Andrés López-Varela’s Most Valuable Perspective
MVP Episode 6 | A podcast by State of Social & Dear Storyteller
In this week’s episode of MVP, Andrés López-Varela, General Manager of Storyation, meets up with Dear Storyteller GM Mike Drysdale to dive deeper into the controversial ‘quantity over quality’ concept he championed in his State of Social workshop. Andrés explains how quality can no longer be at the expense of quantity, suggesting that content will simply get drowned out if it’s not consistently posted.
The two go on to explore the ideas of ‘maximum volume possible’ and ‘mental availability’, where Andrés suggests that by increasing content output we will have a better chance of understanding and catering to audience demand. The conversation also covers the shifting attitudes towards search engine UX and the way that Google’s stronghold over the search engine market share is bound to falter amid the emerging trend of ‘crowd-sourced search engines’.
To finish up, Andrés answers Mike’s quickfire questions, expressing his passion for narrative-driven podcasts and a small-time doughnut brand’s unapologetic branding. In this episode of MVP, Andrés gives a subversive take on the demands of a rapidly changing social media landscape and shares unique strategies for rising above the noise.
Read the transcript below or click to listen on your preferred streaming service.
Mike:
Hello and welcome back to MVP, The Marketer’s Most Valuable Perspective. My name is Mike Drysdale. I’m the general manager of Dear Storyteller. This is a podcast by State of Social and Dear Storyteller, recording live at Optus Stadium for State of Social 2022. For the next 20 minutes, I’m going to be deep diving on the most valuable perspectives of none other than… I just call you ALV constantly, Andrés. Can you give us your whole full introduction.
Andrés López-Varela:
My name is Andrés López-Varela. But ALV is great. I mean, I’ve been called far worse, so that’s perfectly all right with me.
Mike:
ALV, welcome to Perth. Away from cynical Sydney.
Andrés López-Varela:
Yes.
Mike:
How you love and being here? How did you enjoy your talk? Are you enjoying the conference so far?
Andrés López-Varela:
I really enjoyed it, I really enjoyed it. It was great. I mean, last year I was remote, which was a terrifying experience, in the sense that I couldn’t hear anyone. I didn’t know if it was all going well or not. So it was really nice to be here. The event has a great energy, and I feel like I haven’t been to an in-person event since the Jurassic era, so it’s nice to come to one in person in such a lovely place.
Mike:
And you added so much to it, mate. I was in that talk. Maximum value possible. But maximum volume possible.
Andrés López-Varela:
Yeah, yeah. I’d be doubting myself basically.
Mike:
And also as many cat references I think as I’ve ever seen inside of a presentation.
Andrés López-Varela:
That was my hope, yeah.
Mike:
You really hit a milestone.
Andrés López-Varela:
Good. I’m glad.
Mike:
There’s so much to talk about. One of the things that I think we can start with is that idea of quality versus quantity. I think it was the centre point of your piece today, and I can’t help… I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this comparison, but it certainly makes me think about Gary V.
Andrés López-Varela:
Oh, yeah.
Mike:
In some ways, in a sense that he often espouses that it’s like… You see this video on TikTok and he’s like, “Are you posting 14 times a day?”
Andrés López-Varela:
Yeah, that’s right.
Mike:
“You need to be posting 14 times a day, dude.” I don’t think you got to telling us to posting 14 times a day, but why is quantity so important?
Andrés López-Varela:
I remember this terrible Gary video. Actually, it was a good one, but he was in front of a dumpster. He was literally in front of a dumpster and I think he just… Because he has that guy that follows him around and the average tenure in that role is eight months because you get exhausted. And he was like, “Oh, I just told the guys I got to pull over. I got something to say. There’s a dumpster and they were like, they can’t film him in front of a dumpster. I don’t care. The idea is so good, I’ve just got to get it out of me.” So I’m glad to have that comparison because he’s hilarious and insightful at times.
Mike:
Yeah.
Andrés López-Varela:
Look, 14 times a day is a lot, but I think certainly a lot of the time we’re talking about creating quality content over a quantity, and it just simply can’t work anymore. If you are posting once a day… Even you see some brands that will be inconsistent. They’ll post for a few weeks very regularly and then drop off for a week and come back. You’re never going to win anything on the internet that way. You’re never going to be able to make sure that your marketing goals and your business goals are achieved, simply because there’s just not enough people to latch onto, to rise above the noise – the clutter of all the stuff that’s out there on the internet.
Mike:
I love that scrolling video that you showed us, of just how many things… This was back in 2019.
Andrés López-Varela:
Yes.
Mike:
But in the course of a minute, how many minutes of YouTube videos post photos on Facebook, probably videos of cats that pop up on the internet in a minute’s time, and it’s monumental. So the internet is a tsunami, you’ve got to join the tsunami. It is actually really funny because I think it links into something that Adam Ferry talks about a lot, which is mental availability.
Andrés López-Varela:
Oh, yes, yes.
Mike:
In the sense that your customers will often think of your category first, and when they think of your category, they need to think of your brand.
Andrés López-Varela:
At the same time, yeah.
Mike:
And if the conversation is going on, it’s always going to keep on going on. Are you going to be part of it?
Andrés López-Varela:
Absolutely. I think mental availability is actually the best way to explain what we need to achieve. Because without that engagement, email subscribers, followers; none of that stuff can happen if you’re infrequent with your content, if you’re stop-start with your marketing. And even more importantly, if you are not understanding what works, and you’re putting a lot of stuff out there, but it’s crap, then it’s obviously not going to work either.
So while I do want people to do maximum volume possible, I want to make sure that they’re focused on delivering against the underlying audience demand, rather than just filling up the space. There was a really good question from someone in the room who asked, “How do you do maximum volume without affecting people’s mental health and just throwing so much stuff out there onto the internet that it actually is detrimental to their experience of what they’re doing online?”
And it’s a very good question. I think the way to address that is to make sure that you understand the demand that people have. Because generally they want help or entertainment or information or education, all those kind of things. And those things generally, if you can meet those needs, are going to be more positive than negative, I think.
Mike:
I don’t want to say challenge, but I just want to make the observation that isn’t it also a very high bar to clear? In the sense that, again, I feel like I’ve referenced Adam too many times on this podcast. He was, first, he got into my mind, mental availability. But there’s this thing that he says about Malcolm Gladwell, where somebody asked Malcolm Gladwell, “What do you think people really want from brands?” And Malcolm said, “I think they just want to be left alone.” And so if we really were giving what customers were demanding of us, we wouldn’t be in the conversation. But sure, I can reject that notion and I can say, “Well that’s not how brands go. That’s not how we got to do business.”
But when our competition, for instance, if you are a cooking brand or you’re a food brand or something like that, and you’re talking about midweek meals or something of that nature, your competitors are every incredible food-making influencer that’s out there. All of those food media publishers. A little brand to make content that’s better than that, that’s more worthy of eyeballs than that.
Andrés López-Varela:
Look, you’re right, it is a high bar. I think the truth is though, that that is the watermark of the competition and I don’t think that’s going to change. But at the same time, the other side of that coin is that you have influencers and content creators who are creating amazing content in their kitchen, or in their bedroom or their backyard, and that stuff is killing it. It’s crushing it. And they’re not manned with amazing microphones and lights and beautiful stages and things like that. They’re just doing it with maybe a ring light and a gimbal and that’s it. In terms of video content, I think what’s key is the volume; really if you’ve got to make a choice and trade off between quality and quantity, you must choose quantity. You still need to have quality content, but you can no longer do quality at the expense of quantity and expect to reach your goals and frankly, even be relevant to the audience.
Because while you may not have to be the best food brand, while you might not be able to be the best cooking influencers and celebrity chefs in the world, you need to be higher than the lowest percentile. You need to be much higher than that. And that only comes from volume.
Mike:
Yeah. And I think sometimes as well, you just never know what’s going to hit. We have this idea of quality in our head, and so sometimes you put a filter over yourself. Be like, “I can’t post that.” I just remember it was this classic moment. A friend of mine, she’s an influencer in Perth and she has some incredible imagery that she puts up all the time. Very, what do we say when we’re on Instagram? We’re curating our life?
Andrés López-Varela:
Yes.
Mike:
A very curated version of her life.
Andrés López-Varela:
Yes.
Mike:
And lo and behold, one day she puts up this photo. Sorry, this video where she’s posing in the water and a wave comes through and knocks her ass over tit. And she was mortified at the time. She’s so embarrassed and she wasn’t going to post it. And I just went, “Post it.”
Andrés López-Varela:
Post it.
Mike:
Highest engaging thing for the last six months. And it’s like sometimes we go, “But that’s not perfect, but that’s not what meets my strategy or my brand values.” And sometimes you never know what’s going to hit.
Andrés López-Varela:
I think that’s what’s important about understanding the audience demand. Your friend, obviously the demand probably isn’t for her getting smacked in the face by waves all the time. But is the audience still want to actually to see behind the curtain for her?
Mike:
Yes.
Andrés López-Varela:
Probably yes. And probably she needs to consider that if she wants to have a hockey stick moment, if you like, in terms of reach and engagement and all that kind of stuff, based on whatever her goals are. I think that’s really a no-brainer, where that’s the audience demand. Great, I need to get more volume. Well, let me stop burning daylight by filming all these beautifully curated videos. Takes me an hour to shoot a 30-second video. Let me just go through the stuff, get as much volume as I can, just really wring it out; and then from there you’ll be able to tell the demand. So the good thing about volume is that not only does it allow you to reach your goals, more likely to reach your goals faster and in a better way. But it also gives you a lot more data to test with.
So if you are putting out one post a day, then at the end of the month you’ve only got 30 posts to compare. And arguably that’s statistically insignificant. If you are putting out three posts a day, you’ve triple the data set and you can have far better insight.
Mike:
You’re making me sweat here. You said three posts a day?
Andrés López-Varela:
Three posts a day.
Mike:
Yeah, okay.
Andrés López-Varela:
It’s very uncomfortable in the seat.
Mike:
Yeah.
Andrés López-Varela:
You’re going to have far better chance of telling what your audience wants. It’s an engine itself and it’s a means to an end.
Mike:
I like that. I’m going to ask you something else. One of the things that I was fascinated when I was talking to David Ray about yesterday, was the idea that Reddit has become almost like a crowd-sourced search engine.
Andrés López-Varela:
Yes. I love that concept.
Mike:
And instead of typing it into Google and seeing what articles come up, you just type in the question and let humans respond to you. And I think that that was so fascinating. Now you brought up that a large percentage of Gen Zs prefer to search on TikTok and Instagram over Google.
Andrés:
Yeah, 40%.
Mike:
What is that search play going to be like moving forward?
Andrés López-Varela:
That’s a great question, I think.
Mike:
Because it’s been the fundamental of marketing for the longest time, and you didn’t think that Google had competitors for that. And then all of a sudden, I feel like this conversation has gathered steam quick.
Andrés López-Varela:
Yeah. I think what’s most interesting, and I thought that David Ray session yesterday was really eye-opening, because as a personal user reader of Reddit, but not a business marketer user of Reddit, I couldn’t really join the dot super well until he joined them for me yesterday. That was very informative, particularly around the point around search, was the crowd-sourced search. I think maybe not now, but maybe in 10 years’ time, some of that market share for Google, which is well over 90%, and Bing has 3% to something, will start to decline because people won’t be going there for the majority of their searches. They’re going to be going to those crowdsourced channels to get answers from people they trust rather than a random algorithm on Google. I think that there’s still some time to go, so let’s not get too worried about that.
Mike:
Yeah, it’s early.
Andrés López-Varela:
Let’s be more concerned about voice search rather than text search now, for example.
Mike:
Sure.
Andrés López-Varela:
But let’s not think that just because previous generations have done it a certain way, that the younger generation will do it the same way. I think that was a real opener because of the need for that audience to have… Really, it’s a good example because that platform puts trust together with being a safe space, trusted sources, safe space…
Mike:
Community driven.
Andrés López-Varela:
Community driven, yeah. Why wouldn’t you search for your answers there about what’s the best way… There was a good example around personal finance. Here’s the spreadsheet I used. You might find this useful.
Mike:
Yeah.
Andrés López-Varela:
I mean, why wouldn’t you do that rather than go to some random accounting firm’s blog sections? So I think maybe in 10 years’ time this conference will be quite different because maybe there’ll be less of us types and more of the content creators here.
Mike:
I love it.
Andrés López-Varela:
Yeah.
Mike:
One last question around you, before we jump into the speedy questions.
Andrés López-Varela:
Okay, yeah.
Mike:
I love that Storyation was founded by editorial media people.
Andrés López-Varela:
Yes.
Mike:
Media publishers, right? Do you think that brands have to think of themselves as publishers now? Are you almost like a media publisher first? Brand, second?
Andrés López-Varela:
Personally, I think that’s a big mistake to think of yourself as a media publisher, unless you’re actually going to stand up a media publishing operation with editors and sub-editors, and all the things that come with that. Because I think what we’ve seen certainly in the past five years is the erosion of trust in those institutions because of the arguably excessive proliferation of, I’m using air quotes here if people are listening home, “media outlets.” Alternative media outlets. And I think as much as we see this in the political and the civic sphere, we can see it in any sphere. And I think that’s problematic. I think what brands need to do is they need to adopt some of those publisher habits around audience building in particular, around identifying the interest that line between the brand and the audience.
And they also need to make sure that they’re contributing to a community, either existing or one that they create, which is media habits, I guess. But don’t try to step in and be a media brand. I think it’s probably not your place, but also you’re probably going to screw it up. And you need to be committed to it for the long term. So unless you’re committed to it and that line item is in the budget year after year, after year, after year. Because you’re not going to see it return for years.
Mike:
Yep. Yeah, true.
Andrés:
Then don’t do it.
Mike:
I love that. Okay, real last question.
Andrés:
Okay.
Mike:
You talked about deprioritizing platforms or killing them, going on a killing spree-
Andrés:
A lot of people wanted to kill Twitter.
Mike:
Yep.
Andrés:
Yeah.
Mike:
What’s the last platform that you killed for yourself?
Andrés:
Facebook.
Mike:
Facebook.
Andrés:
Yeah.
Mike:
And so what are your platforms at the moment?
Andrés:
Really like Instagram mostly.
Mike:
Yep.
Andrés:
I work with someone who’s slowly convinced me to get on TikTok. And I was like, “I’m going to go to this event in Perth, and then when I come back, that will be when I make my decision.” So she’s waiting for me to come into the office to do that, so she’s going to set me up on that. I’m mainly more worried about the Chinese government knowing stuff. But also, I think I’m not that interesting.
Mike:
I love it.
Andrés:
It should be safe.
Mike:
Let’s ask some quick-fire questions.
Andrés:
Yes, please.
Mike:
Number one, where do you go to learn more about marketing?
Andrés:
Oh, State of Social Conference. No.
Mike:
I was waiting for someone to say that this entire time.
Andrés:
I really love to hear, I love to listen to… How do you say this without sounding like a wanker. I think I like to listen to narrative-driven podcasts.
Mike:
Yeah.
Andrés:
Because I think the way they tell stories, the way they’re weaving that documentary style with the editorial and emotive stuff, there’s a lot of lessons there for how to connect with an audience. Because I think that, to me, is the essence of connecting with an audience. And so really, the platforms and channels and things like that, and the widgets and the dodads, are quite easy to learn on demand. But that’s filling your cup, I guess, with that more story-driven, audience-first…
Mike:
Is there a specific one you want to record?
Andrés:
Oh, gosh. I really like the Recode Vox podcast, The Land of the Giants.
Mike:
Okay.
Andrés:
Which is one season. Each season focuses on a tech giant, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, and how they came to be and how they came to control big aspects of our life. I think that’s a great example of taking a topic and then slicing into it many different ways. Because it could be one season and one platform per episode. But the season on Amazon, one episode’s about Alexa, one episode’s about the Warehouse, one episode’s about robotics, one’s about Prime. That’s really inspiring to me because it’s, instead of telling the story, try to tell it, oh, shit, as quickly as possible. How do you stretch it out and make it meaningful?
Mike:
That’s awesome.
Andrés:
It’s a really good lesson, I think.
Mike:
Yeah, that sounds very cool. Keen to check that out. What is a small brand that you love and why?
Andrés:
How small, mate? How small?
Mike:
Not Coke.
Andrés:
Yeah, no. Small brand that I love and why? There is a brand in Sydney called Grumpy Donuts.
Mike:
Yes. I love the name.
Andrés:
While everybody in Sydney’s trying to do a gluten-free donut or an air-fried donut or a baked donut, these guys, on their box, it says, “Deep fried till we die”. And it’s this garish pink and green branding, and the content’s really great. And their brand matches their product. It’s just unapologetic and it’s such a great donut.
Mike:
That is the loudest I’ve laughed on this podcast.
Andrés:
Come to Sydney, go to Grumpy Donuts.
Mike:
Okay, I’m doing it.
Andrés:
Shout out to Grumpy Donuts.
Mike:
If you could spend four hours with any speaker or with any marketer or business person in the world, who would you choose and why?
Andrés:
Oh, hey. I would love to, not know exactly who they are, but I would love to speak to the people who create supplementary content around Netflix shows. Content like the podcasts around… I know sometimes obviously the official ones are not so great. But who’s going, “Hey, we need the official podcast of this.” And the fan page of that. And I would love to talk to somebody at Netflix who is doing that work.
Mike:
On theme. Maximum volume.
Andrés:
Maximum volume.
Mike:
You’re talking about, you’ve got the big shiny centrepiece of creativity here, but we need to expand it. We need to have our expanded content universe.
Andrés:
That’s it. That’s it.
Mike:
I love that answer. That’s so insightful and so on brand for you. Very good. Very good. Okay, only a couple more questions. Is there an emerging customer behaviour that you think will be highly influential over the next decade?
Andrés:
I think the use of voice is something that we struggle with. We either choose not to understand it because it seems really hard, or we genuinely don’t understand it. I think it’s obviously tricky from a technological point of view because the nuance of voice is so different to people when type in search, for example. Or when they use text to engage with us. But when people use voice, they’re not complying with any UX that we give them. The UX is their voice. And so how do we communicate content in many forms? Whether it’s bite-size or long-form ways, in audio, but in response to people’s voice queries. And that sounds super abstract, but I think if I think of the amount of time that I see the change that I’ve seen anecdotally just in people I work with. We have Google Home speakers in the office and people are always asking them in the office. Sometimes they’re playing Spotify, then other times they’re like, “Oh, hey, show us the news.”
Andrés:
And other times they’re like, “Can you show me…” Seriously someone will ask the thing, “Hey, Google, what’s the most important metric for a Facebook reach?” I mean, that’s just nuts. Who would’ve thought a few years ago that we’d be doing that? I think that is going to come up. And whether it remains a big thing, I don’t know. But I think that’s something that we don’t really…
Mike:
We haven’t worked it out yet.
Andrés:
We’ve worked it out, we haven’t worked it out. We haven’t worked it out. And I think that that’s important because that behaviour is, you can see it increasingly more prevalent.
Mike:
Agreed. Very interesting. Two questions to go. Has a major public opinion recently flipped where you felt marketing or communications played a crucial role? A major public opinion?
Andrés:
A major public opinion? I really think that everyone’s going to say the pandemic, so I don’t want to say that. But I want to talk about the cost of living and farmers. And I want to talk about how the cost of things like lettuce, obviously milk, that kind of thing, where in some cases, brands particularly like supermarkets, have done a super good job at making that an issue about supporting farmers. And obviously it’s such a big part of the Australian identity. So at least for other sinners in this vast brown land, that really strikes a chord. And you’re like, “Wow, that lettuce is $12.” Or, “That milk is $3 a litre.” Or, “These eggs are $8. But there’s a guy out in the back of somewhere who is really struggling to feed his family, and I can do my bit for them by buying the lettuce.”
Mike:
Yeah, that’s really interesting.
Andrés:
Yeah.
Mike:
Last question. When you think of the term prized possession, what’s the first branded thing that comes to mind? And while you think about that, follow up, do you remember the specific ad or piece of marketing that convinced you to buy it?
Andrés:
I would say my glasses.
Mike:
Yeah.
Andrés:
So I wear glasses. I’ve been very lucky in that my prescription has been stable for eight years.
Mike:
Love that.
Andrés:
So the glasses that I bought over eight years, I can still wear. And I find them a really prized possession. These ones in particular, ones that I wear a lot mostly are Oscar Wylee. And I think what convinced me about them was that A, they had something that I saw people in their advertising and marketing that looked like me, that weren’t young, skinny, mildly androgynous white people. They were like, as I call myself, a little bit brown. But also different face shapes and things like that. I was like, “Oh, that’s really interesting.” Before they had shops, it’s like, “I can order a bunch and try them on at home and then just send back the ones I don’t like? What a fantastic and frictionless way of doing it.” Rather than trying to be convinced by somebody in a store who probably knows nothing about my face and the way I wear glasses.
There are other brands that do it really well. There’s a new brand, DL Eyewear, that Daniel Levy from Schitt’s Creek started. And that’s similar as well. But he’s certainly not the forerunner in that space. I think his personality gives a little something special. But I would say now are my Oscar Wylee glasses.
Mike:
You absolutely crushed that, mate. Thank you so much for joining us. You’re a very thoughtful, insightful dude. I loved your presentation, I loved this conversation just as much. And thank you guys for joining us for this episode of MVP, The Market’s Most Valuable Perspective.
Give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Andrés:
Five stars.
Mike:
And we look forward to chatting to you in the next episode. Thanks so much and we’ll talk to you soon.
