 How do you stand out on social media trigger people's emotions and maximize a moment to the point that it becomes memorable? Today, we're going to do a PR masterclass because a career isn't just about going viral. It's about creating moments that you tie together over time, but we're going to start with media manipulation in the highest degree with a breakdown from somebody who's a legitimate insider from one of the best organizations who've done that over and over again. This is the Sauce. I'm Brain Man, Sean. And I'm Cory. And this is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary. All right. In today's episode, we're doing a PR masterclass where we're going to give y'all the Sauce, break down some true elements and campaigns that we've navigated help create some massive moments, but we got to get to some moment makers. I got a clip for you, Cory. You haven't seen this clip. He hasn't seen this clip. I've not seen this clip. And we have the unpacking, the revealing of the methods that TMZ has used directly from an insider. And I think the way he's talking about exactly the tactics they do is literally a workshop. Basically, I call it a glorified workshop that y'all need to listen to this and take this for yourself. It's going to change how you see this entire industry and how you can do it for yourself. Check this out. Joe Rogan, there's enough. It's just such a vast range of conversations. Makes you, gives you more tools in your intellectual tool belt. And I wouldn't even say that. It just kind of like, because I don't agree with everything that's said on the podcast, you know, like your word. Well, yeah, I mean, wait, you do agree with it. I didn't say that. Well, see, see, look at what you did. This is the way this is, wait, this is why you got to be careful. Because like, you're, you're fucking, you know what, this, this is TMZ level bullshit. This is, this is where, yeah. Well, you think I learned this is where you got to be. This is where you got to be careful. This is where you got to be careful. Because I could make that. I could, that I could make that clip look a crazy way. I fit in my head. That's what I can make that couple crazy. Like, no, you can't make it look that crazy. Yes. Again, on Joe Rogan, like, I'm like, I'm like the bigger word, which is a joke. This is where the masterclass begins. Yes. Again, on Joe Rogan, like, I'm like, I'm like, uh, like the bigger word, which is a joke that you went well. No, I mean, you said, you don't agree with everything. I don't agree with everything. That's obviously that word. And you're like, well, like, no, obviously I don't agree with that. No, obviously I don't agree with, you're trying to, this is what we're going to do. What were your thoughts? I'm going to take this and I'm going to clip this and try to ruin it. And then I'm going to put it out there and I'm going to, I'm going to do this whole thing in kayfabe. I'm going to do wrestling terms. I'm going to do this whole thing. I'm going to clip this piece of this interview and I'm going to put out there. I'm going to put it on Twitter. All right. This is a lot longer in terms of clips that we usually play, but trust me, y'all need to hear every part of this. All the context matters and we'll comment in between, but like I really want y'all to hear like how you workshops this before we get into the full episode. He's going, he's going like, I'm going to say bootleg kev hesitates to answer whether or not. I'm telling, I'm teaching everybody right now how to cook a headline. You know, what's the point and shoot? Here you go. I'm teaching everybody right now how to cook a headline. This is how you cook a headline. When you're writing a headline, there are three things you need. Number one, conflict. Like for example, uh, black iPhone on desk, no conflict. Hmm. Right. How do you inject conflict into that headline about the black iPhone on the desk? How? Device made by child slave labor in China left on desk. Now that was sick. You have something that is, you'll be like, Oh, what is this device that was made by child? Let me see what it is. Let me click on this. What is this? Why do we need children to make this device? What's the thing? What it is? That's the way you do that headline. One headline is I'm not going to, I don't care about an iPhone being on the desk, but something that kid slaves made. I care about that. Click on the headline. Okay. Oh, it's an iPhone. Fuck. It's an iPhone, right? Selective outrage. Right. Now you're going to, now by the time you get to the fact that it's an iPhone, got your bitch. You clicked. You didn't clicked my shit. Aha. Yeah. Dummy. It was just about an iPhone that someone left on the desk. Did you, did you, I mean, is that? Let me finish. Okay. Go ahead. I'm listening. Catastee. Now we take, we take you, right? And I asked you a question. You balked at it. I'm not sure why, but if I cut it off right, if I cut off, if I cut it off right there, I don't have to lie. It's not a lie. I can do it two ways. I can either ask a question that incites conflict, which is. By the way, is this TMZ 101? Yeah. Okay. Watch. See, and this goes back to the fact that he said we don't have to lie at all. All right. We just describe the truth in different ways. Yeah, exactly. And that's good PR, man. You're not lying. You just, you know, you, you say what you need to say. You, you don't say what you don't need to say and you infer in other situations. You can inject things that don't matter, pieces of conflicts that don't matter to the story, but also create interest. And we've talked about time and time again. I spent years now how you can have one video, change the headline four or five times, 40 times and get different outcomes just from a different headline. And this is what the art form is now. We don't have to necessarily go this direction, right? But I think it's very important for people to see this direction and he's going, we're going to play more of this, but it's important to see like how far you can go with it and just the art form of what's happening around you all the time and how they think about it, because it's just going to help you better see, how can I do this for myself? All right. What is my version of this in this moment? And here's a key example where plenty of times we've always said stuff like, all right, you might have an artist do something and let's just say, I don't know, Big Dog is the artist's name. Big Dog. Oh, actually, no, we go back to Chad Focus, right? Chad Focus was the headline. It was like Chad Focus stole $2 million from his job or something like that. Yeah, very salacious. Yeah, that was like, it kind of was salacious. It wasn't salacious enough. You know, it was more salacious in that moment to say rapper. Yeah. Because people care more about a rapper. They don't know who Chad Focus was. Like that was kind of what I broke down back when that headline like first drop in that whole moment drop like little tweaks like that. If people don't know you, but people have emotions about rappers. People have expectations and boxes that they have in rappers. And then of course, maybe you're a singer or EDM artists or whatever, whatever. But like just understanding the impact of those words, which can be true, but in sight, different emotions is it is the game. But let's like go back to this masterclass. By the way, is this TMZ 101? Yeah. Okay. Watch Bootleg and there are people much better at it than I was. Oh, I'm sure you are. I was a lot in terms of like. Right headline writing. Yeah, like much better, right? Watch Bootleg, watch Bootleg Kev hesitate when asked if he supports Joe Rogan's inward use. Now you could do it that way. I wouldn't do that because that's leading too much. It's actually not the type of headline I would write. I would write. I would watch Bootleg Kev. I'll probably put it in quotes. Bootleg Kev on Joe Rogan's inward use. Well, and I'll put that in quotes. And I will put that in quotes. I will do like whatever you say. I will like I will like I will put bootleg Kev because this because then I got this why I want what I want in the headline. Number one. My name, SEO. I don't want your name. God bless you. No, whose name, whose name, whose name do I want? Joe Rogan's. That's the name I want. So I want Joe Rogan's name in the headline. What did we just talk about the D1 episode before? The moment that your name gets mentioned with a celebrity, your next to a celebrity, you got to go crazy with the PR to pay PR to document your name next to that. Now, obviously this is a negative situation. He wouldn't want out there for him. But when it's positive for you and you are attached to a brand, leverage that headline and that name as much as possible in your paid PR. You want to then pay and tell some PR person, yo, get this story rolling. That's fair. Okay. So I want Joe, I might even go, I might even do this. I might even put above the headline. I might put Joe Rogan, right? And then I might put a podcast or cactus T agrees or box or hesitates when asked if he likes inward usage on Joe Rogan experience. Boom. We're going everywhere. Now this is what I'll do. Then I'll take the clip of Joe Rogan saying the inward over and over and over again. That's a sub asset in the post. That's at the bottom of the post. Yeah. This is the sound. This sounds. Yeah. Oh, I see it. This is how you do it. Then as a sub asset at the bottom of the post and then I put tags and all throughout there I got hyperlinks. I got, I got Rogan's apology in the post. I got Rogan saying the inward in the post. I got the whole nine and then I leave off on a question. All right. So the rest of that clip is actually very interesting. We'll put that in the description below. But just for purposes of time and topic, we're going to, we're going to keep it on this right now. The PR masterclass and breaking things down for y'all to use y'all's self. So at first of our court, what are your thoughts on that? I mean, I see no laws, man. That's a, that's, I won't even take it as far as it says as modern PR. You know what I'm saying? I think that's just modern storytelling in the digital age. And which is interesting, right? Like how much tradition, how much traditional PR tactics have just kind of become like the norm and regular. Because of social media. Yeah. Because of social media. Yeah. It's like, so we're all always looking for these quick hit moments. And it's like, what's the best place to borrow practices from that gets you that, you know, the PR and the tabloid world for us. I mean, we've been honest. Like, you know, tabloids have been Instagram since long before we even knew what Instagram was, you know, a lot of the things they do today. Oh, we do today are just rehashed techniques that some of these journalists have been doing for decades. That's exactly what it is. It's exactly what it is. And again, your situation might not be this extreme, but understanding the extremity a lot of times allows you to better isolate like the actual tactics that are at play. So then you can dial it back for your situation. But when they aren't as extreme as this example, a lot of times it's muggy. Like what exactly is he's doing? It's very clear what he was doing right here, which is why I think it was a perfect example. And, you know, as an artist, especially, right? Of course, you're trying to stand out. Of course, you want yourself to be seen in the best light possible. But there's two levels of it. There's the post that you have on your own page and how are you positioning those headlines. And then there's a lot of freedom when it comes to the messages you're spreading through your personal PR that aren't on your page and how you get talked about. And I don't think artists kind of put that differentiation there enough where they or maybe a lot of artists don't get the opportunity to really use PR for real, for real. But I mean, shoot, today PR enough is the blogs on IG. So really, I don't maybe they don't think about it in that way. But be very cognizant of the headlines that you're spreading about yourself. And you can go really wild. You can go very interesting when it's not on your page. And I've because I don't want to say the artist or anything. But pretty recently for an artist, I definitely put a headline out there for him that he never would have put on his actual page. Right. But the headline worked. And that's the beauty about it, right? Because it only affects your brand to a certain level when it's the thing that you're sharing directly. But outside of your page, there's a lot of tactics that you can use that you feel like would mess up your brain on your page that grab attention, get the point out there and then leads back to people following you, etc. And I encourage all like a lot of the ideas where you're like, oh man, I don't want to tell people to do a open what they call the open verse challenge on my page or do a cover song on my page. You know what you can do? Well, you can just pay a couple of people to start singing cover songs. All right. And then maybe shout out a couple of those people on your page, but also just really more importantly share that song is being covered on all these other pages. So people just naturally start to pick up on it. You don't have to say, hey, y'all, I got this new song out. I would love if y'all do covers. I'm going to give $1,000 to the best one. No, it doesn't even have to be a challenge in that way. You just allow people to see the example. And then get encouraged by the example and you share that it's happening. And that's it. So it's not impacting your brain. You don't have to do anything that feels like isn't you. All right. And these PR messages, again, these extremities, you can go a lot harder on them outside your page in the same way. Yo, artists, there's a lot of distributors out there, but if you want a distributor that will take you seriously, not just look at you as a number, then to loss is the platform from you. I'm talking about helping you beyond just putting your music on all the DSPs. That's what y'all are supposed to do. To loss actually helps you with your money. I'm talking about whoever's a part of the song, dealing out the splits easily, or more importantly, helping giving you an advance so you can actually create what you need to, whether that's studio time, whether that's your music video, but helping you get money to help fund your career. And most importantly, a lot of these distributors don't really help with the play listing and things like that. Unless you are a signed artist, you have some kind of serious deal, but to loss has that ability as well. And some of our clients, when they switched over to to loss, they've given us shining reviews. So check out to loss, to loss.com and make sure you put in the code. No label. Again, that is no label. N O L A B E L and let them know that y'all came from us. It's completely free. Make sure y'all let them know where y'all came from. No label. Let's get back to the episode. I think that sometimes is what is overlooked about using other pages is you're allowed to frame the message in a way that maybe you wouldn't normally say or wouldn't make sense for you. Right. And so I say it because I know it's a pretty popular thing where you'll see a lot of bigger artists who have a platform say like, Hey, I'm not going to our gin or say cheese or a spiritual word or something because I have my own platform. I can control my own messaging. But what they oftentimes don't talk about or the audience may not be aware of is that you do have a voice, but the voice is limited to some degree. Like it's limited to what I already know about you and the framework that's kind of providing me and like what I would expect you to say or do in a certain situation. So let's say for example, let's say like me and you start beefing, right? It's just terrible. Like nasty fallout. If I go on my account and I post something along, let's say my headline says something like, I had a falling out with brand man Sean and I hate him or something. They'll be weird coming from me because people like, damn, like Kora ain't never taught like this on his platform before. Like, you know, that'd be a weird thing for the post versus if like, I don't know. Let's say fucking, I ain't thinking the platform that would cover it. Let's say our generation music picked it up and that was their headline. You know what I'm saying? Like that was different. Like, because now we know this context might necessarily be true. This is just how they're kind of framing it. And what I've been a part of and have seen artists do is use that to their advantage. Like they'll take certain accounts and be like, hey, like, I can't say this, this way, but you can. So I'm going to post it like this. And then I want you to pick it up with this messaging on it. And you know, from the outside looking in, you'll be thinking like, oh, the artist is posted and the platform came up with this messaging to get it out there whole time. That was the part of the campaign. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, if we want to use a B, for example, I can't, like I might not be able to outright lie about this, but I might allude to somebody being a certain way. Or I might not be able to call you like a whole, for example. But I might call you loose, right? But then the headline that Sean says that he a whole be like something real direct. Right? So then again, it can't be traced back to me. I could always say, well, hey, I only said this. Yeah, I ain't so right. I didn't say that. That was them and their assumption. But you put out, but you know that they're going to want to put out the word that gets the most attention anyway. So you set something up, right? It's like, you, you set it up. You throw the alley you for the PR to be at a dunk it with the strongest, most elacious headline. Yeah, exactly. And like, I think, you know, it's getting out there more about PR, which is a blessing in the curse, but just how much of these things are. Curse and a blessing curse first. How much of these things are staged or, you know, that's why I know like personally, I'm not so quick to like jump on the artist when I see a negative message about the artist. But there's a part of me that sometimes is like, hey, man, like this might be this might be the exact intended effect that they wanted. Oh, yeah. They wanted me to wake him like, oh, this is terrible. Like fuck this nigga, whatever. It's like, I'm not giving them that because I know better. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to scroll right past it. But and it's like, and like you said, like we've been a part of moments good and bad that have, you know, been in line with that. They've done what they've done. Yeah, they've done what they've done. And, you know, I think that, I don't know, that was the most exciting revelation for me personally. When I got into PR, I was learning like, hey, man, like I have complete control of this. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, and it's, it's a little worse now. Where it's like, yeah, is it possible that like some platforms that aren't a part of your campaign pick it up and spread a narrative? You don't want to, that's, that's, that's the, that's the bigger risk you incur with modern PR that wasn't necessarily like, I mean, it's always been a possibility. Like even like the nineties, it could be like, I was about to write an article and you picked it up and you go with a different angle that gets bigger than my angle. But like, it's just a lot more prevalent there because there are a lot more platforms with voices. But also the flip side is that it is more, it is easier than ever to control a narrative than it's also been because for every five pages that you can't get in contact with the post, there are five more that will take your money and post it. Yeah. Especially if you're big or it's, or it's, you know, something that is worth them talking about. Like most pages aren't going to turn that down. So like it's easier now than ever than it is to kick off a PR campaign, you know. And what about staging PR? That was one of the big moments. Our points that you made when we were talking earlier. So we talked about the headline and how you tweak something to make sure you get the most attention and reaction cut through the noise. But how do you stage something from end to end? Yes, I think the first thing you have to think about is who is the group of people that I want to engage? Who do I want to piss off? Who do I want to make happy? Who do I want to make yell and excitement? You have to first identify the target audience for the sad message you're trying to get over. I think the second part is then understanding where are the platforms that these people typically get their message and their news from. So if I know I want to speak to a group of sports fans, I can assume that they're probably getting their news through sports publications and sports outlets and sports pages. I can work it backwards from there. And so once you kind of identify those two things, now you have to craft a message that you know will emotionally resonate with those people in whatever fashion you're looking for and then craft the headlines and the messaging that you can take to the platforms that those people are paying attention to. And this is the part where it starts to become a science. You know what I'm saying? Because I can wake up and say I want to make people mad. I can have a good idea of what I think might make people mad. But I don't know if it's going to actually make people mad until I get it posted. You know what I'm saying? But even like his example, I think it's a really good example, right? Because you look at the way Van Lathen framed his messaging. And I think about the headline as if he was speaking to different groups of people, right? So like the headline he came up with, if that sounds like a headline, he would probably run into like black publications too, you know what I'm saying? To get them inside, right? Because if he ran that same headline and put that show on like the fucking New York Times or something like nothing. Cricus, not me, not Cricus, but it wouldn't be as big of a deal if he had put that shit on the spiritual word. Spiritual word, it's shit out of here, you know what I'm saying? Because it's crafted in a way that makes sense. I even thought about that headline like in my head, I saw three different scenarios. It's like, okay, how would his headline be crafted if Joe Rogan was controlling the narrative? Joe Rogan would want his name in it because then he could be like, hey, look at this other famous person that's vouching for me. That might be the way it's framed from Joe Rogan's standpoint. Hey, I'm not a bad guy. Look at all these other people that you might like that agree with me, right? If it was from his standpoint, like you said, like let's say Boolett Kev was running right in the headline. Like you said, he wouldn't want that in there at all because it's like, okay, I don't want anybody to know I'm associated with this. And then from the standpoint of like TMZ, TMZ is just going for the biggest headline they can get. They're going to say whatever the fuck they got to say. They can. Yeah, so but you have to think about that, right? It's like, what is my intended message? What is the intended emotional response I want from the people? Where are these people paying attention to? And then it's like, okay, how can I craft a message in the right piece of layers? Layers being like the content or the assets or whatever that triggers this desire outcome. And so a personal experience I have is, let me think of one because I got a couple. I'm trying to think of one that matches this. So the one I can think up top of my head is the Nathan Fouts campaign that I did like a long time ago. So like, for those of you that are unfamiliar with it, Nathan Fouts is a rapper from Nashville, Tennessee. He was like one of the first artists I ever worked with when I became a marketer. I think he might have actually been like my second client ever. Maybe like my second or third client ever. And he has this video that you can find online now where he's playing around with the gun. He drops the gun and it goes off. His mom comes in the room and like beats his ass and then like she drags him out the room while the song is playing in the background and so like I said, that was my first ever like viral campaign I ever worked on and he completely staged that video. Now looking back on it, if I think about the conversations we had at least the ones I realized it was staged, there were parts of a way he did think about it in the way of like, okay, this video is going to piss off a couple groups of people. It's going to piss off people who are looking for family friendly content because there's a gun in this video. So it's not, and this is early Instagram, you know what I'm saying? Where you could wave a gun around and not be too much bad happening. So you know what I'm saying? Like here's my family friendly, my content is anti-family friendly content, right? It's going to piss off gun enthusiasts because anybody that knows people that's really in the guns, what are they really into? Gun safety, usually, you know what I'm saying? Just holding it right. Yeah, holding it right, pointing out all that shit. So that's another demographic of people that he was going to piss off. The musical message of it at the time that I also think played a part into it was the narrative behind it was school shooter of the rap game, right? And we're talking about 2016, 2017. So we weren't too far removed from some recent school shootings at the time, you know what I'm saying? And so if you think about all these- I shouldn't say that narrative fast. You didn't put enough emphasis. Oh, school shooter of the rap game. That was, yeah. That was a message of it. Make that clear. Yeah, school shooter rap game. Like I said, 2016, I mean, we were maybe like two years removed from the most recent school shooting at that time. You know, it's a very, very bold messaging choice on this part. Yeah. I don't even think it was that long, to be honest. Yeah, it might have been. I'm trying to tell you. I feel like we're still in the midst of- Of stuff. Some, yeah. Yeah, so it's like bold messaging, but it's like these are the elements that he put together because he could see the group of people in his head that it was going to piss off. I mean, actually, now I think about it. I don't even know if he thought about it that deep. I know for a fact, when I first saw the campaign, that's how deep I was thinking about it. I was like, I can see at least three groups of people in my head that are going to get mad as fuck when they see this video. Let's do it. Tell them how it really got, just as an example, when you really cut through the noise, what it looks like. Yeah, so at first, it was all fun and games. You know, it was pretty funny. People from his hometown were seeing the video. And then he started getting death threats. It got death serious. Like, I'll never forget this day. I will never forget this, because this was so funny to me. And it's funny to me now because it showed my lack of experience as a marker at the time. But I remember having this conversation one day and we were just talking about Nick Stelz for the song. And as we were talking, he was like, oh, shit. I just got a DM from a really big gun page on Facebook. And the page had 800,000 followers or something. And so they just wrote him like, yo, what's up? And he's like, what should I say back? I was like, oh, they're probably writing you just to say hi, writing back and saying, hey, I appreciate the support. Can I get my video posted on y'all account? And so he writes it back, I told him right back, and they wrote back. They was like, oh, fuck no, we hate you. We're not posting this fucking video. We actually wrote you to tell you we think you should fucking die and we hate this video and it's terrible and it needs to come down. And we both was like, oh, shit, we completely misread the situation. First of all, to have that intention but to start with the yo. Yeah, exactly. That's wild, bro. You need to just come and drop that in my DM. Don't give me a yo and set me up for it. Like start off with the energy you want me to pick up on, bro. Oh, that's wild. But it was crazy because I was like, oh, man, looking back on it, that wasn't the first page of that type that had given me that type of energy. So our guard should have been up at that point. Like our guard for sure should have been like, oh, this is an anomaly that one is reaching out to support us, you know what I'm saying? But that whole situation was staged. Like I said, there was a point where he was getting death threats. He had the cops show up at his door. It got that serious where the police saw the video online and thought it was a real video. And he had to talk them through how it was fake and pretty much like walk them through the whole set of just the whole staging of the video. He actually has this video that we were going to put out at the time, which was like an audio recording of the police talking to him. But by the time it happened, the momentum was dying down. So I didn't think it would have added anything to the conversation. Yeah, no, you're right. That's what I'm saying. But like I said, inexperience is the market. It was probably for the best, though, to be real. The marketing side says, oh yeah, like that thing should have came out the reality. I don't know. I think it was best that it came out. And that is the thing. That's the good point you actually bring up is like, what I have learned from that situation and what I try to tell artists is that if your idea is as good as you think it is, it's going to have real world implications. If your idea is not as good as you think it is, there will be zero real world implications. You could damn near be walking around this bitch with dragons on your shoulder and nothing is going to happen. But if it's a good idea, you are going to feel that in real life in some way. Like I said, he had death threats. He had people walking on him in public. The cops showed up at his door. These are, to your point, albeit fucked up from a personal standpoint, all of those were great signs from a marketing standpoint. And definitely made young Corey be like, no, we got to keep pushing this shit. This shit got to keep going. You know what I'm saying? And I think it was even more of a testament. Like that video resurfaces once a year and goes viral once a year. And every year, there's a new group of people who think the video is real. You know what I'm saying? And they kind of fall into the form of learning that it's not real. You know what I'm saying? Fuckin' what we talkin' now, six years later. You know, but... You talkin' about Snoop Dogg posted it? Yeah, Snoop posted it. Drake posted it. Or no, Drake posted it. Tagging, no, Snoop posted it. Tagging Drake. D.L. Hugley posted it. Deezus and Mero at the time did a segment on their show about it. Worldstar picked it up. Like every damn near, like every major publication of the time picked up that video. Like I said, it was crazy. Because this is like my second ever marketing. So at the time, I can speak from this now with a new sense of wisdom. But at the time, this is like the first time it ever happened to me. So I didn't even know what... I was making good guesses, but if we're being real, like, it's some things I could have did better about that campaign. You know what I'm saying? Like if I look back on it, there's at least two or three things I think I would did differently about that situation. But this is the beauty of staging though, right? And it goes back to that same idea that I tell artists when it comes to making content. Like the more energy you put in before you record, the better. Because when you record, you just have the content you have. How to work with it, yeah. But he put together an idea that was going to hit. Yeah. Right? Now, again, whether you agree or disagree with the angle that got taken, it got taken, right? It was a pretty wild angle. We all, I think we all know that. I think he had this whole thing. Wasn't he like flipping a message where he was actually speaking against? He was speaking against gunfire, but if we've been real, nobody made it that far. Yeah, nobody made it that far that you were really speaking against gun violence. Come on. But again though, you actually put together a concept, executed a concept versus, all right, I'm just going to hop up here and put my face to the phone or I'm just going to do another recording at the mic. And there's nothing wrong with those at all either. You might have those as supplementary, but at least having a couple videos per song or per campaign that you have conceptually thought of, how can I maximize attention, at least within the audience that I want to. It doesn't have to be viral like this and that style, but at least to reach and go viral within the audience that's my audience. Hey, just want to drop this quick mention. If you're looking for help in blowing up your music and your career as a whole this year, at the beginning of every year, we open up to find new artists that we want to work with and continue to grow throughout the year, which has resulted in many of the big moments that you hear us talk about. So if this time we've opened up where you'll be able to see how we approach things from ground zero, digging into your brand identity, translating that into content, advertising and full blown campaigns that result in streams and real fans. And it's only $1 at www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days. I'll put a link in the description below, but beyond that process, we actually have ways to speak, get to know you, watch you grow throughout your process so we can lean in and offer extra advising on how to navigate what you're going through in real time. So if you want some real help without having to sign your life away, check it out at www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days. Either way goes best of luck to you in your career. Yeah, I have another more lighthearted example that I think falls in it. So you remember that 24k golden campaign we did with the watermelon? You remember that? Yeah. Yeah, right. So this is the same thing, but there was a point, I don't remember what song we were working. It might have been games on your phone, I think, but at the time there was this trend where this is dumb as fuck thinking back on it, but it was a trend on TikTok where kids were putting rubber bands around watermelons and seeing how many rubber bands they could put into the watermelon and explode it. And so I remember at this point, this was really early when I was working with 24k golden and we pitched to him that he'd do it. We was like, bro, you should do this watermelon trend. It hasn't reached the point yet where big celebrities are doing it. You could be the first one to embrace it. To your point, Rob, we were like, we know your audience is paying attention to this trend and we knew the narrative weren't going to be like super great coming off of that. Like there's going to be people talking about, oh, look at these kids on TikTok doing these dumb ass TikTok things. And we knew that. We was like, bro, you could be the person that rise the narrative of like, oh, look at these kids doing this dumb ass TikTok stuff. And he did it and it went exactly like that. A lot of publications picked it up, like 24k golden embraces the watermelon challenge, whatever it was called at the time. He was like the first big artist at the time to do it. So it did bring more attention to the trend. As the trend got more attention, he got more attention of it too because people were assuming he was the one that made it as big as it was, which he wasn't. You know what I'm saying? Like it was a full-fledged trend before he hopped on it. You know what I'm saying? It's like race rumored with the mannequin challenge. Yep, exactly. It's like, if I was watching this long enough, I know that you didn't do it and you just hopped on it. But if I'm someone that's completely new, especially at that time, not only to TikTok, but the trend in general, now I think that you started it. And every time I see it, I'm going to think about you. If I see articles that purport as you started, I'm just going to believe it because I wasn't early enough in the journey to see that. No, you were like the 50,000th person that actually did it. You know what I'm saying? A lot of people aren't thinking that far. And so like that was something where like we caught a good moment. It was like, bro, like it's not like a super strong narrative like, you know, where Van is talking about like the Nathan one, but it was like a small micro moment that we were able to hop on that gave us like an extra week or two or something to talk about around 24k Golden. That, you know, I won't say that we wouldn't have had it if we didn't do it, but we didn't have to think about it because we figured out something to build on in that time. And it bridged really well between the other stuff I remember us doing for him at the time. Like it bought us another like week or two of public talk that by the time the next thing came out, he was already like prepped. Like there was already warm for it. You know what I'm saying? So I said to say like every moment doesn't have to be like this super serious. Like, you know, like, oh, I'm speaking out against something or standing for something big. Like sometimes just to be little shit. Like, you know, and that's the beauty of PR is PR is about telling a story. Doesn't nobody said the story has to be, you know, heart wrenching or deep or anything like that. That just needs to be a story that's worth talking about. And that could be short story. Yeah, short story. It could be good, bad, insignificant, important. You understand? Like the goal of PR is to get people talking. Now, with that being said, we got to touch on just the point that drives it all together. When do you do a PR campaign? We've kind of talked about this in a little bit in a recent episode, but because this is the masterclass episode, let's like, let's end it by, when do you do a PR campaign? So I think you do a PR campaign either when you have something to talk about or I'll say this. I won't even say that. You do a PR campaign when you have something to talk about that could potentially be talked about by others. Because those are some of y'all that might want to be ahead. Those are two completely different things. You can talk about something that is not something I want to talk about. And that's not worth the PR moment. If you're going to talk about something, that's something like Water Cooler Talk. If you can create Water Cooler Talk, or you think it could be Water Cooler Talk, it's worth doing a PR moment. Oh, look at this. Or did you hear that? Like that type of stuff. Exactly. Right. Or I also believe when you are confident enough in yourself to stay something like that, I think it's worth you doing it. So like, we talked about 24K, we talked about Nathan Fouts. We had that episode last year, we talked about like the Eam tripling situation. Like Eam tripling, before that Rollin' Loud moment, I would have been like, it doesn't make sense for you to do a PR campaign. Like he was moving numbers-wise, but there was no narrative around him. And then they staged that moment. We did the video, breaking out how that video was more likely staged. You know what I'm saying? Like we did the deep dive and looked at the details to put it together over multiple episodes for those that don't know. But that gave him a moment that was worth doing a PR campaign. You know what I'm saying? Like if Eam tripling had did a PR campaign around his newest single, it wouldn't have hit nearly as much as it did around. You know, for those of you that don't know, like, you know, people not showing up to your Rollin' Loud set. His whole thing was about having a dead crowd at Rollin' Loud. So I look at it like that. Like is there, do you have something coming out that's worth that could potentially be a conversation started for people? Or do you have an idea that you can put together that could become a conversation started for people? If the answer to either of those is yes, then to me, it makes sense to do a PR campaign. Now, the caveat is, like I said, where the art and the science comes in is truly understanding which conversation pieces are drivers and which ones are just like, you know, like cool for the moment. You know, like going back to the examples we gave, Nathan Fouts PR campaign, in my opinion, was one that was worth scaling and pushing out for as long as we could. The 24k Golden One was like, worth like a week max, you know what I'm saying? It wasn't something where like, we were about to sit down and convince them to put together this long drawing out, you know what I'm saying? PR campaign around. We was like, no, there's a quick moment we can cap on. We see the opportunity to cap on it. Let's do it real quick. Get out of the way and keep it pushing. You know what I'm saying? Yep. So I think whenever you can identify those moments or you even see those type of moments coming up, you know, because I'll take it back to even the clip example, right? We just hit February. It's Black History Month. The van left the one and two. This would be a perfect way to pop some shit off on Black Instagram and Black Twitter. For Black History Month, you know what I'm saying? He might, he was still at TMZ. He might have seen that coming, like, yo, Black History Month is next month. Let me go head and start getting my shit together now. So when that shit hit, I can go ahead and hit the ground running. And ours is like, if you pay attention to the world and your audience and what they're talking about and things around you, you can see moments ahead where you can plan some of these things. When y'all sometimes see moments hit and it feels suspicious because it hit around a certain holiday or day or moment, you're not tripping. You're probably right. You know what I'm saying? Somebody with a calendar was like, hey, bro, you know fucking Martin Luther King day coming up. You know what I'm saying? Maybe we should, you know... Violate. Put some shit together. Exactly. Put some shit together and violate. So unfortunate. So yeah, man. So I don't know. That's how I look at it, man. Like, you know, I personally am cut from the cloth of PR stunts. A lot of people don't know, but I got my start in publicity. That was my first ever industry job, was working for a publicist. And the publicists I worked for loved doing publicity stunts. Like, that was his whole thing. Like, he loved fucking with the public. And that's what I learned from. So I stand by them tentacles. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can come up with an idea that tricks the public. Go for it. To me, that's when you've earned your master cap in marketing. When you can come up with an idea that tricks mass groups of people, you ain't won this. It's a wild winning work, too. Those first few times, I mean, just like, whoa, I can't believe this many people are moving. Well, I got a campaign. I can't say who it is, but I got a campaign I did recently where the messaging was so big, it got back to the artist and the artist's thought publications were fucking with him. And I was like, nah, that was me. I did that. It led to how I really do that. I'm gonna tell you, actually I'm gonna tell you about a headline I did last week that it was some pretty crazy work. It worked out real nice. Oh, but with that being said, this is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary. I'm Brandon Shawn. And I'm Corey. And we out. Peace.