Rohit Bhagarva, Founder of the Non-Obvious Company, joins AMA's Bennie F. Johnson to talk about the future of storytelling, why it’s best to not be the hero, and how to see things that others don’t see.
Rohit Bhagarva, Founder of the Non-Obvious Company, joins AMA's Bennie F. Johnson to talk about the future of storytelling, why it’s best to not be the hero, and how to see things that others don’t see.
Bennie F Johnson
Hello, and thank you for joining us for an episode of AMA's Marketing And. I'm your host, Bennie F. Johnson, AMA CEO. In our episodes, we explore life through a lens of marketing, delving into conversations with individuals that flourish at the intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We'll introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know.
Through our thought -provoking conversations, we'll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and the pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Today, our special guest is none other than Rohit Bhagava. He is on a mission to inspire more non-obvious thinking in the world. He's a bestselling author of nine books and a speaker on trends, innovation, and marketing throughout the world. Rohit has delivered keynotes and workshops in 32 countries.
And has changed the way that teams and leaders think at organizations such as the World Bank, NASA, Intel, LinkedIn, MetLife, Under Armour, Univision, Disney, and countless other well-known organizations changing their view and inspiring non-obvious thinking. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, he founded two companies and spent 15 years leading brand strategy at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett, where he advised global brands on human behavior, marketing and storytelling. Outside of his speaking and consulting, Rohit has taught persuasive speaking and global marketing courses at Georgetown University and it's frequently quoted in global media. He also writes a monthly column on trends for GQ Magazine in Brazil, more on that later. Rohit lives here in my community in Washington, DC with his wife and he's the proud dad of two boys. He loves the Olympics.
He's been to five and he actively hates cauliflower. We have to start there. So today I'd like to welcome Rohit to the podcast. Thank you for joining us.
Rohit Bhargava
Thank you so much, Bennie. It's a pleasure.
Bennie
Well, I really want to start not with cauliflower, but we'll come back to that because that seems a very specific, you know, focus there. Yeah, right. Well, we'll start with that. How easy is that an answer? What did cauliflower ever do to you?
Rohit
It is specific, but it's an easy answer too.
You know, it's just, it's quantifiably disgusting. And so it's easy to hate. Um, there's not much of an explanation for it. It just, it just tastes terrible. And so I hate it. I mean, that's it.
Bennie
Heheheheh
Well, I appreciate you standing by that. I will tell you though, I will tell you that a couple of weeks ago, I had a really incredible dish that was cauliflower, but I'll spare us with that conversation. I...
Rohit
You know, it is though, I mean, to the topic of the show, it is a little bit of personal marketing because it's something people remember about me and it's a quirky, odd fact and it's personal. And so it does stand out for people. So I also, I happen to believe it, but I also keep it there because it's a good kind of element of my personality.
Bennie
Well, I think it's fun when we talk about our backgrounds and our personalities. Often when I'm speaking and they read the bio, I'm like, who is Mr. Johnson? I don't feel like I know that I've been a part of those spaces. I attended those universities, worked at those organizations, presented those ideas, but it often feels like it's an artifice of who you really are. And in these kinds of moments right there, as you said, it kind of tells a story. You were just mentioning that you recently were at South by Southwest.
And one of the things that you do is kind of these seven non-obvious spaces. Would this stain for cauliflower fit that model?
Rohit
You know, that, that to me is an element of what I think many of us are trying to do in marketing, which is bring our human side to this faceless thing. And when we miss that in marketing, I think we notice it and, uh, and we feel bad about the things we're putting out because we just don't, we know they're not very good. Uh, and what I talk about at South by Southwest isn't so much about that. It's really more about this way of thinking that.
That I use the phrase non -obvious to describe, which is how do you see the things that no one else sees?
Bennie
Right. And you know, what led you to this space? You know, it's been a real hallmark of your approach to the world, to marketing strategy and storytelling, this idea of the non-obvious. Where did it begin for you?
Rohit
Honestly, I think it started for me with working in a creative company and not really being invited into the creative discussions. Because most of us know in this world, and in particularly if you've ever spent time in an agency, there are people who have the word creative on their business card. And they're the ones who are supposed to be creative. And everyone else is just sort of kind of supports to support everything that they're doing. And I remember.
Bennie
Mm -hmm. Right. Right. Right.
Rohit
Being in that agency world and not having the word creative in my business card, in my title, and being bothered by that because I thought, you know, I'm creative. Like I could be creative. I could come up with stuff, but I wasn't really part of that group. And my solution to that was to try to identify new ways of thinking so that I could bring the sorts of ideas that could earn my place in that room, even though I wasn't supposed to be there. And that was sort of my
Bennie
Mm.
Rohit
Personal mission, then it became my mission to start teaching that way of thinking to other people.
Bennie
Now, what advice do you have for organizations to break through that barrier? I've always been a firm believer that not only ideas, but great ideas can come from everywhere. And when we look at the kind of value that we have in our organizations and our teams, it's when we put up those silos that you're creative, you're not, you're in, you're not, that we really limit our productivity. What advice do you give the organizations to get out of their own way?
Rohit
Well, I mean, one way is to start with rethinking the way we assess people because, you you do that annual assessment usually, and the annual assessment kind of goes through, okay, what is your job description? What are you supposed to be doing? And are you doing that? And we check the boxes and then we give people sort of a little bit of the 360, here's what other people think about you. And that's it. And instead of doing that, what if we started looking at what people were really good at?
Bennie
Mm -hmm.
Rohit
And having the assessment be a moment in time where we could determine whether they're in the right role or whether they have the right responsibilities. And part of the assessment was to say, you know what you're really good at that we're just not leveraging here, creating video. You're not a video producer, but maybe we should get you more involved in that. Is that something that would be beneficial for you? Would you enjoy that? Most of the time people will say, Oh, that would be amazing. Cause I love doing this thing. I'm so passionate about it, but it's not part of my job.
Bennie
Right, right, right. And we get people to bring their better selves when they have that space that they're passionate about that our job descriptions in those space can be limiting. They should be idea starters. They shouldn't be limitator, like the piece that limits what you can do in the organization.
Rohit
Yeah, and I think that, I mean, when people go to certain types of roles, right, if they go to a role, for example, in a smaller organization, one of the things that they expect to be able to do is more variety of tasks because you don't have a huge team where everyone has their very specific role to do. If somebody goes to an agency, they expect to be able to work on different clients. That's part of the reason that they're working in that atmosphere. And when you remove that element,
Bennie
Right. Right.
Rohit
And you say to them, you can only do this, or you're a specialist in this one industry, and so you only work on these three clients who are all basically the same, you miss out on the opportunity for somebody to fall in love with the work that they're doing.
Bennie
Right, you really do. So we're going to talk a bit about the future, which is a subject that I know our audience is always clamoring to hear about and to have different viewpoints. But what I love about you know, the research that you've done, the strategy and your approach is challenging us to think about this new future. So I'd love to talk about your recent book, The Future Normal, How We Will Live, Work and Thrive in the Next Decade. So we're not talking about a magical future 50 years off, we're talking about, you know, the next decade, which seems far, but I'm sure you're going to tell us is really here.
Rohit
Yeah, I mean, that's right. It's a, it's an interesting book because I've written, I've written a lot about the future. Um, some people listening might be familiar with the non -obvious trend series, which I'd been doing for 10 years and producing this annual trend report. And then I sort of finished that project. It was 10 year project and I wrote the last version of that. And then I took a few years to do more research and kind of work in different spaces. I wrote a book about diversity in the meantime, a sort of totally different topic.
Bennie
Mm -hmm. Mm
Rohit
And then I went back and I found a co -author who's a, a self -described reluctant futurist like me. And we, we both say reluctant futurist because a lot of times futurists are really focused on what's the potential future going to be 10 years from now. And then they basically share what are essentially guesses and scenarios based on some sort of insight. And what we wanted to do instead was describe the way that the world was right now and what could be.
Bennie
Right.
Rohit
A likely future based on that. So we say this future technologies and things that are shaping the next decade, but really the stories in the book are about things that are happening right now that will continue to accelerate. So when you hear that whole cliche about like the future is right now, you know, it's sort of is because someone is doing something futuristic right now that it falls under the radar that a lot of times you don't hear about.
Bennie
Right. Okay.
Rohit
And if we could spotlight some of those people, we called them instigators in the book. If we could spotlight some of those instigators, we could anticipate what they're going to be able to change that will drive a new, better future.
Bennie
You know, one of things you mentioned was kind of the motion of story in this space and building stories. So you've had a chance to travel and it's an impressive number of 32 countries and having a conversation. You know, when you think about stories, narratives are something that tie us all together, you know, that speak to our humanity. What are some of the lessons that you've taken from sharing and talking about stories across the globe?
Rohit
This is one of my favorite topics because we see a lot of attention on storytelling and we see a lot of people say, well, you just need to become a storyteller. And you also see a lot of resistance from people because they say, well, I'm not a storyteller. Like I'm a professional that thinks in this way, or I'm not a performer, or I just don't. Stories feel like maybe a distraction sometimes because we're telling this long rambling story before we actually get to the point and people kind of see through it.
Bennie
Mm -hmm. Right.
Rohit
So for me, when I go to different countries and different cultures in particular, one of the things I know I have to do from the beginning of a talk, because usually I'm going to go and be on stage for an hour and deliver some sort of keynote or something, right? That's my reason for traveling. And I know that right in the beginning of that presentation, I have to somehow create something that develops a personal connection where they see me as a person who has insights that would be useful.
Bennie
Right. Right. Right.
Rohit
Just a speaker. And so I'm always starting every single talk I do with some sort of personal story and they're different. It's not like here's the one story that I share with everybody, right? It depends on the audience. And that is kind of what we have to do when it comes to introducing messages to people as well. We have to give them a reason to have any sort of faith that this message is just going to be interesting and worth their time and attention before we...
Bennie
So what, when you think about the cultural norms that you embrace when you're coming across, are there any keys to delivering that authenticity and story? There's different storytelling. A story being told in the US is different than a story being told in Japan is different than a story being told in South Africa in some respects. But in some respects, there's some commonalities. Are there any go -to at...know, tools, tips or advice that you would give to our audience as to how to kind of narrow in on, you know, delivering impactful stories.
Rohit
How much time do we have? Yeah, I mean, I would say, well, making the assumption that the majority of listeners will be American or coming from Western culture, the first thing that I would say is avoid the temptation to make a introduction story about how you were the hero, because we tend to be very self -focused in American culture. And we want to hear the story of overcoming. And the non-egotistical way to do that in American culture is to tell a story of how you really struggled before you became the hero. But it's still egotistical because you're still the hero. And in a foreign culture, a lot of times that just doesn't work because it demonstrates that you're just a little bit more American than they anticipated you would be.
Bennie
Right.
Rohit
And that's not really the ideal way to connect with an audience because their culture just doesn't operate like that. So if you can find a story where you lifted someone else up, where you were part of something bigger than yourself, and therefore you achieved some sort of victory, not because you achieved it, but because we achieved it, that can be a much stronger opening that then builds more connection.
Bennie
Mm -hmm. Oui.
Rohit
In another culture. So a lot of times the story I might use in an American keynote would be different than if I knew I had a really big international audience. And the second thing is, which may be perfectly obvious, talk half the speed you think you should talk. Because if you just present slower than all other speakers, you will immediately come out way ahead.
Bennie
That's a great tip there. And really interesting about the focus on the individual versus the focus on we. And I think that translates when we think about brands as well. Because often we're introducing our brands through the same narrative of message and story. Are we introducing the brand as focused hero or are we reaching the brand as community lift?
Rohit
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right. And we do talk a little bit about the cultural differences required in certain messages, but it can be really tough to deliver on because it feels like you're not relaying the brand because brand is all about consistency and nuances and those sorts of details feel like they can be a distraction from consistency. So that can be tough.
Bennie
Right. But it's, you know, it's in that, that nuance, like you said, it is tough, but I think it's really rewarding for brands who get that right. Who put the time and energy. I think about franchise models, right? Where you actually play with that tension between an overall brand architecture and structure with thinking about proximity and local culture and conversation so that your brand experience is slightly different in Washington, DC than it is in Brussels.
Rohit
Yeah, and being able to allow the people who know that culture to have enough of a control and direction so that you can take advantage of their local knowledge.
Bennie
Which I think is really powerful. I'm gonna ask this question, because it's a localization question for you, but deeply personal to your bio. So you write a monthly column for GQ Magazine, but in Brazil. Make it make sense.
Rohit
Yeah, so that, I did that for a while. I don't actually write that one anymore. Now I started writing a monthly column for Inc Magazine here in the U S but the way we did the one in Brazil is that I would share ideas and there was a journalist in Brazil who would actually take them and translate it into Portuguese and then sort of help turn that into an article. And they did that for, I think about a year. So that's how we actually logistically did it. If that's what your question was.
Bennie
Right.
Right. No, no, it's just, I love it because it's completely not obvious, right? That there would be a trend conversation in GQ as a magazine with you in Brazil. Like that just reading those words aloud make you pause and go, okay, right. And from a bio perspective, I need to know more, right? Of how this happens. But you know, what's interesting is that you've had a career of being able to speak on trends.
Rohit
Yeah. Yeah.
Bennie
Which I know we talked about being a reluctant futurist, but trends of really more being a pragmatic futurist, right? You've been able to spot what's happening today as a driver for what it may be tomorrow. How has that work and that space and being kind of a speaker on trends, how has that shaped your own kind of work and narrative?
Rohit
Well, I think what I, what I end up doing is what a lot of people in marketing, um, are often doing, which is observing human behavior and trying to understand why people do certain things. And for me, the extreme version of that, which is beautifully related to the way that I get to work is that I'm constantly taking deep dives into industries that aren't mine. So for example, I'll do a keynote for a heating and air conditioning company.
Bennie
Right.
Rohit
And in preparation for that, I'll go on a service call with a heating and air conditioning repair person. And I'll see exactly what that experience is. And then two weeks later, I'll go and do a training for people who sell diamond engagement rings, because I'm doing a talk for a jewelry company. And I'll learn how all the tricks are for getting somebody to fall in love with a particular engagement ring so that they want to buy it and maybe spend a little bit more than what their budget was. And I do a deep dive there. So multiply that by 15 years and.
Bennie
Mm-hmm.
Rohit
By the time that I spent working in agencies where you do get to jump around from a nonprofit to a tech company to a B2B, you know, in agriculture. And that type of career, I think gives you an appreciation for all industries and helps you resist the temptation to become a quote unquote industry expert in any one of them.
Bennie
Right.
So have you seen what in recent times has been a trend that you've seen really connect all the industries together? Something that.
Rohit
Well, I think there's one, I mean, there's, to some degree, every trend that I write about does that because I wouldn't describe it as a trend if it didn't. Cause a lot of times people say, well, the trend is this and it talks about a platform. So they'll look and say, okay, discord is a trend or like TikTok is a trend. And those aren't trends, they're just platforms that allow people to communicate in certain ways. And they become popular because...
Bennie
Right, okay.
Rohit
People because of something human, right? People enjoy short -form content or something like that and that might be the reason for it. So when I think about trends and I look at them across different industries and different areas, right? So for example, the growth of immersive experiences that people want to because of a number of societal factors, right? The growth of loneliness as an epidemic, right? Which people...
Bennie
Mm-hmm.
Rohit
Fact that now with remote work, one of the things that all the research is showing is the more we work remotely, the less opportunities we have for intergenerational and interracial friendships, which often start at work, not through your friend circle. So if you are friends with somebody who's 30 years older than you, chances are you met that person at work. And if you no longer go into work, then maybe those friendships don't happen as easily. And now we lose that connectivity between unusual friendships.
Bennie
Right. Right.
Rohit
Right. So you look at those factors and you say, well, people want immersive experiences. So how is that affecting events? How is that affecting entertainment in terms of you see new forms of entertainment coming like Black Mirror tried that whole bandersnatch thing where they kind of allowed you to control the narrative and see where you were going to go. That's one example, ABBA doing their huge stadium in London where they have the virtual versions of the Swedish pop stars. And you can watch the virtual versions performing alongside a real band.
Bennie
Mm -hmm. Right.
Rohit
That's another version, the haptic body suits that we saw at CES where you could wear the suit and feel the knife going through your sternum, like as you're playing the game, like that's another example. So these are all different industries, right? But what they all connect to is this desire to have more immersive experiences and travel. You could have all sorts of travel experiences that people are now doing that also relate to that. So that's where you start to see, okay, this is happening in travel. This is happening in media. This is happening in gaming. This is happening in...you know, in live events and when you put those things together, the trend is towards more immersive experiences. So that's kind of how you fit the pieces together.
Bennie
Right. Which I think is a really important distinction, right? The platform, the technology and the tool are not the trend. They're just kind of the resources or the expression of the trend. As you mentioned before, it shows up in what makes sense in Europe. You're in the restaurant industry, it's a chef's table that's in the space that's formed a table. If you're in gaming, it's another type of experience. And if you're in automotive, it's the way in which auto shows have changed.
Rohit
Right?
Bennie
Where you have a space where you, but they're all about that other connection point, which I think is really, really powerful. When you think about today's marketing leaders, what advice do you give them to that kind of superpower of spotting and responding and building off of trends?
Rohit
I think that one of the things that we have a distinct advantage as marketing people to be able to do is that we see the real meaning of a message as opposed to just the message itself. So when someone's telling you what a marketing claim is or giving you a two -for -one deal, if you're in marketing, you're like, well, obviously they have excess product. And so they're trying to move it and give you a two -for -one or three -for -one or whatever. That's why they sell fireworks the way they sell fireworks, right?
Bennie
Mm-hmm. Right.
Right, right.
Rohit
Like the closer you get to the 4th of July and then right afterwards, it's like buy one, get three free. Like we know what's happening there. We understand the mechanism of like why that is the way it is. And I think being trained with that sort of mindset gives you a superpower to be able to understand why messages go out the way they do. Why politicians say the things that they say. Why the media reports a story one way, whereas a different media outlet might report it a different way. Like it gives you this...to be able to understand why the world works the way that it works. And I think people in marketing are uniquely qualified to do that because we've been trained on how those messages get created and sometimes we've created them ourselves.
Bennie
You know, as we look to, you know, the future of marketing and we have marketers and non -marketing professionals using the same training and tools and platforms that we have, you know, what advice do you have for us leveling up to kind of the next normal of marketing where we see this in our industry where everyone believes it can be a marketing and are participating, but not everyone is effective.
You know, empowered or has the industry perspective that we've talked about, but you have more people engaging in marketing. What advice would you have for marketers to be able to harness these powers and level it up?
Rohit
Yeah, I think that one of the things that marketers need to do to prepare for this future is maybe stop focusing so much on the output and think more about the strategy because that's what we as humans are really going to continue to do. And that's what's going to be in demand. So generating a bunch of images or being executional in that way is something that AI is going to make faster and faster and eventually probably take on altogether with minimal direction. So.
Bennie
Right.
Rohit
Strategic we can be, I think the more prepared we'll be for that future.
Bennie
I think you're absolutely right. Something that's interesting, you posed this language earlier and we talked about the role of marketing and your role at looking at human behavior. We think about human behavior is really not a static pace, it's a space that kind of leads to change. What changes are you seeing in human behavior that will change the way we market?
Let think about our consumers a little different today in 2024 than they were in 84, than they were in 54, right? Right.
Rohit
Yeah. I mean, I think they are. It's one of the fascinating things I did, uh, actually with my, with my son, who's now studying marketing is in college and he's studying marketing is we were on a panel together at CES and the topic of the panel was speaking Gen Z. And so I could talk about it as a marketer and he could talk about it as a member of the Gen Z generation. And what was fascinating.
How he was talking about the way that they consume information and how quickly they can consume and understand information and therefore how much they expect information to be presented to them in that way. But also the corresponding potential loss of mastery, the potential loss of deep diving into certain topics. And I don't believe, I've never believed this whole idea that like, oh, the attention span is totally dead and people don't pay attention because people still binge watch TV shows.
Bennie
Right. Right. Mm -hmm.
Rohit
10 hours, 20 hours, I mean, if attention was truly dead.
Bennie
Right.
Rohit
Pay attention to and it was just fascinating generationally how that's changed.
Bennie
It's so true. I think about that. So I'm going to put a pin in this moment to give you dad props for that, for having the father son, you know, that that's the dream over here with my teenagers now that they have that conversation. But I think you're right. The bar has changed and the gates been changed, right? Because you go into it and the belief that, oh, the tension's not there. But you said the facts show it the way we binge the way we stream. There's just a higher gate to.
Rohit
. . .
Bennie
Jump into what we care about to give our binge attention. Right? Wait, wait, wait.
Rohit
Yeah, I think that's I think that is true. And I don't think that's only true for young people.
Bennie
Yeah, to our point, I think it's, I look at my parents' kind of interaction, the space in there, and they have options and choices that they didn't have when they were our age to go in and what brands, what experiences, what shows, activities I'm gonna be a part of, and they can vote with their time and attention. When we think about that as a challenge for marketers, what advice would you give for marketers who are up against this?
Right. And we're often as marketers, we're on the cutting edge of these conversations. Our team members, our audience, our executives and our organizations are looking to us to help navigate what comfort, challenge or concern which you offer.
Rohit
Mm -hmm.
Well, the first thing I would say is stop believing that the amount of time, attention you get equates to a successful marketing message.
Bennie
Yes.
Rohit
The longer time they spend on the website trying to find that phone number, the less successful that experience is.
Bennie
Exactly. I'm smiling as you said that I remember an early marketing lesson, rebuilding out a website and that the technical team was like, oh, people are spending X minutes here. This is great. And when you really actually spent time talking to the audience and the consumers, they're like, I'm spending that much time because your site's a mess and I can't find what I'm doing. And it only took two clicks and a minute for those highly successful customers to get in.
Rohit
Yeah.
Bennie
Have a product experience and get what they need it. And we were optimizing to your point to this misbelief that more time is more valuable.
Rohit
Yeah, we do that all the time. Like we accept as marketing people, we accept being measured on the wrong metric and we don't question it. And therefore we demonstrate that we're not doing our job and people give us less budget and they think that we're not as valuable as we are. We have to be measured on the right metric. Time on site is the wrong metric for a website if you're trying to provide utility. Same situation, you think about a car dealership, right? All the marketing, if it's working, is not about selling cars. You cannot measure the marketing of a car dealership based on car sales. You can measure it based on how many people walk in the dealership. If you get more people to the dealership, your marketing worked. If you sold fewer cars, that means your sales isn't working, but your marketing is working. So if you're being measured on the wrong thing, you're going to set yourself up for failure. And we have to get smarter and more strategic about arguing for what the metric should be that we get measured on.
Bennie
So you spend a lot of time, or have spent time, as an adjunct professor at Georgetown here in DC, and you're doing courses about storytelling and presentation there. It gives you a chance to kind of jump in the industry while it's happening and space in there. What are some of the wisdom that you impart on the students that you have? From your days at Ogilvy and Leo Bernad and in your own practice.
How are you really able to kind of jumpstart their imaginations of what a future in marketing could be?
Rohit
Well, the first thing I tell them is that I was invited to teach a class about public speaking at Georgetown and I declined. And the reason I declined is because I said, most people don't need to be a public speaker in front of a huge audience. What they do need to be is a persuasive speaker in every situation. And when they allowed me to change my course to teach that instead, then I said, yes. And so what I tell the students is that being a persuasive speaker is about understanding who you're presenting to and giving them.
Bennie
Right. Exactly. Yes.
Rohit
What is most critical for them and reading whether that's working. And that's a skill that you can learn to do and that you can practice. And I find it amazing that students can graduate from business classes and business programs, either in the undergraduate or master's level, without ever taking a speaking class. That's fascinating to me because so much of the way that we're arguing and the way that we are presenting and pitching is done based on speaking. And if you've never learned how to do that, then all the
Bennie
Right.
Rohit
Frameworks and knowledge that you have from all of the other classes are incomplete.
Bennie
It goes for not right, because nobody's paying attention to you. You're not listening. You're not able to share and communicate, which is at the heart of driving your agenda forward. It's amazing that we have that conversation where there's kind of breaks in how we think about learning. We talked a bit. We started off about human behavior and the changes in there. So I'm going to circle back to where we started and say, if there was a marketing challenge, and this is for all of our marketing students and practitioners and experts and hobbyists who listen to our talk. If I gave you this challenge, how would you change one's Rohit's behavior so that he moves from actively hating cauliflower to at least mildly tolerating it?
Rohit
So here's my answer to that. And I think it's a good instruction for marketers. And I'll give you a very real example of a moment when I was there. There are things you can change and there are things that you can't. Right. And I was working on a big brand marketing campaign for orange juice. And this was years ago. And one of the big challenges that the marketers of orange juice were facing is a lot of media was.
Bennie
Thanks.
Rohit
That orange juice is a poor choice to give your children in the morning because it's high in sugar. And so they had all these solutions to like, oh, we can make low sugar orange juice and like, we can have like different additives and we can present it differently, or we can say you can balance it out. And the brand manager, she was amazing. She listened to all of these arguments and she said, you know what? Orange juice has sugar. Like it's a fact. So instead of trying to decline and deny who we are, let's embrace that and talk about how it's a better source of sugar. Better source than Froot Loops or all of these other things that people are eating in the mornings and lean into the fact that we're orange juice and there's vitamin C and there's all the other health benefits. And, and she also said something that really stuck with me. She said, some people don't like orange juice. And there it's not your job as the marketer to convince somebody who hates something to become somebody who would eat it. It's your job to convince the people who already like it to, you know, have more of it. So.
Bennie
Right. Right. Right.
Rohit
You know, no marketer should try and convince me to eat cauliflower. That's a waste of your time. You should instead convince the people who like cauliflower that it could be turned into rice or some other idiotic thing that they're doing now and have them buy that. And now you're upselling people on having more cauliflower in their diet and living a less fulfilling life, but they're the target audience, right? They're the people you should convince, not me.
Bennie
Yeah.
Right, right, right, right, which allows us to go back to these all reinforce doubling down on where we have positive energy. It goes back to our conversation about talents, right? In our team, instead of spending our time trying to be better at the things we're absolutely horrible with and make us feel bad about ourselves in our space, double and triple down on the things that bring us joy, impact and power. Right? When you think about that as a staff and a team member, if you have somebody who
Rohit
Yeah. Ha ha ha.
Bennie
Could be an incredible storyteller video and we're spending all their time in accounting, we have an opportunity there to switch out and the organization and the function will benefit from having that space. I love the metaphor of that in the space and at that note, I'll take the note. We'll stop trying to convince you to eat cauliflower.
Rohit
That's good. It's a good question because our minds go there, right? We want to be persuasive. We want to convince people. I mean, that's the way that we think, right? But when we add that layer of questioning our tendency, then we lead ourselves to spending our time in better ways. And I think that's part of the key.
Bennie
But as marketers, I have to try. I have to figure out why I understand my audience now.
I think it is. Well, as we close, it's been a great, I can't believe we're at the end of our episode, our hour here, but I want to ask you this question. What's next for Rohit? What's occupying your next? Yeah.
Rohit
What's next? Yeah, so my biggest next, I would say, is that I've got a new book coming out. It's my 10th book, and it's called Non-Obvious Thinking. And it is very different from a lot of my past books because it's not about trends. It's not a long -ish read. It's very short, and it's filled with stories. And it's sort of a prequel to everything I've been doing when it comes to non -obvious thinking because it gives you this...
Bennie
Excellent. Nice.
Rohit
You know, four elements of what it takes to be a non -obvious thinker. And it's meant to be approachable for everybody from students all the way to marketers who've been in the industry for a long time. So that's what's really exciting for me. That'll be out in September. And so that's what's next.
Bennie
Well, that's awesome. Well, we'll count us in on Marketing Anne as readers and supporters. We'd love to continue this conversation. So I'm publicly inviting you to dinner here with me in DC so that we can sit down and talk over this in the fall. But I'd like to leave you with the last word. If we think about the future, what word would you use to challenge and empower marketers up tomorrow?
Rohit
I would say understanding. Try and focus on understanding the people who you're trying to reach and have empathy for the way that they want to be communicated to. And I think that's at the heart of all good marketing. I mean, we have to have empathy and understand the people we're trying to reach, and then we inject creativity into the ways that we might reach them. And that's, if there is a secret sauce, that seems to be a big part of it.
Bennie
Well, I think that's a perfect way to end our conversation. Thank you Rohit. Thank you for bringing non -obvious thinking in both passion, creativity and strategy to our conversation. I think understanding and empathy an incredible way to close out this episode of Marketing Ed. Thank you for joining us.
Rohit
Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
Bennie
Check out the new book and connect with us at AMA .org and hear more about our episodes of Marketing Ed. I'm Benny Johnson, your host. Thank you.