The Socialize Strategy - Inside the Ads
Welcome to the Socialized Strategy. Happy Friday. You know, I like recording once a week because now my entire week leads up to these recordings and it's so much fun for me. So we're gonna kick off as usual, which has now become my favorite segment of the week as well with my unsponsored buy content. And I have two things for you today.
Helen:And as you know, these are not sponsored, so it's the real deal, the real talk. And one of them is clothing and one of them is food. So let's kick it off. I discovered in Toronto this week because I was working up there on a production shoot for a brand for social media content, and I had to go buy a coat because it was really cold. It was oddly off season cold up there, and then I found out we were gonna be outdoors for part of the day, and I'm like, I don't wanna be freezing.
Helen:So I went to Uniqlo, and I got myself a little one of those puffy coats, I could always use, an extra one of those. No big deal. But while I was there, I found these. And I'm like, not that this is ingenious or new or different, but it was something about the way that they're in tank tops, which I, you know, I love tank tops so that I can layer and be hot and cold whenever I need to. This is built in bra tank top things, and they have tons of styles.
Helen:So they have the style I'm wearing here. I'm gonna show you just like the regular neck. And then they have this this more, this kind of neck, so it's a little more closer. If you're watching on on video, you can see what I'm showing. But this type of neck, so it's a little bit more like that.
Helen:And that's a harder one when you're wearing a bra under. That's a harder one to hide your bra straps. Like, your straps are definitely more or less gonna stick out. So I thought, oh, I'm gonna try these. Built in, soft, comfortable.
Helen:I'm a fan. So, of course, I got it in two colors. And since we do have a unique look here in the city, I'm sure I'm gonna go back and get some more. These are just great because I'm always, like, on and off with my with my overshirt, whatever it is, because sometimes I'll be in this room and I'll be warm, and the next minute it's chilly because I put the air on. So I just am a fan of this style, and and I like them.
Helen:And they go down enough, so they're not too short, so they actually cover they're they're good. They cover enough of the stomach. It's not like they're really cropped, which I also like. You know, modesty. Okay.
Helen:The other one is something I discovered at the airport, and now it's kind of funny because these peep the company is in my DMs, and I love when that happens. But I have been to the airport multiple times, and I always find a struggle to find a good especially in the morning. If I don't wanna get a big bagel breakfast sandwich or or a croissant, like, you you're either stuck with, a bread pastry item or a sandwich, and then, of course, a salad. But the salads to me, they're always wilty and weird, so I don't do do salads at the airport. So, anyway, I recently found this, which I oh, wait.
Helen:I should also say, I've always kinda leaned on, well, I'll just get a yogurt with fruit. But then sometimes in the morning, a yogurt is a little too slimy, and they don't have Greek yogurt typically there. They usually have the more the other kind of yogurt, whatever it is. That's the more slimy yogurt. And I just don't I don't know.
Helen:I don't enjoy it. So I recently found Mush. Let me show you. This is a full on show today. This is Mush.
Helen:It is overnight oats, and they are refrigerated. And you don't need to warm them up to eat them. They are actually really good cold. It's like eating cold oatmeal. Okay.
Helen:I tried it, immediately a fan, and now every time I go to an airport, I specifically look for this. I'm like, it's a morning flight usually. I gotta have something in my bag because I'm a tea drinker in the morning, and then I eat breakfast a little later. And now I'm literally looking for this all the time. And in the airport, they don't have the selection of flavors that I have since discovered, by the way, so I'm gonna talk about that.
Helen:First off, I wanna explain a little bit more about it. So it's, as I said, oatmeal. It's cold. It's the texture is perfect. It's kind of got the oatmeal, you know, consistently consistency.
Helen:The flavors. Usually, in the airports, they've had chocolate or vanilla bean. Perfect. Either one of those works for me. I don't mind a little chocolate in the morning.
Helen:I'm good with it. But then I posted about it, and the company came into my DMs, and they were like, oh, we're so happy that you're a fan of the brand. Tell us your zip code and we'll tell you where you can get it that not in an airport because I mentioned that I can only find this in airport. So then they messaged me back and they told me where I could find it. So I went to the market yesterday and of course, I went to the West Side Market where they have it.
Helen:And I went in and boy was I excited because there was protein versions, peanut butter, banana bread, maple cinnamon. Let's see. This one is peanut butter banana. They had raspberry, straw they had strawberry, blueberry, they had the vanilla bean. What else?
Helen:Apple cinnamon, I think it was. There was an array of flavors. I didn't know what to do with myself. I was so excited. I was like, let's have one of everything.
Helen:I was ready to just buy out the whole shelf. Let's see. I'm gonna look at my phone because I took a picture. Maple cinnamon, strawberry, blueberry, apple, vanilla bean, and it goes on and on with these protein flavors, which are also great. So there was peanut butter chocolate chip, I think, was even a flavor.
Helen:So it's a good snack. It's a good breakfast depending on which one you pick. And then I, today, decided I was gonna see what they taste like warmed up. So I put one in the microwave for, like, twenty seconds and gave it a little bit of warmth. And, again, delish.
Helen:So I am a big fan of this brand. And the funniest thing I will say is now that I'm in a DM chat with them, I was debating. I'm like, do they I hate to say, would you like to do a collab? Because it's not that's not my thing. What's funny that I don't I think it's interesting that these brands that reach out to me don't know is that I shoot content for brands for production and not UGC.
Helen:Not, you know, I'm not shooting UGC content where I'm doing this and then they're putting it on their pages. I actually shoot for the brands. Like, they bring talent. I direct the social media ads, which now leads into the topic of the newsletter today, the topic of the podcast. So I do ads.
Helen:I've been in the ad business for my whole career. I've done TV commercials as many of you know. I do web ads. I thought I silenced my phone, but it's ding ding dinging. Hold on.
Helen:Let me silence. Okay. I do ads for brands for TV, for web, for social media now, and the social media part of this is taking off. So as many of you know, I was just up in Toronto shooting for secret deodorant. I have shot for Olay, Kalia clothing, let's see, Olay body wash.
Helen:Oh, Clairol, Centenyne, Pronamel, and my reel, I'm gonna say it. Just go to mothership.com and go up to the top and click social media, and you could see my social media directing reel. When you first land on mothership.com, it gives you my TV my TV and more horizontal ads, but then when you click on social media, see all the vertical, everything I've shot for real brands, and I wanna go I wanna say to them, you know, I shoot content because I don't want them to think I mean I'm gonna star in it. That's what's weird to me because a lot of brands reach out to me now, and I know they're reaching out as in in the influencer space, but that's like, only such a drop in the bucket of what I can offer, and I'm not even really doing that kind of influencer content. That's just not my thing.
Helen:I teach TikTok. I teach people how to make content, and I get hired to actually come up with the creative and do the content. So it's so funny. So I kinda wanna say that to them without being like, hey. If you need a director to shoot your content, I don't want them to think I want to be in it.
Helen:So oh, you know what? Maybe I'll tell them I talked about this on the podcast, and then they can come here and listen, and then they'll hear. So Mush, if you're here and you're listening and you wanna talk, I shoot content for brands. That's what I do in my day job. Hello.
Helen:Nice to meet you. Alright. Let's get on with it. Because I shoot content for brands, I wanna talk about advertising in social media. And we usually, on the podcast, talk about strategy, content, how to do engagement, and all of those things.
Helen:But I decided that since I'm doing a lot of shooting for brands, I wanna talk about the reality of ads on social media and how that hits us as a viewer. And being in that business for so long, I as I start to come up with the concept for what I wanted to say here, I was like, my god. These advertising strategies and tricks, they are the same thing we've been doing since the eighties and nineties since I'm in the industry. It's just that the medium of delivery has changed, like the home of where you watch kind of thing. And, also, the voice has changed slightly because it used to be just actresses and models and celebrities, and now it's everyday people on the social media doing it.
Helen:So it's weird. Right? It has it's the same kind of strategies, but they are delivered by different people and in a different medium. And I thought, oh, that was, like, kinda eye opening for me to realize. And I thought, okay.
Helen:Let's talk about how the strategies connect. And and the reason even more so I hit this is because I saw an ad recently, and I immediately saw that they had done something in the editing to make it look like better. And I said, you know what? I think most people would not have even seen that. But because I'm a trained professional, I saw it immediately.
Helen:I'm gonna tell you exactly what it is. I'm not gonna gatekeep anything. It was a steamer, and it was one of those, like, you press and steam. Okay? So you it's like an iron steamer, I guess you might say.
Helen:So you lay the clothes down, you press the steamer on the clothes. And I watched this ad, and I watched it a couple of times because I was like, wow. Do I need this steamer? Of course. You know, I'm I'm influenced.
Helen:And as I saw the steamer pass the clothes, like, come down, this, as soon as it went over, I could see, like, a mask and them removing the wrinkles. It was the quickest little miss on their part, production wise, because I saw the wrinkles and then I saw the I saw the wrinkles fade. After the thing had passed by, wrinkles fade. Okay? It was so quick, so short, but it was so real.
Helen:And I went, holy shit. You know? I just got not that I got duped. Okay? But I was watching the ad thinking, wow, that thing works amazing, and then I saw the little production trick.
Helen:Even though I know there's these production tricks. I work in the business. Okay? I know, you know, sometimes we would work on a project and then the product was a prototype, so it wasn't even fully working yet. A lot of times in toys, we're shooting the toy commercials a year, almost a year before the toy is actually on the market.
Helen:Okay? Because you have to get it ready production and then you have to get ready for the Christmas season or whatever. So you're shooting it before it's even made. And they make like two prototypes and I can remember specifically once being on a shoot where there was a bubble machine and they made the prototype, but then the prototype failed because a lot of times they, you know, they're just working on it still. But we knew how it was gonna work, but the bubbles weren't coming out of the little machine.
Helen:It was like a little house thing. The bubbles were supposed to come out. So we literally, on the shoot, blew bubbles into the machine. Literally, I was one of the bubble blowers. Blow the bubble in, and as it hit the machine, it popped.
Helen:And when you reversed the film, it literally looked like the bubble came out of the machine. So we had to and this is not us lying in advertising because when the thing was made and produced, the machine worked. Like, the bubbles came out of the machine. So but it's because of when we were shooting it, we had to figure out how to get it to look like what it was gonna do when it was actually on the market. Okay?
Helen:So that I wanna be clear about that. This isn't us making a product to do something that it didn't do. The I the problem we had was we were shooting it so far in advance, the product wasn't even doing the thing yet. So a lot of times, we had to figure out how to fake it, how to make it look like it was doing it, like it was gonna do it. And that was a big in toy advertising, there's a COPA compliancy where children's oh my god.
Helen:What does that stand for? Co c o p p a. Something about children's, truth in children's advertising and you can't be lying and etcetera. So there's all these rules we had to prove, they would have to send the product and prove it worked the way it did in the commercial and that kind of thing. So this isn't like we were trying to dupe kids, I wanna be really clear about that.
Helen:Because I'm sure there's companies that do try and dupe kids. But we were trying to make the product work the way it was supposed to work when it came on the market. Alright? So because we did those type of production tricks, I know the tricks. I see them.
Helen:I know how editing works, how you can do a quick cut that nobody notices and then you have the thing changed or folded or whatever. Here's another ad I'm gonna throw under the bus right now. They make there's, duffel bags. This is an Instagram ad that they show you the duffel bag fits in the carry on. Oh my god.
Helen:So amazing. And then look at all the things that fits, and they lay the thing out, and they stack stacks and stacks of clothing. And then they do this roll, roll, roll thing. And then there's a cut, and the bag's closed, and it fits right in the thing. I call bullshit.
Helen:Sorry. This is a very foul one that I'm but I call bullshit on this because that they took clothes out when they made that edit, and then they made that thing smaller to fit in that carry on thing. And that just that bugs me. I don't like that. That I feel is wrong.
Helen:I feel many people aren't that savvy to see, oh, there was a cut there. A lot of people now with social media will see a cut and they'll say, I wanna see it without the edit. You know, you get some of those. But not the norm. Most people who are not content creators are not aware that there was an edit and then the bag was lessened to fit in the carry on thing.
Helen:And that just irks the crap out of me because I feel I feel that, you know, we have to have some respect for consumers in the world of advertising, and we used to have to sign producers. When I when I was a producer, I used to have to sign an affidavit saying that we didn't do anything to make this look different, and this was like producer affidavit. I can remember it specifically because I was the one that had a sign. It just gets my goat because I think so many of these companies are still trying to do it, and they they're taking advantage of us as consumers assuming we don't know there's an edit there, and I think most people don't know. So that drives me insane.
Helen:Okay. So my point is that those same old tricks that we were using back in the eighties and in the nineties when I was first in the business are being used today on social media. I see the edits. I see the it used to be called paint boxing when we would now it's like the masking, and then it would be like they'd have a person that would actually have to with big machines, you know, take the wrinkles out of the thing. Now it's like easy.
Helen:Do it with a mask, and you can just do a cleanup right in your cap cut. Boom. So we are now given the tools to lie, which is crazy. I mean, we always had the tools. We just didn't have we didn't all have them.
Helen:Only big bigger companies had access to them. So it's a little frustrating to me, but I also feel that this is my job now to make sure that I'm being honest and I'm telling you the truth about what happens. And when I show things and I teach things, I am transparent about it because I just think that the people need to know. Okay? Alright.
Helen:Now let's talk about this crazy situation with algorithm. Okay? Because the minute you talk and your phone the other night I said, I really wanna have that steamer ad come up again so I could talk about it, and I went, steamer, steamer, steamer, steamer. I didn't even have my phone. I just woke up my phone and said the words a hundred times, and of course, I got steamer ads.
Helen:So the algorithms are so smart, the way our data is being stored and saved, and people are worried about TikTok. I mean, every freaking Facebook, all of them are targeting. Google, we're we're getting ads about the things that we're saying in conversations when the phone's in our pocket for Pete's sake. So I think everybody knows that, but I just I I think part of us and part of us count on it. We're like, I'm doing it purposely to get the ads to come up.
Helen:But I just think awareness is even though we're aware, we're still falling for the things. So I think that's what the point of this episode is, to have to give a wake up call, to say, you know what? Don't just take it at face value. Take a minute. Take a beat.
Helen:Look closely. Read the comments. I I talk about that later in the newsletter. But read the comments because usually there's professionals, editors, things that will comment, oh, I saw the cut, or, oh, nice. Try that without the edit.
Helen:And so I pay attention to that, and I love those people that do it. Okay? So I think rambling, but this is a big a hot topic for me. I'm sorry. And I just wanna make sure that I'm being completely honest.
Helen:So I know I'm not telling you things that you don't already know. I just want to raise the awareness. And I also wanna think about even though we think we're immune, even me, I'm like, I'm not gonna fall for that. I still fall for it. I still buy things.
Helen:I almost bought the damn steamer. I still might bet get the steamer because it does look it looks like it might be okay. Yeah. I've seen some some regular creators use it where it doesn't look like it was edited, maybe. I mean, again, even UGC creators are savvy and can and can do amazing things with their edits.
Helen:But I still might buy the steamer. I'm telling you that, frankly, as so I'm even though I think that I'm immune as an advertising professional, I still I still buy the things. I still fall for it. I still will see an aspiring creator using something, and I'm like, oh, yeah. I need to have that.
Helen:You know? So I we're we're all we're all in it. But I think the thing is, what can we do to be more aware? So those are the things I wanna talk about now. The idea is not to say to yourself, I'm never gonna trust an ad again, because that's crazy.
Helen:There's plenty of authentic and advertising is here for a reason. It works and it helps you find products that you need. So I don't like to think I'm doing something for a career all these years that was just completely horrible. It was it's raising awareness for items in the case of Sensodyne. Listen.
Helen:I did not know that I had sensitive teeth until I worked on Sensodyne ads as a producer. I used to think that's how my teeth are. I gotta live with it. When I would go running in the winter and I'd breathe in and I would get that jolt. I thought that was normal.
Helen:I thought everybody had that. I did not know. Oh, not everybody has tooth sensitivity? I used to think it was funny that I couldn't eat ice cream, and I'm like, doesn't this bother you, like, to someone else? I didn't know that I could do something about it.
Helen:So in the case of Sense9, I'm thrilled I got to work on those commercials. I'm thrilled I got to meet, talk to, interview real dentists and get real truths about the products. And I'm telling you, I work on those things, those are real dentists and they're telling you the truth. Those are not scripted. I'm there.
Helen:I'm being honest, know. We interview the dentist, we ask them what they think about a product, I'm doing the same thing for Blistex, we want the truth. That's why we get professionals who are qualified to tell us the truth. So okay. So that that's where advertising, I think, is, positive.
Helen:It's like sharing things that you didn't know you might have or you might need or you might be just like ADHD is suddenly so prevalent on social media. Like, that's awareness that we didn't know. So I think I think advertising through the years hasn't been all detrimental and terrible and, you know, lying sales or anything like that. I think a lot of times it's creating awareness, and it's helping us find the things that we need. And now we're able to find it through social media even at a greater reach.
Helen:Okay, so the idea is not to never trust an ad again, but just be more curious. And so here's some of the things that I will beg you to ask yourself. So number one, when you see an ad, why am I seeing this? And sometimes it's funny because now I'm getting ads for baby things because I've been watching more babies because I have you know, we have the coming grandbaby coming coming. So I've been seeing more ads like that.
Helen:So of course I know why I'm seeing it. I'm watching content of newborns. I'm watching advice for new parents so I could send it to my my son and his and his wife. So it's funny. Okay.
Helen:The other thing is to look at what tactic they're using. So maybe be aware, just like I'm teaching in the studio, tactics for how to sell sell organically without being salesy. Like, be aware of the tactic and say, oh, is that tactic now being tacticked on me? You know, kind of turn it around and just be a little aware. Also, you're seeing UGC, question, is this person really a reliable resource or do they just say anything because they're getting paid?
Helen:And you'll know your creators who are being truthful and who are being paid to say it and who you can trust, I I think, as you get to know those creators. I mean, I look at, hi, Lorraine. I'm gonna call you out right now. But I love when I see her ads because I'm like, oh, she the way she put that together, I like how it's I like how it's worded, and I know that, yes, is there a scripted content because the brand is requiring you to say x y and z about the product? There's guidelines.
Helen:They don't want you to just ramble about the product and say the wrong thing. So they provide creators with guidelines. And because of that, the creator has to hit those talking points. So, yes, of course, they will wanna script it or at least plan what they wanna say. But somebody like Lorraine, she's really good at UGC, and she's and I feel that she wouldn't put a line with a brand that wasn't, wasn't something that she believed in.
Helen:So I know and, course, I know her as a person, so that also helps. But a lot of times we can see what are the, what's the history of this creator? Are they just one minute talking about this brand, next minute talking about are they bouncing around from brand to brand just for the money, or do they pick and choose their brands based on their own authenticity? So that is one thing I really wanna call out, and I think that thank you, Lorraine, for being the subject. She's a great example.
Helen:Also, look at edits. And how you can do this really effectively is turn off the sound on the video and just watch it so you'll see the cut. When sound distracts us from things, like it puts a mood, and then we get into the music, and then we might miss an edit or a cut that was somewhere. I always find if I'm trying to analyze a video, I always turn off the sound and say, oh, now let's see how this was done. So that's my hot take.
Helen:That's, like, literally bonus tip right there. Turn off the sound and focus on the shots and see if there was a cut and look closely and see if there's a mask. You know, a moving mask is when when, just like the steamer, if the steamer's going by, your video is a split screen and it follows the steamer. So you have you have key frames that move something, and as it moves, you'll you might see cleanup on something. So keep an eye on those things.
Helen:Keep an eye on cuts that maybe you didn't notice or little did you did you happen to see a wrinkle there and all of a sudden it's gone? Maybe there was some little post thing that happened. Okay? Also, as I said before, lastly, like read the comments because I think a lot of people call out the brands and no one's even reading the comments on these ads. And I'm like, man, that ad got bashed.
Helen:Like, I almost bought the little t shirt for my son that has the pouch for the baby. You know, it's a t shirt. I'm I'm targeted, so I'm getting ads for parenting things. So it's like a t shirt that has a little pocket on the front and you newborn newborn can go in dad's little t shirt pocket. And I read the comments and it's like, unfortunately, this doesn't work the way they show it here.
Helen:The t shirt material stretches out too much. There's no support whatsoever. They make it look really blah blah blah. So I read it and I went, okay. I'm not buying that.
Helen:So look at the comments because your people are helping you already. There's people out there that are doing the work. Okay? They're doing the Lord's work, so to speak. Like they're gonna tell you.
Helen:And that's what you need to pay attention to. Okay? This was a fun one, I have to say. I enjoy analyzing ads. I enjoy figuring out like what one did I like and why did I like it.
Helen:I do it on TV too. I'm like, oh, that ad was so good. That commercial was so good. And I will watch it again and again and like what did I why did I like it so much and what the technique that was used. I don't do that often, believe me.
Helen:Because mostly I look at commercials, go, do they think we're stupid? Did are they are they kidding me with this like, I don't know. I don't wanna get into any specific brands or do any brand bashing, but a lot of times I'm like, roll eye roll. Like, could my eyes get higher up into my head? I don't know.
Helen:I'm gonna take a page out of Julie's book and give the biggest eye roll ever. But sometimes I really can't stand ads that I see on TV commercials. And the same thing now when I see social media ads. I'm like, seriously? Like and and then plus if it comes up again and again, I'm just kind of annoyed by it.
Helen:Like, really? Stop. Whatever. So not to bash ads. I'm gonna say that advertising is good.
Helen:We need it. We need it to find out things. We need it to fund things. Brands need it to get customers. Platforms need it to fund the platforms.
Helen:It is a necessary part of our life. So even though I might sit here and think, God, what have I done with my career? No. I've enjoyed every minute of it and I enjoy it now. So last week when I was filming for Secret, I was just so into it and I was like, oh, but what do you like I was trying to get out of the talent, like what do you really think of it?
Helen:Because I like when it's real. I like when it's raw. And I like when it's fun and irreverent. And that is my style of shooting. And so when I shoot for brands, I really get into it.
Helen:I get into like what makes this product tick, what's gonna be what's the most unique part of it, how how does it separate from other products, what's the messaging that's gonna really set this one apart and make it what it is. So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I'm so I'm so enjoying these episodes, and I am loving the unsponsored beginnings. So if you have any product you'd like me to try, I'm game for sure. But mostly, I like to discover the things and talk about the things that I really do have in my life because I don't want to start doing a thing where I'm doing reviews because somebody sent me something.
Helen:But, you know, I'm open to it. I'm open to it. I'm just not gonna promise anything upfront. Well, before I sign off, I'm just gonna tell you that I am shooting a tutorial today, which I will be posting because Nikola has reminded me of something that I saw about three weeks ago that when you download your lives, you can now see comments. And use it used to be that you could not see the comments.
Helen:You could just see the live and you could download clips, but and it doesn't download the comments in order or on the video, but it has the comments there by person, by creator. So as she mentioned, it's helpful for you to identify trolls. So if there's somebody that was trolling in your comment section and you blocked them, or you just muted them, and then you wanna go back and see what they were saying and then properly block them, you can do that. You can maybe if somebody asked you about your service and you missed it, that's a good place to go and look. So from now on, I'm gonna be checking my comments after my lives because sometimes it gets overwhelming during the lives.
Helen:Alright? So that's the new thing that I noticed on TikTok. And then Nikola said to me, have you noticed it? And I was like, yes. Saw it a couple of weeks ago and just kind of probably should have made a tutorial.
Helen:So I'm going to. And I thank you Nikola for the suggestion of sharing about it because I do appreciate anybody that wants me to share something that they've seen, they would like me to make a video about, I am here for it. I think right now, the video that is going crazy for me is still Duet and Stitch, How to Duet and Stitch, funny. And the other thing that is always useful on my page is how to report impostor accounts. When I tell you every other day, Jonathan sends me the accounts that are imitating me, impostering me, and then I report them, and it takes a week.
Helen:But the minute those get taken down, literally the next day, there's more. Not even twenty four hours later, those are down new ones. So it's a vicious, horrible cycle that TikTok needs to fix, and so does Instagram, so does Facebook. They all do. This is absolutely wrong.
Helen:I don't know how it's fixable, but I just gotta believe with all the technology we have, I don't understand how someone can continue to take someone's videos. I can't post my own video over again. I get flagged for copyright. How are they taking my videos and not getting flagged for copyright? Tell me.
Helen:Please. And on that note, I'm gonna sign off and wish you all a very fun weekend. I will be at the Special Olympics. Jonathan is playing in the softball Special Olympics in Trenton, New Jersey. So I'm gonna go down there and support, and I can't wait.
Helen:He loves it so much. And then, of course, there will be Jonathan content. I already have something picked out. Can't wait. Alright.
Helen:I'll see you. Have a nice weekend.
