- 7 weeks ago
Join us as we dissect the legendary marketing philosophies of Steve Cone. From his executive seat at Citigroup, Cone reveals why standard advertising fails and how to transform boring brands into magnetic powerhouses. We explore his three secrets: attractiveness, fresh content, and the urgency to act, while analyzing iconic case studies from Ernest Shackleton's brutal honesty to the shocking subscriber threats from Rolling Stone. Discover the six hidden reasons to advertise beyond just finding new clients, including motivating staff and poaching competitor talent. It is time to stop using clichés and start stealing ideas that drive success. Start winning now.
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00:00Most marketing is a waste of money because it follows the rules of the board rather than the
00:04psychology of the bold. Welcome back everyone. I am so glad you're here. Grab your coffee,
00:12maybe a notebook, or if you're driving, just turn the volume up a little bit because today
00:17we are going to perform a heist. We are diving deep into a book that is essentially a manifesto
00:23for theft, but not the illegal kind. We are talking about intellectual theft. We are talking about
00:31Steal These Ideas by Steve Cohn. And let me set the stage for you here.
00:37Marketing, branding, advertising, whatever you want to call it, is usually taught in this very dry,
00:43academic vacuum. You go to university, you learn the 4PS. You look at charts, you look at spreadsheets,
00:51and you treat human beings like data points. But then you have Steve Cohn. Steve isn't an
00:58academic. He's a heavyweight. He's a guy who has spent 30 years in the trenches at places like Citigroup,
01:05Fidelity, American Express. He's managed global brands across a hundred countries.
01:11And his central premise is refreshingly arrogant and incredibly generous at the same time.
01:17He basically says, look, it takes two generations to master the craft of marketing through trial and
01:24error. You don't have that kind of time. So, just steal my ideas. Steal the things that I have
01:31already proven work. So, for the next hour or so, we are going to deconstruct the brain of Steve Cohn.
01:38We are going to look at why most marketing is invisible trash, and how you can make yours
01:44magnetic. Let's start with the core philosophy. Cohn argues that we are living in a world of
01:50absolute chaos. Traffic jams, noise, smartphones buzzing, emails pinging. The human brain is under
01:57siege. In that environment, good is not enough. Okay is invisible. To actually work, any piece of
02:07communication must satisfy three specific elements simultaneously. He calls these the three secrets,
02:14but really, they are the three pillars of survival. Number one, attractiveness or appeal. It has to be
02:21magnetic. It has to physically stop you from turning the page or scrolling past. Number two, freshness.
02:29It cannot be a cliche. It has to be something the eye hasn't seen a thousand times. Number three,
02:36motivation to act. It has to give you a reason to stop your life and by right now. Now, that
02:43sounds
02:43simple, right? But think about the last time you saw a bank advertisement. What did you see? I bet you
02:51saw a middle-aged couple, wearing beige sweaters, walking hand in hand on a beach. Right. We've all seen
02:58it. It's visual wallpaper. It means nothing. It tells you nothing about the bank. It just tells you that
03:06the marketing department has a subscription to a stock photo site. Or think about car ads. A shiny car
03:14on a wet, winding road. Or a burger chain showing a perfect, steaming hamburger. Kohn calls this
03:21lazy marketing. It fails the freshness. Test immediately. It's invisible because it's expected.
03:29So, how do you fix it? Well, Kohn says you steal from the greats. And he gives us this incredible
03:36example from 1913. It's the Ernest Shackleton ad. Now, if you know history, you know Shackleton was
03:44trying to recruit men for an expedition to Antarctica. It was going to be hell. If a modern HR department
03:51wrote that ad, it would say something like, Exciting opportunity for travel. Competitive salary. Team
03:59environment. Shackleton didn't do that. He wrote an ad that was only 37 words long. Listen to this text.
04:07He wrote, Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete
04:15darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.
04:22That is magnetic. Why? Because it's brutally honest. It breaks the pattern. It offers something
04:30that money can't buy. Glory. It's fresh. Because nobody advertises death and danger. And the result?
04:385,000 men applied for roughly 50 spots. That is the power of breaking the cliché. Let's fast forward
04:46a few decades to the 1950s. Kohn talks about his own father, who wrote marketing letters for Hugh Hefner
04:54at Playboy. Now, imagine you are a man in the 1950s. You get a letter in the mail asking you
05:01to subscribe
05:02to a magazine. Usually, that letter comes from the editor or the circulation department. It's boring.
05:10It's corporate. So, what did they do? They stole the idea of personal connection.
05:17They wrote the letters from the perspective of a Playboy bunny. They included photos of the bunny
05:23and her friends. The letter was signed by the bunny. Suddenly, it's not a transaction. It's a
05:29relationship. It's appeal, in its most primal form. Or take the Rolling Stone example from the 70s.
05:37Hunter S. Thompson, the gonzo journalist, wrote a renewal letter. Now, renewal letters are usually
05:44polite. Dear sir, your subscription is expiring. Thompson wrote a letter claiming that the magazine
05:51was his only source of legal income, and if the reader didn't renew, he'd end up in a slum-drinking
05:58nitrous oxide. He literally wrote, I know where you live, in huge letters on the envelope. Was it
06:06professional? No. Was it magnetic? Yes. It was funny, shocking, and fresh. It cut through the noise.
06:16Now, you might be thinking, okay, that's great for Playboy or Rolling Stone, but I run a serious
06:22business. But here is where Cohn pivots. He argues that we need to fundamentally rethink why we
06:29advertise. Most people think advertising is just about getting new customers. That's it. But Cohn says,
06:37no, there are actually six hidden reasons to advertise, and if you ignore them, you're missing half the
06:43value. First, you advertise to motivate the army, your internal staff. Think about it. If you work
06:51for a company and you see a cool, powerful ad for your employer on TV or online, you feel proud.
06:57You
06:57walk taller. Cohn suggests showing ads to your staff before the public sees them. It builds morale.
07:05Second, you advertise to reassure current customers. This is huge. When you buy a BMW, and then you see a
07:13cool BMW ad, you feel smart. You think, I made the right choice. A lot of so-called new business
07:22is
07:22actually existing customers buying more because the advertising reminded them why they like you in
07:27the first place. Third, obviously, is acquiring new customers. But Cohn is very specific here. You need a
07:36call to action. A phone number, a website, a deadline. Don't just be pretty, be useful. Fourth,
07:44and this is a sneaky one, you advertise to recruit competitor talent. If your marketing is bold and
07:51exciting, the best people working for your boring rival are going to call you. They want to play on
07:56the winning team. Fifth, it generates PR. The media loves to talk about great ads. If you do something
08:04wild, the news will cover it for free. And sixth, building brand awareness. Just being famous.
08:12So, when you look at that list, you realize that a boring ad doesn't just fail to sell a product.
08:17It fails to inspire your staff. It fails to scare your competitors. And it fails to get you free press.
08:25The cost of being boring is astronomically high. Let's look at an industry that was notoriously boring,
08:32airlines in the late 70s. Cohn calls them. Buses in the sky. It was a commodity. You get in a
08:40tube,
08:40you fly, you get out. Business travelers were miserable. Then, someone had a fresh idea, frequent flyer
08:48programs. Now, here is the lesson on. Stealing. Penn AM was the last major airline to get into the
08:56loyalty game. They were late. In most industries, being late is a death sentence. But Penn AM launched.
09:04World Puss. They looked at what everyone else was doing, and they just made their. Appeal. Better.
09:12They made the rewards richer. They made the tears more exclusive. Experts believe that program alone
09:19saved Penn AM from bankruptcy for an extra decade. The lesson? You don't have to be first. You just
09:27have to be more magnetic than the guy who was first. Now, I want to transition into the second
09:33chunk of this book, because this is where Cohn gets into the nitty-gritty of execution.
09:38We've talked about the philosophy. Now let's talk about the money.
09:42There is this prevailing myth in business that cheaper is better, especially in direct marketing.
09:49If you can send an email for free, why send a letter? If you can send a postcard for pennies,
09:55why send a package? Cohn destroys this myth with the story of the $7 letter. This is the 1983 GOP
10:04fundraising campaign. The Republican Senate committee was doing what everyone else did,
10:09sending out mass-produced computer-generated letters that cost about 50 cents each.
10:15They looked like junk mail. They felt like junk mail. And they got a junk mail response rate,
10:23maybe 5%. Cohn comes in and says, Stop. He convinces them to spend $7. $7. Per package.
10:33In 1983. That is a fortune. They sent these packages to 200,000 donors. But look at what they sent.
10:42It was a FedEx-style envelope, sent via priority mail. Inside, there were two pages of embossed
10:50gold leaf stationery. Not cheap printer paper. Gold leaf. And a large color photo of Ronald Reagan.
10:58And here is the kicker, a personalized, handwritten note. Now obviously, Reagan didn't write 200,000
11:06notes. They had a team in Massachusetts replicate the handwriting perfectly. Why go to this trouble?
11:13Because when you hold that package, it feels heavy. It feels expensive. It feels like the
11:20President of the United States actually cares about you. It treated the donor like a VIP, not a statistic.
11:26The result? A 40% response rate. They raised over $2 million. They crushed the Democrats that year.
11:36The lesson here is high-value personalization. If you treat people like they matter, the return on
11:42investment justifies the upfront cost. Cheap marketing signals a cheap product. Expensive,
11:49thoughtful marketing signals value. This leads us into the concept of archetypes.
11:54How do you trigger an emotion? Cone gives us three masterclasses in emotional manipulation,
12:01and I use that word neutrally. First, authority and fear. American Express Traveler's Checks.
12:08For 25 years, they used Carl Malden. Now, Malden had played a police officer on TV.
12:15He had that gravelly voice, that nose, that look of authority. The ads were simple. Someone loses their
12:23money on vacation. Disaster. Malden steps in. This could happen to you. It was pure fear,
12:31resolved by the authority of American Express. They held 75% of the market because they own the
12:38emotion of security. Second contrast. The mean, Joe Green ad for Coca-Cola.
12:45You remember this? Huge, terrifying football player, limping off the field. A little kid
12:53offers him a Coke. The contrast between the scary giant and the innocent kid is what makes it work.
12:59When Joe Green smiles and tosses the kid his jersey, it melts your heart. The message?
13:05Coke equals happiness. Even for a scary giant.
13:09Third, humor and tactility. Charmin toilet paper. Toilet paper is boring. It's a utility.
13:18How do you market it? They created Mr. Whipple. A grocery store manager obsessed with stopping women
13:25from squeezing the Charmin. It was ridiculous. It was annoying. But it was genius. Why?
13:34Because it made the customer think about the softness of the product. It made you want to
13:39touch it. It took a boring product and gave it a physical sensation. Cone is telling us,
13:46don't just describe your product. Find the emotion. Are you selling fear? Are you selling warmth?
13:53Are you selling the desire to touch? And speaking of boring industries, let's talk about finance again.
14:00In the late 90s, Cone was at Fidelity. Investing is dry. It's numbers. It's scary.
14:09Cone decided to disrupt it by bringing in Peter Lynch, a legendary fund manager, but pairing him
14:15with comedians. Lily Tomlin. Don Rickles. Think about that combination. A genius investor
14:23and a comedian. It made the invisible product of investment management feel accessible.
14:29It made it human. It wasn't just a chart. It was a conversation. The phones rang off the hook
14:36because it was. Different. And that word, different, is the heart of branding. Cone takes us back to the
14:44etymology of the word. Sincere. It comes from the Latin sign sir meaning, without wax. In ancient Rome,
14:53dishonest marble merchants would use wax to fill in the cracks of bad stone. Honest merchants would mark
14:59their stone science sir, without wax. It was a guarantee of quality. It was the first brand promise.
15:07Cone says that today, your brand needs to be that simple. In fact, he has the one-word rule.
15:14The greatest brands can be defined by a single word. USA? Freedom. BMW? Performance. FedEx? Reliability.
15:26Volvo? Safety. If you can't define your brand in one word, you don't have a brand, you have a mess.
15:34You need to be unique. You need a unique selling proposition or USP. And this brings us to the
15:41third chunk of the book, which is really about how you find that. Big idea. Cone says finding a USP
15:48isn't about sitting in a boardroom with a whiteboard for three days. It's about observation. He tells you
15:55to carry a pen and paper everywhere, to weddings, to the gym, everywhere. Because the ideas don't come
16:01when you force them. He suggests a strategy called contrarian positioning. This is brilliant.
16:08Look at your competitors. See how they define themselves. Then, go to the exact opposite end
16:16of the spectrum. If everyone else is selling low calories, you sell great taste. If everyone else
16:24is selling luxury, you sell value. If everyone else is selling speed, you sell safety. He gives this
16:33great example of a dentist. Most dentists market themselves with pictures of teeth or chairs.
16:39Scary stuff. Cone wrote a line for a dentist that said,
16:43You come first. Your teeth come second. Boom. Differentiation. It says,
16:51I care about you as a human being, not just a set of molars. It humanizes a clinical service.
16:58But once you have that idea, you have to be careful not to overload the customer.
17:03This is the rule of three. Cone argues that even if your product has a hundred amazing features,
17:10you must only talk about three. The human brain cannot handle more.
17:15If you list ten things, the customer remembers zero. If you list three, like ease of use,
17:21reliability, and service, they remember all three. You have to edit yourself ruthlessly.
17:28And finally, let's talk about the messenger. We touched on this with the playboy bunny and
17:34Carl Malden, but Cone goes deeper in the third section. He talks about the power of brand
17:40representatives. We are hardwired biologically and historically to follow leaders. We look for faces.
17:47We trust people, not corporations. That's why a spokesperson is so powerful.
17:54Cone talks about John Houseman for Smith Barney. You might remember the line,
17:59delivered in that stuffy, aristocratic voice. They earn it the old-fashioned way. They earn it.
18:05That line stuck for twenty years. Why? Because Houseman embodied the
18:10old money archetype. He looked like he knew where the money was buried.
18:16Or look at Colonel Sanders. He wasn't just a mascot. He was the founder. He was a real person.
18:24That builds trust. Cone outlines a rigorous framework for this. You can't just pick a
18:30celebrity because they are famous. They have to embody the values of the brand.
18:35Carl Malden worked for Amex because he projected authority. If they had hired a comedian,
18:41it wouldn't have worked for traveler's checks. You don't want a comedian protecting your money.
18:47You want a cop. So, let's pull this all together. What is Steve Cone really telling us in?
18:54Steal these ideas! He's telling us that the safe path is the dangerous path.
19:00If you do what everyone else is doing, if you use the cliche stock photos, if you write the polite
19:05corporate letters. If you try to save money by being cheap, you will be invisible. And in a noisy
19:12world, invisibility is death. He's inviting you to look at history, at Shackleton, at Playboy,
19:19at the GOP, at Penn AM, and treat their strategies like a buffet. You don't have to reinvent the wheel.
19:27You just have to take the wheel that works and put it on your car.
19:30You need to find your appeal to stop the traffic. You need freshness to keep them looking. You need
19:39motivation to make them act. You need to differentiate, whether that's through a $7 letter
19:45or a funny mascot. And you need to simplify it down to one word, one feeling, one face.
19:52Marketing is not about spreadsheets. It is about psychology. It is about emotion. It is about the
20:00science here, the truth without the wax. So, here is my challenge to you today.
20:06Take one piece of marketing you are working on right now. Maybe it's an email, a website landing
20:12page, or a pitch deck. Look at it. Is it invisible? Is it a couple walking on the beach? If
20:20it is,
20:21tear it up. Steal a page from Steve Cohn. Be dangerous like Shackleton. Be personal like the
20:28playbook bunny. Be authoritative like Carl Malden. Stop being boring. Start being magnetic.
20:36Thanks for listening. Go out there and steal something great.