January 30, 2026 – Branding Strategic Enemy Laura Ries and The Institute for Wow John Dwyer

0:04 Intro 1: Broadcasting from am and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration award winning school for startups radio where we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion. Jim Beach,

0:27 Jim Beach: hello everyone. Welcome to another exciting edition of School for startups radio. We got a great show for you today, two fantastic guests, one guest who is so outside of the box, thinking that it’s outside of the square. You’ll figure what that means out in the interview today, we have Laura Reece with us, branding expert from here in Atlanta, and boy, do I learn a lot from her. She has an idea that you have to have someone to fight against as part of your brand. She calls it strategic enemy, and it is genius. I cannot express to you how impressed I was. I’m still processing and recorded this like two days ago. I’m still processing it, this idea of the strategic enemy. It is just absolutely brilliant. And so then after that, we have the Institute of Wow. John Dwyer is with us from Australia, and is going to wow you. He’s got some amazing examples of marketing success, a great Jerry Seinfeld story. He actually got Jerry Seinfeld to do only his third commercial ever. We talk about all of that, and he teaches us a little bit more about Wow. So it’s great, great interview. Thanks for being with us today, and we will be right back in just a second to get started.

2:02 The Real Environmentalists AD: James, the real environmentalists, the bold new book by Jim beach, it’s not about activists, politicians or professors. It’s about the entrepreneurs, real risk takers, building cleaner, smarter solutions, not for applause, but for profit. The entrepreneurs in the book aren’t giving speeches. They’re in labs, factories and offices, cleaning the past and building clean products for the future. The real environmentalists is available now because the people saving the planet aren’t the ones you think. Go to Amazon and search for real environmentalist. Thank you.

2:33 Jim Beach: We are back and again. Thank you so very much for being with us. Very excited to welcome to the show a fellow Atlanta Laura Reece, she is a positioning and brand strategy for the last decade or so, she has been continuing her father’s legacy as the chairwoman of Reese, which is a branding and branding Agency. She has helped fortune 500 companies and startups through bold brand positioning, and is a very sought after speaker. She has a new book out that we’re excited to talk about today. It is called the strategic enemy and published by Wiley. You don’t get any more impressive than Wiley. Her previous book was the 22 immutable laws of branding. And also, is that a separate book? Or the subtitle the fall of advertising?

3:27 Laura Ries: That’s a separate book. Yeah, we’ve, I’ve, I’ve been at it a few decades. So there’s several books and love to talk about branding and, of course, positioning. Well, welcome to the show, Laura, how you doing? I am doing great. Thanks so much.

3:39 Jim Beach: It is our pleasure to have you. Did you get snow in the last little thing?

3:45 Laura Ries: Yeah, very, very little, you know, down. That’s why I moved here from New York. No snow, you know, every, every, every decade or so, right? And it’s a big hoo ha in the city. All right, I love it.

3:56 Jim Beach: All right. Let’s talk about branding first, in general. Colors and Fonts, right? No, I have it right here. It says on my screen, branding equals colors and fonts.

4:13 Laura Ries: Of course, that is part of it. But what is a brand? I mean, think about it. A brand is, I mean, it’s not out there in the marketplace, although there’s elements to it, a real brand opportunity is right, and building it is done right there in the human mind. That’s the end goal. That’s where the battle is won or lost. And so positioning is all about. You know, what do you stand for in the mind? And being now, having a focus is the key element to success. Okay?

4:40 Jim Beach: And do I influence what people have in their mind about me?

4:45 Laura Ries: Of course, you do all the things that you do with your brand, from from the name to the category to you give it to the colors, of course, how it looks with the packages, to your messaging and your spokesperson. All of that is it influences how the mind. Perceives it, because at the end of the day, it’s not always the reality. It’s the perception that matters and what makes a difference. And our job as marketers is to set up the perception so that you win over your customers,

5:13 Jim Beach: all right? And so what are the things that I’m going to influence and decide in advance that I’m going to be thought of this way? What’s the bucket?

5:21 Laura Ries: Include? Well, of course. Well, listen, most companies always talk about themselves. What am I doing? How am I better? The thing is that’s not believable. What you say about yourself is suspect to others, and that’s where the strategic enemy comes in, because what you say you’re against, what you say no to, is actually instantly believable, and so you can set up what your brand is by clearly communicating what you’re against. What’s Chick fil A against hamburgers, right? Eat more chicken. What is, you know, tick tock against? Well, they’re vertical videos, and YouTube is horizontal videos. I mean, what is athletic? Beer against they’re, they’re against beer with alcohol. It is the only brand that is clearly focused on non alcoholic beer. And of course, my favorite dude wipes. They are in a strategic, their strategic, big strategic enemy is toilet paper. Toilet paper just doesn’t cut it. And that’s where they’re, they’re wet, wet, flushable wipes come in to do the big job on number two,

6:23 Jim Beach: well, first of all, I agree toilet paper is not a good enough solution. But the problem Laura is that our sewer systems are not designed for flushable wipes, in my opinion.

6:37 Laura Ries: Well, that is, that is very interesting, because I think you know, the first battle that dude, white side of fight was against toilet paper, and now they’ve got us hooked on this stuff. And you’re right. Plumbers are not big fans of it, although they say they’re flushable, and they do they’re biodegradable and plant based and all those other things. But yeah, they’re definitely going to have to listen, keep improving, making the things better so they can be and can work well, not just on your butts, but also on our sewers.

7:03 Jim Beach: Yes, yes. I think the first month that I moved into the house that we’re in now as a family, we ended up having to re sewer because of the baby wipes. And so I personally paid that and written that

7:23 Unknown Speaker: always, always painful. It

7:25 Jim Beach: is, yes, there’s nothing like though, thinking you’re totally clean and then using a baby wipe and going, oh my god, I haven’t been clean in my life. I mean, it’s Anyway, that’s all I’ll say about that. I do like the baby wipes?

7:42 Laura Ries: Yeah, well, but the dude wipes. I mean, you got to go with the dude wipes. I mean, when you have a narrow focus, mean the brilliance of, you know, the product and category itself. But listen, they weren’t first in this. The traditional toilet papers came out with these moist wipe decades ago. But how are they going to communicate the use of them? They didn’t want to put down their big product, toilet paper, so they never really message it. Well, it’s about having the idea, but your brand is incredibly important. The name you give it, you know, the packaging use, the messaging you have. And you know, dude wipes with that very narrow focus, going up against toilet paper as the enemy is a very clear communication tool.

8:20 Jim Beach: Yeah. So we have to have an enemy.

8:23 Laura Ries: Well, it certainly goes a long way in helping and listen with thinking about the strategic Now, listen, this is the strategic enemy. This is the one thing, the oppositional force that your brand or category stands against. And the problem is, most brands are into too many things. They don’t stand for any one thing, and therefore can’t have an opposite, oppositional force or against and those, you know, it ends up trouble. You remember Coca Cola life? Yep, in the green can. Yeah. Who was the enemy there? You know, I’ll tell you who the enemy was, regular Coca Cola, otherwise known as Coca Cola, death. I suppose that kind of thinking gets companies in trouble. The way to succeed is by dominating. Listen, it’s not a brand. It’s dominating a category. Consumers don’t really care about brands. I hate to tell you they like really interesting. Interest them is the category. Now the brand name becomes, hopefully synonymous with the category itself, right? So, you know, we google the internet, or we have zoom meetings. I mean, these are and we over to the airport. These are brands that have dominated the category, and their name has become synonymous with it and maintaining that narrow focus. And listen, if you see a new, new opportunity, that’s the that’s the time when, hey, you give birth to your own enemy. Nothing wrong with launching a second brand, one of the greatest successes. Well, remember Mike’s Hard Lemonade. That was a big success. But as people started to say, hey, this has 32 grams of sugar and a lot of calories. They said, instead of, you know, just line extending into, you know, lower calorie, they came up with a new category called White claw hard. Seltzer and they has dominated and become, you know, the biggest success of the company itself.

10:07 Jim Beach: All right, I you know what Laurie every example you give, I agree with. I just still am having trouble wrapping my mind around there’s an enemy for everybody. So, like my very first business was summer computer camps for kids, but I can’t then all of a sudden, our enemy was traditional camp, and we bashed traditional camp because it’s not right for every kid.

10:31 Laura Ries: That’s right. Well, that’s a perfect example. I mean, you have to say, well, you have two opportunities in the summer. Do you want to, you know, use it, running around, you know, having fun, or do you want to actually learn something? Do you want to spend it for, you know, boning up on your on your computer skills? And here’s the thing, no one brand is for everybody. There’s you’re not necessarily bashing the enemy. For some kids, that’s the absolute right choice. They need to run around all day. But for some kids, they would much rather be sitting in front of a computer, learning more skills and trying to be everything for everybody is what gets brands in trouble. Be the best thing for one person, right? Be the best thing for one group that you are the best at, that you can stand out and also the clarity through contrast. When you clarify what you’re against, it makes it, you know, even more clear what you stand for.

11:25 Jim Beach: Yes, that’s very true. I’ve seen that work out. So what is Coca Cola against? You know, I remember the decades that they had the Pepsi Challenge and all that, yeah, the whole competitive thing that gave them something to fight against, but they’re not doing that now. What is now? Coca Cola is enemy, yeah,

11:44 Laura Ries: well, as a leader, listen, Coca Cola is one of the greatest brands in the world, right? They created a new category called Cola, and as such, you know, as such a strong brand, I call it the anchor, in the mind, they’ve set that anchor, Coca Cola is cola, right? Their enemy. They fight many as a brand not strong with with a big anchor in the mind, it’s other categories. I mean, the danger to Coke is people drinking water and energy drinks and coffee. Now their answer to some of those is to launch line extensions like Coca Cola life and Coca Cola coffee and Coca Cola energy drink. Did any of those work? No, because that anchor is so strong. So they have to reinforce that anchor of why people should choose Coca Cola. You don’t need all that caffeine and an energy drink. You want the refreshing taste of a cola versus a water or, you know, something refreshing instead of a hot coffee. All of those key ideas to reinforce the anchor. Yet too many companies lose sight of that anchor. You know, look what happened with Nike? What did they do? They lost sight of the athletic shoe anchor they were chasing, you know, pandas and street fashion and all those other things. And they’re now talking about what, refocusing on, what, what made Nike Nike? So when brands get, not very many brands get to that elevated level right of of domination of a category, but when they do, they need to reinforce the anchor, because many people will be fighting them, and you’re worried about those other new categories coming up.

13:16 Jim Beach: Yes, I worked at Coca I got fired at Coca Cola frequently.

13:22 Laura Ries: So you well they are. They’re very interesting case. And you know, they’ve done they’ve certainly done some things wrong, but of course, they’ve done many things right. And for one, the what I call the visual hammer, that iconic Coca Cola bottle, is everywhere. It’s on everything. There’s no more powerful visual than that bottle to what not just be attractive, although it is, but it communicates their core key idea. It’s the real thing, baby, right? Coca Cola is the real thing. And the use of that iconic hammer has really hammered away at who Pepsi, who keeps changing their look and their messaging and everything else over the years, and they’ve been weakened, while Coca Cola has remained strong. Now here’s the thing, brands will live or die, not based on, you know, how great the logo is or the brand is, but the category itself. Kodak was one of the greatest brands in the history, right? But what happened? They died because the category itself. Nothing wrong with the brand. It was lovely, but the category that it owned in the mind, you know, was no longer relevant. And that’s, you know, very important to remember.

14:30 Jim Beach: Yes, I’m noticing. Well, let me ask you this before we I go to China. What’s your theory on the Coke, the New Coke thing. It was a straight up play. They blew it. Or do you think there’s other story lines that are important in that?

14:51 Laura Ries: Well, this is this that is one of the conspiracy stories for the ages, right? Of did they plan it all along? Or were they as crazy as. To do what they did. And, you know, nobody knows the real story, but, you know, listen, I think, and I was around during that time and that they were getting hammered by the Pepsi Challenge, because Anna, you know, you take a few sips of something, people actually will prefer a sweet taste, but you don’t want to drink a whole can, necessarily, of it. That’s where coke had the advantage. But they got so angry with those taste tests that, I mean, they created new coke that would win the taste test. I mean, that was, you know, from what I’ve read in the story, and remember from the day, that was the idea we got to win that first sip taste test. But, you know, that was the forgot how much people love the brand and they love the category, and they love the real thing taste, and you taste in your mind, not always in your mouth, and you know it didn’t taste right. And many companies have you know suffered the fate when making changes to something that was so iconic. Now cope with the brand, but you remember Tropicana, they took the orange and the straw off of the product, and people screamed, just like they screamed back when Coca Cola changed the formula. But there is, it’s some. There is something. When you bring it back, people do love you, and they will forgive you, but you got to bring it back, and they always, they’ll come running.

16:15 Jim Beach: So I worked on the 23rd floor at that time in packaging labeling. And my job was international label monitoring. You know, who, what labels need to get updated, all that kind of stuff. And for the Laura first, here’s the first thing. Within two hours of being there, two different people came up to me and said, slow down. You’re already going too fast, dude, just slow down. And then. So that was interesting. I can’t imagine that the whole thing was not done planned in advance, simply by how long it takes a US label to get approved. And I know you can get it improved faster in a crisis and stuff like that. I just think that the whole thing was planned in advance. But anyway, I also was asked to leave fairly soon. So,

17:18 Unknown Speaker: history, yes, absolutely. What do you want

17:21 Jim Beach: to talk about? You have employees in China.

17:24 Laura Ries: I do. I well, not the employees, but I have a partner over there, and I do work with clients. Yeah, I work with clients over there. The books are big success. I just got back from China a couple weeks ago,

17:35 Jim Beach: really, okay. Have you heard there’s a theory out that there was a coup last weekend. Have you heard anything about that?

17:43 Unknown Speaker: I have not. No. Okay, interesting.

17:47 Jim Beach: Next time you or talk to your Chinese employees, just ask that if there’s any thing, because I’m obsessed with the idea that the current not obsessed. I just think that the current Chinese regime is going to fall soon and ugly. And I think that the whole China thing is just a lie. I think that the data that comes out of there is a lie. I’m also I believe this is listen to how crazy I am, or I’m convinced that there’s not a billion people in China anymore. I think they’re down to like, 700 million in terms of population. There’s amazing data out there to show that too. There’s some just, I’m not pulling this out of thin air. There’s some amazing videos and stuff with people going through cell phone usage patterns and rice consumption and the amount of rice that’s imported, and all sorts of just data that actually points to a population decline. But anyway, we’re getting off topic again. So let’s get back on topic. I have a brand new business. We’re gizzards. We are by far the best gizzard company in the south our gizzards, we guarantee, Laura, that our gizzard will soak through two paper bags within five minutes. That is our guarantee.

19:06 Laura Ries: Well, that is a claim, that is a visual claim that people can see it and believe it

19:10 Jim Beach: all right, so how do I create the brand for this business? You know, I’m just a guy in a paper bag, sack in a boiling pot of grease.

19:21 Laura Ries: Well, I mean, what are you going to call it? Do you have a name for this brand

19:25 Jim Beach: a boiling pot of grease

19:28 Laura Ries: that’s not going to do it, that’s not going to do it. The brand name is critical. I mean, think about Uber as a brand name versus Lyft. You know, many times people try to use the generic. Sometimes they think an off spelling, but you it’s the sound of names that matters, not necessarily, you know, just how they look, because light and lift and lift, you know, no matter how you spell, it is is the same as a sound in the mind.

19:53 Jim Beach: So thinking about something that’s right better than lift is a name, of course, 100 Friends better. Okay, explain that to me. Why? Because maybe I’m biased, because my connotation or denotation, my perception of Uber is a bunch of drunk jerky CEOs in Vegas partying like it’s, you know, I just have a very negative perception of that guy.

20:24 Laura Ries: But luckily for Uber, you’re in the minority. And of course, early on, they did have some negative publicity with their former CEO, one of the founders, but, you know, they are become the dominant brand that most people have, you know, basically use as the word itself. As you know, when I go to the airport, it’s the Uber, you know, you go to the Uber pickup. That’s true. Become the verb. It absolutely became the verb. And it because it’s a unique word used out of context. It’s simple, easy to say, easy to remember. You can then use it in conversation, where lift, not so much, right? I mean, another example is you’ve got in fresh dog food, you’ve got the fresh pet sold in the supermarket, and you’ve got farmer’s dog, which is a more powerful brand name. I say it’s the farmer’s dog. It’s specific and memorable, right? I mean, the other Yes, the community, it’s a category, but in the lower case sense, you know, when you ask somebody, do you feed your dog fresh pet? Yeah, I only buy farmer’s dog. It leads to confusion in the long run, because in the long run, if your category becomes successful, you will face competition, and even if you have the advantage of being first and building that brand in the mind, you’ll long term, be in a disadvantage. Exactly what happened to Miller Lite? You know, they tried to make L, i, t, e, the brand name. It never stopped. It never took right? Because it was a generic. Eventually they had to either say light from Miller, Miller Lite, all those other things. And long term, you know, the dominant brand of the category, Bud Light, took over. But of course, they watered that down over the years with all sorts of line extensions.

22:04 Jim Beach: I’m still fascinated with this strategic enemy. If my gizzard company, you know, yeah, strategic enemy, be of my gizzard company sanity,

22:18 Laura Ries: I would think so. I mean, you’ve got to enjoy it, right? I mean, you know, forget the forget the carrots. Eat the gizzards. You know, as a vegetarian, I a little bit hard for me on this one, to kind of dial into it and take a bite out. But that hasn’t stopped me from, you know, I work with lots of companies, you know, you really got to thinking, you know, when do people want to eat the gizzard why? Why? What are they eating it and replacement of, you know, there’s lots of things to consider. Branding is both an art and a science. And there’s, there’s not a quick and easy answer to any question. It takes a lot of thought, actually,

22:53 Jim Beach: all right, so let’s go with a real I’m building a FinTech product or something like that. And do I sit down with you, or someone like you, and decide my entire brand in one, is it a package? Yeah, you know,

23:13 Laura Ries: well, of course, I think, I think, you know, when you’re you’ve got a startup idea, and usually it’s spurred many times by you know, something going wrong that you want to fix right, you see an opportunity that the current, you know, category companies aren’t are doing well. Most importantly, you know, what are we going to focus on? First, you can’t do everything at once. What are you going to focus on? It and how is it going to be different than what’s currently available, what is the key, simple way that you’re going to communicate that, that difference, how, you know, can it be visualized? And it’s always the when it comes to positioning and companies, you kind of think of the strategy first, then you think of, you know, how what name is going to communicate that. You know what visual can become, the visual for that, and then thinking those ways. I mean, you think about like Snapchat, a great example of what happened with the founders. They realized that as kids were posting all sorts of crazy pictures in college on Facebook and social media, when they went to get a job, oh my gosh, they were scrubbing their Facebooks. And my gosh, grandma was seeing what the shenanigans they were up to. They said, What if we had a social media that disappeared, right? So the key idea was post a message, messages that disappeared. Now we think of the idea of the ghost, right? The Disappearing message, Snapchat is the name all these things linked together, but it starts with, you know, what is the focus? What is the key difference that is going to get people excited about this idea,

24:45 Jim Beach: who’s great at this. We think of big brands, who’s great at this.

24:53 Laura Ries: Here’s the thing most often, you know, the big brands, they all started with this idea of a narrow. Focus many, many times, pioneering a category. You look back at what did tide do? They were the first heavy duty detergent. Their enemy was soap. Colgate was toothpaste, powders, right? And little cups. And they were toothpaste in a tube. You go back in history, and you see this time and time again that it was a pioneering idea. Unfortunately, as time goes on, what do money companies do? They get into trouble, and they’re, you know, stuck in this line extension gate, like, how many versions of Bud Light do you need? You got Bud Light Seltzer and hard soda and lime and orange and lemonade and all sorts of things. And that just, what did it do? It watered down the brand in the mind. And, you know, who does

25:43 Jim Beach: just watered down? They have that,

25:45 Laura Ries: yes they do. Yes, they have watered down. They’ve got next, I mean, all sorts of things that. You know, here’s the thing, when you go to a bar, what do you think first, brand or category? Now, if you Budweiser, would like you to think, you think brand first, then the category. I want a Bud Light. Do I want a seltzer? Do I want a soda? Do I want a lemon, orange? What? No. Nobody thinks like that. They say, Do I want a craft beer or not? Not an alcoholic beer, you know, a wheat beer, a light beer. They think category first, and then they look in the mind and say, what brand you know is, is most appealing to me in that, in that, in that category, and why, quite often that it’s the category leader. It’s the Sam Adams, right? It’s the you know, Ultras, it’s the you know, athletic beers, all of those that are the big winners in the long term.

26:36 Jim Beach: So if I as an entrepreneur were to come to an agency, walk through, not necessarily your generic agency. Should I plan to spend to build a brand? And how long would it take if I wanted to be proactive and determine my brand and try to influence the world, talk to me through what that would cost and be like?

27:00 Laura Ries: Well, you know, it’s really impossible to put a number on it, because, really, it depends on on the category and the idea itself. You know, there are some categories get talked about a whole lot. Listen, I worked for a funeral concierge service. Terrific idea, but it’s, you know, people aren’t talking about this every day. And, you know, sharing posts with their friends, although it’s a big business and a great idea, so you got to think, is there and create? Is the news value? What is it about your brand that will get people to tell their friends about it, to talk about it? That’s why it’s important to have the verbalization in a way that people will say it to their friends. I mean, you get a new BMW and you tell your friends, hey, it’s the ultimate driving machine. Absolutely. I love my new car. But what do most companies do you know Ford? Remember the slogan you know Ford Find New Roads? I mean, does anyone tell their friend I bought a Ford to Find New Roads? I mean, that’s it’s crazy. Laura.

27:59 Jim Beach: We have run out of time, I am afraid. Great information, absolutely, just great. How do we find out more? Do you have a URL we could possibly ever remember? Get in touch all that stuff, please.

28:11 Laura Ries: Yes, indeed. It’s just four little letters, R, I, E, S, that’s the URL Reese, and you can find all about all of the books. Get all the information. Sign up for my newsletter. But yes, check it out. Think about positioning and build a brand worth fighting for.

28:27 Jim Beach: There’s a good tagline. Laura, thank you so much great stuff, and we’d

28:29 Laura Ries: love to have you back. Absolutely. Thanks so much,

28:33 Jim Beach: and we will be right back. You. You.

28:48 Intro 2: Well, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a wonderful question, actually, oh my gosh, I love the opportunity to do this. Thank you, Jim, wow, that’s, that’s, that’s a great one. You know, that is a phenomenal question. That’s a great question, and, and I don’t have a great answer, that’s a great question. Oh, that is such a loaded question. And that’s actually a really good question. School for

29:08 Jim Beach: startups radio, we are back and again. Thank you so very much for being with us. Very excited to introduce our next guest. He is from Australia. His name is John Dwyer. He is with the Institute of wow.com so you could actually find him at the Institute of wow.com he likes to do things like double or triple the amount of sales that his clients are getting. He is the way outside the box thinker, and has a book out that talks about how he can create an avalanche of new clients for you. It’s called the avalanche leads formula. John, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

29:51 John Dwyer: Oh, very good. Thank you very much, and thanks for the invitation to be on your show.

29:55 Jim Beach: So I’ve noticed somewhere it says outside of the box, and somewhere else it says out. Outside of the square in Australia. Do you have outside of the square thinking or outside of the box thinking?

30:07 John Dwyer: Yeah, it’s funny. You should say that, because I was doing an interview with someone in England about a week ago as a podcast, and I asked the same question, and yeah, we use we go both ways, we swing both ways, square or box.

30:19 Jim Beach: Okay, I’ve never heard it outside the square. We’re only box.

30:24 John Dywer: Okay, okay,

30:27 Jim Beach: what’s your secret, John? Let’s get started. What are people doing wrong and how do you fix it?

30:33 John Dwyer: Yeah, look, you know, as you said on the introduction, the Institute of Wow. Of course, we’re all about showing business owners how to create Wow factors, mainly to take people’s eyes away from the price. Because if you’re a small business and you’re up against a 40 ton gorilla, let’s just say you were a corner store and you’re opposite Costco, and you tried to beat them on price. Well, you’re on drugs. Okay, you’re never going to beat them on price. And so therefore, we encourage people to do things like incentive based marketing. In other words, you know, take people’s eyes off the price by giving them a bonus or giving them a reward if they shop with you or if they buy from you.

31:12 Jim Beach: All right, I like that. That makes a lot of sense. Give us some examples of some success, John talk. Give us a cool story or two.

31:20 John Dwyer: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okey, dokey. I’ll give you an example. This is, this is a very easy example for people to digest and understand what incentive based marketing is all about. I mean, first of all, McDonald’s have been doing it for about 44 years. There’s a toy with a happy meal. Kellogg’s have been doing it for about the same time. I know when I was a child, I’m a baby boomer, but when I was a child, I think I used my pester power to my mum to buy Kellogg flakes, because we got the Flintstones toys or the Jetsons toys, or whatever it might be. So they’re the big businesses that use it. Amazon. Use it if you’re a member of their prime membership club, you get free shipping and free movies and all sorts of benefits. So the funny thing is that 97% of small businesses worldwide have never, ever used an incentive to sell their goods or services. And a classic example is a turf farm. We had a client a little while ago that sold grass. I mean, the front yard, in the backyard grass, not the other grass. And he said to me, the owner, look, you know, we’re in a competitive field. It’s a me too industry, because there’s lots and lots of turf farms out there. And he said, when people contact us, the first thing I asked for was the price, because our grass looks like the guy down the roads grass. And I said, Okay, well, who’s your target audience? And he said, Well, landscapers, because he said they will buy two or three homes worth of grass, whereas, you know, mum and dad, who own the home, will only ever get grass for their home. I said, Well, why don’t we actually give them an incentive? And he said, Okay, well, what would that be? So we sent out a mailer, and we sent out emails to the landscapers, and we said to them, look for every home’s worth of grass that you buy from us, we’ll give you a carton of beer. Now, this was a very prestigious beer. Was upmarket beer that normally is only the suits and ties would drink. But here we are. You know, a contractor was being, if you like, wood, with a carton of prestigious beer. He had about a mile’s worth of grass. It was coming into the season where he had to get rid of it so he could replant again. He rang me four days into the promotion and said, we’ve got a problem. We’ve got no more grass. I said, What? Even I was surprised. And he said, Yeah. He said, Look, the biggest pain in the backside client that he’d had for 10 years earlier, this guy would always ring up and say, How much do you charge per meter for grass? And whatever the let’s say, was $6 he’d tell me that he could get it down the road for $5.50 so he said, I would always have to drop my pants. He said, in this instance, he said, That guy rang me up and said, I want 21 homes worth of grass. Don’t worry about the grass. I don’t care when I get that. I need the beer by Friday. I’ve got a party.

33:53 Jim Beach: That’s great. And I think we discovered another term. You said a carton of beer? Yep, I have no that is, is that a case of beer, 24

34:05 Unknown Speaker: That’s it. That’s it. Yeah? Look, we don’t have,

34:09 Jim Beach: we only have a carton of milk, and that’s like a one liter.

34:13 John Dwyer: Now, this was 24 bottles of beer, yeah, and look, I’ve been to America 1000 times. I used to be a Disney licensee, so I take out all the licenses to do the bubble gum cards and posters and books and what have you, and I could tell you some funny conversations I’ve had over the years when I’ve used an Australian ism and people just stared at me.

34:33 Jim Beach: Yes, tell us of any job at Disney. I love the company, the old company, not the new company.

34:40 John Dwyer: But yeah, yeah, the new the new woke company, I think, is woken up to themselves, thank goodness. So hopefully, hopefully they, they use common sense in the future. But yeah, look Disney. I used to do a lot of courses at the Disney Institute in in Orlando. So not a lot of business owners know this, and it’s something. Is probably worth mentioning in this interview. Disney has a university. They have a Disney Institute. They call it, and Michael Eisner brought this in when he was running Disney, and he decided to make money out of business owners. Because he said, Look, they come into the park and take photographs of everything we do, so why don’t we make money out of it? So I would go backwards and forwards for Orlando, the courses were unbelievable. It was the best course I’ve ever been to. It was called dreaming and doing, and they taught you how to run your business like Disney. The damn Trouble is, though, it cost me a fortune every time I did it, because we had six children under 12. At the stage I was doing all this stuff. My kids are all grown up now, left home, but at this stage, they were young children. Can you imagine me saying to the kids, Daddy’s going to Disney World, you’re staying home. Not a chance.

35:48 Jim Beach: Oh, goodness, yeah. Tell us. Do you have a deal with him? I think it was only one of the two or three marketing deals that he ever made. Tell us about working with Jerry, how that happened.

36:02 John Dwyer: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for dropping that. I don’t need to worry about name dropping now you’ve introduced it. So that’s great. My buddies here in Australia keep on saying to me, when, because this was 10 years ago, I did the stuff with Seinfeld, and they keep on saying to me, when are you going to stop boasting about that on your website? I said, Look, I’m milking the daylights, out of it, get out of my way. Yeah. What happened? I had a client down under that was a building society, virtually a bank, and they came on as a client, and they said to me, Look, we’ve got a problem. We’re up against the big banks. Now, they’re the 250th biggest business in Australia. They’re not your local fruit shop. However, we have four or five big banks in Australia, the likes of wells, Fargo, or, you know, Bank of America. And these guys were small compared to them, and so they said to me, Look, you know, we’re never going to win. Are we on price? I said, No, you’re not. I mean, again, you know, you guys are on TV and, I mean, you’re saying, get a home loan for 5.3% the big banks, the wells, Fargo down the road, will be 5.2% within five minutes. So why do you go down that path? You know, it’s like the corner store taking on Costco again. And they said, Well, what do we do? And I said, Look, I’m doing some TV infomercials at the moment for a discount travel company. Why don’t we introduce each of you to each other? And why don’t you do this? Forget about the 1% element rate that every bank has. There’s nothing different about that. They give you a loan for 1% off for the first year, and then it bumps up to that’s to get you on board, of course, and then it bumps up in 12 months time. I said, No, that’s no point of difference for you. So why don’t you hand that to the travel company and they’ll give you a $10,000 vacation for $5,000 and they said, Okay, smart aleck, let’s give it a shot. So that’s what we did. We came on TV. This was well before Seinfeld, we came on TV. And we basically said on social media and TV, swap your home loan from those nasty banks like the Bank of America and, you know, Wells Fargo, come across to the greater building society, and you’ll get a free vacation their call center, it’s other ladies who answer the phone. Went from 15 women to over 50 women within a month, they took in billions, not millions, but billions, of dollars worth of extra Home Loans simply because of this happy milk toy. And keep in mind it was cost neutral, because all they did was that they swapped the 1% honeymoon rate that they used to give to the customer across to the travel company. And as a result of that, being really, really successful, about three years in, the CEO of that particular building society said to me, okay, smart alec, you’ve had a home run with this. I said, No, I haven’t. I’m an idiot. I was charging a monthly consultancy fee. I should have charged a percentage of the homeland. I would have bought Hawaii. I wouldn’t have gone there. And so anyway, they said, look, we’ve got a lot of the load lying through it. Okay, we’ve picked up unbelievable amount of business. What’s next? And I just said to them, Look, how about we think about a celebrity? Because if a celebrity gets on board with get a home, I get a free vacation, and it’s the right celebrity, then it could go to another level. And this particular building society, we were pretty cheeky. The brand was very cheeky. So, you know, I put the All Points Bulletin out to the likes of Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Carrey and all that sort of stuff. Well, in fact, when I say I put out the All Points Bulletin, we did a survey and asked the customers and non customers. This is a cheeky brand. Who would you think would be a good ambassador? I was hoping it would be an Australian celebrity or an Australian sports person, because that would be easier. Up comes Jim Carey and Jerry Seinfeld. I was a complete idiot. I thought, What have I done here? I’ve just buried myself. How am I going to get these guys? And as it turns out, I won’t bore you with the long and boring story, but basically, we got in contact with George Shapiro, who is Jerry’s manager, or was Jerry’s manager. He passed away, I think, about 18 months or two years ago, and he got on the phone with me and said, Look, what’s it all about? And I just said, Look, we’d just like Jerry to take the mickey out of all the other banks and be him. And he put it to Jerry Seinfeld. It took about six months, because Seinfeld’s pretty hard to get to. And Jerry said, Yes, and yeah. So for three years, we had Jerry Seinfeld. I’d go backwards and forth to New York to record the TV commercials, but we had. Jerry Seinfeld for three years, basically, you know, being the spokesman for the bank, coming on TV and social media saying, swap to the greater building society. Get a home loan and get a free vacation. Wow.

40:11 Jim Beach: And what did you have to pay him? How expensive was he? Yeah, look, it wasn’t what

40:15 John Dwyer: people think that we’re on 60 minutes and all the today morning shows and everything here, when it hit, when we put the press release out, it’s, you know, Jerry had not done an advertising campaign since American Express and Microsoft, they’re the two companies that he had done campaigns for. So this was a relatively small business compared to them, and it was big news in Australia. I mean, we had every media outlet on my doorstep asking, how did this happen? And those headlines, Seinfeld gets 20 million and all sorts of stuff at the end of the day, we paid Jerry 1.1 million per year for three years, and so therefore, pretty good. I mean, look, this is 10 years ago, so 1.1 was more, you know, was worth more than what it is now. But nonetheless, I mean, he worked for just two days a year. So you know, you and I probably like to pick up 1.1 for two days a year. But you know, it wasn’t the money. I said to him when I first met him, I said, Look, Joey, why would you say yes to this? Because at the end of the day, you’ve got more money than God. Why would you do this? And he said, well, two things, I loved the creative, because you know, when you’ve got that much money, it’s all about the creative. It’s all about the idea. And he said, I thought your idea was good. Basically, he stood in front of a fake greater Building Society branch in a little country town called Cedarhurst, which is not far from the Hamptons, and he just broke his It was like he was a street speaker. So that was funny in itself. And shoppers were just walking past, ignoring him, of course. So it was very funny, and he said, Look, the second reason is, he said, Because you’re a persistent so and so I thought if I didn’t say yes, you’d never go away.

41:49 Jim Beach: Well, that speaks highly of you as well in the entrepreneurial world. So, well done. Thank you. And hang out with them and stuff like that, right? Yeah?

42:01 John Dwyer: Well, in the beginning, yeah, of course, yes. I had to go over and we had meetings. I mean, look, he’s, he’s pretty careful about, you know, the scripts, and pretty careful the way that he would be presented. A lovely guy, by the way, just really exactly the same as he is on his TV show. And isn’t that a real nice surprise? Because sometimes these people look like they’re nice people on TV, but they’re not, but he was just a wonderful person to work with. Couldn’t be any easier and it couldn’t be more giving. But yeah, so I have to go backwards and forwards, just to, you know, throw ideas past him. And yeah, it was. You can imagine, when we went to this little town called Cedarhurst, just out of New York, we had to pay the town a certain amount of money to close the streets for two days. Well, the main street, it was like anti Griffiths, you know, Mayberry. So we had to close the streets. We took out an empty shop, and basically put the facade of the bank outside the empty shop, and then he was there with his boombox and a microphone outside the building society. That’s how it was all set up. But because Jerry’s in town, of course, there’s no way that the rest of the shops in that little Main Street could trade, so we had to pay them to close down for two days. And we gave them pretty much, I mean, we had a reasonable budget, thank thankfully, it’s a bank, so therefore, we paid the mayor of the town to fix up all the other shops because they had to close for two days.

43:19 Jim Beach: That was the most fun they’d had in years. Though we’re still talking about it.

43:27 John Dwyer: Well, it’s funny, you know, because the thing is, is that there was a school nearby, and the school closed down and brought all the children there. Now the police had to put the children behind barricades. And the reason the children were there, Jerry said, The funny part about it, he thought they were there to see him. They were there to see the voice of the B movie.

43:45 Jim Beach: All right, so what do I do to do this for my business? John, I have a new business, you know, and I want WOW Marketing Ideas. What do I do without getting arrested?

44:00 John Dwyer: Well, look, I know that this is a bit of a drum roll on my part, but what I will give you now is something that anyone who’s listening to this can grab hold of and and do for their own business, and that is replicate what we did for this greater building society. About six months before covid, I got a call from a company who’s they basically said to me, Look, we’ve seen your Seinfeld campaign for some years ago. We’re a travel company, and we’d like to discuss with you doing the same thing, but for smaller businesses. And my ears picked up, and I said, Yeah, go on. And they said, Look, we get access to unsold hotel rooms right throughout America. So we’re talking Orlando, Disney World, we’re talking New York, we’re talking Grand Canyon, San Diego, Yosemite, and the list goes on and what happens, and in Australia and in Europe and Mexico, all sorts of other places, these hotels provide us with their hotel rooms because outside of school vacation period, they’re running at about 30 or 40% vacancy. So they’ve. Figure that they give that to us and then we give it to businesses to use as a Happy Meal toy. Makes sense, because when people stay there for free, they are more likely to spend money on room service and food and beverage. I said, Okay, radio now I’ve seen every travel scam there is. I’ve been in the marketing game. So therefore I turned it upside down, because I thought it was a great idea. Well, virtually being able to give any business the opportunity to replicate the Seinfeld campaign. So I turned it upside down. I asked, of course, when people stay there for free, do they have to sit through a timeshare presentation? Because I would have run the other way. The answer was no. I said, Okay. And they said, look, it’s a win, win, win. It’s a win for the business because they get to give away a voucher that gives people three to seven nights stay in New York for free, or Las Vegas, wherever it might be, the hotel wins because they fill an otherwise empty room, and those people will spend money on food and drinks. And of course, you know, at the end of the day, the customer of the business wins because they get a happy milk toy from heaven. I mean, it’s a three to seven Night vacation voucher. So I said to him, Okay, I’ll jump in, and off we went. So six months before covid, we promoted that at that stage down under. We now do it in America as well. And it was crazy. I mean, we just put ads on social media, and we had businesses lined up to give away, you know, a free vacation with their product or service. And then, of course, my head got too big. I said to my wife, well, you know, Fiji, as in the island Fiji. And she said, Oh, you’ve been working hard. You know, that’d be nice for a vacation. I said, forget the vacation, buy the island. Little did I know that my boastfulness would be met with covid A few months later. So we had this travel product, which was incredible. But of course, you know, first time in 100 years nobody could travel, so we sat on our hands for a couple of years. But yeah, we’ve got that now available for businesses, whereby we can provide them with a voucher that’s three to seven nights vacation stay in four star Trip Advisor hotels, and it’s worth 1000 to $1,500 depending upon whether they stay in Vegas or New York, and we give it to businesses for less than $50 how? I thought you might say? How? Yeah, look, it’s purely and simply because the hotels are happy to give up their tariff outside of school vacations. So therefore this is all based on hotels having unsold rooms. They don’t have unsold rooms at Christmas and Easter. So outside of school vacation periods, they’re happy to give up their tariff in the and then pay 10, $12 to clean the room the next morning, in the hope that whoever stays there is more likely to spend money on food and beverage and massages and, you know, Cocktails by the pool. So and it makes sense when you think about it, I sat back and looked into it, just to make sure that this was all legitimate. And it just makes sense, the hotels are silly. If they just leave the room empty, they may as well get they don’t want to advertise it for free, or they don’t want to advertise it at a discount, because that affects their brand. But if it actually comes through a marketing company like us, whereby we give it to businesses for less than $50 and they hand it out to people, and they buy their products or services. Then, of course, the brand of the hotels never gets tarnished, because it’s all under the

48:12 Jim Beach: radar. Very interesting, yeah, very clever. And if

48:14 John Dwyer: anyone wants to have a look at it, just go to vacations incentive.com, so that’s vacations, plural vacations, incentive.com and on that page, you’ll see that the the vacations are $97 each. But when we’re doing a podcast or a radio interview like this, we always say to people, look, go on there. And, you know, have a look at it. You’ll see the full tariff is that you normally need to buy 50 of these things at $97 each. You can’t buy them in ones and twos. Nobody’s going to make any money out of that. But when we have an interview like this, I just say to people, have a look at that and then contact us at the Institute of wow.com and we’ll give them to you for half that price.

48:52 Jim Beach: Amazing. Yeah, it is. And look, the

48:55 John Dwyer: reason it works is the same reason, I guess the McDonald’s Happy Meal toy has worked over the years McDonald’s make that toy in China for 2022, cents. Okay, I have to know the people who came up with a Happy Meal toy 40 odd years ago. They’re in their late 70s now, and they live in Trump Tower in the penthouse because of, you know the success of happy mill toys. But yeah, they explained to me on one occasion, aside from the fact that it’s licensed properties like DreamWorks or Disney or Disney, or Warner Brothers, Batman, or whatever it might be. Obviously that helps. But the other reason it works is because it’s a low cost at a high perceived value. So therefore, if you’re running an incentive, think about McDonald’s. They get that toy made in China for 22 cents. When you buy that happy meal for your child, that toy that he pulls out of it or she pulls out of it looked like it’s a $5 toy from Kmart. So that’s where it’s a real winner. It’s a low cost to McDonald’s, but a high perceived value, and that’s why this works. This voucher, if we were, if we were doing a video, I would hold this up to the camera at this point. But this voucher, it’s, you know, high perceived value, $1,000 because three nights to seven nights accommodation. Is worth at least $1,000 at a low cost. So if you’re getting something for less than $50 but you’re giving away to someone and their perceived value is $1,000 you’re cooking with gas.

50:13 Jim Beach: Yes, we say that. Of course, it gets just the whole thing. We say that expression too.

50:22 John Dwyer: I look. The other thing too is, is that I always say to people, look, you know, if you’re going to have an incentive, then think about message to market match. You know, I’m in my 60s. If I was to walk into a menswear store and buy a jacket or suit and they gave me a free skateboard, I would say to them that they’re insane. A skateboard at my age is not really something that I’m looking forward to. Whereas, if they gave me a dining voucher at a local restaurant, or they gave me two tickets to the movies, then that would make sense. So it’s all about having an incentive. That’s a message to market match the beauty thing with this is that doesn’t matter what demographic you’re giving this to whether they’re, you know, 22 years of age or 92 years of age, everyone 100% everyone wants a vacation. So that’s the beautiful thing. They’re getting a happy milk toy from heaven. You know, through vacation. And, you know, from a demographic appeal point of view, it appeals to everyone.

51:18 Jim Beach: John, one year I bought, I don’t know, 50 100 of the Disney Dalmatians and other promotionals that they did, and then glued Christmas tree hooks on the top and made them into Christmas tree ornaments. And I sold them in bundles of 10, and I would get 50 or $60 for my Christmas tree hooks that I glued to my happy meal toys.

51:50 Unknown Speaker: Beautiful, yeah, yeah, wonderful, yeah.

51:55 Jim Beach: You follow you online, get Wow, go to the WoW Institute all that, please? Yes.

52:01 John Dwyer: Look, I haven’t quite got my own private island just yet. I think that’s because we’ve had six children who are millennials, and of course, over the years, they took all our money, so that’s why I’m still treading the boards. So I do have contact details. I’m not on my own private island. If you go to our website, it’s the Institute of wow.com and if I put the emphasis on the word the it’s because a lot of people don’t put that in. So it’s the Institute of wow.com if you wanted to have a look at that vacation promotion, just go to vacations incentive.com so that’s plural vacations incentive.com and if you wanted to talk to me, then my email is John at the Institute of wow.com John, at the Institute of wow.com Fantastic.

52:46 Jim Beach: John, great stuff. Really appreciate you being on especially getting up so early for us, and I know you have a long day ahead. Now. Are you going to go back to bed or just keep working?

52:56 John Dwyer: No, once I’m up, I’m up. So I’ve told my wife this morning I’m out of here, and I think she gave me an applause, and so I left the bedroom. So, yeah, no, be behind the computer now,

53:06 Jim Beach: wow, I got applause every time I left the bedroom. I’d feel really good about that.

53:10 John Dwyer: John, yeah, I think after the decades of marriage with me, she’s quite happy for me to leave the bedroom early.

53:18 Jim Beach: Well, I think after six children, she just wants you to stay the hell away from her.

53:22 John Dwyer: Well, it’s funny throughout the era that we had all of these children as a good Catholic family, does my buddies at the time, there was Alice warsnaking. Movies were out at the time, and of course, their nickname for me was the sperminator.

53:34 Jim Beach: Oh, family show we are. John, thanks for being with us, and we’d love to have you back.

53:41 John Dwyer: My pleasure. Thanks for having me. We are out of time for today. Back. Soon.

53:46 Jim Beach: Be safe, take care and go make a million dollars. Bye. Now you.