Click through to the good bits.

00:00 Introductions/ Catch ups.

06:19 What’s in the marketing news?

09:49 Twitter $8 verification plan.

35:38 Airbnb search-averse marketing strategy.

47:41 Hospitals cyber warning.

59:49 Movio marketing videos with generative AI.

Martin Henley
Hello there, my name is Martin Henley. This is the effective marketing content extravaganza. And if you haven’t been here before, you won’t yet know that I’m on a mission to give you everything you need to be successful in your business, or your sales and marketing career. Providing, of course, what you need to be successful in your business, or your sales and marketing career is to know much more about sales and marketing, and be motivated to implement it much more effectively in your business. Because that is what’s going on here. I’m here giving you everything I know about sales and marketing, I am pulling in anyone I can find with experience relevant to this you be successful in your business. Through the talk marketing series, we are reviewing the very best and the very worst of marketing content on the internet.

Martin Henley
If all that sounds interesting to you, you should know that every other week we bring in Melanie Farmer, the concierge of crazy might work. We look at the marketing news and we speculate wildly about what it might mean for you, in your business or in your career. So if all of that sounds interesting or useful, you should like share, subscribe, comment, get involved, because that will give us the motivation to carry on today is Marketing News. So we do have the concierge of the concierge of co creation at Crazy might work. Its Melanie Farmer. Good afternoon, Melanie farmer.

Melanie Farmer
Here I am. With the most unhelpful title of all time, but I love watching you attempt to say it anyway. Thank you, Martin.

Martin Henley
It is the most least helpful in every aspect, except in the very rare, completely unimaginable instance, where somebody in their business decides what we need is a concierge of co creation. And actually Google’s I can’t believe there is another concierge of co creation in the world. Do you believe there is?

Melanie Farmer
I don’t think so. That’s partly the reason that’s what I’m called. But I’ll tell you what is bad for me is it my LinkedIn keeps on suggesting all these jobs is concierge service. So if I wanted to, you know if anyone wants a job as a concierge, just ask me because I do have a lot of suggestions.

Martin Henley
Okay, you are messing with the matrix, that’s what’s going on says that you need to, you need to be a little bit more informative, you need to fit in a little bit more you need to be you know, you guys did pay for me to deliver some marketing advice for you. And I did tell you to be the thing that people are looking for. And I’m quite, quite happy to tell you I was looking for a concierge or cocreation. I mean, there’ll be hard to describe what you do otherwise, like genius, innovation type stuff. Genius innovator, maybe it’s time you for a promotion.

Melanie Farmer
Yeah, that’s interesting, the director of something disruption.

Martin Henley
Yes, I think disruption is making his way into job titles. Now, Chief disrupter and those kinds of things.

Melanie Farmer
That’s true. There’s a whole paper on that about, it doesn’t have to be disruptions more at create the future rather than disrupt it. You’re actually up to the future when you create it. But the word disruptive suggests you’re gonna shut everyone else down, which is not necessarily you know, not necessarily that feel free to do it. But it doesn’t actually have to be the reason why you disrupt.

Martin Henley
No, it doesn’t. It’s interesting. I’ve been delivering innovation and transformation in the last couple of weeks. I’m doing that again next week. I’m interested in all these topics, all these subjects, I think it’s really, really interesting and useful. The fact of the matter is, you’re not waiting for people to come and find you if you’re out there in the world doing all this great stuff. So you don’t need to be what the world is looking for. But that does tie in a little bit with my stories this week, that idea of being the thing that people are looking for. So that’s interesting. We normally have a little boast if you’ve got a little boast for us this week?

Melanie Farmer
I got a new Toyota Corolla hybrids.

Martin Henley
The last time we spoke, you can say

Melanie Farmer
Still excited about I’ve just discovered that all these cool things at the dash so it looks like a special. I’ll give you a second one though, is that we just were sharing the job of being an emcee on the international humans in space Summit held in Sydney, which was amazing just, you know, people who are 3d printing pharmaceuticals for very bespoke purposes. There’s the guy I was designing the search and rescue ambulance service on the moon. I now I’m very worried about lunar dust far more than Martian dust. So yeah, I mean, I could bore you about this stuff now because it could it was just so interesting.

Martin Henley
Cool. That’s excellent. Do I have a boast? I was teaching I was working with sa rather than teaching a Saudi Arabian bank last week about innovation and transformation. And next week, I will be working with a telecoms company, talking to them about sales and digital transformation. So I’ve been quite busy actually working, which is a bit weird for me. It really is a bit weird. And I think

Melanie Farmer
You’ve got a pretty good rating, I believe for your work.

Martin Henley
They scored me 88 out of 100. I think that’s good. I think that’s good. But it’s actually my lowest score this year.

Melanie Farmer
Always score 88.

Martin Henley
I think it’s a bit weird how much I enjoy this thing and how people how much people enjoy me doing this thing. It’s really cool. If anyone’s interested to have me come talk about digital marketing, or work with your people, digital marketing, transformation. Now all those things. I’m really enjoying it. I’d really love to come and do that wherever you are, whoever you are. Okay, cool. So that was a shameless brag and a shameless little pitch. That’s what I do.

Martin Henley
We’re not here for shameless brags and pitches, we are here for the news, what’s caught your attention, Melanie Farmer?

Melanie Farmer
Um, I look at this as sort of little things. There’s so many things going on with Twitter, of course, so it’s time to get the popcorn and enjoy the show. So doing Twitter at the moment, but I’d quite like the ins and outs of what they’re doing with identifying official accounts, which, of course, was one of the big signals of value of Twitter as a platform in the lead up to its purchase. So, you know, the idea of putting on little blue checkmarks to say that you’re official, and then having real grey checkmarks to say that your official official as in you might be President Biden. So a government official. It I think it’s really interesting, because you don’t have to pay for this checkmark, $8, I have very mixed feelings about the idea that you have to pay to be recognised as official. But I also look at as a user of Twitter, I’m grateful to be able to go on a bet gives me some, some conflict. But you know, but then again, it’s only who’s who’s paying $8? I think it’s a really, you know, it seems like a lot of money if I’m honest, really for that.

Martin Henley
Okay, well, let’s not go too far into it, because I’ve got a view, obviously. So we will talk about it. What’s your other story?

Melanie Farmer
Other story is the, the AI models, so replacing the need for an actual model, my videos, move to actually, you can create your own artificial intelligence model who can endorse your product, which is really super creepy, in my opinion, and bad news for anyone who had a modelling career that they now have to abandon, because AI is taking?

Martin Henley
Yeah, there’s always ups and downs with these things isn’t there? I’ve got two stories. My first story is about Airbnb. And what they are saying is that sales are up 29%. And it’s interesting because they’ve got a theory as to why that is. So that’s one of my stories. The other story is that okay, that’s good. I’ve just highlighted the whole story, you know, I’ve got this highlighter that I’m playing with. My other story is that hospitals have been warned about using third party analytics tools, from people like meta with the meta pixel, Google Analytics, Adobe analytics, all these kinds of things. So I’m interested to talk about that. So now we have to prioritise the stories. I think Mobio with the AI models should be last is my feeling. I think that’s the least impactful story. Twitter is probably the biggest story. So maybe that should go first. And then so we’ll sandwich your stories with my stories. I think Airbnb, everyone wants to know how to be more successful, and then the hospitals thing, so we’ll do that.

Martin Henley
So what’s going on then over there at Twitter at that Twitter?

Melanie Farmer
Well, putting aside the other 10 stories we could talk about with Twitter where he’s walking in and say you lose your job, you lose your job, you lose your job. That aside, this is about actually verifying accounts, so they are charging money $8 per month to verify this gives you the opportunity to buy and then therefore display it a prestigious, blue checkmark. So yes, I just think that is a lot of money just to say I’m real in your platform. That’s my opinion, I just see it’s shocking in that pletely. Offensive. You know, even if you are real, so if you if you go yesterday, if you scroll down, you’ll see this is a stiff province. A little bit further down, you’ll see what it looks like. So you’re basically getting a little, almost texting on startup a thing you that that’s blue, and then they’re putting a grey tick, or a grey flag, sorry, for those that are official accounts, or E government bodies and so forth. So it’s actually identifying accounts as you scroll through your Twitter feed through this process, so there’s speculation in this publication in social media today that it’s elevens way of having a bit of a dig at journalists who are not not getting the grey mark, they’re getting there. They’ve got to pay to have a blue tick and all that. So they’re just that their views are not as valuable as anybody else’s. More valuable, I should say. So here’s here’s Esther. And then if I think you scroll down, you’ll see her tick. Because she actually did she, sorry

Martin Henley
She paid it or she hasn’t paid it?

Melanie Farmer
She hasn’t, she hasn’t. So I told her. But I think I sent you another link, which takes you to Joe Biden as an example, because he he, his account presents you with a nice blue checkmark. So you know that that’s actually him. And then a little grey flag to say United States government official. But I feel like this whole idea of, you know, challenging you to declare your that your official. I mean, if you’re not official, and you pay what happens then. So I’m just gonna have many questions about this whole thing. I don’t get a check. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, can I just go in and say, I’m Biden, he’s $8. And then next thing, you know. So I just wonder how robust that system of verifying those people who are paying money to have a checkmark?

Martin Henley
Okay, well, let’s think about it logically, there will at least be budget to make that a robust system. So, yeah, so the way I’m understanding it, I mean, I am enjoying now, two weeks ago, three, the last time before last, when we spoke about it, I was sick of it. But now it’s happened. I’m really quite enjoying it. And famously, people are reacting to this idea that you have to pay $8 a month. Let’s think about that a little bit. I mean, I could talk about this all day. What I said two weeks ago is this is one of the things that they will do. AOC Alexandria, Alexandria, Ortez caught, whatever her name is AOC, let’s call her AOC. She tweeted saying something like this is an abomination. It’s blah, blah, blah. And Elon Musk replied, thanks for your feedback now pay the $8. So I kind of like it. There are some blue check people. So it’s changing is what’s going on it is changing. I mean, you can’t say it’s not changing. So simply check people have have done what you said.

Martin Henley
They basically pass themselves off as Elon Musk. So they changed their name to Elon Musk, and have now been banned from Twitter, because it’s always been against the rule to pass yourself off as somebody else. So everyone’s trying to be a bit clever about this. I think, I think it has to happen. Like if people are putting their money in their pocket to say I am this person. There is nothing more real than that. You know, I mean, necessarily, if they are passing themselves off to someone else, or if there’s a public figure, they get this other flag, check whatever it is. I tell you what struck me what one thing if we put it the other way round, we say okay, is it worth $8? The question then becomes can twitter deliver $8 of value a month? You know, and I think it could, I’m thinking about like A month ago, we were talking about how they were making money off child abuse material. And we were both saying we might cancel our accounts. Now I’m thinking I might pay the $8. Because I’m seeing that what this does is it cleans up the major issue, the major issue is that the thing’s full of bots.

Martin Henley
So if you only want real people, get them to pay $8 a month, you know, it’s enough to verify not verify the verification is something else. But that is a person. Because spammers aren’t necessarily going to pay what is that $96 A month to spam people. So it fixes the issue. And the thing that occurred to me is, it’s not very much money, because but the thing is, it’s such a big change, it might not make sense like this, there are something like 220,000 Blue checks already. So if it’s eight times 220,000, it’s $1.6 million a month, which when you’re running, I mean, it is $12 million a year. But what do we think the ad sales is 4.4 billion. So it doesn’t seem to me like it’s very much money. But if I could get a verified account for $8 a month, I think I could get value out of Twitter, if it was $8 a month, and it wasn’t just rammed full of, of these things. There’s other things that are going on that are maybe more interesting, like, apparently, he’s bought in his 50, top programmers to sort it out. He’s laid off half the staff they were employing, is it 7500 have been laid off? In which case, why were there 15,000 People there? What on earth are they doing? What on earth are 15,000 people doing? And also,

Melanie Farmer
they were moderating.

Martin Henley
Yes. And now because they’re not required now? Because now they’re just going by the First Amendment? You know, I mean, it’s free speech, unless you’re causing harm. So, yeah, so I think that’s interesting. I saw him interview today, on a short, I think, Instagram. And he’s saying, why don’t we have a super app, you know, like, the Western world doesn’t have a super app, like in China, everybody lives on WeChat. And it is their chat service, and it is their broadcast service, and it is their payment service. And it is all their stuff. And and so basically saying, that’s what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna make Twitter into a WeChat. So I think people are way too sensitive. I think people are way too polarised. So you either love Elon Musk, or you hate Elon Musk. I am sitting in the middle. I’m a marketer. And like I said, two weeks ago, I think it’d be really cool if we actually had a usable social media platform. Because it seems to me that Facebook, Twitter, Google, all of them have been delivering much less value than they possibly could. So I think there’s real opportunity for improvement here. And I think this is like an interesting step in the right direction. It just doesn’t seem like enough money for me, like if it’s $1.6 million a month. I mean, it’s huge money for you and I but for, but I mean, now if they only employ seven half 1000 people that might be you know, is a significant amount of money. I don’t know. That’s what I think I’m thinking about paying the $8

Melanie Farmer
Whereas I’m very annoyed that let’s say I’m a big fan of Coca Cola. And I would like value from Coca Cola, Coca Cola, my favourite country company has now got to pay Twitter who are not massive fan off some of their money for something that should be free in my opinion. This is why why is Twitter

Martin Henley
It’s $8 A month Melanie farmer you and I are not going to miss $8 a month and they will and that people who are verified not people who are currently verified nobody who’s currently verified is going to miss $8 A month including AOC point is not the point but that’s what the point you’re making.

Melanie Farmer
No, my point is not the actual figure but the fact that this should be even $1 Like why I think that Twitter Who the hell are you You are supposed to be a company that is delivering me so when I gone there, Coca Cola is Coca Cola and now you are charging my favourite company and whatnot. You’re charging people money for this your job Why are you just milking other your customers for something you should do? You bastards? I’m really angry about it. Honestly. It’s okay. Because it’s a bit like put it this way. And they’ve done that I was a greengrocer I’m selling you stuff. You come along and and and then you’re bought I’m trying to think of an analogy but it’s like and then I’m going to charge the people Giving me the apples for to be able to say it’s their apple. It’s like that’s my job is to verify that apple before I sell it to someone in my job,

Martin Henley
okay.

Melanie Farmer
Yes, yeah, take some take some responsibility for your own platform. That’s what I think it’s like you should be charging these people. I think it’s important, and I liked that there’s that there’s a checkmark, that’s cool, because I thought, Okay, well, that must be helpful. But I also think how robust is, if people can still, like there’s always a way to fake a check. And then in then you’ve just now what a perpetuated untrustworthy jetmark. So I’m not confident in that either. with it.

Martin Henley
It’s great to see so animated. I really like it.

Melanie Farmer
Piss me off, I tell you. Okay,

Martin Henley
so let’s unpack this a little bit and see if we can assuage some of this rage that’s coming from VA. Okay, so you’ve heard the phrase, if you’re not paying you are the product. Have you heard this?

Melanie Farmer
Now have noted that,

Martin Henley
oh, so this is the behind the whole this is the social media business model is like they give it to you for free. And then they essentially sell you as data to the advertisers. So I don’t think I mean, I did say this was coming two weeks ago, you didn’t seem to be so animated about it, then. I mean, but the thing is, yeah, so if you’re not paying you are the product, this is what this is, like, a commonplace statement. So I think the idea that, you know, if you can get $8 of value out of it, then pay the $8. And if you can’t, then don’t, and it’s like that is business practice, that’s the way the world works. The thing I think about it is, what’s the thing I think about it, nobody who’s on Twitter, I think can’t afford to pay $8. And you don’t have to pay the $8, you just won’t be verified. But then what will happen is clearly they’re gonna have categories.

Melanie Farmer
We’re saying, If I’m Coca Cola, I’m not going to be on Twitter. If you’re worried

Martin Henley
about Coca Cola, Coca Cola, I’m not sure if $8 a month, I probably want to in the top five, most odious brands on the planet, they’re not delivering any value to anyone.

Melanie Farmer
I have no option. You can’t be on there without a checkmark. And you’ll have to pay this guy. If you’re a brand. You have to You’re forced is not an option. It’s a non option. So he’s tech. That’s what I don’t like is there’s no choice. It’s not fair.

Martin Henley
You have you can’t be on Twitter now. Without this blue check.

Melanie Farmer
No, I understand that. But if you want to be careful cola as an example, right, but any big brand, you have to have a degree can’t be.

Martin Henley
Because if you’ve chosen the worst example, Coca Cola, go back to the green grocer. If the green grocer has gained $8 a month of value out of Twitter, and he can afford to pay the $8, then he should pay the $8. And if he can’t, he can continue using it without being verified. You know. So that’s not I don’t think

Melanie Farmer
it’s mandatory. It’s mandatory. It’s not it’s not mandatory. Coca Cola as an example, kind of any of these. It’s not about the money, it’s a fact that they don’t actually have the option because there is no one that Coca Cola marketing going. No, why should we have to pay? Well, now you’re on there unverified, therefore, you’re absolutely not Coca Cola, and people will just, you know, whatever. So yeah, basically, forced, you’re forced mandatory, and I don’t let someone know, business should say to another business. Is this or is this all out? I don’t think that’s unless they’re like, illegally, whatever they’re doing illegally. But you know, I mean, it’s not it’s not it’s not

Martin Henley
I don’t know what you mean. Because when you went and bought your shiny new Toyota, they didn’t give it to you for free. They said it’s either pay the money or don’t have it, you know, this is actually business. So this freemium model is like, is a new thing. Like there were no businesses giving anything away for free 20 years ago, this freemium model was Don’t you think

Melanie Farmer
of it that way, as a freemium, you need to do this thing, and then you’ve now got real and people can trust that you’re real.

Martin Henley
Real is that you have that you are committed and paying for the service that you get. And it’s quite simple. You don’t have to be on Twitter at all. You don’t have to have this verification, and you don’t have to have the, the, the, the grating, either. You know, it’s like, if you get value out of it, pay the $8. Like, what do you get for $8? And the amount, I think it is important because if they said it was $150, okay, if they were saying it’s now $1,800 a year to use Twitter, okay, that’d be a different thing. But what we’re talking about here is a couple of coffees, and if you don’t get the value out of being verified in that way, don’t do it. They’re not going to kick you off. But now what they’re going to have is they’re going to have three tiers of participants.

Martin Henley
So they’re going to have people who are completely unverified, no one has any idea, people might suspect that they’re bots, I would say that those accounts are probably more at risk, you’re going to have a whole raft of accounts where they’re going to be paying $8. So at least you know that they’ve got some money in the game. So those are maybe a better class of participants. And then at the top, you’ve got what you’ve got now, which is these new grey flag, oh, great checks. I really am struggling to see why you’re in such a mood about this. Because they’re not being forced, like Coca Cola, are spending billions of dollars every year on protecting their brand. So if you’re saying brands now have to find another $8 A month or $96 a year to protect their brand, if they’re a brand they can afford $96. It’s not like they’re saying Coca Cola, we’re going to demolish your brand. And unless you pay us there’s $96. It’s like, you know, do it or otherwise, I think the decision wasn’t that hard for Coca Cola to make if they decided to do it.

Melanie Farmer
I agree that it wasn’t hard. I’m not annoyed about $8. I think it’s like, of course, you should have it and blah, blah, blah, earned value. Yes. What I am saying is I don’t think I feel like it’s this company has made something happen that produces a mandatory spend non optional spent, I hear what you’re saying about well, they wouldn’t spend it if it’s not value this, however, any of these big brands, they can’t not be on Twitter, because someone’s going to be on Twitter being then. And I don’t at the moment, trust that Twitter has it all together in terms of like, we are not going to you can’t be Coca Cola, unless you are Coca Cola. You can’t be this. If what? So I feel like they are just going well, let’s let’s give them money. Let’s get their money within our beers. And if they say their Coke, they got paid to be coke. And it’s just as an example, right? But any brands and that’s just one everybody knows

Martin Henley
why not AOC at least AOC is like nice to people.

Melanie Farmer
Let’s do it bring peace. But you know, what, no, rather than donating to Greenpeace, I’d rather than $8 went and feed somebody then bloody, they have to pay this fee mandatory because they can’t know because I would be if they need to protect their brand. So if I think if I come to the Greenpeace site, and I don’t see a checkmark, I won’t trust what is on there, because I’m gonna think that well

Martin Henley
green. So you’ve got a suspicious mind.

Melanie Farmer
That’s what people are gonna start to do. And that’s going to be bad news for poor ol bluebies who have to pay the money to avoid that result. And I think

Martin Henley
even coin Pease are gonna miss $8 a month, here’s the thing. Twitter has been a steaming pile of toxicity for how long, 1520 years, we spoke about what they make an ad sales $4.4 billion a year, I was astounded. I spent a lot of my career, my early career, certainly selling advertising. This is the Twitter was the worst advertising proposition in the world. You know, it was lucky to be lucky to be making that money. So there is going to be change. If somebody’s going to fix this. I think he is taking responsibility. I think he’s been there 20 minutes. And I think the proposition is wholly reasonable. I am excited that now there might be a social media platform that will actually benefit me and my customers.

Martin Henley
You know, I’m excited about that. I’m thinking, I’ll support you with $8 a month not because I get anything like $8 a month of value out of Twitter currently, I probably do already. Because we post things there we get traffic etc. But because I’d like to support the idea that somebody at last even though if it’s only Elon Musk, and I don’t particularly enjoy Elon Musk, somebody stood up for the first time in about 15 years, and said, I have a positive vision for this for this for this platform. And if the start of it is everyone who wants to be anyone can be verified now. Because before you had to be ordained, so anyone can be verified. Now you just pay $8 a month, and there is no better verification. For me. They’re saying here, it’s not really verification. If you’ve got my bank account details, as verified, you know, I’m not going to be on there. spreading hate speech, or racism, or any of those things that people do on these platforms. If you’ve got my bank accounts, if you’ve got my bank account, you’re 100% know who I am. I think it’s wonderful that you are so animated about this.

Melanie Farmer
But verify. I love the check mark. What I don’t love is the sense of mandatory I don’t like that about anything, but I do love the check mark. So I’m just trying to say I do love the direction in every other way. I love that he went in these heads are rolling and he’s fixing stuff and he’s bringing in these people. I love the grey checkmark. Lots of people don’t. I think it’s very helpful and actually means for me As a consumer, I can really engage in underserved. All right, that one’s checkmark then I love it. It all I’m concerned about is that I would I feel like that they i feel like i How am I supposed to necessarily do things? One? Do you want to trust the way do I trust the way that they’re arriving at the giving a person a checkmark or can easily also still,

Martin Henley
but this isn’t the check mark is it because what they’ve done is they’ve actually just introduced another tear. So the checkmark, that has always been the check mark is going to be there, it’s going to be this grey flag thing. Now, that’s if you are politician, celebrity, blah, blah, you’re still verified in that way. And now there’s a whole raft of other people like you and I, who could also say that for $8 a month, I want to, I want to communicate that I’m an actual person. Because the issue is, the whole thing is drowning in bots. And it’s somewhere between 5%, my estimation is 50%, somewhere in between that is absolute junk, and you have to wade through that junk to get to anything useful. So if it fixes that issue, then it’s worth $8 a month to me

Melanie Farmer
really be but I do feel like they should they’ve got enough money, fix it yourself. Don’t be perhaps

Martin Henley
spend $64 billion

Melanie Farmer
he has. And it’s you know,

Martin Henley
that’s maybe that’s it, maybe he hasn’t got any more money to do that. The thing is, how are you going to do this? How else? Are you going to do this? If you’re not going to ask people to pay? How are you going to fix it? You know, this is the quickest, most efficient way to do it.

Melanie Farmer
Maybe there is and I know that the reason reading some of the press about it is that it’s actually bank account details means that we know who said x and what and you know, if if somebody is going to pay and put their account details down, then we can absolutely say that’s an identity versus random whatever. So so but they’ll only give you those details if you are actually doing a situation with charging and seeing a transaction take place. So I see that is a solution. But I do feel like I just think if I don’t like the idea, for example, that my favourite charities, let’s say I donate, for example, $8 a month to water aid, which I happen to donate to water. And I have mixed feelings about them giving it to Twitter, you know, as an example, like if you know, if you looked at it that way, that’s where I’m at my father, they gave it to bloom in putting a well somewhere. And

Martin Henley
there is a cost of doing business and WaterAid is a brand and they have to protect their brand and $8 a month isn’t so much. I mean, especially if I mean, what does this do? Like? The conversation we were having two weeks ago or a month ago, where advertisers were pulling out of Twitter because their adverts were running alongside images of children being abused. Maybe that is the way to fix this issue.

Melanie Farmer
Yeah, well, I do wonder as well, if, like, what’s gonna happen with those ads? Are they still like, I mean, I don’t know. Right? But is that gonna? Is that gonna surface because they weren’t paying or what? Like, I don’t know how those trends because if presume advertising is paid. They’re not only getting free advertising. So they already have those people

Martin Henley
pay. Yeah, they pay

Melanie Farmer
anything except that’s, you know, like, yeah, so they take step up and get rid of those people.

Martin Henley
So now you’ve got three tiers. So you’ve got the verified, which we always had, you know, those people unless they do something of hate speech, racist speech, harm, speech, whatever you want to call it, something that’s anti non constitutional, you know, it’s defined what free speech is. Providing, they don’t do that. They’re golden. You have the middle tier who’ve committed we know exactly who they are. Probably wouldn’t want to do that anyway, because you know, they’re invested in Twitter. But we know exactly who they are. So they probably won’t do it. So now what they’ve done is they’ve taken they’ve got these three tiers of people, it’s the non payers, that you now have to police. Because the non payers are the ones who aren’t committed aren’t No, no, the only ones that are still anonymous. So then you put you put, it’s going to be the majority, probably still, but now you only have you’ve already identified where they’re likely to be, you know, so I think it will resolve all sorts of issues.

Martin Henley
And I think the only thing that blows my mind still is that you don’t understand that it’s mandatory that you pay businesses for services. You know, it’s rare that you get a service out of business, for no money. And if you’re not paying them, then you are the product, you know, they’re selling your data. So the thing is, you blown this because we were supposed to do this in 40 minutes. This week, we spent half an hour arguing about whether they should pay $8 for Twitter, not here’s my last word on it, if it fixes the issues, if it actually provides us with a social media platform that could be valuable to me when I’m marketing myself I’ll pay the $8 a month. Absolutely, happily, absolutely happily. And I think this landscape has been devoid of anyone with any idea of how better to deliver value. Look at Mark Zuckerberg, he hasn’t got a clue how to fix these issues. Look at Google, they haven’t got a clue. Look at LinkedIn, they haven’t got a clue how to fix their issues. Here we have a new broom he’s coming in. He’s saying, Okay, you want to be some kind of verified it’s $8 a month. It’s not mandatory. You don’t have to do it. But if you want to do it, then it’s $8 a month, and all the people who are verified anyway, the 220,000 of them, they just go on to this great, great flag thing. Anyway. I that’s what I think.

Melanie Farmer
Excellent. We should move to your next story, I think.

Martin Henley
Okay, let’s move to my next story then because these are tied in they’re always kind of tied in. So here’s the story. It’s all highlighted. particularly useful. Okay, so Airbnb says it’s search reverse marketing strategy is working. Airbnb posted his most profitable quarter to date attributing part of its success to its pivot away from search marketing and toward brand campaigns. The company’s revenues were up 29% year over year, performing above analyst estimates, they decided not to do search marketing back in 2019. This has meant an overall reduction in ad spending, which fell 28% According to the CEO, 90% of traffic comes directly not through the search engines. And so this is interesting. There’s a mark that shows that digital spend advertising spend is our travel ad spend is pretty consistent. The differences this one, what’s this the percentage change travel search ad spending. So you can see, it’s climbing again, what’s interesting to me about this is well, this kind of ties in with the other thing. I’m a digital marketer, teach digital marketing. You know, I’ve told that I’ve been telling people forever, this is just about buying customers. When Jonas used to come and have these conversations with me, he was saying that they’re moving also towards like a branded thing. Tom Brees, like 18 months ago was saying to me, like it’s gonna go back to branded, because the data is gonna get so much less valuable. It seems to be happening. I’m kind of interested. The interesting thing for me is the paradox. I say this all the time, I really believe it. These platforms could provide unsurpassed value to businesses that are looking to be proactive with their marketing. They could if they were focused on this thing, they could be delivering extraordinarily cost effective customers, to businesses all over the world, every business that wanted to engage. They don’t they’ve gone missing, they’ve left their lane vacant, you know. So that’s maybe why I’m excited about what’s going on at Twitter, because at least it seems like something is happening in terms of idea. And I don’t know, innovation and customer centricity. So there’s a particular issue about search and a travel advertising, which is Airbnb, Airbnb, booking.com, TripAdvisor, all of these things, it’s all bought and sold, it’s actually what is it, it’s a closed market these days, you know, you’re never going to pay to be the top of a search anywhere in the world, even for the name of your business. So I like this, I think hopefully, this will be an indicator to these brands that they could and should be delivering more value, because actually, they’re not the only game in town. And if you need to be an established brand like Airbnb to maybe pull it off entirely, but you haven’t got a hope. If you’re a local brand, if you’re a local hotel, you can’t you like search doesn’t work for you at all. So they’ve sold it wholesale to TripAdvisor, booking.com, those other ones. And maybe this is the result. It’s just not actually one of those a brand on that scale, has said no, we’re not going to we’re not even going to play in that market. What do you think?

Melanie Farmer
We did some work with Hotels Combined a few years ago. And yeah, I mean, I think they they were, they’re a really innovative brand, I think. And I mean, they’re hiring someone like crazy to come and work with him. But they they really added very different value. And I think Airbnb do as well. And I would say with Airbnb, they are now at the age for a brand that people would go direct. Whereas when they started, they would have been like, who are they? So I think there’s a time and a place I wouldn’t kick off in year one expecting everyone to find you you know. So there is a journey, I think with brands. And the other thing is that although they are attributing their 29% growth to this switch from search to brand marketing, we have to remember that for two years, no one could travel no All of a sudden, the world is starting to go back, which is what happens with any pandemic, and then we all travel. Because we’ve missed out for some time. So I, I just want to how much is attributable to the fact that we just didn’t in 2019? That was the end of travel for two years. And then, of course, it’s gone 29%, you could have done nothing and Senegal, percent in this year for me. So I do wonder how much is directly attributable and how much they might? You know, I’m not saying that it hasn’t. It’s not because of that, but, but I do look at the context within which those decisions are made and the timing of those decisions anyway, with the growth that’s happening in the industry across the world, so, but they’ve made some very smart decisions during the pandemic, where they were selling, like, for example, online cooking lessons, and this is I’m very good at pivoting and saying what value do we have? And to your point, you know, if you’re not paying your product, they really did leverage their assets effectively, when they could have just said, No one travelling at sea and Tabas. They they doubled down and said, Well, what can we give people when they’re locked up, or we can give him access to these local people in other side sides of the world, and they can learn to cook or speak a language or whatever it is it there’s there is to offer. So yes, I also hear what you’re saying, I know, Hotels Combined, were actually they ended up being a place that would direct people. Like they, they they got a lot of business from booking.com in the end and others when really, so they switched from being someone who would, you would find via somewhere to being someone who you would, you know, they became booking.com in a way themselves. And what they did in adding value was that they they worked very closely with customers, things like if your flight is cancelled, they would know your preferences, and only show you stuff that you know, fit your preferences. It’s a very basic thing. But it created a lot of loyalty. You know, for example, if you if you really didn’t like kids, and I’m not going to recommend you like the local hotel, where you know, there’s a lot of families, it’s family friendly. And also near the airport, to where if you’re, if your flights cancelled, you’re probably going to get back on it soon. So we’re not going to send you off to the other side of the city. And so it was a lot more instant customise what you need when you need it based on your interests. And that was something that others were doing. So for example, with booking.com, I use it a lot. But I wouldn’t say it knows my preferences, or has even asked me what they are. So it just shows me random things of places I never intend to go. And it’s my job to filter. Whereas Hotels Combined is a lot more. You’re going to love this. Now it’s not to say that you can’t say take off my preferences and show me everything. But it already knows where I am at budget wise what I’m likely to enjoy or not enjoy in my writings and stuff as well.

Martin Henley
Yeah. It’s interesting, because I mean, what these aggregators have done booking.com tripadvisor the other ones that won something about an hour? I don’t know. Yeah, 12 to 15% of those markets, you know, that’s what they did. So the the hotel, the accommodation will pay 15% Commission to those aggregators. And and the search engines have sold it to them, like you know, so you’re right, the only way you can market yourself, I mean, search is just not available to you. You can only do like the super cute, local marketing and hope that people experience you that way. Because they’re not going to find you unless you’re on booking.com. Because you’re never going to be at the top of the search engine. I don’t think anywhere in the world. You’re going to get to the top of the search engine, if you’re searching for any kind of accommodation about booking.com or

Melanie Farmer
Hilton, they’re like, you know, page 10 search engines.

Martin Henley
Yeah, and also for the name of your business, your business. So if you are Howie Villars happy villas, I don’t know, Phuket. Then they will outrank you for the name of your business. And so this is then when you start. I mean, this is when he really question well, can we even invest in brand marketing? Because if people search for us, they’re gonna find booking.com and they’re gonna give them be given 100 different options. And, you know, if they use us, they’re gonna take 15% I don’t Yeah, I think they could be offering much more value. I don’t think they should have sold out the aggregators in that way. I agree. He hope that more brands start to think about if they need to be spending money on these digital channels. And if they don’t, then maybe open it up for the rest of us, you know, I mean, and I hope that Google or the other search organisations will get the message and actually make it more user friendly, you know, like, advertiser friendly, and actually consumer friendly.

Melanie Farmer
I want to go and find happy villains put get, I would rather click on their site directly, because in the context of the last couple of years, several times I’ve tried to book something and only to discover they’ve gone bust or complete, different offering. And so what I find on for example, booking.com, it’s, of course, is bound to happen. And I actually forgive them a bit, give everyone a bit of a break, because this has been an extreme situation, but you know, stuffs out of date. It’s not right, the pictures are different. They’ve been renovated, for example, and this is not what I looked at two years ago, and the price has tripled what’s going on there. So once you dig in Otter, so I have in the last sort of few weeks been trying to find the original happy fillers Phuket, for example, in the different categories that are looking for, and and they’re like, on page three or something. And you know, part of that can be the amount of budget they have to optimise their own with. Yeah. But also, you know, is the time when everyone else is like, double down and you’ve just been online digging, digging, do you know, where’s their actual website? I can’t even find it. So that’s where it’s, it is frustrating for someone who wants to go and see like, are they still in business? What’s actually going on there?

Martin Henley
Yeah. I think it’s broken. And I think it needs to be fixed. And maybe if brands start voting with their feet, then like, why doesn’t the Hilton just not? It’s, I think, at that level, it’s lazy. You know, like the Hilton could actually go to war with these aggregators and say, Look, we’re not going to pay you 15% Commission, they’ve probably done a deal where they pay 5% or something ridiculous. But then your total cost of sale? So maybe, I don’t know. I don’t know. Should we go into my third story?

Melanie Farmer
Your team was paying them $8 a month. Do you think that was? What was happening?

Martin Henley
Hilton could afford $8 a month? I’m a bit worried about you worrying about $8 a month do you need $8 A month if you really need it?

Melanie Farmer
I’m doing well. That’s gonna be my brand. I got Martin Henley.

Martin Henley
Okay, good. All right. My next story, this is the next story. I feel like a bit of an idiot about this. I’ll be honest with you. Okay, so it’s coming from mid city news. This is where I go to for my marketing news. Hospitals should be wary of using meta pixel and other third party analytics tools. ECR I recently issued an alert warning hospitals about the cybersecurity risks associated with the use of third party analytics tools such as meta pixel, Google Analytics and Adobe analytics. When providers instal these tools on their websites and patient portals. They may be exposing patient data, which tech companies can use to target medical related ads to consumers as they browse the internet. This exposed patient data may be misused to tailor advertisements based on consumers medical conditions, these inappropriately target advertisements could push unproven treatments and lead patients away from seeking appropriate care. According to the alert, exposing patients sensitive information could also result in fines, legal action and patient distrust of providers. The alert pointed out the issue I have with this is course this is what they’re doing. Yeah, it occurred to me until I read this article. It’s like so what we do Google Analytics, for example, I’ve never quite got the fuss about Google Analytics in terms of privacy. Because all we see is the IP address. Now the IP address might refer to like might be the IP address of a company. So the for example, you can buy IP finder type services, and you can see who it is but you don’t get to know who it is in that company. Someone in that company was looking at your ad or your website or something or Yeah, so I’ve always never really been got particularly got the thing, the the issue, like the the European Union are going after Google Analytics hard. But of course, what they’re doing is they’re tagging people with cookies, so when they come on your website, it’s like so for example, my one customer is a metal supplier. So when they go on their website, they’re like, Okay, well, this person is interested in metal. When somebody buys an ad, they’re gonna get an ad from us, you know, I mean, you So this for me is more. We’re doing with creating websites, we’re putting analytics on websites to market our company more effectively do you know I mean, not to provide ads targets for the social media companies. And of course, this is what’s going on site because you’re not paying for it again, maybe they say it’s fair game. But I don’t want I don’t create a website and put Google analytics on it. Because I want people to be more aware of my competitors. I do it because I want to be more successful. So now, my view of these platforms is now diminishing of both ends, they’re not adding value when I’m an advertiser particularly well. And actually, when I am just, okay, so this is where it really gets meta is where I pay to have people I pay Google to have them come on my website, and then goes like, Oh, those people are interested in that will advertise to them more. Do you know what I mean? So I don’t know what the phrases, they’re in both ends of the spaghetti. You know, and not particularly useful or valuable ways.

Melanie Farmer
Like, effectively taking your visitors data and for their own end or something.

Martin Henley
Yeah, don’t becomes their product, like the people who visit your website become their product to sell advertising to. And obviously, this being Medical is the worst case, because now they might get to know something about people’s medical conditions. Well, let’s not pretend this person with an IP address has Googled this thing. So Google knows what it is. Do you know I mean, they have then gone through to your website, Google knows exactly where they are in your website. They know what they’re looking for. They know all the other searches they did that day, that week, that month, or whatever. So this is how what are they doing that in the what are they doing? Where you’re attacking somebody from both sides at once? Burning both ends of the candle, no, mobilising, cannibalising Yes, cannibalising. So again, the objective isn’t to deliver value for their customers, the objective is just to make as much money as they possibly can. Because I would argue both of those business models are perfectly valid. But the most valuable way is when you empower your customers to be more successful, so they’ve got more money to spend with you. That is like, if you’re going to be a smash and grab company, that’s good do that for as long as you get away with it. But it will be only for as long as you get away with it. If you’re actually going to be developed delivering value for your customers, then the idea is that they will become more sustainable businesses, they will be your customer longer, they will have more money to spend with you, they will have more faith in you, they will invest more money in you, you know, I mean, so it’s these companies right at the top of the food chain, who are just grabbing every cent they possibly can, however they possibly can, with no regard whatsoever for the value that their customers take away from engaging with them.

Melanie Farmer
I think this should have been our first story, because what alarms me about it is that is the possibility of those who who might actually suffer? Because they’ve invested in a product that hasn’t been tested, say yes. And, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s like a class action right there. If that’s happening at scale, I wonder how you could trace that back. And but that’s what you could see happening, right, there’s a drug out there, all these people who are desperate, are typing in kidney something, and then some kind of, you know, a collection potentially of drugs for that, that are half baked, land in, in everyone’s Facebook feeds and so forth. And those people are going to try anything. And then now they’re they’re dead, you know, or whatever. Worst case scenario, right? And how and then we were, we’re going after the company who made the drunk. And is that the right place to attribute all of the responsibility? I don’t know, right? Because I think what I’m hearing is there’s, there’s a little something else in there, which is, well, there’s also that where the hospital the origination of this data, how that data is getting out, and then how it has been used, and then how it’s been used for secondary, secondary and tertiary level. But then the results so to me, it’s a system that has a it’s a unvalued chain if you like, see this data going through several gates unchecked, and resulting in something that we can’t understand how it got to that, you know, we would match blame the people who’ve created

Martin Henley
said, yeah. But there’s no mystery here. If these people have got these tools plugged into the websites, then we get to see so much of the data. Now, this is the trade, which is useful. I think too much of the data. Like there’s lots of it there isn’t useful. So this has always been my argument is, why don’t they just collect 90% less? Now what I’m thinking is, they might show us 50% Of what they’re actually collecting, because you know, they’ve tagged these people on all their other journeys. So they’ve got a much better idea of who these people are than we have. And then essentially, what we’re doing is paying Google to develop products, the product being visitors to our website, to sell to other advertisers do you know, I mean, it’s like it because when you advertise, it’s a different gig, like, okay, let’s say I don’t advertise, it’s I invested millions of pounds every year and producing amazing content to get people to my website. And then they come to my website and Google’s Well, that’s handy. They’re interested in marketing, you know, and then because then when people advertise, it’s a fantastic offer, get this free, get that free, some percent off, blah, blah, blah, you know, I mean, and then they’re probably there. Maybe they’re as good it doesn’t matter. But now, the people who found me the people whose interest I spiked sparked, are now in the market being savaged by Parana advertisers. Do you know I mean, like, get this free? Get that free? Get something else? Yeah. So this whole model, which is why I’m here.

Melanie Farmer
So that my permission, and they get taken my customers, and I’m paying you to do that? Yes. Yeah, yes, I feel angry about this than I do about flags. And checkpoints.

Martin Henley
I still don’t understand why you’re angry about flags. I really talk

Melanie Farmer
about this. This made me upset. I don’t like it. Especially because, but it’s obviously in many other places. But health is the place that in fact, they’re talking about it yesterday with space, because if there’s a very light, you can’t go to space unless you’ve told them exactly what everything blood type. Yeah, the idea, of course, but there’s so much data, you have to hand over and you’re monitored. 24/7 everything you put in your body in space is monitored. And the effect on every organ in your body is trapped. So I have very mixed feelings about that. But I understand why they’re doing it because it’s something other humans safely go up and you know, everyone’s a guinea pig and we you sign a waiver life I die on the ship blows up, you know, it’s all good. That you’re getting from me about how my body’s done. My hammer eyes are responding to contraceptives, that when I take them, you can take all that yet. And they are exempt, probably whatsoever. So it’s very, it’s very brutally transparent health data in space. And so I’m hearing all that, and it’s all very interesting, but I’m feeling like, you know, I could just about now identify which of these women are having a bad reaction to contraceptives in space. And I wonder if they aren’t Who the hell am I? I don’t know these people. So it’s very. Yeah, you have no privacy if you get a space? None.

Martin Henley
Yeah, well, I think there’s a trade off in that as well. Yeah, this is what also caught my attention about this story is here, they’re saying the EC our eye, whoever that is, must be somebody recently issued an alert warning hospitals about the cybersecurity risks associated with the use of third party analytics tools. Now, the thing about that is that this isn’t a cybersecurity risk. Is it? Like you are voluntarily giving these people data? What this is essentially is a fraud risk, where you’re not getting quite what you were you signed up for you because you’re not paying for it again, you pay for Adobe analytics, to be fair. So cybersecurity risk is one thing, that’s where you’re you get hacked, and they take your data. They’re not talking about anyone getting hacked. They’re talking about

Melanie Farmer
Yeah, no, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. I don’t I think that yeah, I agree completely.

Martin Henley
Yeah. And the issue is a hospital might think, Oh, it’s a cybersecurity. We got cybersecurity people. That’s fine. This isn’t like this isn’t cybersecurity. This is actually giving your data to rapacious Corp corporations do not I mean, who will use it however they see fit? I mean, we’ve spoken before about the regulations. Okay. It’s interesting. It’s interesting. That’s the news. If we could do this next door in four minutes, we will have done this in under an hour, which is better than do that. Okay, cool.

Martin Henley
So this is your last story. It’s also not the happiest story for the world I don’t think. What’s going on here with Movio.

Melanie Farmer
all right. This is in line with how Wait, all right, let’s see do it that way. I think this is super creepy. Like you can create your own model. And it’s quite like maybe I was a brand, it’s that they’d be the clinical, you’re basically making movies and stuff. But what they’ve allowed you to do now is to create your own model, who can endorse your branding, and talk you through a product or whatever. And so it’s, as I say, here is like a canvas style drag and drop interface, which you can see right up at the top there. And so you create this avatar, and this person is a spokesperson for your brand, too. So really, you could say I would like non binary Afro Americans and things and then then we’ll just put it together and you end up with a person. So in one way that is much easier pathway to getting a model than actually auditioning and whatnot. And then you get these voiceover artist is all you actually need to kind of sell this character. They’re very, very realistic, which is why it’s sort of super creepy. And, you know, it looks like an actual person. I love this word deep fake. And like so there’s we’ve gone beyond fake now we’ve got deep fake. But, yeah, so I don’t know, I just It’s I don’t actually have a demo. Of course, it’s gonna happen. That is probably more likely the direction that we’re going to go in terms of living in the metaverse than actually being in the metaverse is that we’re going to create these characters and put them in the worlds and whatever. Yeah, but I just,

Martin Henley
I just I’ve got carried away because

Melanie Farmer
you’d be diving into their Instagram feed, but they they actually, you, you know, consumers will be thinking that’s an actual person. And,

Martin Henley
yes, why have you seen this fake Tom Cruise?

Melanie Farmer
No, but I have seen the President fake President which will? Yes. Which was so realistic.

Martin Henley
So this temperance thing is insane. Like you would not know, I mean, I thought that guy was just genetically Tom Cruise. So it’s happening. I’ve got views on AI, I don’t really like it, that my actual position is, computers are good at some things, they do not good at intelligence. You know, they’re great with data, you know, you can get great with computation. They’re great with all that stuff. Well, they don’t have those. For me, there’s no such thing as artificial intelligence. Because for me, intelligence is knowledge, and sentiment, and history and empathy and all of these things. My worry for the world is that we’re just going to sign off all authority now to this new higher power, which is artificial intelligence. And what we need to remember is that all of these computer programmes were made by people like my man, you meet your hand in South Africa, who was high on Red Bull and drafting reams and reams and reams of code till seven o’clock in the morning and going home every day before the boss came in, and could check his work. Do you know I mean, and objecting, if ever his boss wanting to see what he was doing? So this is what’s going on? And I was particularly concerned because we spoke two weeks ago about the Mark Zuckerberg candy legs in his metaverse. But I’ve seen some things. Have you seen this new art AI art? You put in literally like three words, and it creates something beautiful. Yeah. So I am a little bit more worried about it than I was even a month ago.

Melanie Farmer
I don’t know what we’re doing with it, I think yet like this. And I will say yes, we just had two days where a lot of stuff about AI came out with space that did like interacting in space. Some of it is brilliant, like, I liked the idea that if you’re on the moon, AI is predicting the likelihood of where and when and how you’re going to have an accident. And it’s pre empting that and getting organised. Like in a way, right. So there’s, there’s things that are very useful mathematically to, to have computers that are applying that skill to and then there are things like feelings that are not so helpful, because they’re not actually good at that.

Martin Henley
Can I just make my feelings clear that I don’t necessarily believe anyone ever went to the moon or will ever go to the moon? Can we just make that? Don’t introduce me to your friends at NASA, we might have a disagreement.

Melanie Farmer
Okay, good. No.

Martin Henley
I think there’s a use for this because everyone should be producing video but not everyone is happy to be in front of the video. So like 90% of people would not want to be on camera. So there is a definite use for it. But models let’s use models. Do you know I mean, like, the thing is, I think what we’re going to do is AI ourselves out of meaningful activity. Like and activity that might get people fed in the future, do you not I mean, I don’t know why don’t deserve to have work.

Melanie Farmer
The only reason I like it is like all the influences that that would be out of work if you if you just did this, you just create your own little avatar influencer and away you go and you don’t do anything, and look any way you like, and then he’s relaxed with your set of influences. And so I kind of feel like that’d be great, no more influences or respect to influences, but geez, you know, and

Martin Henley
no, I think it’s a pretty low grade way to make your money to be an influencer. Now.

Melanie Farmer
I would rather not have a fake influencer either. I don’t either way, I think but I do like, I mean, yeah, I’m not I’m not it feels like Halloween to me, because I’m like, this is super creepy. Yeah. Because it’s so because it is passing itself off as a real model.

Martin Henley
Yes, this might be really handy for me for my WTF videos, instead of me having to do the performance, I can just type them up and have an attractive female robot.

Melanie Farmer
Do it man, can you do that for me? Just then they gave me agree with you always.

Martin Henley
Yeah. That will be less engaging, though. It’d be less fun. What do I think about it, I think I am actually now a little bit worried about this AI thing. Because you know, humanity doesn’t have the best track record for developing technology for the benefit of mankind. Rather, it seems to have a track record of developing technology for the manipulation, exploitation of the masses, for the very small minority of people don’t understand why they need more money, more control. And understand.

Melanie Farmer
I’m encouraged by a talk from a lady environment. And very recently, she said just that our species is young. We every species on Earth, goes through a competitive stage and realises they’re better off collaborating, and going into their collaborative phase, every species on Earth has been through that the ones who have survived the 1%, of 100% of species, we only got 1%, that 1%, who was still here, have are the collaborative ones. They do symbiotic. So you know, the forest, you look at how that operates, and so forth. And this, but humans really just showed up. So we are a species who have a slightly competitive stage. So she said that it’s like we’re juvenile and then we’re just growing up and moving, moving to the collaborative stage. So that everything we do we consume, consume, consume, we realise we can’t keep doing that. And then we change tack. So ants have a belief that 100 million years ago, those ants aren’t here anymore, because all they did was like, eat everything. Now we have ants are a lot more collaborative and symbolic. And they partner with species and they don’t eat more than they need. Do. They, you know, all that so that. So humans are just young as a species who said, This is what we’re doing. We was just moving out of our competitive.

Martin Henley
Well, that is encouraging, in a weird way. My concern is that we are being conditioned to be more lazy. Do you know I mean, everything is sold as a convenience now, and I think that there was real value in being inconvenienced. Previously, that’s what I think. So my, my response to that argument is I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know. I think humanity will destroy itself before it evolves to something that actually actually symbiosis sees with nature. It’s like, well,

Melanie Farmer
certainly many species did exactly what you’ve described say they went compete compete. Do we know that? Yeah, because of the number of species on Earth, which is a very large number 99% of them are extinct now. 99%. So the wonder, but it’s

Martin Henley
not because they ate themselves necessarily might have been changing environments. It might have been meteorites, it might have been all those things, you know,

Melanie Farmer
yeah. But majority, the what the remaining species have gone on a journey where they moved out of an all of them done that so I can send you the talk is really interesting, how they, they move out of it is a juvenile phase of competition, and then into collaboration and partnership. So and she sort of talks about the inch this lady, she’s, she’s now she’s now in her 80s, I think, but she it’s kind of her flagship discovery, I guess is about species moving through ages, each species and the ones that are left, thankfully and encouragingly are the ones that have left behind the competitive phase which was a juvenile phase. As a species, and so the ants we see today are not competitive ants. They’re more symbiotic partnership means even if they go around killing stuff and whatever, they have a limit, they don’t eat everything, then kill everything but kill what they need. And then they distribute resources. And let’s see,

Martin Henley
it’s going to be fascinating now, when you Oh, because you’ve been accepted on your masters. Did you tell us that in this video? I should have bragged about it. You should have bragged about that. Yeah, it’s gonna be really interesting. I would like to see that talk. Thank you very much. All right. I think we got to the Emily farmer. It was it was an hour and 10 minutes long, which is like back to where they were previously.

Melanie Farmer
All right. Let’s pull it together. Okay,

Martin Henley
it’s only laziness that I want to get it done in 14 minutes, because now I’ve got an hour and 10 minutes of transcription to do

Melanie Farmer
it. Well, you know, it’s not your fault. This is the species

Martin Henley
fault. I suspect it’s Elon Musk’s fault.

Melanie Farmer
Yeah, he’s probably part of this problem surely.

Martin Henley
Super cool. You are an absolute legend. I’m gonna put some time in your diary for a couple of weeks time we will do this again. Maybe there’ll be some different news. Maybe someone else? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you annoyed before. I’ve seen you annoyed twice today.

Melanie Farmer
Using swear words and everything. I know I’ve got super passionate then all or nothing that taught me either asleep or like angry.

Martin Henley
Yes. Good. Okay, cool. Well, I feel like we’ve been introduced to a new version of the concierge for procreation accuracy might work. I can say it. Thank you very much money farmer. We will see you in a couple of weeks. Bye.

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