Audio, AI & the Fight for Human Connection

Wow, what a treat! Nicole sits down with Gayle Troberman—former CMO and current Executive Advisor of iHeartMedia, Co-founder of Bubbler Media, and one of the most influential voices in marketing, audio, and brand storytelling—for a conversation about why the future of marketing may sound more human, not less.

As AI-generated content floods podcasts, radio, and digital media, what actually captures attention? Human connection.

Drawing on her experience leading groundbreaking campaigns at Microsoft and iHeartMedia, Gayle explains why conversations are replacing traditional advertising, why audio continues to thrive, and how AI is forcing brands to rediscover who they really are.

Together, they explore:

• Why starting conversations matters more than creating ads
• The emotional power of audio and the human voice
• How brands lose their humanity—and how to get it back
• Why consistency builds trust more than perfection
• Where AI belongs in the creative process—and where it doesn't
• Why the best marketing feels more like belonging than targeting

Whether you work in marketing, branding, media, leadership, or content creation, this episode offers a fresh perspective on trust, attention, community, and what it means to connect in an increasingly automated world.

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Know someone who's flipped the table on their career to follow their life's purpose? Let us know at titan-one.co.  

Transcript

Gayle Troberman 0:01

We're really trying to help brands learn how to start conversations, not create advertising. It's a very different strategy.

Nicole Gottselig 0:17

Hello and welcome to Connect with Purpose, where we uncover the journeys of remarkable people who have turned their passions into a purpose-driven life. I'm your host, Nicole Gotzelag, and whether you're on your own quest for meaning or simply curious how others have navigated their paths, this show is here to inspire and guide you along the way. Gail Troberman has one of those career trajectories that feels almost serendipitous. But when you dig into it, it also feels like she designed it herself. She spent 16 years at Microsoft as chief creative officer, then moved to IPG Media Brands as Chief Marketing and Ideas Officer, and later spent a decade as the first ever CMO at iHeartMedia, the number one audio company in the U.S., reaching 9 out of 10 Americans every month. Now she's co-founder of Bubbler Media Group, built on the belief that marketers are thirsty for more, consumers deserve better, and simply playing the efficiency game really isn't enough anymore. And as they say at Bubbler, if you're not in the conversation, you're not in the game. Oh, thanks for having me. Yeah, excited to be here. So before we get into the work, as I was saying, your career almost feels like it was like um serendipitous in a way. Um you started at Microsoft, you were there for 16 years, then you went on to IPG, and then we're the CMO of iHeart. When you started, was there like, okay, I'm just gonna go do this, this, and this, or just maybe walk us through your career a bit?

Gayle Troberman 2:01

Yeah, not even close. I always said if I was gonna write a book of my career, which no one needs, um nor should I write, I would call it stumble, because that has been um the consistent thread for me in my career, is I've stumbled towards great people, really. I mean, smart, interesting people doing smart, interesting things. And, you know, when you meet people and you go, you know, I don't know what I want to do next, or um, I took an uh entry-level job in advertising, and it was, you know, pretty much like you're an assistant to people. And I wanted to be a copywriter. And the way that it worked at the big agencies back in my day was you just you bounced around different desks and eventually you got promoted. So they started me in PR, and I had this amazing boss, Trisha Gibney, who's still a close friend, and she was teaching me all the things of PR. And I got promoted before I ever moved to my second assignment. And so I became a PR person. And, you know, I still tell people, and I think we're seeing it today, PR is coming very much back into vogue in the owned media era, right? When you can't buy the space and you have to convince one human has to convince another human that this idea is interesting enough to write about or talk about or cover, it really forces you to have a higher bar for what you're communicating and a more human bar. So, you know, that was the beginning of the era of stumbling. I we pitched Microsoft and uh we didn't win the business at a PR agency, but I met these amazing uh women. Uh, Mitch Matthews, one of them, the first CMO at Microsoft. And uh she called me to try to get a PR job. And I was like, I don't think PR is my thing. I gotta get out of PR. I want to do something else. Um, and then years later, she passed my card on to somebody who was starting internet startups within Microsoft. And uh, this crazy genius Scottish dude called me at home on the landline back in the olden days, and I was racing home to go meet friends at a bar in New York. And we talked for like an hour and a half because he was one of the smartest, funniest, most interesting humans I ever met. And I went and interviewed for a job I didn't know anything about on a secret startup at Microsoft, and I ended up getting a job to market a thing called Sidewalk.com, which was one of the early, the first city guide on the internet. And I got to work with these crazy smart people at Microsoft.

Nicole Gottselig 4:31

You know, I love this because when I listen to Gail talk, I can't help but feel like I'm right there in the story with her. And what strikes me is how these people just kept appearing at exactly the right moment. That's not luck. That's what happens when you stay open. And honestly, that's the whole spirit of why we started Connect with Purpose.

Gayle Troberman 4:52

People pop into your path, and you know, I always say to people, when you're like, that's the person, follow them, stay in touch with them because there's gonna be something in their orbit that's gonna be interesting. And I do the same thing now on the hiring side. When interesting, smart, curious people cross my path, I'm like, I want to do something with them. And sometimes it takes years. The the new uh business I'm just starting now called Bubbler Media, we really want to bring the joy and pride back to this industry where we got trapped in the spreadsheets and the bottom of the funnel and the KPIs and the optimizing, and and we've just sucked the joy out of why we went into marketing, which was to be creative and social and innovative and try new things and understand psychology and motivation. And and, you know, it was a fun creative industry, and somehow it became about the spreadsheet. So, David Alberts and I, my partner, we met 20-ish, 20 plus years ago on a boat and can, the first can I ever went to. And, you know, we had the same curly hair, which is a problem on a boat that's in motion in a windy day. And we just sat down and had a beer and talked for like an hour. And I always knew we wanted to work together and we've dabbled here or there, but now we're starting this new entity. You can check out Bubbler Media Podcasts wherever you listen. And um, hopefully we're putting fresh, provocative new ideas out into the world to celebrate this industry and get our heads out of the spreadsheet.

Nicole Gottselig 6:22

Yeah, I've been quietly following you from the sidelines because I also love audio. And actually, then I was reading The New Yorker, I think it was in February, and there did this huge piece all about sort of audio and why Joe Rogan, we don't have to like him or or listen to his podcast or anything like that, but why he's so appealing because he just gets on and gabs for hours. And I remember even being like in the 80s, we would just sit by the radio, everything was about the radio, everything was about that voice.

Gayle Troberman 6:50

And um, I feel like we missed that. It's not accidental that of all the media, right, as you watched in the digital era, you watched print media uh, you know, go off a cliff, then you started watching like network TV go off a cliff. And broadcast radio is maintain mass reach. And it's because even if you don't think you're doing it, right, you you get in your car, you're like, I can't listen to that same playlist from that I've been listening to at the gym for you know two years because I don't have time to make new playlists because I have a job. Um, and so you, you know, you go, you're driving for like a little bit of time. You're like, what's going on in the world? I want to be connected. And broadcast radio has maintained mass reach because it is live and human and unscripted. We were I was just at the possible conference this week and we had Charlemagne the God from The Breakfast Club on stage with Bob Pittman. And Charlemagne has a massive broadcast radio show. It probably reaches, you know, eight, 10 million people. Um, they're live unscripted for four hours every morning, and then they take that to YouTube, and then now they've taken that podcast to Netflix, and it's doing insane numbers on Netflix. But it's it's the same live human unscripted conversation because Charlemagne doesn't show up with a script, he shows up with whatever's in his head today. He's reacting to the same things you are as a human. And audio has this intimacy and this authenticity when it's live and human and unscripted. And it's really funny because a lot of people now are like, we've got to make podcast video. And there's room for that, and and it'll have its lane. But the beauty of what makes audio so intimate is that you're not worried about your hair and your makeup, you're not worried about the lighting, you're not in this artifice of production. You're just having a live human unscripted conversation. In fact, in surveys that i heard all the time, listeners tell us they tune into The Breakfast Club or, you know, Ryan Seacrest or the Elvis Duran show or Bobby Bones and Country, and they say they tune in for music. But the reality is all of those shows play three to four songs an hour. We're turning in because we're lonely. We're tuning in because we want human companionship. We're tuning in, and audio is a companion medium. It's it's like sitting with a friend and having a conversation. And and it's the, you know, we even tried, we played around with um AI as you are, as everyone is in all these different ways. And we tried to like clean up some podcasts, like take the ums and the ahs and the you know, out of it. Unlistenable. It's unlistenable, right? It became fake. And the beauty of whether it's Malcolm Gladwell or Charlemagne or Questlove or, you know, so many of our podcasters, the beauty is they're talking just like they talk. And it's that realness that I think, particularly in this digital era, has become so isolating, right? They're so performative and fake, and we're screaming at each other and we're we're clawing for attention. And then you just hear somebody be like, Hey Nicole, how's your day going? God, wasn't that traffic awful today? Oh my God, it's pouring rain out. I know. I just want to sit home with like a cup of tea and watch daytime TV, don't you? Like it's just that honesty of a conversation. And that's, you know, it's what iHeart's amazing at. It's why broadcast radio is so big.

Why Audio Beats AI to Create Human Connection

Nicole Gottselig 10:21

Okay, I want to pause here for a second because what Gail just said about audio being a companion medium, about people tuning in, not only for the content, but also for the human connection. That's exactly why I wanted to have this conversation. I've spent almost a decade in B2B marketing, and the question I keep coming back to is why is it so hard for B2B brands to sound human? We have incredible products, brilliant people, real stories, and yet so much of what gets put out there, especially with AI, follows the same formulas, choppy sentences, and enough metaphors to make you cringe. Devoid of any soul, really. What Gail has seen from both sides, building brands at Microsoft, understanding audiences at iHeart, and what she's now building at Bubbler is really a blueprint for how B2B brands can finally show up in a way that actually builds trust and lasts.

Gayle Troberman 11:14

Conversations are why podcasts are on fire, fastest growing medium in the history of media. Um, and it's what we're trying to do at Bubbler. We're starting a conversation company. We're really trying to help brands learn how to start conversations, not create advertising. It's a very different, a very different strategy.

Nicole Gottselig 11:34

I know. And you know, when you think about B2B brands, I've worked in marketing for years and years. And like you, I cannot even look at a spreadsheet, talk about a funnel, automate like one more piece of anything, right? And I and I work in various different channels within marketing, right? But audio is something I pitched years ago to B2B Tech Company. I go, we need just to be talking and just put it out. And who gives a shit, right? And let's let's see what happens, you know. And then this is podcasting started to build up and build up and build up. And because it connects people with people, you know. So a lot of B2B brands think we need to be on TikTok and we need to be here, we need to be there. But how can they use audio as sort of like a place to go? Hey, this is a new place we can go and show up, and then more people were gonna come to us. Like, why is it never even mentioned as a distribution channel?

Gayle Troberman 12:26

Yeah, you know, I mean, hopefully it's mentioned more than you think, but not as much as it should be by by far. You know, we talk about it a lot at iHeart, and we um, you know, we did this New American Consumer Study that we've done with uh Gladwell and and the team at Pushkin, who are big podcasters with us, and we were asking a lot of those same questions, right? There is there's a real big bias against audio and towards video in the marketing world. I think it's because we all, you know, there are multiple reasons. Um we all love seeing our brand, right? We all love, like, you know, we've grown up in a very the digital era has been so video centric that the tools and the measurement and the programmatic platforms have been built around video. So we know how to buy it, we know how to sell it, right? We we know, think we know how to measure it. That's a whole nother podcast we could talk about. And I think there's been a bias against audio. And what we see all the time is with brands that get into audio, particularly B2B, right? Where you probably don't have as large a budget, your audience is more niche or smaller, and you're trying to find that audience. Um, audio can be such an efficient and effective platform because you can get mass reach and targeted digital audio now with streaming and podcasts. Um and then you can go out at scale. And audio creates much more attention, right? We've done all these neurosudies because, and you do it, we all do it, right? The the tips and tricks of video. I have to grab your attention in the first two seconds, or you'll never watch this ad on TikTok or YouTube or whatever. However, in audio, it's the exact opposite. It's it's I go, hey, Nicole, how are you doing? What'd you have for breakfast today? Right? And I pause, and now neurons are firing and you're picturing your breakfast, right? Now, if I wanted to sell you a new healthy breakfast or a cheaper breakfast or an easier accessible breakfast on the go on your way to work, whatever I want to sell you, you are now picturing your breakfast, and now I can talk to you about what I want to sell you for breakfast. Whereas if I showed you breakfast, I would be wrong with pretty much every single consumer. They don't have kids, but the kids are at the table. They don't eat cereal, but I'm showing cereal. Your house isn't this pretty, beautiful terrace with a lake out front where you eat this beautiful fake breakfast, right? All of it's unreal once you produce it in video. And in audio, you have this incredible attention because when I pause and go, what'd you have for breakfast? Your brain sells fire and you are engaged. If I'm a B2B brand, like we can say, like, is your budget tight? Are you having a tough quarter? Do you need to build your funnel? Do you need more customers? Are you worried about hiring? Like, whatever the thing I want to sell you is, is it time to reevaluate your tech stack, your people stack? Whatever I want to talk about, I ask you a question and you self-select into that audience. And now I'm talking to you about a problem your brain has said I'm interested in. And it's the exact opposite. So instead of screaming at you for two seconds, I ask you a question, and now we start a conversation. And your brain is the production machine. You're filling in the images from your office and your team and your problem this quarter. And I'm not screaming at you. I've started a conversation, and now we're having a two-way dialogue. Audio is really, it's very much a two-way medium, um, much more so. Unfortunately, I think a lot of creatives treat audio the way they treat video, and they don't maximize the ability to just not script, be human, be in a show. You know, I say this all the time. It's also the most targetable medium, particularly like broadcast radio, right? Am I talking to you in the morning, the afternoon, late night? Right? Am I talking to you on a rainy day, on a beautiful day? Like all of these things you can now target with a little bit of data at scale across the country. And we can be running the spot for when there's traffic and when there's not, for midday versus late night, right? We can tap into these moments just by running different creative in the right places. Um and it's all highly localizable. Am I talking to you in Berlin? Am I talking to you in Boston? Am I talking to you in Miami? And so I think it's it's such a beautiful green field of creative and optimization possibilities. But a lot of the programmatic tools and such weren't originally built for audio, they were built for video. So I think as we catch up and we make the tools a little bit easier, we are seeing them, we're seeing a lot of people, particularly in a tough economy, come back into particularly broadcast radio as they start seeing the effectiveness. Yeah. The CPMs are lower, the scale's there, and the attention is greater. So it's a really powerful medium. And when you think audio, don't just think podcasts, although we love them and we have the biggest podcast network that I have. Um broadcast radio is so scaled and efficient. And if you're a B2B company, pick like five markets where you know you have high potential to win customers and go into those local markets with real reach and frequency. And I know you will see growth. We see it over and over again.

Nicole Gottselig 18:00

Okay, I didn't even think about that. Yeah, and even too with audio, as we even see, I work in B2B tech. You can do audio, you can also use it in your lead gen because I also work with a sales team. They're trying to get people's attention because if you open up LinkedIn, I'm pretty sure you go through all your DMs, it's all bots. Gail, Tron, are you interested? Let's hop on a quick call, let's do this. It's all this automated slop, essentially. I read it, and you almost feel like assaulted, you know.

Gayle Troberman 18:27

So we're having a visceral reaction to that, you know. And I think we're you know, again, you know, and I, you know, I think we were talking about it earlier. Trust is such an important thing for brands, and it's just eroding. It's been eroding in the digital era, and I think in this AI moment, you know, where we're losing trust with consumers when it's such an important part of the purchase decision. You know, do I trust this brand, particularly if you're doing, you know, higher price point items or considered purchases or B2B, where I have to bet my business on your tech or your tools. I really need to know that you're a brand I can trust. Um, and so if you're spamming me with bot stuff and you know, fake copy and you know, consumers know they're smart. I mean, they know. I think we had a stat or something like 89% of consumers know that bots and algorithms are controlling their feed right now. So they're, you know, their willingness to believe your messages or even listen um is going down exponentially, making it harder and harder.

Nicole Gottselig 19:32

Absolutely. I remember even recently, my sister replied to something on like Instagram or something with me, and she used ChatGPT. And I phoned her up. I said, Did you use ChatGPT to put that comment? She's like, Yeah, I was really tired. I just didn't feel like you know, saying anything, but I wanted to support you. I said, I would rather you did it to do anything.

Gayle Troberman 19:54

AI could be human. Be like, ready to go. That's it. That's a perfectly okay response.

Nicole Gottselig 19:59

Oh my goodness. So I'm curious, like in all this AI and with Bubbler and what you and David are starting, how is the human voice and how are these conversations cutting through the clutter? Or what's what is your vision for this? Like, because we know marketing doesn't just happen overnight and people aren't just gonna like jump on tonight, right? So walk me through about that a little bit because I'm really fascinated by this.

Gayle Troberman 20:26

Sure. You know, I think um, you know, we were we really believe that human conversation is at the core of of what drives great marketing, right? It's how, you know, the there are two things, right? You know, you can there are a million names for them in the the marketing sphere, but at the end of the day, right, you have to create demand and then you have to capture that demand. And we could argue those are awful words. You know, I was um I was at uh uh an event last year where um Esther Perrell, who I love, is uh a friend from Summit, um uh, you know, she came to a marketing room of marketers, and she's an incredible um psychologist, and she listened to us talk and she said, Why do you target people and try to capture them? And and she's like, If these were your children, would you use those words? And I was like, wow, that was so insightful, right? But if you you assume we have to create some demand and then we have to get that demand, maybe that's a better word. Conversation is at the core of both, right? How can I make people curious about what I do? Right. And that's why I always start with a question, not a message I have to deliver, right? What's the question that's gonna get you and I engaged around the topic area or the need I have for the products you sell?

Great B2B Brands Start Conversations

Gayle Troberman 21:46

Right? What's gonna make me curious? Right. That's the first part of starting a conversation strategy. And then what's gonna make me care enough to act? Right. And and you know, in a conversation. Where we go from talking about the weather, the traffic, or you know, what you had for breakfast. And then we start getting into like, oh, wow, you work on what? That's super interesting. You know, I have a problem here. And you start telling me how your, you know, your tech suite could help solve my issue with this, right? Now all of a sudden I care. Right. So we've gone from, I'm curious because you're interesting. And we we started building a relationship. We built a little trust. We talked about where you live and who you are and you have kids and you know, what are your hobbies and passions? And we started building that relationship first, just like you would at a party or right or a dinner or a networking event. And then we get to right, what do you make? What do you do? Why might I care and act upon or want to have a meeting or want to consider your product? But I think in this digital era, right, we we took, you know, remember, I don't know, I'm old. I remember when a 60-second spot was normal. You know, now that seems like an eternity, right? Because we made everything shorter and we said people didn't have an attention span, right? And you know, millennials, it's like millennials in America are the most educated generation in the history of humans. They listen to like two-hour podcasts about revisionist history, and yet we said they couldn't handle 60 seconds of content, right? It's the exact opposite. So that's why I believe so much in what we're trying to do at Bubbler is start conversations with smart curious people and build a community of smart curious people and talk about things you're not talking about, bring you new ideas. Um, we were just talking last night with, you know, one of my favorite shows we've launched is a podcast called So Get This. And it's in partnership with John Gersma and Libby Rodney at The Harris Poll. And if you haven't listened to it, check it out. So get this at the iHeartRadio app or YouTube or wherever you listen. And um, they have one insight each show that will blow your mind. Like the first episode was about how millennials and Gen Z are turning to lottery over logic. People are buying spells on Etsy to help them get jobs. You put in an offer on a house and you need witchcraft, you need, you need, you know, tarot and palm reading, and all of these things feel more predictable and more reliable than compounding interest and saving and things that other generations thought were a given, right? You save money, you create retirement funds, you're gonna be able to afford a house. And but and this generation, some of those things haven't proven to be true. So Lottery over logic was fascinating. The most recent episode we just dropped, um, I think this week, um, was a fascinating premise. I I've in the last like I think two and a half, three weeks, I've been to TED, Summit at Sea, and the possible conference. I've been in hundreds of panels, I've had talks, I have had dinners where we talk about talks, like literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of conversations about fascinating topics. And the single most interesting thought I can tell you I have heard came from episode three of So Get This. And in the GLP one era, everything, the reason you know the GLP ones are working with weight loss and they're starting to explore them for addictions, and they say, you know, doom scrolling is stopping. Because one of the things that those medications do is they sort of quiet the mind, right? They get rid of food and anxiety, like noise in your head about a lot of things, whatever those things that are you know making rattle is the word I always use, right? And um, so think about that as a marketer. If our brains are getting quieter and we're less anxious, right, and there's less food noise, there's less mental noise, there's less of that rattling and anxiety. Maybe everything we learned about screaming for your attention isn't gonna work, right? We learn how to like co-opt your feed with the perfect image that you're gonna see for a split second. But maybe conversations where you can have a human connection, those create memory structures that gets ingrained in your brain. You encode that, right? You remember it, it sticks, and then it's there when you're going, oh, I want to work on a project. I need a partner, I'm thinking about a new insight. Oh, we need to upgrade our tech. Oh, I had that conversation with Nicole about this. It's it's encoded because we had time, we had a conversation. It sparked neurons in my brain, therefore I processed it. It wasn't just noise. So, in a, you know, I think this podcast, I recommend it to everyone. It's it's short, and each episode there is just an insight you haven't heard. And I guarantee you, when you listen to that show, you're gonna want to have a conversation with other people about it, with your clients, with your teams, because they're they just have this amazing way, John and Libby, of tapping into what's next, seeing the question that needs to be asked, and then they have the research chops to go answer it in a way that is just always fascinating. So start more conversations.

Nicole Gottselig 27:29

Bubbler is built around the idea of modern-day water cooler moments for the marketing industry. Back when Survivor and America's next top model were must-watch TV, you had to be home to watch them. The next morning, everyone was crowded around the water cooler talking about what happened the night before. That shared moment, that collective conversation, that was really the original viral distribution. Then streaming just fragmented everything. Then social made it louder but shallower. And now AI is making content infinite. What Bubbler is trying to rebuild is the thing that made people actually talk. Not scroll, but talk. And that's it. And that's that like spark, and then it's like trickling, and and then there you go, right? You know, like I said, I'm 10x, so I'm still old school.

Gayle Troberman 28:16

Yeah, I guarantee we'll have the conversation about this noise idea with somebody this week. You just will, because it's a fresh and it's it's not just a new thought, but it's something that we don't know what it means, right? That's where marketers are gonna do their best work when we see changes coming, and now we can start playing around with what that means and what's gonna happen and getting ahead of a new sort of zeitgeist that's gonna be out there for, you know, if you believe the numbers or you know, Lily's um earnings and forecasts that came out yesterday, right? You're gonna see, I mean, GLP ones are gonna become a pretty mass uh product. So, how many people's brains are gonna be rewired or thinking differently or a little less noisy?

Nicole Gottselig 29:06

Yeah, I did read a long form piece of I you see, I'm somebody who loves long form. I'm pretty like I'm a journalist, I'm a writer by trade. And so like I have to read. Like if I don't read, I think I'm like gonna get atrophy or or like right now, you had me so enraptured and I just wanted to know more, right? So if we walk, if we go through like say a B2B brand, if someone actually believes and has true conviction and passion about what they're saying, like you do, like how you're sharing with me, that's how you stand out. That's how you get people on board.

Gayle Troberman 29:38

Exactly, right? You know, you know, old school, right? Audio is really good at like a there's a there are tried and true methods of advertising that have been around forever and they're still just as effective, right? I mean, a testimonial, a real person who had a real experience with a product, consumer or B2B, and tells their real story, it makes you pulls you in. You feel that person's like pain and the fear they had. And, you know, I think we have this incredible moment as marketers with, you know, the beauty of AI, I think is it's gonna be incredibly disruptive and disruptive moments are where as a marketer, as a business person, as a leader, you really get to step back and make decisions, rethink who who you are, what's your business about, what's your brand about, and recommit or commit to something new, right? Who do you want to be in this error? What do you mean in this error? What do you stand for? And it forces that reassessment because any brand that's worth anything, I believe, is clear on who it is and who it isn't. And we were talking earlier about, you know, I worked at Microsoft for a long time and as chief creative officer there and ran advertising through some tough battles. The I'm a Mac, I'm a PC uh error, and you know, brilliant campaign from Apple. And, you know, what we realized was it's totally okay to make fun of Bill Gates in a big TV campaign. You know, he's he's a titan of industry, uh, you know, really important, big name in business. And yeah, that's okay. You're a public figure. Um, you know what it wasn't okay to do? Make fun of a billion people who use Windows every day to run their businesses, to get their school work done, to try to start something in um all around the world and small villages and in big cities. And so when we were trying to compete with that campaign, we had to think hard about Windows because it is a big brand. Windows can't do what Apple could do, right? Windows has a very different role they play in business. And so we, you know, we realized very quickly like Windows' most powerful asset was the fact that a billion people used it at the time. And so we just gave the mic and the camera to a billion people and we let them talk about how they used Windows all over the world to build everything that started with Windows. And it was a brilliant campaign. It was the first big TV campaign I ever worked on. Um, and still just incredible work that, you know, was right for the moment. Um, but we, you know, if Windows had hit back and tried to make fun of Steve Jobs, it would have been awful, right? Because as the big brand, as the leader, you don't get to do that. You have to have a more credible and important tone of voice when every giant Fortune 500 company relies on Windows. You can't just go be like the provocative poke at you isn't that funny brand. That just wasn't who we were. So you have to be true to who you are. I see so often, you know, a competitor will try to be like, you know, if somebody, you know, a new startup comes into your category and they're trying to overtake the big guy, and then the big guys try to become like the startup brands, and and it feels fake and forced, you know. So the I think the best part of AI is that it's really forcing reevaluation of so many things in business that we've taken for granted. But at the core, I think it on the positive side, it's forcing us creatively to think about who we really are and what is our voice and our tone, and where do we show up and how do we show up.

Nicole Gottselig 33:17

Okay, so what I love about this particular moment in marketing, even with AI, or maybe because of AI, is that real authenticity has never mattered more. Being unapologetically human and what Gail is saying about brands being clear on who they are and who they aren't, that's how you cut through. Think about it. We all know when we're reading an automated response, we feel it and we turn away.

Gayle Troberman 33:43

Now we may create those things differently. There may be different roles and different teams and different agency structures and technology we're gonna need now. But at the core, none of that's gonna work if we're not clear on who we are, and we can train AI to understand who we are and who we aren't.

Nicole Gottselig 34:02

I love that. And it's like, and who you aren't. We talk a lot about trust, and I know in your study you talked about the trust halo. Maybe just share that with us a little bit. Because building trust, especially online in this digital age, like we don't want to connect with any more bots. I want to know that I'm talking to Gail. I'm not Gail's like agent. Exactly.

Gayle Troberman 34:25

Yeah, no, I mean trust is at the core, right? Think about all the language we use. Like, I think marketing language is so interesting, right? Customer journeys and brand relationships, right? We talk about that all the time. Um, most consumers don't have relationships with brands, right? But if they're gonna buy you and buy you habitually, they they need to have a certain amount of trust, right? At a basic level, they need to trust in your product. Uh this is a little old example, but you know, I thought I always thought it was so interesting when um Microsoft, when Xbox was starting out, um, we knew gaming was a very different category than Windows and Office, right? It was really the first big consumer product, uh, not business first product. And we wanted to be cool for gamers, right? And it was a much smaller market back the back in the day. Um, and so Xbox, you know, some genius people in the Xbox world came up with that gorgeous branding that sort of still persists X and the green, and you know, and it was very gamer friendly, and even the name Xbox and stuff. And um, the first year on the market, Xbox really didn't do that well, and the marketing didn't really hit. And we realized it was a, I don't know, $250 gaming platform, and most parents didn't even know what gaming was. And so, you know, your your kids are like, I want this thing, and you're like, oh no, it's $250 on an Xbox. What is that, right? And then we realized in our research that if we put the Microsoft brand on it, people would be willing to spend $250 for a gaming because they believed Microsoft. Oh, this is a real thing. When I plug it in, it's not gonna explode, it's not dangerous for my kids. It's all of a sudden putting the Microsoft brand next to the Xbox brand meant there was high trust. Because Microsoft had built that trust as a Fortune 500 company that built Windows and Office and great technologies, right? They ran business. Therefore, oh, if we're gonna bring it into our home from Microsoft made all the difference. And then Xbox is what it is today, a phenomenal, phenomenal, you know, major gaming platform. So, you know, that's really this trust halo, is it's really in this era where there consumer trust is eroding everywhere, right? Where, you know, we we haven't always been able to show restraint as marketers, where AI is is forcing that. You know, we see again and again, you have to build trust with consumers. And audio builds more trust, and we see it over and over again because it is a little more human and a little more authentic than video, which by definition, you know, I once I do a set, I've created a living room and it's not your living room. But again, if I talk about being in the living room with your kids last night and, you know, is everyone on a device? And don't you wish you could have been playing a game together or right, having a shared moment or a shared meal or whatever I want to sell you. Again, if I describe all that, I have so much more trust than if I show you things that are by definition not true.

Creativity & the Future of Audio Marketing with AI

Gayle Troberman 37:41

It's funny because I'm already there with you. Yeah, right. It's amazing, right? And completely and yet in the video era, you know, we we've, you know, and and there's certainly, I mean, you know, there's room for production, you know. I always say, like in audio, either be very human and unscripted and start a conversation, or do the exact opposite and entertain me, jingles work, right? There's a reason we remember jingles from our childhood, right? They're highly produced, but they're supposed to be. And you know what? If you're a breakfast cereal or a QSR, like I probably don't need a lot of information, right? You could just build trust by being fun and showing up in, you know, showing up in a way that's just fun and memorable. And, you know, if you want to sell me a breakfast sandwich and you play those five notes, I'm loving it, right? Which I won't sing for you, I'll spare you. I know, I know you're McDonald's. I'm already there. And maybe you want to tell me you've got a new breakfast item. Maybe you want to tell me you've got a value or a two for one, or right, or you can give me whatever message to as a call to action. But with those five notes, I know you're not Burger King, you're not Taco Bell, you're McDonald's. So building memory structures is another way to use audio that's super interesting. Um, and that goes back to trust, right? Like if you're in my head consistently, which is probably one of the other things people don't talk about when it comes to building trust, is consistency.

Nicole Gottselig 39:12

Something I discovered in my time in B2B SaaS marketing, especially when budgets got cut, is that the best way to reach more of the people looking for you isn't one big campaign. It's consistency. It's showing up where your customers already are. It's teaming up with brands and creators who have a shared audience. Co-branding, guesting on podcasts, building relationships before anyone is ready to buy. So that when they are ready, you're already familiar, already trusted, and already part of their world.

Gayle Troberman 39:43

We all still talk about MailChimp and cereal, right? And it was years and years ago. I don't know how many years now, right? But they were consistently in every episode of the serial podcast that you were listening to. They were the only brand back in the day that was there. And so they had 100% share of voice. And we all knew what that product was, whether you you used it or you didn't, you knew exactly what it was. But as a serial listener, you felt like MailChimp was part of the serial tribe. They were part of the club, your club. And I always tell brands that in the podcasting era or broadcast radio shows, don't spread everything all over with the best targeting and show up once. Be part of the club, right? If you're a Breakfast Club fan or you're a Gladwell, Malcolm Gladwell fan, or you're a stuff you should know, listener, whatever, you're you're part of that club. So as a brand, if you want to build trust, show up and be part of the club. Be part of every episode. That's why host reads work so well, right? I always say it's the worst name product in the history of marketing. You think we could come up with a better name for that product? But when the host you listen to every day says, Hey, have you checked this out? You're part of their club. We're all part of the same tribe. We share a shared fandom for this show. And in that context, now, what conversation do you want to have with serial listeners or revisionist history listeners? Right. It's not that hard. I think sometimes we we overthink it in the conference room, really removed from where that in the video days, particularly like the Mass Reach TV days, we started creating marketing in a vacuum, right? We were gonna create this perfect little thing and then we were gonna project it out all over the world. And the reality is now we know where that's landing. So how can I be true to that moment, time of day, day of week, show and the fans you're showing up in? And how can we create shared fandom? I think it a lot of sports marketing works well because you're you're starting with the sense of you're an NFL fan, I'm an NFL fan, I'm showing up in the NFL, right? You look at um brands like State Farm, you know. I love, you know, Allison and Baldwin and Patty and the team there do a phenomenal job. They show up as NFL fans in the NFL and we share, right? We share that fandom and that passion. So for me, you know, that that's how you build trust. But don't just show up once, right? And then spread a message here and here and then never show up again. If we're both fans of that game or that sport or that podcast, show up every week because that's how trust is built, right?

Nicole Gottselig 42:30

I love that. You know, when I was at another big tech company, and anyways, our budgets were cut, blah, blah, blah. And I had to get X number of KPIs and open rates and you know, the whole nine yards. And I didn't know what I didn't know what I was gonna do. The first thing I did is I started to work with other influencers where we had a shared audience, and I just started to do co-branding for like no money. And I'd be like, let's do a co-branded podcast or webinar or or things like that. And and and that's it. So this that's what it brings me to. Because I what am I gonna tell somebody when they say, like a CFO who says, we can measure audio ROI and why are we gonna do it? And then my brain goes, Well, why don't we just start talking in other podcasts or do this? And then it starts to see it.

Gayle Troberman 43:15

Like it doesn't have to be about starting a podcast. No, no, you don't have to have your own podcast because as you know, like to do it well is a commitment. Um, but showing up in other people's podcasts where you find like-minded audiences. You know, I was talking um with Oswald and the Kaleidoscope team recently, and they do phenomenal um the Tech Stuff podcast, and you know, they have these very tech-minded audiences, right? So if you're me to be tech audience, you want to show up in shows like that in the context of smart, curious, tech minded people are having interesting conversations. And then don't make an ad. Start a conversation. Ask some questions, right? Or work with the team at Kaleidoscope and let them help you start a conversation. Conversation. I think the most best host read ads are the least read, right? They're where, hey, you know, we have, we were talking to our friends at this company about they make this thing, and it's super interesting to me because you could do this with it, or it could change your numbers because of this. And right. And let them interpret it in the way that's right for their listeners versus what your you know copywriter brain is going to think is right. That overwriting thing is a is a problem. And in the AI error, now we all have amazing overwriters at our disposal. So it's getting worse.

Nicole Gottselig 44:36

Gail, I don't know. I feel like I've just had a masterclass. Sometimes in marketing, well, I mean in my in my other job, I just it can be like a, you know, and it's like, can you automate this? Can you automate this, Nicole? Can you automate? And like, no, I don't want to automate anything more.

Gayle Troberman 44:52

Automate the nothing stuff, right? You know, I'm not anti-AI at all. Like, automate the stuff that needs to take hours and like slicing and dicing and cutting and pasting, and you know, automate the stuff you don't want to do. And I think that's what happened in the digital era. And I hope it happens again in the AI era. We automate the kind of grunt work stuff that doesn't make us interested in curious humans, so we can spend more time on the conversations and the ideas and the interesting part of marketing again.

Nicole Gottselig 45:19

Like, I love what you say. Where do I forget where I read it? Maybe it was in a bubbler piece. If you're not in the conversation, you're not in the game, and your new show, Gay Eye, is literally built on this premise. And this is the coolest show idea ever. I can already think of people I want to pitch for that for you. But tell us a bit about Gay Eye and why you're doing it.

Gayle Troberman 45:39

My co-host, who we haven't announced yet for Gay Eye, challenged me as I was uh, you know, starting to change up my role at iHeart and I had a little more time on my hands. And um uh, you know, he's uh a big important gay person in the marketing world. And it's not a great error. You know, we've made so much progress, I think, in visibility and equality in the LGBTQ community. Um, and things seem to be slipping um now. And um, and he kind of challenged me to say, what can we do to help with visibility for the gays in marketing? And we want to let give the mic to a lot of fascinating creative gay people in advertising and let them tell us what's interesting. So I'm so excited about that show. You can follow it uh if you go to Bubbler Media on YouTube, go follow it. The trailer's up there, it'll give you a little more. And um, stay tuned. Uh, episode one's coming out uh sometime between now and June 1.

Nicole Gottselig 46:35

I cannot wait. Like I am I will literally be your one of your first listeners. I'm sure you probably have many already signed up already, but um I'm an ally in the community and Titan One, the producers of this podcast as well, are a very proud LGBTQIA plus brand as well. And um I I just think it's brilliant. And I can think of so many brilliant marketers I know.

Gayle Troberman 47:00

I'm like, oh, you gotta have to go this way. Yeah, bring them on because I mean, you know, think about you know, we were talking about we're gonna do an episode on the gay dollar, right? Because I think as you think of all the target audiences, another screwed up word, targeting, right? Um, right? The targeting bringing you in, inclusion, right? We target people, but for a million awful reasons. Like there, there's so many brands not reaching the gay audience in a way that matters. So we want to bring that side of the equation to life, too. The interesting people in advertising need more visibility to normalize that for the people coming up. And then we need more visibility for the gay consumer and more marketing that's actually doing what it could, I think, to win that dollar.

Nicole Gottselig 47:45

I love that. And you'll launch it for like Pride Month or like throughout the month.

Gayle Troberman 47:49

Okay, the podcast will exist through the year, but we're just getting ready to launch. So we'll launch uh June 1.

Nicole Gottselig 47:55

That is so cool. Okay. Final question for you. Sure. What's the thing you wish more marketers knew? Not just about strategy, but if you really want to stand out right now in a sea of same, in a sea of AI, in a sea of hitting your numbers and having to achieve, what do you wish marketers just knew and they could take with them to make that happen?

Gayle Troberman 48:19

So many things. And we've we've hit on some of them. You know, I think uh audio can be much more powerful than video. Um, I, you know, I talk about that all the time. Um, but I think the other thing is that there's more power in asking questions than answering them. Stay curious, keep asking questions, and don't be afraid of taking questions to market instead of answers.

Nicole Gottselig 48:43

I love that. Gail Troberman on Connect with Purpose. This has been for me like a masterclass.

Gayle Troberman 48:50

And um Well, you get an A then if I get to be professor.

Nicole Gottselig 48:54

But I feel a bit spoiled. I'm like, wow, I mean, I actually have a bit of um an invigorated feeling about marketing again. And this was the whole reason why we wanted to do this show with you because so many people are like, how am I gonna survive? How am I gonna get this? How are we gonna get our numbers, KPIs, targeting ICP, you know? Like, why don't we strip all that away? We think of Esther Perel, who's like brilliant. And if she's asking us why we're saying this, like, why are we doing this? You know, and it's so true.

Gayle Troberman 49:25

Why are we targeting and capturing? Maybe if we were inspiring and bringing joy, maybe more customers would want to come to us versus be captured by us. So yeah, it gives me hope too. Uh, you know, it's a fun business. It's everything we talked about. It's it's fun, and we're lucky and privileged that we get to ask and answer these kinds of questions. So thank you for uh for what was a lovely hour of my day to step back and actually think about it and get re-inspired again. We all need more, more inspiration, more conversation.

Nicole Gottselig 49:57

Thank you, Gail. Feeling all like hot and shy. I'm like, oh, it was just so beautiful. Thank you for having me, and more to come. So I have to say that what's been really sitting with me in the weeks since we recorded this episode, and I keep coming back to it, is that in real life, it's those real conversations are what opens every door that matters from new friendships, new business partnerships, new clients, new customers, everything. And here's what Gail reminded me of. We don't have an attention problem. There's a reason the biggest podcasts run for two hours and we can't get enough of them. Audio is truly one of the most overlooked ways to stand out in a sea of AI sameness and to show up where your customers already are. And no, this doesn't mean you need to start a podcast. If you want to grow your brand, connect with the people looking for you and bring in more business, think about audio differently. Think about it as starting conversations, as a marketing tactic. Instead of targeting people, go be part of their clubs. Hang out where they already are. And here's what that can look like in practice. Guest on other podcasts and repurpose those clips for your own channels. You're tapping into a shared audience that already trusts that host. Host your own live virtual events, co-branded, unscripted, no slides. This is where you get that companion and colleague vibe Gail talked about. Keep your ums and ahs, don't over-edit. You'll be more trusted when it's clear you're not AI. Think about the MailChimp and serial model. Where can you show up consistently in an existing show that your customers already love? Look at host reads, find a voice with a shared audience, and go there. And don't overlook local radio. Are your customers already there? Start a conversation with them. Follow Bubbler Media and everything Gail is building. The links are in the show notes.

Titan One 51:54

Thanks for joining us on Connect with Purpose, produced by Titan One. Connect with Purpose is hosted by Nicole Gotzlig, Executive Producer Mark Lucki, Producer Shan Sue, editor and sound design by Fina Charleston, show creator Scott Lanaway. Special thanks to Bernard Magri at Big East Collective and Mark Edwards Editing, Monica Lowe and Dave Chow Design, and Charlie the Office Dog. Do you have an inspiring story? Or maybe you know someone who's followed their passion to find a new purpose? Reach out at connectwithpurpose.ca. We'd love to hear from you.