 What's up everybody once again, it's Brandon man Sean and we got to talk about how you can connect with a wider audience. And first we're going to start with a clip for how the team behind the Defiant Ones documentary made that story about Dr. J, Jimmy Iovine and others become a story that was watched by a far larger audience than those typically interested in those people's career. In these days, it's understandable to think that the person with the most influence is whoever has the most followers, but as easy as it is to conflate the two, marketers today must know that sheer reach and the ability to influence the purchases, preferences and priorities of others are two totally different things. So even with a star-studded cast, their docu-series, the Defiant Ones, with a combined audience in the hundreds of millions, HBO was still keen for an influencer approach to an insurer viewership, not just awareness. They achieved this by setting fame aside, to emphasize and ignite true influence. By engaging on social cast, lesser known people who were unrelated to the story, but still embodied the Defiance the series celebrated, HBO was able to create a vast network of incredible advocates who could lift the cultural conversation around Defiance well beyond the fan base of the show's stars. HBO collected dozens of their stories of overcoming doubt and began publishing them just before the series premier. This broke the significance of the show out of the gilded cage of the music industry where it was set, and directly into the lives of the people they hoped would tune in. Now, Defiance wasn't just about the Titans, many knew of, but few knew. It was about chefs, professors and single dads, people in your real life who social proximity made them far more influential over what you watched than any rock star. These stories ignited broad social participation, licensing everyday people to share related stories. With every new story published, HBO increased the likelihood that their potential audience would find a personal connection to the series, and the resulting social pressure delivered the youngest and most diverse audience in network history. So how did these guys make this happen? You saw the tactics they used, what they said behind it, but what was the thought process that really went into play? Now, Steve Stout, one of the people that often is involved in situations like this where we see these cultural pieces get marketed on a mass scale. He talks about a triangle that's necessary to make a strong impact in today's age, especially now and going forward. That is technology, storytelling and culture. He speaks on how previously these things were kind of looked at as separate. But now today, you might think of the technology as the platform of how people spread the word, right? Social media, maybe some kind of 3D setup in the real world when you do events, but typically we're talking about social media. How do you get the information out there, make the awareness happen in a way that can be shared, but that leads you into storytelling. The story has to be compelling. What do you create content-wise that's going to make people want to share and continue your message on the platform that you shared it? And three, where will your story land within culture? How are you going to communicate with culture and become a part of culture? And once you get those three done, if those happen, you create something that will be bigger than many projects with a similar budget may imply. So let's break that down. What does that look like for an artist or just business in general, oftentimes with a product? Well, one thing that people often do is try to make something bigger than it actually is, right? We all want to connect with a larger audience than we typically might see in terms of our niche or the fan base that we already have. How do we continue to grow? Well, the answer oftentimes is a little antithetical to what you might be thinking initially. So instead of saying, hey, how do I make this bigger? What do I add on? What else can I do? So I can connect with more people. Do I need to add a trap song to my project and a boom bap song to my project and some kind of comedic song to my project so I can hit all these different audiences? And that can work. But oftentimes if you guys have tried it before, you'd know that it doesn't necessarily work like you think it will. And it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to have a huge impact. Maybe you end up with three different products or songs that all do subpar but don't do anything special for you. But once again, the problem is oftentimes the fact that what you should be doing is the opposite of trying to figure out how do we make this bigger than it actually is. The problem is a lot of times it's big already, but all of your marketing thought all of these things that you're trying to come up to make it so big actually make it smaller than it actually is. So how does this actually play out? Well, the defiant ones is a perfect example. That documentary was a documentary about Dr. J, Jenny Ivin, I believe Snoop Dogg, a few other successful figures within the music industry, right? So that's pretty cool. If you're interested in music and music history or maybe any of these individuals who are involved in it, then you're going to be interested in the documentary probably. That's great. And that has a wide audience as is because these guys have been so impactful within the industry anyway. But again, instead of saying, all right, we have these musicians, these people within the industry that are successful. And how do we try to get these other audiences to really appreciate this? We're not going to add things on that really will probably dilute the main product by trying to cater and pander to these other audiences. We're going to strip down the artist. We're going to strip down the music entrepreneur and Jimmy Ivin. We're going to strip down just the music in general and turn them into people. What's the human aspect of them? And that's the fact that all of these people are defined. Defiance is a universal theme that many people can connect with in the same way you might see with being an underdog. In the same way you might see with being depressed, right? The same way you might see with the revenge story. These are very simple themes that when you strip down all of these elements, you have one single story, one single word that so many people can connect with. There's people in the sales industry that feel like they've been defiant and they've had to be uncompromising. There's people that probably work for Coca Cola and Pepsi that feel that way. People that work for Pizza Hut that feel that way. There's people all around the world in different countries that feel that way. Universal themes get rid of all this extra bullshit and connect where it actually matters. It's one of those reasons why oftentimes you see these lyrical artists not really connect in the same way that artists who simplify a song might be connecting because sometimes you make it harder for people to see that chord thing, that simple thing that actually tugs on my heartstrings. Like Tupac's Dear Mama was a story of appreciating his mom. So many people have moms, right? And that was the theme and lyrically the song was super simple. Can't get much simpler than that. It's the same thing with some of these movies that might win Oscars but they don't do as well as some of these other movies that hit the box office and they're not as artistic and about the craft. However, they're touching on some universal themes as opposed to adding all these other elements that make it harder for people to appreciate those things. In the same way that those happens with those things, a lot of artists and business owners do that same thing when it comes to marketing themselves in a product. They overcomplicate what they are and what they can provide versus communicating what they represent and letting the people that find a connection and come to them. So those are my thoughts on this Defiant Ones snippet and it's something that's so important because that storytelling, right, is that piece, it's that bridge that connects the technology and the culture, right? How do you use this platform to connect with the people in a way that they'll continue to circulate after connecting with your story, with your product or whatever you decide to represent? Again, those are my thoughts and I'm actually going to do more of these videos where I might find something I think is interesting or be helpful for the channel and give my commentary on it and I would like you guys help for it. So if you made it this far, I would love if you have any topics or videos, not topics actually, videos that you've seen and there's a part of the video, something that got said that you've seen and you would love to know my thoughts on it. There's a form below. I would love you to fill that out, submit that video to me and I can get a video going about it at some time. Other than that, if you like this video, go ahead and hit the like button. If you're not subscribed, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe.