

I digress. I went on, I went on a tangent.

Joanna Newton: perfect. That was like a great, that was a great tangent. We talked about like, like books and stories and you can learn storytelling from watching stories and you should subscribe to our podcast while you're on it because we'll tell you more about that. But now what's the

Michelle Pualani: Okay, pull it back. Pull it back. So last year we dressed up, my husband and I, we dressed up as the main characters from this one book that I was reading. It's called The Prince of Sin, the Princes of Sin. And so this book was about envy. And so the Prince of Sin that he was, was envy. And then I was the lead female character.

And this year. This is so nerdy, but he likes to read these books called Literary RPGs. And so ultimately they're written [00:07:00] books either narrated or read that are video games. So the main character is in a video game, so they're different levels and it's just kind of talking you through this video game experience.

It's called Literary, RPG, and he loves this series called Adventures with Carl. And so in the recent past, he showed me this picture of this one scene. Carl, the main character has heart boxers, a leather jacket, and aviator glasses and no shoes, and he's like walking into this, this dungeness place to do this.

Challenge, adventure thing. And then he has this sidekick that's a talking Persian white cat called Princess Donut, and she wears like a tiara and this heart chain, you know, collar type deal. So I'm gonna be Princess Donut the cat, and he's gonna be Carl in that particular scene.

Joanna Newton: That's very cute. And you know what people, that sounds weird to me, like reading a book of someone playing a video game, but [00:08:00] people watch YouTube videos of

Michelle Pualani: Yeah,

Joanna Newton: playing video games. It's kind of the same thing.

Michelle Pualani: it's actually a huge industry and niche. Like people legitimately get paid and sponsored to play video games that other people watch. What.

Joanna Newton: I

Michelle Pualani: That to me is like, so outside of my scope of awareness and what I mean, you know, like you do video games. I don't do video games. Like I, I do not do video games.

I used to play, you know, when you're younger you play like Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers and like, you know, fun stuff with your friends. But I've never been into video games. But that is a huge industry. So if you think that your niche is too niche, trust me, it's not, there's an audience and people who want it.

Joanna Newton: It is way, it's way not, there's always that like little group of people that will want whatever it is you, you have, um, you just have to find them. I wanna share a subscriber story from someone who subscribes to us on. [00:09:00] Substack, I almost said subscribes to us on click Tees who subscribes to us on Substack.

We've been spending a lot of time over on Substack. We post like a weekly, like really nitty gritty like takeaways from this episode. We take that and we say, okay, here are the five things that you can implement in your marketing this week. We have people who found us over there. And every single week I ask, Hey, what are you learning in marketing that I can share on the podcast? And the conversation happens over there. So if you're not on substack, find us there. Look for those posts. We'd love to shout out what you are doing in your marketing and what you are implementing, and share your story here on the podcast. But one of our subscribers, her name is Marissa Malson. She's actually an author.

So this is a great segue. To talk about. She's an author and she shared that she recently did an in-person event to talk about her book and sell her book, and she shared that at that event she sold more books than she has ever [00:10:00] sold on Amazon. Ever. And that the conversation and what's happening out of that, people are talking about the book and more people are coming and buying the book.

Um, and I think this is so significant because so much so we are obsessed with our online presence. I'm not saying you shouldn't have an online presence and a website and a Instagram and a social account and all of those things. Obviously those things you should be working on, but we often forget about some of like the original grassroots ways of marketing. Do an event, go to a conference. Find a place to speak in person, like do that in person work and she had a big payday from it, from being there and getting people to buy her book. And then the residual effect is there are more purchases and word of mouth that continue to happen and I think we want to, don't get me wrong, it'd be great if you post one Instagram's post and get a thousand sales.

That feels would feel really good. [00:11:00] But there's something about being in person that I think can make a big impact on your business.

Michelle Pualani: I think we're seeing that huge shift with marketing. I'm seeing a lot of like popup style events and gorilla style marketing tactics that people are choosing to take part in. I think it's curiosity and intrigue, right? Like. Online we're heading more towards a place of like transparency and behind the scenes and virality that the content that we're seeing.

It is kind of so over the top, like it's absurd. It brings me to my example today, which is Pringles. So they had a slogan. Once you pop, you can't stop. They've shifted and just kind of pivoted the slogan to be, once you pop the pop don't stop. And the commercials and social media content that they're creating right now is really leveraged towards the Gen Z audience of like.

Weird, quirky, funny type humor. And then they've started choosing flavors that are more in alignment with like [00:12:00] what's trending, like dill pickle. That's like a super popular flavor profile.

Joanna Newton: I would like that. I love, I love Dell Pickle. Anything.

Michelle Pualani: We'll take it. I actually got dill pickle, like they were literally cucumbers with dill pickle, pickle, pickle flavor chips. There were cucumbers, like not freeze dried, but like dehydrated cucumbers.

Joanna Newton: I accidentally bought, this is totally aside, we can get back to Pringles in marketing in a second. I was at a, like we have a downtown local candy store and like I wanted like one piece of salt water taffy, so I like bought one piece of salt water tap and I thought it was watermelon, it was pickle, so it was a pickle piece of salt waters affy. And I was like, this is weird. But it was delicious.

Michelle Pualani: Huh. Interesting. Yeah. Pickle. That's like a flavor thing. There are these, these like trendy flavor things that happen. Side note. Cauliflower. Nope, not cauliflower. That's totally wrong. It's cottage cheese.[00:13:00]

There was one freaking recipe on TikTok. That went viral. That was like cottage, it was like high protein. It was like cottage cheese and ground meat and like some other stuff. I never made it. I, someone showed it to me once, but I didn't really pay attention to it. Cottage cheese ran out. We live in San Luis Obispo.

San Luis Bipo is pretty freaking small. It's like maybe 50,000 people overall. We're not in la, we're not in San Francisco. Whatever else we're in. San Luis Obispo. The fact that cottage cheese ran out locally for us considering a viral recipe is just mind blowing to me. The reach that some type of trend or what other people are talking about, how freaking powerful can be.

The whole pickle thing is like people, it's pickles have become. A flavor profile. It's like pumpkin spice, the marketing of that, the branding of it, the perception [00:14:00] of it, the, the way it's integrated into our culture and becomes this thing that wasn't there before. I think it's just so powerful and so interesting.

But the whole Pringles thing is from a marketing perspective, just leaning into something more quirky and humor based, humor cells. It breaks down the psychological barrier to what it is that you're trying to get your audience to connect with. I think that we're heading that way. We've talked about this before in terms of entertainment and what people want to see and how they wanna perceive, but there are a lot of opportunities from that viral piece of content to your in-person events that allow you to connect with people.

And I think that we're seeing this really interesting, unique blend of social media and how it's so important and how it's gearing the conversation towards. Purchasing consumers like cultural and society and kind of defining that. But then we're seeing all of [00:15:00] these in-person opportunities and curiosity and like unique creative ways of getting people's attention.

Like we're in a really interesting place of like the sky is the limit. There's so much opportunity. I think people are really taking advantage of that creativity.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. I always think about how like big businesses, like big corporate business marketing could learn a lot from local grassroots marketers, and then local grassroots marketers could learn a lot from the big businesses because you. lot of times people who market for big consumer brands, they talk to each other.

They look to each other, they follow each other's strategies. Local businesses do the same thing, and when you grab strategies from like a different niche or area, it can be really surprising and interesting. One of the things I was talking to my husband about, like literally last night. an idea that I had for like local marketing for a local bakery near us. Because when you look at, when [00:16:00] you look at big box, big chain bakeries, um, one highly due to like crumble cookie. And what Crumble cookie did, a lot of them do specialty limited releases. So crumble Cookie literally has like five or six desserts at a time. Cookie Choices, they have a new menu. Every week. So you kind of have to keep an eye on what's going back.

You wanna go back when your favor is there and it becomes this like conversation that happens, right? Reviews happen. There's all of this content that goes around with it that gets people excited. And I was thinking about how local bakeries. Often have desserts and things that are probably 20 times better than what is at Crumble cookie.

But because Crumble Cookie's National and there's this big conversation, there's all of this talk, and I just think why doesn't the local bakery. Have something unlimited menu that changes every single week that they make a big deal out of and talk about [00:17:00] and say, oh, this is the week we have such and such dessert.

Come get it. It's only available this week. When we run out, we run out. And if they get into that trend of kind of following now they don't have to only have five cookies because if they're a local bakery, they have lots of things, but they could take that crumble cookie, national change strategy. Infuse that into their marketing and get people showing up every single week to try the new thing or the new flavor, or keeping an eye on their social to know when their favorite thing is coming back.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah. It's not just about using tactics that you're familiar with that have traditionally worked. It's about pivoting. It's about trying new things. It's about experimentation, I mean, entrepreneurship. I was just listening to. I, I have the app called Blinkist. It's, you know, they take books and they turn them into like just the core takeaways.

And so I've been listening to that in the car a lot recently and I was re-listening to, I'm pretty sure I've read the Lean [00:18:00] Startup like physical book. And so I was re-listening to the Lean Startup and one thing that they caught me. In terms of attention that they were talking about is the distinction between like an a fully operational business in terms of their focus, energy and activities versus a startup.

And startups will often try to run themselves like established businesses, and it just doesn't work that way. And sometimes vice versa, right? You have established businesses who are trying to do the startup model, but they don't. Apply to one another, like once you're in the established model, you can still experiment and trial obviously, but you have a baseline of what works, the foundation of your business and the practices and principles that you've built it upon, that you can execute with systems and team members and everything else when you're in that startup.

Phase or initial phases of trying to figure things out, which was where we are with, to be honest, is trial and experimentation. But you can take things from everywhere. Like there's this idea book that I read that [00:19:00] ultimately like problem solving and ideation in and of itself is simply an amalgamation of things that you've, that had like exposure to before.

So if you read a book that has an interesting story about this guy who was deployed in the military and he had this experience, and then you're listening to this lecture and you're learning about. Political science and then you, you, you know, have this conversation with this person who knows how to knit.

You're like, those things don't connect. Technically speaking, I mean, maybe the military and political science, but let's just say like you have these topics that don't connect, but ideation and problem solving and business. At its core is figuring out how to connect the pieces in a unique, interesting, creative way, and then present them for other people.

Right? And that's what like your marketing is, is you're just taking humor and connection and emotive storytelling and these pieces of tuning into what you're. [00:20:00] Audience, customer, client wants, desires, is interested in, is maybe struggling with at the time, and you're presenting in a way that helps them get to a solution.

For Pringles, they want you to purchase their Pringles, so how are they doing that? They're diffusing with humor so that they break down the barrier to purchase. They're connecting with you from a flavor perspective. They're creating. In the particular ad that I watched was this. Silly thing in a park where he does like the duck lips with the Pringles, which is the humor aspect.

But then all these, these, what are they called? Ducks. There's a word for it though. There's foul. All of these ducks come in and crown him is like royalty and it like lifts him up. It's kind of like the Red Bull has wings or anything that gives you the sense of identity where you're like, you're the top because of your choice or like what you're doing.

Um. The term for it. What? What is that term? It's when someone's [00:21:00] desire to be, it's like you're presenting. It's usually with like luxury products. Oh gosh. I'm blanking on it. It's a

Joanna Newton: think of it either.

Michelle Pualani: i'll, I'll think of it,

Joanna Newton: Yeah,

Michelle Pualani: but in any case, it's this, you're feeding into the identity of the person and who and what they wanna become, you know?

And so when you can do that, that is marketing What?

Joanna Newton: The King of the ducks.

Michelle Pualani: The king of the ducks. So you wanna be the king of the ducks. And I know it's silly and it's ridiculous, and we have this Gen Z energy and attitude and shift in like what people perceive as interesting or entertaining, which is definitely a change because I mean, ultimately, like I'm a decade out from that and to think like a 10 year gap.

In media, popular culture, entertainment and seeing some of the things that are released now. And you know, like I see that commercial and I think it's dumb, but that's not, I'm not their core customer. Right. [00:22:00] So anyway, understanding it, putting the pieces together, that's, that's a part of business, that is business that is marketing.

And it, it allows you to have that sense of like. Not worrying about, I have to do it this way, or I have to follow this tact, or I have to try this thing. It's like, give it a go. See what happens, you know? Yeah.

Joanna Newton: you have to be the CEO of your business, right? There's gonna be all of these strategies, all of these choices, and if you flip flop listening to what this guru says or that GU guru says, and you don't have any core mission, core values, core thing, you wanna drive forward in your business, you're gonna get all mismatched.

So it's about. the pieces that make sense for you and turning that into a marketing plan and a business plan and, and all of those things. Um, one of the things that I wanna report back about today is a previous topic we talked about on this podcast, which was the Cracker Barrel [00:23:00] rebrand. Now the Cracker Barrel rebrand, if you remember. It was a bit of a wild time. Um, cracker Barrel released a new logo. The internet hated it. There was all of this backlash and they reversed it. They went back to the old logo very quickly in response. This was such a big story that Donald Trump even was like, they should go back to the old logo. Um, it was a wild time.

It was a wild couple of days. Now what's really interesting, there's been some research done. the fact that shared that 44% of the posts, the negative posts created about what was happening with Cracker Barrel were by bots.

Michelle Pualani: I, so I saw these headlines. I did not look up the details. I think we need more information, so one. The first thing that comes to mind for me is the fact that psychologically, it's either [00:24:00] it, there's the bandwagon effect is at play here, but people don't like to be wrong or share incorrect thoughts. So there's a certain amount of momentum that comes with people's sentiment and we're in a place of public sentiment speaks.

Volumes. And so you don't wanna be the person on the outskirts who disagrees with the general public opinion, right? And so with the negative backlash that Cracker Barrel got, you have people who are jumping on that ship, not because they have an actual opinion about it, but because they're seeing other people.

So when you hear the number that nearly half of the negative comments were bought. Created. That just makes you wonder, okay, the other 54%, did they actually have a negative reaction or was it inspired because the majority opinion was speaking to a certain [00:25:00] sentiment in a certain way. If you, this is the, this is the psychological.

Case study or that this comes from is if you put two people in a room, one of which is a plan, and the other is the actual like test subject, and you're doing math on a board, two plus two equals four, right? They both agree. Anyone would agree that that's the thing. Now, if you say two plus two equals five, the person who is the test subject is gonna say no, it's four.

Now, as you start to add other people who disagree with that one person, so now you have four plans. As opposed to just one plant who's saying no, two plus two is five. They're gonna start to question, but they'll probably still speak up about it. Now when you have 10 or 12 people in that room versus one person and you say two plus two is five, and everybody agrees except for that one person who is the test subject, they're not gonna speak up about it because now you're at odds with the majority.

Tell me more about Cracker Barrel and the [00:26:00] bot situation.

Joanna Newton: well, I mean it's so, it's so true and one, this is, this is totally an aside, but like I am that person who would be like, no guys. four. And I think that's why I fight with people so much. Um, because like I will say the thing that like nobody wants to say, um, but I, I mean I think it's really interesting now the, the research study, like if you actually, so I, I read all about it and they really don't give you too many details on like how it was conducted and, and. All of that. Um, and really what the research kind of found that, like while yes, the negative backlash, the negative backlash was real, and the first comments in the initial wave were real, that it was really just. Elevated by these bot responses, right? That like the bots creating content that mimicked the other negative content, um, just like escalated the situation.

So the backlash was there, but it [00:27:00] became a much bigger backlash because of the wider conversation and the, one of the reasons they, they believe, they believe it was bots and they actually believe it was like a. Concerted effort from someone because the amount of posts that were the exact same thing, copy and paste from different accounts.

I think it was very, very similar content across, across accounts, which is really interesting, like why someone would do that. I really don't understand, um, like why someone would want to do that, but it just created all of this. This conversation. And it is really interesting too. I, I think as a consumer, like let's, let's not think of it as a marketer for a second, but like as a consumer, when we see things online to like not jump so fast, right? Because what you're seeing is not always true. I'll say this is particularly true about Facebook. I don't know if you spend a lot of time on Facebook, but I'm in some [00:28:00] like,

Michelle Pualani: I don't recently because I was finding, like, I was finding posts or pictures or images or headlines, and I was like, that shit can't be real. Like I can't, so it just felt like so much fake news and fake headlines that I just, I stopped consuming Facebook content. I'll actually say I, I looked through reels.

On Facebook because that's different. It's, you know, actually created by creators, but.

Joanna Newton: I'm on, I'm on Facebook for, really for groups. Um, like I'm in some groups for work related things, and then I'm in some informational groups for like, things I need to know about in my personal life. So I'm on Facebook for groups. I wish I could just turn off the posts and say, I just only want to see my groups feed because there are so many lies. And like I just see like, I'm like, it's like all fake news and I'm like, this is, this is wild. And I think when, a consumer of [00:29:00] content. You can really get yourself into trouble by believing everything that you see. So I think there always comes to a point, and I always do this before I make a makeup. Post or, and this is the more content creator side of things. Before I make a post or choose to talk about something on this podcast or share something, I always check sources and see if, see what the news is saying. Go look at the original post someone is referencing and actually get the real story before reacting because anger backlash just comes that may or may not be real, and what you are seeing if you go back to the source might not match it.

Now we can never be. Full with, with media, with news, we can never be fully aware of what's really true, really isn't what's really going on. But we can do our best to be educated, look back at sources and figure out what's going on before responding. Because how many people, you're right with the whole Cracker Barrel thing, were only mad because they thought someone else was mad, [00:30:00] but that someone else was not

Michelle Pualani: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a tough thing. I'm curious about like the technicalities, like honestly, bots, I know from a computer science perspective, I have really no awareness of what happens behind the scenes. Like for me, I turn on a light and there's electricity. I don't get the science behind it. My husband. I don't, when I use my computer and access the internet and I get on the interwebs and can search Google, I'm a consumer.

Like I don't understand the backend of it. I don't get it. I've seen code obviously, and especially now if you're using ai, there's a bit of code as part of that, but ultimately, like I don't get that behind the scenes. So the fact that someone had bots talking on different platforms about the negative aspect of this brand, I think is so interesting.

And what does that mean for the rest of our. Businesses and products and like, what's, how much of that is already happening that, you know, you, I, if you're a content creator, if you're a marketer, if you post on social media, [00:31:00] you have already received bot style comments, right? So like. What is the future of that as a whole?

Which brings me to actually, one of my main points is we have this very interesting, if you talk about like gurus and stuff, I've seen some of this content online is we've had this very interesting spike in surge in influencer marketing that is now either plateauing or actually starting to drop off.

And so it, there was like a, there's influencer marketing is very real. Still very much alive. It'll continue to be alive. Using people's likeness, uh, is powerful. People's personal brands that they're creating, uh, brands investing in and spending top dollar for. Endorsements from people that will continue to absolutely be a thing.

However, there was almost like a peak of influencer marketing when anyone could get away with charging a stupid amount of money for quote unquote, influencing their audience [00:32:00] without any like return on investment or numbers or metrics or anything else. I think that was like the heyday of influencer marketing, which is when we saw that like huge spike, I mean.

Just a, a great increase. And now the conversations that I'm seeing for brands and businesses is that. Brands are becoming more like their own influencers. So if you think of Duolingo, which we've talked about before on the podcast, is having the owl duo is the brand's influencer. So they don't necessarily need other people to influence in that way.

So I think we're seeing more like UGC content creation, I think is very powerful. A bit of a different approach, right? The person doesn't have to have their own audience. They can create content about the product, and you use and leverage that on your platforms or on your paid media channels, and then.

Working in a more like collaborative fashion with customers is I think the transition that we're gonna see. So instead of [00:33:00] paying someone $10,000 for a post, you are getting real world content from your customers, your audience, and your sharing that. I think it's the most candid, the most authentic, the most, uh, connection worthy piece of content.

You know, there's such a genuineness about it and people wanna see themselves. In your brand and in your business, right? That's the goal, is you're presenting your marketing, you're presenting your content in a way so that your ideal client, prospective customer, audience member sees themself in your piece of clothing using your product at home, getting that course or program, or in your coaching services.

So I think that's a huge shift that we're especially gonna see over the next few years is that influencers are still important. What they're able to do with brands is still important. It's still gonna be alive and well and continue to grow, but I think we're seeing a shift in focus away from spending like.

Again, $10,000 on [00:34:00] a single post by an influencer because brands and businesses aren't seeing the investment return on those things and be more geared towards how we can we get that UGC, that organic, that customer created content and share and disperse that.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. And a shift that I am, I'm noticing is a lot of the. A lot of the marketing gurus out there in the world who used to talk about working two hours a day and just magically getting all of this stuff are now talking about. Working and talking to people and networking. Right. Because I think there was a time, and, and honestly, I, I feel from my perspective, the gurus are actually like behind this trend.

They're starting to talk about it now because for them, the things that worked for them five years ago or the things that are, they're talking about now, or even 10 years ago, they talk about [00:35:00] now, and what they're talking about now is probably what worked for them five years ago to get them to where they are, but. I always felt like there was this disconnect. People are saying, just get a million followers, go viral. Pay money for a brand partnership. Pay money for ads, you will sell. But I never found that to be the case. When I worked in marketing, when I looked down what was actually bringing in the money, was the connections, the in-person events, the networking.

And I think one of the reason there's this disconnect is if, if you're working at like a corporate level marketing. What would always happen is the people up top would look at what the data told them, what Google Analytics told them. So they might say, okay, well our biggest channel is email email is where the sales are coming from, and it was this campaign and this campaign and this campaign. But then they're not seeing that, well, those emails. They came from the [00:36:00] hundred different in-person events that happened, and because Sarah talked to Scott and because Joe talked to Sarah and all of that happening, and yes, when you look at Google Analytics, the data that comes through says, well, that email campaign sold that, but it didn't.

Sarah did.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: such high school on Friday night. It's just that the email happened to come when they made that final conversion. So when you look at analytics and conversion marketing, that tells one story, but it it. Tells this tiny, tiny piece. So when you think, oh, that's all you need to do, get emails, you will sell, then you start getting shitty emails and then your sales go down, right?

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: it's not supported by the real, authentic in-person connections or marketing or even direct message or conversations or whatever that is.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, it's a quality basis is where is that person coming from? Follow account, email list. Any way in which you're engaging with folks is [00:37:00] what type of engagement are they willing to give you in terms of feedback, and what relationship have you created with them up until that point in order to have them take that next step with you, which you know.

I think it comes back to that gorilla marketing conversation, is that yes, the effectiveness of your ability to connect with people. I just had a recent client sign on with me and she's had like. Five or six touchpoints with me, you know, and, and over the course of, let's say, the past six months, and I don't actively promote my marketing and business consulting really.

There was a time when I did that more actively, but because I have to be honest. I'm trying to grow my personal brand and do more digital products on that front, so I don't take clients on and I don't push or promote for clients. But someone reached out to me recently and wanted to come on board with me, but I was doing a group presentation, kind of a group conversation, kinda like a group interview podcast with.

This guy [00:38:00] and I had actually, I'd done a presentation in her group. She had me on her podcast. She had listened to other stuff that I'd done. She knows me like locally here in town, and I've never once po propositioned her or said like, yeah, like I take on clients, but she's the one who's inquired with me.

And, but it took a while. It can be that way for some people, and you just have to think about cultivating and building that relationship. And every time you get in front of someone, like what are you positioning in front of them? What are you talking about? How are you engaging with them? That type of thing.

So yeah.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. It's

Michelle Pualani: Oh wait, this is the other point. Sorry. I got derailed. I got derailed, and this is the.

Joanna Newton: really good story, but I think we lost. Lost a piece.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah. The, the piece that I wanted to actually bring up is that keep in mind that data and analytics is often also delayed. Like, like just to what you were saying. When you search up a lot of statistics, data analytics, information about general [00:39:00] topics industry, your niche, you're typically looking at sometimes six months to a year previous.

So some of the things I was seeing about influencer marketing was really the growth of it in 2024. It's October of 2025. We are 10 months out from when that data even came. To the forefront. So you have to keep that in mind. It's like, yes, if you're looking at your stats from the past seven days, okay, maybe that's more relevant, but also keep in mind that some of the stats and data that people are sharing with you could have been from a 90 day period, and that's when they, they went viral on the 60th day.

So just keep in mind that with numbers and metrics, there is a timing factor. That was my point.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, there is 100% a timing factor and there is a reality that your marketing attribution analytics are imperfect and they don't tell the whole story. And I've seen, like [00:40:00] I've seen companies make blind like layoff decisions, strategy decisions that almost tanked. A major company like I worked for a company, they made blind hiring, firing decisions, not hiring, just firing decisions off of analytics. They fired all of the wrong people because the analytics told them to. They. Lost more money then had to fire the people they thought were the ones that were making the money and turn the ship back to the way it was originally organized. Like, and, and then now they're doing okay, but they almost. They almost went out of business following the data too blindly without looking at the whole picture.

And if you're a small business owner, that what that, what that can mean for you is if you're looking where your, your data is coming from and you're wherever your money's coming from and you're too obsessed with your analytics, you're gonna [00:41:00] miss the thing that's probably actually driving your business forward, which could be that networking and, and all of that. Um, and so it's important to keep that in mind. One of the stories I read this week was about. Instapot, um, do you have an Instapot? Do you know what that is?

Michelle Pualani: Actually, I do have an instapot. Yeah, it was a gift for our wedding and the best gift.

Joanna Newton: They're amazing. I have one, I I love mine. I don't really like Crockpots because one, I have to plan way too far in advance. Like, how am I supposed to know at breakfast time what I wanna eat for dinner? Like that is beyond me. Um, and then also I, I don't love the texture of the food. A like meat just gets, I can't even talk about it, but the instant pot, like if you're making pulled chicken or pulled pork, the texture is still that of meat.

That was like slow cooked in an oven versus like. it's delicious. You should go buy one if you don't have one, because [00:42:00] they're really good. They also make great rice. Um, but Insta, Insta Pot was growing like crazy. They got purchased by a private equity company in 2019. That private equity company merged it with like another like kitchenware company.

And the company was valued at $2 billion in 2019. A few years later, they became $500 million in debt and filed for bankruptcy. So they went from private equity acquisition, $2 billion company, $500 million in bankruptcy. And what's interesting about this story, there were like two, two problems that happened.

One, the. N instant pot was too good. People did not need to repurchase them as fast as anyone thought. So the growth stalled mine, I don't remember. I actually, I do need a new one, I've had it for like, I don't know, seven years, right? Like I've had like the [00:43:00] same thing for a very long time. Um, I do need a new one.

'cause like an, anyway, that's a not related story at all, but it was too good. People didn't need to buy them as fast, so they spent a lot of money investing in new products. Nobody wanted. And got in debt over that. one of the things that I think companies can really struggle with is. Trying to have growth for growth's sake. growing doesn't make you more money. Sometimes growing doesn't make you more profit. And one problem I think we have in business in America overall is private equity companies because they come in and you, they have to have growth. Someone comes in, they buy a company, they wanna see growth. So if then you don't see growth, you have to do. Anything at any cost to see that growth and that essentially. Bankrupted Instapot. Now there's [00:44:00] in their bankruptcy, they're still able to operate and sell. So they're not completely gone. But depending on what happened, it could have completely tanked the business. The the product could be gone even though it was a good product.

People loved should have been profitable. Their bad business decisions and their desire for growth sake for growth for the sake of growth, tanked it.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, I mean, business and entrepreneurship is a risk overall, right? You cannot really see. E or Predict You can hope, but I, I was just listening to this on my Blinkist app is Amazon Unbound, I think is the name of it. And it's kind of an assessment of Amazon's trajectory. It's not specifically about just Jeff Bezos and.

Over the course of something like Amazon, apple, et cetera. When you look at those big brands, there are failures, massive failures in innovation that they released. I think they, it was an Amazon fire, I think it was like a phone [00:45:00] type deal. I wasn't super familiar with it, but that was one of their products that tanked.

But then they have Alexa, the in-home AI conversationalist, I don't even know what to call it, actually. The box that talks to you. And, and the Kindle, of course, which is incredibly successful. And then of course, everything else that Amazon does, which is huge, but. Sometimes you can see the writing on the wall as a business owner and entrepreneur of where things are going, and other times you can't, like you can't really tell.

So with something like Instapot, it's a great product, but the rate at which you can sell those products might not match your production and manufacturing because you expect it to grow at an X rate. I'm in the CPG world because of, to be honest, and I talk to a lot of founders and a lot of brands who, one of the number one killers for CPG brands is growing too fast because they can't support [00:46:00] the sell through in terms of their brand awareness and what it is that people are looking for.

Even if you can't supply, let's say you get into a hundred stores, but then you can't manufacture it, like there's an, there's an issue. So there is a lot of thought. Planning and strategy that definitely has to go into the business practice of being able to maintain a business and a brand. This is actually the client example that I wanted to close on is one of my consulting clients has a local brick and mortar location.

It's a salon and we're working through goals, one of which was to actually open up a second location, but then. Having some conversations with their partner. They don't actually wanna open a second location. So quick note is that you may have goals that you're working on right now that don't actually align with what you want and the lifestyle you're trying to build, or the business that you're trying to create.

So it's always good to go back to the drawing board and reassess what those goals are. So, okay. We [00:47:00] resettle the goal on 10% revenue increase, and then we start talking about her rent that she charges for her contractors. We're talking about her boutique and physical sales. We're talking about her memberships.

We're talking about like all the aspects of the puzzle in which creates revenue and builds the business. And there are already ways in the business in which she's giving up revenue or hemorrhaging money in the company, so she could automatically have that 10% without. Doing any more marketing without bringing any more traffic.

Without gaining any more clients, memberships. And so the point of this being is that sometimes you have to take a step back and look at where am I spending money? What is the profitability of my company, of my brand, of my business? How am I delivering that? Do I have team members because I'm an agency?

Am I a service-based person? Do I have like software tools, things like that as a part of the puzzle. Am I spending too much money in a place because I'm hoping for something [00:48:00] to come through for a while. I did that in my, when I was doing health and fitness, I had products and programs that were out there on the digital marketplace for sale related to fitness bar health coaching, and I kept investing in.

An agency for $10,000 that was gonna set me up with this thing that was gonna be able to sell at this rate. And oh my gosh, it was so fantastic. Six months, zero output, or the next best course, the next best program, the next best mastermind, coaching, et cetera, that was gonna guarantee this in my business.

You've just gotta look at like where are you spending money? How are you making money? And how can you optimize those things and reduce your overhead cost in places that don't need to actually have the spend? And how can you increase the revenue right now, either by increasing your rates or figuring out like capitalization on assets that you're not leveraging right now as opposed to thinking, 'cause everyone comes.

At [00:49:00] least from my perception is that from a marketing perspective, everyone comes with, I just need more. I just need more traffic. I just need more eyeballs. I just need more clients in the door. Whereas, yes, that can solve the problem, but it's that bucket analogy is like if you have a bucket that has a bunch of holes in it, you can put as much water as you want, but it's never actually gonna.

Sustain water. So if you're, if your practice isn't profitable, it doesn't matter how much you put in. If you're always spending $101 and making a hundred, you're always gonna be in the red. So there is this. Overarching, you know, topic that we cover in terms of marketing and personal brand and content creation.

But at the end of the day, the foundation of that is business practices and principles that set you up for business success. And that can look different for everybody. So it's important to, again, come back to the drawing board, assess those things, and see what you might need to shift or change because of that.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, more isn't always more [00:50:00] right? We think we need more customers, more sales to make more money. that sounds logical, but it's not for me and my business. Um, when I've like lost a retainer client that I felt like was making up a lot of money, I didn't realize how much time it was actually taking from me. then when I lose that retainer client, the next month, our sales are bigger. And we had better profit. Like it's, you don't always, you can't always see it when you're in it, and you have to take that step back. Um, in, in our business this year, we've decided to phase out a whole product line because we realized it wasn't actually making us money.

And again, the stress, it, it was making us money, but the, the stress, the energy, all of that was taking away from energy. We were putting elsewhere into something that was actually. More profitable and more enjoyable and more in line with what we wanted to [00:51:00] do. So we think, oh, I've just gotta get more clients, more customers, new product lines, new things. And it can, it can thank you like it did with Instant Pot. They said We have to have more products, more this, more that. Caused too much debt, took away from their, what their core was, right? Which maybe if they went more into like recipe books and accessory, you know, if they went in a different direction, that growth might have not been as fast, but wouldn't have put them into bankruptcy.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah. Or a subscription box that had, that had the tools in order to consistently use your Instant Pot. I think that's where businesses and brands, even digital Services Miss Out, is you've sold them this thing and you just expect them to use it. How can you then better support them as a customer and consumer of that thing so that they can take advantage of the actual thing?

So let's say you have your Instant Pot, you use it once a week. Well, if you actually had a subscription box with. [00:52:00] Pre-planned foods, which are becoming very popular. Totally didn't talk about it today, but side note, there's a bakery online platform that does subscription boxes across the us, 31 million in annual revenue to send people par baked pastry items.

That's it. Brilliant. 31 million in annual revenue because of that. Okay, I digress. I think we should probably wrap it up.

Joanna Newton: week. We should talk about subscription boxes.

Michelle Pualani: We should talk about subscription boxes. I think they're huge. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. It is the next level. Uh, I, I can talk about so many. We'll bring a few different options to talk about all the ones that we see in terms of like what they're doing and how they're doing it, and yeah, that's huge.

So

Joanna Newton: I

Michelle Pualani: thank you so much.

Joanna Newton: Fix.

Michelle Pualani: What?

Joanna Newton: I got my sweater on. Stitch Fix.

Michelle Pualani: Oh, I love that. All right. Super cute.

Joanna Newton: Subscription boxes. It's happening.

Michelle Pualani: It's happening. So if [00:53:00] you're not yet, hit subscribe. Check out the show notes for the Substack so that you can get our core takeaways and get actual, tactical, tangible ways to implement what we talk about on the podcast in your business.

Thanks so much for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.


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Joanna Newton

Co-host
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Michelle Pualani

Co-host