Watch above or read below.

Matthew Burns:
Daniel, I’m not going to show this ad. We’re only going to do one ad today, guys. Hold on a little bit. I want to show you the ad. It’s really, really good. And it’s another Irish whiskey. Did the Scotts not do anything real awesome? I mean, American Whiskey, we kind of know.

Daniel Whittington:
The Scots are almost as uptight as the Americans. They tend to go respectable advertisers.

Matthew Burns:
But this is for Jameson. I was amazed to learn about the Middleton story and how they brought everybody together and then they said, “Oh, we need one to go around the world and it’s going to be you, Jameson, so let’s go.” And they marketed, which is why everybody knows Jameson. But this ad ran in Ireland.

Daniel Whittington:
2013.

Matthew Burns:
2013. So give us a little bit on this one.

Daniel Whittington:
This was a whole campaign called Tall Tales. This was a whole series they did. I think the first one was Jameson diving off a ship to rescue a barrel that had fallen off the ship and he goes underwater, kisses his loved one goodbye and dives into the ocean and it ends up in a pitched battle with a giant octopus.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, wait a second. I have seen that one.

Daniel Whittington:
Yeah. So this was a part of a series called Tall Tales Jameson that basically just invented a lore for the fictional version of John Jameson, the founder of the distillery. Now if you know your history, John Jameson was not at all that kind of human. Pretty brilliant businessman, but not like a world traveling adventurer. But yeah, it just once again captured the heart and the imagination and then made you being like, “Heck yeah, Jameson. I’m going to fight on octopus.”

Matthew Burns:
Right, right. Yeah, exactly. And it’s interesting because when I watched it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I’d never seen this one, but now when you talk about the stupid octopus, I’m like, oh God, yeah. But when I watched this one, what I loved was there was one line that really got me was, and he unknowingly stopped the…

Daniel Whittington:
Prussian war.

Matthew Burns:
The Prussian Incursion, right? And I was going like, “Did he say Russian? What is he talking about?” I’m going to show you guys the ad and we’re going to talk about all the amazing things they did in this thing. Watch this.

Narrator:
When the new so-called iron horse decided to run wild, John Jameson casually finished his breakfast before taking matters into his own hands. After all, he was quite fond of its precious cargo. Calmly, he relieved the engineer, a decision he would instantly regret. Selflessly, he rescued his whiskey. And for good measure, he set the iron horse free to roam greener pastures, coincidentally saving all of Ireland from the Prussian incursion of 1807, which is the reason why nobody has ever heard of the Prussian incursion of 1807.

Matthew Burns:
But here’s what they’ve done really well. And we teach this, we teach this to our clients, which is if you’re going to go over the top …

Daniel Whittington:
Really go.

Matthew Burns:
Go way over the top. You can’t just get under the other side.

Daniel Whittington:
You don’t say, “The fish was this big.” You say, “I couldn’t fit the fish in my car. I had to rent a trailer.”

Matthew Burns:
Right, exactly. Because then people know that it’s a story and they will not yell and complain that you’ve misled them in the facts.

Daniel Whittington:
Yeah. They turn off their critical thinking brain and go, “Oh, I’m just supposed to go along for the journey.”

Matthew Burns:
Exactly. Right? Jameson sees this train going out of control and he casually finishes his breakfast. So he put the food down, gave it to the dog, right?

Daniel Whittington:
Yeah. And then his precious cargo.

Matthew Burns:
Precious cargo, all the ladies, whiskey barrels. And then you get to the barrels and then he calmly tosses the engineer.

Daniel Whittington:
He leaves the engineer. A decision he would almost immediately regret.

Matthew Burns:
All of these things are brilliant pieces, but at the end you’re not left wondering, is this real?

Daniel Whittington:
I liken it to Douglas Adams thinking. It’s magical realism.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, there you go.

Daniel Whittington:
Douglas Adams or Gabriel Marquez, it’s magical thinking. And in solitude, there’s that where the blood, someone gets stabbed, the blood runs down the curb, up the hill, into the house.

Matthew Burns:
Oh yes, exactly.

Daniel Whittington:
And surprises the cook in the kitchen. Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. Never going to happen, but it’s a story, so we got to make it happen.

Daniel Whittington:
Some part in your brain is like, it could though. There’s a meme going around the internet that I always loved about, I think it was Irish and fairies. It was like, I don’t think people totally understand the way in which Irish do and don’t believe in fairies, which is we absolutely don’t, but also we’re definitely going to leave food out by the tree because we’re not willing to fuck with that shit. That’s the perfect divide of ads like this, which is your brain is like, there’s no way this is a made-up fiction. But then your right brain is like, this is pretty amazing. Jameson’s cool.

Matthew Burns:
Well, and it’s funny. The other thing that I like is because of just coming off the heels of whiskey sommelier one, whiskey marketing one, is you do learn these things. And the room was full of people who knew a lot about whiskey coming into the course, and yet we’re telling them it’s not about what you know about whiskey, it’s about what you want people to feel about whiskey.

Daniel Whittington:
Now, I will argue there’s a click baity kind of problem that happens when you’re really, really good at this magical storytelling, but really, really crap at your product or your service.

Matthew Burns:
Okay.

Daniel Whittington:
So I’m going to argue that those facts and the fact that you can deliver and you’re legit and you do make good whiskey, it matters, right?

Matthew Burns:
Absolutely.

Daniel Whittington:
And you can get away with being silly. If you’re just silly and then your product is shite, then you have a real problem.

Matthew Burns:
No, but we can liken that to a couple of things. You think about any HVAC home service company that we ever market for, if you set them up for perfection and you let them down in service, that’s all you’re talking about. You call, you try us out and we let you down on any of the things that we interested you on. Now it’s broken. That’s the same thing.

Daniel Whittington:
Well, we talk about it at the academy is no, it’s just like relationship. If you go on a first date with someone, that’s not the day to be like, here’s my resume and here’s three references, here’s my bank account statements. And also I have this degree and I think my 401k should be at this level by the time we’re in our 50s. That’s going to be like, well, that’s the end of that. Or if you just sit there and only talk about all the things you’ve done and why you’re so great and why you’re, that’s the end of that date, right?

Matthew Burns:
Correct.

Daniel Whittington:
You have to think about them and it’s a moment. It’s about connection. It’s about finding out we laugh at the same things and it’s about, oh, you know that band too? Or it’s like, oh, you also read?

But somewhere down the line in date four, five, six, you have to be a legit human being. And on that day, if they come over to your house for the first time and realize that your furniture is a cardboard box, that’s going to be a problem. You don’t have a bank account and you’ve been fired from your last three jobs for being lazy, all of a sudden, those facts about you do matter.

Matthew Burns:
Is that called catfishing? Is that what the kids are calling catfishing these days?

Daniel Whittington:
I don’t actually know. I’ve been out of the dating scene for a while.

Matthew Burns:
Something like that. Anyway, no, but you’re absolutely right. You’ve got to deliver. You can’t completely left turn at Albuquerque once you get to the goods. That’s what we’re talking about. But that interest that we’ve piqued in a story, not facts. Again, we didn’t talk about things like…

Daniel Whittington:
Can’t reverse it.

Matthew Burns:
You can’t reverse it. Best way to say it, you can’t reverse it. Please remember, the reason why we’re doing this is because we want you to understand that facts tell, stories sell. I mean, that’s the whole thing. Features and benefits are important. Yes, they are. It’s not like you can’t just get away with saying, “Hey, we’ve got this really good whiskey, but it’s like 90% water.” It’s not going to work. Yes, it has to be there. And if there’s something that you’re looking for specifically, maybe it’s a note, there’s a specific smell that really gets you going that you love in your whiskey or a specific tasting note that you want in your whiskey. Yes, you’re going to be looking for those things. That’s a fact, that’s a feature, but it’s not going to make you rush to the store. It’s going to say, “Okay, great. Now they’re on the list.”

But to rush to the store is like, “Oh man, can I experience that? And can I tell this story to my friends? And how do I share this?” And that’s what you want. You want things that are shared and it’s not your product. You want the idea, the story, the video to be shared. When I was looking through the YouTube stats on these things, we’re talking about millions of views on YouTube of an ad. Please understand, we’re talking about advertising. Advertising interrupts your day. It breaks through the thing you want to do, which is hear the news, listen to that guy talk or listen to some awesome music if it’s radio or television that’s interrupting your favorite program. And millions of people have gone out of their way to watch these ads. Why? Because they’re fun and interesting. They might not even known Tullamore D.E.W., or they might not even known Jameson.

They do now because their friends shared it. And that’s what you want. This is what it’s all about, especially in a world now we’ve got so much digital and AI and everybody’s just telling you one thing. No, we want to experience things and that’s that experience that we really love. Daniel, any last thoughts on this? Because this is all you, man.

Daniel Whittington:
No, I mean, I think I’m going to go have some Jameson as soon as we’re done.

Matthew Burns:
Right, exactly. Okay guys, well listen, thank you for watching as always. Daniel, you are a prince for coming on the show and I really appreciate it. And we will be back with another Sticky Sales Stories. Bye.

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