 Actually, I don't know why I did that. That's such a tully thing to do even though I'm Asian. I don't know a thing about martial arts, and I'd probably get my ass kicked in a fight. Anyways, I finally did it. I caved. I binge watched all the seasons of Cobra Kai. I'm going to talk about the entertainment, the nostalgia, and the marketing lessons. That's all coming out. Oh, welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horkey. Welcome back to the show where we help you drink adventurously so you can expand your palette and expand your mind. We're going to do something a little bit different today. Not wholly about wine, but it does pertain to wine. I have to admit, I finally did. I took a break after seven or eight days straight of intense tasting, writing, making videos. And you know what? I binge watched all three seasons of Cobra Kai on Netflix. Now, I'm not one that usually likes to watch television shows. I actually only purchased Netflix so I could watch The Last Dance earlier in the year. The Chicago Bulls documentary and they just never canceled my subscription. But for some reason, I've seen that trending and I've wanted to watch it and I've just fought the urge, but I finally saw it. So me and the Karate Kid actually go back a long, long time. I think it started when I was a kid. You know, I think Karate Kid came out in 1984. Somewhere in the mid-80s. When I was in elementary school, everybody wanted to pretend like they could fight and do karate. So what would you do? You watch the Karate Kid all the time. You know, as I grew older, the film actually kept coming back into my life. I think the next big step is when I was at university in college at Michigan State, I went with my roommate to a Halloween costume contest dressed up as Mr. Miyagi and the Karate Kid. Guess which one I was. We came in first or second place. Back then, a lot of money for college kids and we even asked the DJ to play Glory of Love as we walked out and displayed our costumes. A few years later, I took a series of seminars called Landmark Education. And in the second, the advanced course, I'll never forget. The seminar leader was walking us through some exercises trying to get us to work through some things. And basically, the entire room was resisting. Everybody was mad, upset, yelling at each other. I mean, emotions were running high. And then the seminar leader stopped and played a clip from the Karate Kid. I know some of you will remember that scene. I just remember how incredibly powerful that was in that moment. I got exactly what we were working on. And that's a clip that I actually watch sometimes when I need some inspiration when somebody's trying to coach me up or give me advice. A few years later, one of the shows that I actually got into was How I Met Your Mother. And on one of the episodes, one of the guest stars is Billy Zavka. You're one of the few people in the world who truly gets the Karate Kid movie. So when she asked if I'd help, well, my answer just had to be. So, Cobra Kai, was it super entertaining? I watched the entire three seasons, 30 episodes, over probably a day and a half period, staying up late at night and watching the whole day. I decided to give myself a break and not do any work. And I watched everything. And I have to admit, actually, I thought the show was pretty genius. First of all, it was entertaining. I thought the acting was good. The production obviously was pretty darn good as I learned more and more about video production, shots, everything as I'm trying to work on this YouTube channel. I was really impressed with the entire production. But number two, I think for nostalgia, it hit the target audience just perfectly. And that's what we're going to get back to with marketing. For instance, the late Gen Xers, Millennials, I guess I'm on the upper end of Millennials. I thought it hit perfect on here. A lot of those people are in their mid-30s to mid-40s right now. Those are peak earning periods. The show really tugged on some of those heartstrings, bringing back some characters that we all grew up with, songs from the 80s that we all grew up with. And even backstories of those characters we grew up with to just put us further and further into the story, get us emotionally charged. For the newest generation, Gen Z, all the youngins, I thought it was ridiculously perfect because you had the old heads, the parents. And then they also cast young characters, teenagers in high school, supposedly teenagers in high school. And it really showed the gap of misunderstanding between parents and then the children nowadays. To me, the most fascinating part of the show was is how to reach certain demographics and have product placement advertisement in the show geared specifically towards those demographics. If you watch the show, some of the episodes at the beginning in the upper left-hand corner, it said really discreetly for only about a second that this program contains product placement. And here are a few things that stood out to me. First, for the new generation, the Gen Zers, you know, when people are on their phones, they're obviously Apple phones, but they specifically use in the apps iMessage, Facebook, and Gmail. I mean, it was clear as day, sometimes in these programs you just see something generic. It was clearly marked Facebook and Gmail. Daniel LaRusso obviously drove an Audi. There were definitely some tight close-up shots of the car Audi, the brand Audi. And one scene when they're drinking because I think they're a little bit upset, there's a close tight shot of McCallan's 18-year-old whiskey. I mean, it was really blatant, clear as day. When Daniel was trying to make up with his wife and get nostalgic, not only did they play an old 80s song Inspiration, which just starts to tear warm at your heart, what did they celebrate with? What does Daniel try to make it up to his wife with? A bottle of champagne. And not any champagne, if you look clearly at the label. It's a bottle of Dom Perignon. Another product placement in season three, when they're thinking about canceling the All-Valley Tournament, one of the board members comes up and says, man, even our Sprit, even some great sponsors, even State Farm was going to be our sponsor. So how does that tie back in when I do my little niche, which is wine? You know, the wines that Hardcore Wine Geeks people are into are usually small production, basically from farmers, where margins on wine aren't even high. I think some of the exceptions are the wines, the runners in Napa Valley, Bordeaux, obviously Champagne has money, probably the only, the best region that's really actually branded themselves and pushed themselves more into pop culture than other wine. Something I looked at for this YouTube channel, because I always wanted to create a place where wine could be more accessible, brought kind of more into the forefront. But as we go along, obviously, I have to start thinking about how to make the channel bigger, how to bring in ad revenue. I never wanted to bring in producers to sponsor the videos because I'm showcasing the wines. Obviously, it's a little conflict of interest. I'm like, I have Corvin, other types of glassware, different stuff in the future as the channel continues to grow. Watching Cobra Kai, obviously, it was fascinating to see it through a marketing lens. But in the end, it makes me a little bit sad, you know, to see McCallan's other kind of alcohols, beers, having the advertising budget to push that into the forefront of younger consumers where wine's kind of getting left behind. I'm into wine because my father's a farmer to know how much work goes into agriculture, being at the mercy of mother nature and then creating a product that's different every year. Sometimes it can just be magical, it can just be ethereal. I don't know where wine goes from here. Number one is there going to be a big enough channel, not even not YouTube channel, a big enough avenue where wine could be pushed more into the forefront. Number two are associations. Wine is everything forward. Thinking up can come up with enough budget to really make that possible. I mean, you look at, there are specific examples in Cobra Kai, Daniel's opening a bottle of wine with his wife and she says, wow, the 2013. Something's going on tonight. He talks about, he talks about, has peppery notes yet, but never see the bottle label. Most of the film is actually shot in Los Angeles, which is really close to a world-class wine region, Santa Barbara County, one that tugs my heart. World-class wines are being made. They're absolutely world-class wines. How do we get everybody together to have the vision, the foresight and then the cap will be placed in a program like that. So I'd love to hear in the comments below, did you enjoy the series? Did you pick up on some of those product placements? I know there were other brands as well, Minute Maid, Coors, all that kind of other stuff and, you know, give your thoughts about marketing, branding, products, wine. I'd love to hear it below. Until then, I will see you at the next episode. Hello, thanks for watching. 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