Sam Sethi: 0:12

Hello and welcome back to Podnews Weekly. I'm joined by a friend of the show, his name Steve Pratt. Now, Steve is an author of a new book called Earn It. Steve, hello. How are you?

Steve Pratt: 0:22

I'm excellent. Thanks for having me on it.

Sam Sethi: 0:25

Steve, What is it? Tell me the premise of this new book.

Steve Pratt: 0:29

It is a book about how to earn attention in an era where people are protecting their attention more fiercely than they ever have before. And kind of an acknowledgement that a lot of the ways that we've been thinking about interacting with audiences don't work anymore, that interrupting people or making mediocre things or cranking out a lot of high volume of things that are not of exceptional quality are actually not the best way to earn people's attention. And so it's a mindset shift and it's also a guide for how to do it.

Sam Sethi: 1:02

Okay, so now why is attention so important in this digital age? We're all flip flopping. We've got what they call goldfish memories. We can't last more than 30 seconds.

Steve Pratt: 1:13

I think it's the most valuable resource on the planet right now. You know, if you don't have any attention, you literally have nothing. If you're a podcaster and people listen to one second of your podcast and leave because it's not very good, you have nothing, you have no listeners, you have no completion rates, your advertisers get no impressions, no one subscribes. You apply this to any medium on the planet. If you don't actually have people's attention, you have nothing. And so in some ways, if you start with understanding who your audience is and where you can create unique value, that can only come from you for that audience, you begin to outperform other people because you're earning lots and lots of attention by creating value for them. And I think it does require a mindset shift for a lot of people to think about. If you start with earning attention, your starting audience first, you're starting off with the understanding that it isn't just like a relationship. You don't just instantly on your first date, propose to somebody and say, Let's let's get into a long term relationship. You have to earn it. You have to you have to build trust by creating value and get into a relationship. And then hopefully over time somebody becomes a subscriber or a customer or, you know, whatever your end business goal might be in that route.

Sam Sethi: 2:29

Is attention just another euphemism for advertising? In the book, you talk about 1% engagement rate, you talk about ad blockers, you talk about people don't want the advertising is attention, just be funny, be smarter, be clever, and you'll get more attention. Or is there something fundamentally that brands have to build before they get the attention?

Steve Pratt: 2:50

I think it is a fundamental mindset shift that the old ways don't work anymore and that a lot of the status quo is broken. And when you think about to your point about ad blockers or the success of online ad campaigns, if you're sub, you know, 1% conversion rate, no one really talks about the fact that you're either wasting money on 99% of the people there or you're giving them a really bad impression of your brand. And there's a better way to do it. It's just harder work. It's really easy. And I think there's a lot of incentives to do giant kind of spray and pray reach campaigns where you get a giant reach number as your output. There's not a lot of incentive to say, let's do a campaign that focuses on the amount of time that people spend with you and the engagement in there, because that's harder work to make something that's really valued by people. But the argument in the book is that's the only way forward. If you actually want to get people's attention and make a difference of turning people into a place where they trust you and want to have a relationship with you and welcome them into your lives. And if you think about the choice of whether you're a content creator or whether you're a marketer, would you prefer to have a relationship based on interrupting people where they're kind of frustrated and annoyed every time they see you or something where they are actively welcoming you into their lives because you're creating so much value for them? It feels really obvious. But then you zoom out and you're like, Wow, there's a lot of people who are not doing the obvious thing within podcasting.

Sam Sethi: 4:25

And I've talked about this and James and I disagree. I took a survey to podcast Men in L.A. I said to the audience, I was on stage and there was another couple of companies in the podcasting space talking about how appetizing and dynamic ad insertion works. I said, Look, you can't track how long I listen to the ads. And equally, let me show you, I don't see things put your hands up. If you skip ads and the majority of the audience put their hands up so is advertising. If we narrow focus it back down to podcasting is advertising within podcasting The Emperor's New Clothes, as I call it, we are selling the idea that people are listening to the ads, but when we actually genuinely know when we are the listener, we just skip the ads.

Steve Pratt: 5:12

Well, I don't know if there's a blanket statement to put out on either side, because there's a spectrum of ways that people are approaching advertising, and some of it for sure seems like a waste of money that is not doing podcasting or listeners any favors. There are examples of a lot of big ad blocks with yelling style radio ads. I skipped through them very quickly. I know lots and lots of other people do too. But you know, it's funny, I remember like the very early days of Gimlet, it felt like they had rethought advertising. They were telling stories and going and doing like little micro documentaries with clients. And there were just super interesting stories and when you think about ads that are teaching you something or giving you something really valuable as a listener, or if they're really funny or entertaining, I will give my attention to those because it's worth it. The ones that don't respect my attention and are just instantly selfish. I feel like there's a contract from now, a bygone era. If you want to have this show for free, you're going to have to sit through this stuff that you don't like. And it's our entitlement to be able to just interrupt you and shove this stuff down your throat. We don't have to do that anymore. And I think that a lot of advertisers don't understand how fundamentally that is changed, that the consumer is the one with all the power now and the audiences have the power to bypass anything they don't like. So the obvious answer is, why don't you start making things that people really like? And the more that they like them, the more effective your advertising will be. But, you know, I could say the same thing outside of advertising and marketing to just content creation. Mediocrity doesn't cut it anymore. And I think there's another message in the book. It is the bar is really high and you need to be different than other people and you need to be unexpected, surprising, interesting, and just really awesome, consistent over time. And it's a message that I think I should you know, the subtitle of the book is Unconventional Strategies for Brave Marketers. It could have also been unpopular strategies because I know some people don't want to hear it and they don't necessarily want to do the hard work. But honestly, it's also like it is hard work, but it's so gratifying to be able to make something that people really love and want to tell other people about and volunteer to spend lots and lots of their time with. And it's also really fun to make projects like that. And so I think if people lean into the mindset and understand that there is a way to do it that delivers value for both sides, it delivers value for audiences and for the people creating it. Whether you're a podcast or a marketer, there's a win win to be had there, and it's not impossible.

Sam Sethi: 7:52

But okay, so most corporate entities are conservative with a small say, I don't want to take the risks. So is there a good example of companies who have grabbed attention by taking something different, doing it new, or doing it slightly surprisingly well?

Steve Pratt: 8:11

It's funny. I I'll take an example from the book like it from somebody that I haven't worked with before. There's an oat milk company called Oatly, and I can't think of in some ways a more boring category to think about How can we get people excited about oat milk? And yet they've totally done it like the courage and bravery that they have shown with the creativity. I'm literally talking about it Oat Milk Company on your podcast right now because it's so good. I will read their product packaging like there's tons and tons of words on their cartons and I will read it all because it's entertaining. They have really strong values. They know exactly who they are and they have like a manifesto on their website called What We Believe. And it is not for everybody, but it's like, I know exactly what this oat milk company believes. And they're fun and interesting and I know their personality and they're doing some just entertaining stuff that I will always give my attention to it as long as they keep delivering surprising things that do not seem like they should be coming from an oat milk company but are bang on what their strategy was. I just know who they are and what they stand for and I'm happy to tell a lot of other people about it because they've taken those risks.

Sam Sethi: 9:27

I guess when the commodity is so vanilla, I mean, milk is milk, right? I'm sure they'll say that's not the case. But you talk about in the book about Red Bull, soft fizzy drink. Fundamentally, it's the same old, same old. Right. And how do you get above the budgets of Coke and Pepsi? So they do crazy stunts like jumping out of an air balloon and God knows how high.

Steve Pratt: 9:52

Yeah, the edge of space. Yeah. Yeah. That was a huge one. I think that was maybe the biggest, most exciting marketing event in my life of bikes like that is what inspired me to start Pacific Content was seeing Red Bull act like a media company and make things that were not about energy drinks, but strategically. Like what do you feel when you see somebody, I don't know, jumping from outer space or doing a mountain bike ride through a canyon, you know, like over these massive gulfs or insane snowboarding courses. It gives you an adrenaline rush. And that's what they want mapped to Red Bull. But they're just not interrupting you. They're creating action sports that are among the best things on the entire planet. And people voluntarily spend lots and lots of time watching it because it's just great stuff and it's a perfect fit for their brand and their values. And what you want to think about Red Bull as a result of watching it. Amazing example. I think there's more and more companies that could figure out who are we and what are our values and what's our voice and what do we stand for and what are the things that we could create where people would line up and spend lots and lots of time with us because we're creating value the same way that red Bull does? What's our flavor of that?

Sam Sethi: 11:09

Is that what specific content was there to do? Was your goal with Pacific Content to get brands to come to you and say, Steve and team, can you step us above the attention economy step is above that noise bar. Is that what you were trying to achieve?

Steve Pratt: 11:26

Yeah, very much. It was an acknowledgement that you don't need a broadcast license anymore to reach a lot of people. You just have to make really good things. And if you make good things, word will travel and that a lot of brands have really big channels to be able to promote shows that they make that are good, that people pay attention to. And there is an idea that it's you don't have to rent other people's audiences. You can build your own. And much like any podcast creator, the most valuable thing you own as a creator are the people who've opted in and say, I'd like to hear more from you all the time. And encouraging brands to think more like that was the kind of the foundational concept of Pacific content.

Sam Sethi: 12:10

Now, two of your alumni, Jonas Foust and Dan Meisner, have started a company called Bumpa, which I love me to.

Steve Pratt: 12:17

There's just the nicest, smartest people, and I love everything Bumper is doing.

Sam Sethi: 12:21

Yeah, I align very closely like I do with you on the attention economy. I align very closely with what the guys are doing, certainly within the space, if we bring it back to podcasting around new metrics that I think the industry needs in podcasting, one that I would say downloads was the metric because guess what, streaming bandwidth wasn't there and it wasn't the way that the industry what Apple downloaded it to your phone or to your iPod. And that was a great way of measuring some sort of value in terms of so many people downloaded your podcast, therefore that's what I will pay against.

Steve Pratt: 12:57

Or somebody hit subscribe was it was the piece being like, Oh, they've opted in, they liked it. They've now clicked where they can get all my future episodes without having to promote it to them. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 13:06

And that was the best form of attention we could measure. The attention was they've subscribed, the attention was they download and therefore that was the only two attention metrics we interviewed. Dan Downloads now a couple of weeks back about the new metrics they're looking out. Listen, time percent completed and value paid and the whole concept around first party data being able to measure how long someone listened and downloads very clear. A download is not a lesson. So again, listen, time and percent completed measures of attention. So what are your thoughts on what they do in there?

Steve Pratt: 13:41

I love it. Honestly, it just perfectly aligned with the way that I think about this as well. And I would rather have far fewer people subscribed to my podcast but have a completion rate over 90% of every episode because I know that those are my people where I'm creating a lot of value for them. And there's a chunk in the book around how to measure and how to think differently about measurement. And a lot of it is around the rates and whatever channel you happen to look at, whether it's YouTube or TikTok or podcasts or whatever it is, if you can measure time and engagement, you learn a ton of stuff about what the quality of the content you're putting out is and what the relationship is that you have with your audience. And some of it I think deserves to be a much bigger metric overall in any content creation industry, any marketing pieces, how much attention are we getting? But there's also a lot of stuff that you can learn editorially if you dig in as a creator or a marketer about are we doing things that are working? And I talk a lot about the first minute or the first 2 minutes, and I give Dan Misner credit, like we talked a lot about this specific content and I think he coined it originally, first minute effectiveness. And if you listen to a lot of podcasts, they don't start very strong. They will start with a generic opening. They'll start with a block of ads. They'll start with a four minute biography of somebody that's going to be on their show without actually telling you this is what you're going to get. If you stick around for half an hour or I'm just going to plunge you right into the start of a great story, or here's a problem that you might have. We're going to solve it by the end of the episode right away. If you don't start strong, you can see it in the completion rates. You can see them just start diving towards zero in the first minute and then you see a great episode that starts really strong. You know, there's always a few people that are like, This is not for me, but it just levels off and turns into a fairly straight line across to the end. And I feel like if there was more public sharing of engagement rates and completion rates, you would see different podcast formats because a lot of the shows that are starting badly I know have huge cliffs in the first minute and they're obviously not going to share that.

Sam Sethi: 16:00

So I'll give you a secret. So a show like Pivot, I always ignore the first 5 minutes of pivot because it's always Corey and Professor Galloway talking about their personal stuff, which I'm not there for, and there's a lot of shows that do that. So in my application, true fans, I have the ability to set the start time to be 5 minutes in. I'm just for that episode, so I can literally set the start time on any shows. If I think every show that I love to listen to has waffled at the beginning, I just set the start time to one minute, tune it or 3 minutes before it starts.

Steve Pratt: 16:32

I do the exact same thing with several podcasts, and honestly, I've almost reached out to several very big podcasts and being like, Can I please help you? Just help you start your show more effectively because I skip 8 minutes, 10 minutes, 12 minutes into your episode every single time, because it takes that long to get to the meat of the episode. I love that you've built that in a true band. It's really smart. But isn't it crazy? Like when you think about if you and I are doing this, I know tons and tons of other people are doing it. Yeah. If you're making a podcast, that's one of the things you should be thinking about is are we starting right away and do we have a hook off the top that is going to get people to stick around as they're sampling and everybody's coming in and saying like, is this going to be a good show for me? Is this going to be a good episode for me? Is this worth my time? You have to get people to give you an enthusiastic yes to keep listening. And I don't think people think about that enough on the editorial side.

Sam Sethi: 17:31

No. And I think the engagement, the listen time metrics, if they have that in a dashboard, which I know Bumper is working on and we are at true fans where you can actually see where people drop off or where the engagement is low. Can you imagine at the beginning where it would be a flat line at the beginning for 5 minutes and then people start listening to me? I think something's wrong. The start of our podcast or it drops off at 60 Minutes or 30 minutes, whatever the time is, because that's the bit where people have had enough of you and then it's just waffle.

Steve Pratt: 18:03

And I kind of want to see that for like advertisers to like, I would love to be able to just for an ad break, to be able to give an advertiser a completion rate on their ad break. Here's all the people that were here at the second zero of your ad, and here's all the people that were here at the end of it. And here's the shape of the curve. That data would change creative. To help people understand, we need to do things that are valuable for the audience If we want them to stick around for 30 seconds or a minute.

Sam Sethi: 18:33

So we were talking off air beforehand about my app. I mean, we use or track people's activity. So this one time saying completely value paid follow subscribers clips and that gives you as an individual your activity stream or attention stream interchangeable word. We now will publish that. So I could follow you, Steve, and then see what you listen to, how long you listen to it and whatever. And I think that's going to be a strong signal of of your attention to things that will influence me to say, Oh, Steve's listened to that long, I should listen to it as well.

Steve Pratt: 19:10

I'd be happy to share with you that I, you know, like you can see how my shell game that I've completed every episode.

Sam Sethi: 19:15

But for the Creator, we aggregate all of that together so that they can see that clip, that drop off and everything else. But the reverse is true that we're building this ability for advertisers to reward users for their time and attention, and that will give you exactly what you're asking for, which is Mr. Advertiser. Steve listened to 30% of that ad, some listened to 20%. But that means that listen to 80% of the ad, and that's because they will know exactly when you stop listening. And I think, again, that's the attention economy, the ability to use technology to measure engagement and listen time. And I think we only just now, I think a decade after the attention economy was first talked about in the decade or so since activity pop was devised, they we're actually beginning to use that to actually change how we measure the attention economy.

Steve Pratt: 20:11

It's so interesting because, like you and I are on very similar wavelengths, but approaching it from very different levels, like you're building the ability to measure it and to let people manage it themselves more effectively. And I've just been I've been thinking about it for a long time and helping people put in how to create the things that are going to be successful in that space. And but at the core of it, they're both based on balance, right? They're based on value for value. You have to create value if you would like to get value out of it, and that those should be equivalent values. And I think there's a lot of people in the marketing and advertising world that are not thinking about how do I create value for this group of people that I'm trying to reach first, and that if I create value for them, it will come back to me for doing so. It just it's a different equation and a different way of thinking about it, but it makes so much sense. And I think, you know, the success of the podcast, we made a specific content for so long. We're very much rooted in that philosophy that it will come back to you manyfold. If you create something that is surprisingly awesome from an unexpected source where people want to spend tons and tons of time with you because you've created something wonderful that informs them, educates them, entertains them, whatever it is that again, can only come from the company that made it. There's a real win to be made there. It feels like this idea is getting a lot more traction because people realize how broken a lot of the status quo is.

Sam Sethi: 21:47

I'd say it's getting a lot more attention, actually.

Steve Pratt: 21:49

Yeah, there you go. They got that boom.

Sam Sethi: 21:52

Now, this book is aimed at marketers, therefore, to try and get them to change their mindset, to try and open their eyes, talks about the majority of corporate employees are really myopic, spreadsheet driven, budget driven, risk averse. Generally, that's what you find. Most corporate people are because it's not their company, it's not really their job to do too much to to risk their own job. How do you get people Because what you were talking about was attention champions. But how do you get people within corporates to be those attention champions? Who who was the guy at Red Bull who said, you know what, we've got all this brown fizzy drink. I know what, we'll go and do some crazy stunts because that's going to be the way that we differentiate. And can I have a budget of a couple of million pounds? How do you get those mavericks, those people who who would want to do this differently to gain a new way of marketing? How do you find them? How do you incentivize them? How do you make them come forward?

Steve Pratt: 22:58

Well, I've written an entire book for them is part one.

Sam Sethi: 23:00

So excellent guys. There we go.

Steve Pratt: 23:03

Yeah, Earn it available October 1st in the subtitle, The bucket is, You know, Unconventional Strategies for Brave Marketers. It is very much a book targeted at brave marketers, and I think a secondary audiences are people who are creating content. When you think about a marketer, there's somebody who is putting something out into the world. It was hoping to get a business result out of it. I think almost every creator is in the same boat and so a lot of the same stuff is applies there for me. A lot of it is thinking about, well, let's have let's actually have a look and see whether the numbers make sense with what we're doing and is it a good use of our time and is there a better way if we think differently about these things and the way you honestly. Yeah, Well, you know, when I was in kind of business development or strategy meetings with a big new client at Pacific Content, a lot of what we would do is we would just talk about what other companies were doing and use the most brave examples we could about. Like this is how Mozilla is making a podcast, This is how slack is making a podcast. This is how Dell Technologies is making a podcast, and this is how they're using all their strengths to market these things. And it kind of creates this table stakes level that is very high that it's like, if you're going to do this, do it right. And actually like we were very investor, like when we had a new client, we wanted them to be successful. And so there was a piece of us that just had to kind of be a little bit more aggressive than we were comfortable with and advocating for them to have success in this new space because we genuinely wanted them to have success and using all the real world examples of the champions who are already doing it was a very good way of getting buy in.

Sam Sethi: 24:44

So let's assume that the company does get this buy buying and if it's sustainable, is attention a sustainable metric?

Steve Pratt: 24:52

I have thousand per se. I think as soon as you I mean, again, it's a mindset shift. I think a lot of people look for short term ROI, like, Oh, if we do something once, then we're set and I think a lot of the stuff in the book kind of falls under the heading of do the opposite of the status quo. And I think instead of short term ROI, you think about how can we be consistently awesome over time and to be a regular presence and have a very high bar of making things that are surprisingly awesome for people. You'll continue to get attention as long as you deserve it. And I know that's an odd thing to say, but no one's entitled to it. You have to put in the work and people will tell you with when you can measure this stuff like you're talking about, you'll be able to see whether you earn people's attention and whether you deserve it or not. They will choose because they're in control of it. And so if something gets tired in your work gets repetitive or less exciting or less insightful, or you start putting out too many episodes that people can't keep up, you will see it and you can use all the data to figure out where you're able to create the most value for people over time. 1,000%. I think it's possible to have a very long term strategy based on that. And in fact, I would argue if you have a long term strategy that isn't focused on attention, I'm not sure what the end goal of it is.

Sam Sethi: 26:20

So Steve Pratt, he's done specific content. He's written the book. What Happens next?

Steve Pratt: 26:26

It's interesting. You know, in some ways I'm kind of curious to see myself with the book coming out. This is the first time I've put out a book. I've done all sorts of other media related things in my career, like I worked in television and radio and streaming and, you know, for in the music industry and then the podcast industry. The book has been like this really amazing creative project, and I'm having to do all the stuff in the book with the book. So there's this really fun metal layer of going out and trying to talk about the book in unconventional ways and market in unconventional ways. I think I'm just honestly open to any opportunities that come up as a result of putting this out in the world to try and keep shifting the way people think about how they approach interacting with audiences and whether that's as a marketer or as a creator. My goal in doing all of it is to get people to think differently and to embrace new approaches that are kind of an audience first piece that it's actually going to deliver you more value in the long run. So, you know, whether that is I'm doing some speaking, I'm doing some corporate workshops, I'm kind of leaning into all of it and saying yes and seeing where I can have the biggest traction and the most fun.

Sam Sethi: 27:32

That's slightly better because Low Street bought Pacific content and now you're going to be presenting on the 18th of September on a lower street open office site. That's slightly better, isn't it?

Steve Pratt: 27:46

It is. It's so funny. Like this whole journey in the podcast industry has been like, it's never predictable, It is always interesting and entertaining. And honestly, my favorite thing about the podcast industry has always been how friendly and collaborative and cooperative everybody has been. I'm friends, like genuine friends with so many other owners of companies in the podcast space where even when I was at Pacific Content, we were technically direct competitors and yet we talked all the time and shared a lot of information, understanding that growing the industry and creating a great experience for companies coming into the industry is the most important thing. And there's lots to go around of the industry gets bigger. So I'm kind of the sounds odd, but I'm like a real champion for everybody in the industry who's doing great stuff. And I was thrilled to see that Harry and Lower Street Gang thought there was value in Pacific content and to give it an exciting new chapter and to figure out what their next take on content is going to be, I'm thrilled for them and really excited to support them in any way that I can, in the same way I would do for anybody in the podcast industry who's trying to make it a better place for brands.

Sam Sethi: 29:02

Yeah, I think co-optation is the way I describe it, and I think a rising tide raises all boats. I think I think hosts are very friendly together. I know most of the big hosts and they talk a lot, and I know Oscar and I from Fountain went for lunch recently together to talk about what we're doing as an app developers. And so I think we are all trying to find our path and but it's sometimes it's helpful to talk to others who are going along the same path because guess what? They're probably going through the same challenges and the same problems that we are. So again, it might be a useful way of collaborating as well.

Steve Pratt: 29:36

Yeah, and I think the more we can all share things that are working openly with each other, you know, the better for everybody. So yeah, I really enjoyed I enjoy the rising tide raises all boats as well.

Sam Sethi: 29:49

So earn it out 1st of October. Where can I get it? And who's doing the audiobook.

Steve Pratt: 29:55

So I'm, I regrettably if you've suffered through this podcast as my voice for this long, there's more of it in the audiobook. But I honestly, I had so much fun doing it because I worked with a couple of former Pacific content people, Pedro Mendez and Gaetan Harris, who directed and sound designed it, and it sounds a lot more like a podcast than an audiobook book. And Pedro used to produce audio books for a big publishing house. And I remember when we started, he was like, We are going to do everything that I've always wanted to do with an audio book. They would never let us do. So we had we generally had a really fun time making the book and I hope everybody enjoys listening to it. There's a ton of places you can buy the book if you go to Steve Pratt dot com slash book or just Steve Pratt dot com, you can see all the different places you could get it.

Sam Sethi: 30:41

I've listened to the first episode and I've pre-ordered my book, my audible book, so I can't wait.

Steve Pratt: 30:47

Thank you very much. It's very kind of you.

Sam Sethi: 30:49

Steve. Thank you so much mate, and good luck with the book. Good luck on the 18th of September as well with Lower Street. And where else can we find you after that?

Steve Pratt: 30:59

I think probably just my website again is I'll be around doing a lot of different stuff, but it's the home base is probably just the Steve Pratt dot com.

Sam Sethi: 31:06

Brilliant take Steve.

Steve Pratt: 31:08

Thanks Sam always a treat talking to you.