Watch the video episode above or read the transcript below.

Matthew Burns:
You’re a Porsche driver. I’m not. But the kicking of the stupid skateboard onto the grass, dude, seriously, that’s cool. He kicks it into the grass and walks away. [Let’s watch.]

Man with phone:
Is that cool or what? I know. It’s incredible.

Announcer:
The 450-horsepower Porsche Cayenne Turbo. There is no substitute.

Stephen Semple:
But here’s the thing. We talk about speaking to your tribe, that was a very tribal ad because Porsches are owned by old white dudes who live in the suburbs, right? Here’s the crazy thing: in Canada, insurance premiums are calculated based on claims. Even the car. It is cheaper to insure in Canada, a Porsche than a Honda Civic.

Matthew Burns:
Well, okay then, that easily you can understand those two.

Stephen Semple:
Right? Because the guys who drive it, they actually don’t race them. They are kind of calm, careful drivers. But here’s the part, I love the sound. Porsche even understands this. They have a team of engineers who are called harmonic engineers, and it’s not just for making the car sound quiet inside and getting rid of wind noise.

It’s actually about… Like, my daughter Crystal does not like driving my car and passing in it. She goes, it gets so angry-sounding, because when that kicks in, it’s like, right?

Matthew Burns:
Get out of my way.

Stephen Semple:
It has a very distinct sound. They work really hard on that sound, and that sound is kind of a bit of a tribal call to everybody. And this ad was very strategic. This ad came out when they launched the Cayenne. And here’s the thing about the Cayenne. Porsche was one of the first; I don’t know whether it was BMW or Porsche, but they were one of the first sports car and performance car companies to come out with an SUV. And there was a lot of, initially, a lot of pushback on it. Well, that’s not a Porsche.

So this was very strategic, this whole idea of, oh no, it still sounds like one, right? It’s still going to give you that growl. It’s still part of the history of the car. So they were tying it into all of those things. And then they came out with the Macan, which is what I have, which is a smaller version of the Cayenne. Those are by far their bestselling vehicles. So they’ve ended up becoming hugely successful.

But what I love is – to a car person, and you are sitting in your kitchen, and that noise happened. You would walk out and check out the TV.

Matthew Burns:
My son would definitely be like, wait a second, that’s a… He knows. And then he would go run out and take a look.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah, that’s the other weird thing. The harmonics of a Ferrari is different from the harmonics of a Porsche.

Matthew Burns:
Yes.

Stephen Semple:
But literally it would attract… That revving was brilliant.

Matthew Burns:
Okay, so what I like about this one, Steve, a couple of things emotionally, and I mean, you know me, I love a humorous ad. And something I didn’t expect. They did a really good job of leaving all the images of the car doing its revving. You didn’t see the phone on the floor, which I thought was funny.

Stephen Semple:
I love the phone. And you could also tell how old the ad was from the phone.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, yeah, that’s true. It wasn’t a cell phone anyway, but pretty cool, right? And so that whole, the emotion, the fun of that was amazing. But now, and I didn’t think of this until you started talking in the video today, I’m thinking about Porsche and the people that resonate with Porsche. And at the Wizard Academy there’s a course called the 12 Languages.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
And so, the 12 languages of the mind sound being one of them, color being another one, shape being another one. So guys, go to wizardacademy.org, go take this course. It’s really cool. It’ll tell you the different ways you can talk to your clients, your consumers. But they nail it with sound. They definitely, I mean, you look at the tailpipe.

Actually, you know what? Let me play the second. We have another one, guys, that really, and Stephen will go on the whole tribe thing here.

Stephen Semple:
And before you go to the second one, I just want to point out something I want people to look at, because we’re going to also talk about this. Porsche understands the communication of shape better than any car company out there. Let’s go to this.

Man in car:
Wow.

Announcer:
The bloodlines are unmistakable. The new Cayenne GTS. Porsche, there is no substitute.

Matthew Burns:
Okay? So I’m not a car guy. Just so everybody understands, I’m not a car guy. I don’t care what car. My wife can pick every car by the color and shape. I don’t care as long as it gets me from A to B. The Porsche 911 was in the ad. They have Cayenne, everything’s in that, right down to their racing car, their F1 cars. It is unreal how complete, that’s what they call it, bloodlines for a reason. But I’m going, oh, maybe a Porsche.

Stephen Semple:
And when I was coming back to shape, here’s the other thing that is unique about Porsche. When they design cars, and often they’re criticized for it, everything looks like a 911. They have a feel and a shape and a look that they actually try to put in each one of their vehicles. Like the headlights are a certain way. In the backend, there is a consistency that they’ve put through all. And that’s it.

Look, that’s also tribal and communicates, and all those other things. So they’ve played with shape, they’ve definitely played with sound. They’ve done all of those things, and it builds that connection with people.

Matthew Burns:
Well, absolutely. I mean, and this is guys, they’re not talking about the interior. They’re not talking about – none of the stuff…

Stephen Semple:
They talked about nothing.

Matthew Burns:
This is the way it sounds. Both of those are about the way it sounds. So they were talking about one language, but then they highlighted the shape.

Stephen Semple:
And they were almost all at night on an empty road. Like no one’s on the road, and you vroom, vroom. Vroom, vroom, it’s in the driveway. Vroom, vroom. They didn’t race it down any roads.

Matthew Burns:
Ladies, I’m talking specifically to ladies. I have to apologize. This is definitely a dude video. We all would do this. It’s almost like, here’s a great example. So Stephen and I, a couple of years ago, we went to an uncovery down in Rochester, New York, and we had to drive across the border because it was easier.

And again, I’m not a car guy, I don’t really care. And we were driving in Steve’s Macan, we go down, we do the uncovery, it was a great day, blah, blah, blah. We got some ideas for the client. And Steve, we were driving from the client’s place back to the Airbnb, and Steve says, Hey, you want to drive back? He says, you haven’t driven the car, you want to drive back? And he’s trying to sell me a car, which is the strangest thing. And he puts me in the, I get in the driver’s seat.

Yeah, I’ll try driving the car. And he says, okay, hey. He goes, put it in sport mode, because it was a straight away, and it was this little S-curve. In the straightaway case, we had driven it two or three times. And I’m like, okay, so come to the stop, go to the side row, put it in sport mode, go back in, and vroom. I was like, oh Jesus. I didn’t even hear the engine. Barely from the inside of the car was like, give her, give her, give her, give her.

And I was tentative, I’m going, how fast is it going to go? But then it takes, so guys understand, ladies, please, I apologize. But this whole video, it is definitely, if you want to talk to the tribe, this is a dude thing. It really is. Now, I’m not saying all women, because there’s going to be a few that are going to go in the comments and go, I would totally do the same thing. Absolutely. I just know all guys are boys inside. We never really grew up, and that sound, and doing that thing. Anyway, sorry.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah, but that’s the whole point. So we often talk about great ad copy, there’s almost no copy in this, because it was just the sound. But great ads attract your audience.

Matthew Burns:
Correct.

Stephen Semple:
And that’s what they did brilliantly in this, and also strategically made the Cayenne part of their lineup. So it was really, really well done. But a great example of using the ad to attract your people.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. No, this is good. I was so happy when you brought it up, and I watched the ads before we got on this time. Normally, we don’t start that way, but oh my God, it was so good. Thank you, everybody, for watching. We will be back in a week or so. Okay. We’ll be back in exactly a week as we run these weekly.

If you want to learn more about the 12 Languages of the Mind, you can go to wizardacademy.org. I’ll put a link in the description. Anyway, thanks, Steve. Another good one.

Stephen Semple:
All right, thanks, man.

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