Subscribe on

Enjoy this episode? Leave us a review.

All Episodes

Episode 120

How Does Advertising Actually Work?

Does advertising nudge your memory? Change your mind? Or make you feel something? The answer isn't as simple as you think.

This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob examine five leading theories of how advertising works. They debate memory nudging versus persuasion models, explore why emotional ads outperform rational ones, and reveal which approaches actually drive business results.

Topics Covered

• [02:00] Memory nudging theory and mental availability from Ehrenberg-Bass

• [08:00] When persuasion models change consumer minds

• [13:00] Why emotional priming outperforms rational advertising

• [18:00] Cultural branding and why most brands can't pull it off

• [21:00] Signaling theory and how expensive media builds credibility

• [24:00] Which advertising theory each host likes most

• [26:00] Mandela Effect game connecting memory to brand recall

Resources:

2020 Ehrenberg-Bass Institute Study

Today's Hosts

Elena Jasper

Chief Marketing Officer

Rob DeMars

Chief Product Architect

Angela Voss

Chief Executive Officer

Transcript

Elena: Hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Elena Jasper, I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my co-host Angela Voss, CEO of Marketing Architects, and Rob DeMars, the chief product architect of Misfits and Machines.

Rob: Hello. Hello. Excited to have Angela back here. She's been away.

Angela: I'm gonna be all rusty. And then you're gonna, we're gonna debate and argue over marketing theory. I'm so excited.

Elena: Good. Good episode to come back with. We are back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news, always trying to root our opinions and data research and what drives business results. Today we're diving into one of the biggest questions in marketing. How does it actually work? Does it persuade? Does it make you feel something? Or is it simply about getting you to remember a brand when you need it? We're gonna unpack some of the leading theories and the evidence behind each. Of course we can't cover all the theories, but I picked some popular ones for us to debate. Let's start with a big one from the Ehrenberg Bass Institute. As always, we're gonna ground this conversation in some research and I found a study, it's called "Measuring Advertising's Effect on Mental Availability." It comes from researchers at the Ehrenberg Bass Institute, including Kelly Vaughn, Armando Corsey, Virginia Beale, and Byron Sharp.

The idea here is something often called the memory nudging theory of advertising. It's based on this principle of mental availability, which you talked about a lot on the show. This means how easily a brand comes to mind when a consumer is in a buying situation. And according to this theory, advertising doesn't need to persuade or educate. It just needs to consistently refresh the memory structures that link your brand to relevant needs or usage occasions, AKA category entry. In this study, the researchers tested different mental availability metrics across multiple campaigns. These included brand recall recognition and the strength of associations with buying situations. The findings were clear. In most cases, simply being aware of advertising for a brand significantly increased its mental availability. In other words, just being reminded of a brand was enough to improve its chances of being chosen. So if you're wondering how advertising really works, this study makes the case. It's not by changing minds, it's by making sure your brand shows up in memory at the right time. So it's not so much about persuasion, it's about presence. So we are going to cover a few different theories today, not just that one, but I wanted to start with this Ehrenberg Bass school of thought, because we love the work that comes out of Ehrenberg Bass. What do we think stands out about this nudging theory of how advertising works? Some critics of this might say it's too simplistic, maybe it's too mechanical. Ange, what do you think? Are those critiques fair?

Angela: I would like to think that I have to be more than nudged to buy something like, maybe it's because we work in advertising, but I'm like, the idea of nudging, I think is valuable, but to me it's not the whole story. It's more focused on long-term brand building, and that for sure is essential. If people don't think of your brand in buying situations, you're just not even in the game. But as someone who also comes from a direct response background, I push back on the idea that advertising only works over time. We see channels like paid search or retargeted video drive immediate results when the message and the timing and the intent align. And I think that's why I've always loved Bennett and Field's two-speed model, right? They show that advertising works both in the short and long timeframes. Brand building drives that future demand by growing mental availability, and then sales activation captures that existing demand right now. And you need both. I think if all you do is activate, you eventually run out of demand. And if all you do is build memory, you miss out on today's revenue. So I think the strategy is balanced there.

Rob: I completely agree with you, Ange. I think this research is a permission for laziness. Of course you have to be in someone's mind to be chosen. That's table stakes, right? But it really allows lazy marketers and creatives to go, look, I can just put a dancing chicken with your brand logo on it, and we're good because it's in people's brains now.

And I loved William Bernbach, the co-founder of DDB. He had this quote I heard years ago and I had to look it up on perplexity. So if I have this wrong, perplexity, but the spirit of it is there. Be provocative, but be sure your provocative stems from your product. You are not right if in your ad you stand a man on his head just to get attention. You are right if you have him stand on his head to show how your product keeps falling out of his pocket. And I think that's the idea of great marketing, is how can you be incredibly provocative, relevant to your product? And dare I say, persuasive?

Angela: What do you think, Elena?

Elena: I would agree with both of you, but Rob, I disagree with you a little bit in saying that it's lazy thinking because, one, they do talk about category entry points. So they're not just saying, yeah, they have some language in there about reminding, but they're also saying, making sure your brand comes to mind at the appropriate moment.

So I would think they wouldn't agree with the dancing chicken either, because chances are people aren't gonna see a dancing chicken and think to buy your brand. So they are saying it matters in the right moments and I think that subscribing to this theory is also not necessarily lazy, because if you actually practically think about it, you end up having to figure out how can my marketing reach a broad audience? How do I be top of mind?

That's not necessarily easy to do. Sometimes it's easier to just compete at the bottom of the funnel, when someone's ready to buy something, instead of trying to make sure your brand is mentally available in a future buying situation. So I don't know if I would call it lazy, but I agree with both of you that it's not enough to just think, oh, all I need to do is remind people that my brand exists.

Rob: Yeah, I think it invites laziness. I don't think what they're saying is necessarily, I think it invites marketers to go, hey, it's really surprising and creative and I can put it on my reel and impress my friends at cocktail parties. So I think we're probably in violent agreement. I'm not saying that the Ehrenberg Bass researchers are lazy. I'm saying a lot of marketers are lazy and will point to someone as scholarly as Ehrenberg Bass and go, look, we're good. We're memorable. We're wacky. Our chicken dances and wears a t-shirt with our logo on it, so we're good.

Angela: But if it's only about presence and not at all about persuasion, then something like offer strategy is null and void, which we just have so much data that that matters. It's not that you wanna be led that way. And I would argue that presence is probably more important, ensuring that you're in the minds of the consumer. But also persuasion matters too, at the point when a consumer's ready to make a decision.

Rob: Agree. It doesn't matter how persuasive you are if you're not seen or remembered. Right. So yeah, I agree with you.

Elena: I think covering this first is nice because I see it as sort of the base to the rest of the strategies.

Angela: I agree with you there. One hundred percent.

Elena: Also, I would say it's not that common to see brands with clear, distinctive assets that hold true over time. All the time we see brands where each new campaign, it looks different. It's not that easy to do because people come in, they wanna change things, they wanna make it fresh. So I think that part actually takes a lot of effort, even though it might look, quote unquote lazy from the outside. Like, oh, you're maintaining your logo and your colors and your mascot and your audio mnemonic. It's so easy to come up with concepts that just erase those things. So I think there is a lot of effort in practice that goes into being mentally available.

Rob: I touched a nerve with this laziness. I like it.

Elena: I just, I don't know what I think. Let's move on. Let's talk what somebody else thinks for a second. All right. Well, we are gonna talk about the persuasion model next, which is perfect because both of you are bringing that up. This is championed by people like David Ogilvy, and the idea here is that ads should convince people through reason or emotional argument that your brand is better. The nudging memory theory would say that advertising rarely changed minds. But what do we think? Are there times when advertising can change someone's mind with the right medium and message?

Angela: I will go first. I do think advertising can change minds. I think I just already said that, so I can't go back on that now. In the right context, I think especially in high consideration categories or when someone's actively researching, a great story, a powerful demo, an emotional narrative can, I think, shift perceptions or yeah, just lead someone down a path that maybe they wouldn't have considered otherwise.

And that's what David Ogilvy was so good at. Just that clear, persuasive argument that made you kind of rethink your choice perhaps, but where I agree with Ehrenberg Bass is that this isn't how most advertising works most of the time. In low involvement categories, or when people aren't paying close attention, persuasion just might not land, or they're just not ready to buy. So nudging memory and building familiarity might be the only thing you can do in that moment. So yes, persuasion I think has its place, but it's not the default. You have to earn the right to be persuaded, which we were just saying.

Rob: A hundred percent. I must be in the quote mood right now because David Ogilvy, the OG right there.

Angela: For sure.

Rob: The OG, and he said, if an ad doesn't sell, it isn't creative. That's at the end of the day, what an amazing way to honor creativity is by giving it the level of persuasion that it has the power to achieve. So hats off to David. He's out there somewhere in the, in the advertising verse.

I mean, he's dead, but okay.

Elena: I was gonna say, is he lazy out there?

Rob: No, he is. He's very dead. But his book, I got his book in high school though, and it was so great because he's so pompous, but it's so filled with wisdom and naked pictures. There's a lot of naked photos and I've made this joke before and I feel like we've cut it out of the podcast before, but it's good to get in there at some point.

Elena: I love Ogilvy.

Angela: Bring us back. Yeah.

Elena: He is great. It's one of the first books that I was told to read when I started in advertising. So if anyone hasn't read "Ogilvy on Advertising," it's amazing. I would agree with both of you, not with what Rob said, but with what Angela said. Actually, I agree that advertising can persuade and it's especially important if you're trying to enter a new category, steal market share. If you're coming up as a challenger brand, you're gonna have to persuade some people to move from their brand to yours.

And I was thinking that there are some great examples of this with brands that have done this well. Like Avis, they had their "We Try Harder" campaign because they were number two that grew their market share. They had to persuade people to use Avis instead of competitors. Volvo and their safety message. I know I'm obsessed with Volvo, but I think that's been a great lesson in persuasion. They're persuading you to buy a Volvo because of these characteristics. And then the famous one, Mac versus PC, I think is a great example of a campaign that persuaded people.

And I think sometimes this comes back to not the laziness thing Rob said, where you think that a, I wouldn't call it lazy, but you think a brand campaign has to just be pure emotion showing your brand and it can actually persuade and still build your brand. That's what we found with clients. Like your ad can work hard and help sell your product, persuade consumers and build your brand at the same time. So I think that also might be a reason why some people avoid certain or selling.

Rob: So I persuaded you with this laziness. What I'm...

Elena: I brought it up again. We need a different word. We need a different word than lazy, but we started talking about emotion a little bit there, so it makes sense to go into this next model, which is the emotional priming model. This theory has been supported through IPA research. It shows that advertising works best when it elicits emotion, which leads to long-term business growth. IPA's work suggests that emotional ads outperform rational ones significantly over time, not because they persuade or remind, but because they form strong emotional memory structures.

And this lines up with some thinking from behavioral science, like from Daniel Kahneman. He has this idea that most decisions are made using system one thinking, fast, automatic, emotion driven, rather than system two, which is slower and more rational. So what do we think? Is tapping into emotion a more powerful strategy than simply reminding people that your brand exists?

Angela: Isn't it the way by which you create that memory? Like the IPA data is hard to ignore. We have our own data. Emotional campaigns don't just outperform rational ones. They just build stronger, longer lasting brands in our view, our own data. A lot of research out there, but I don't think it's emotion versus memory. Emotion is often how you get remembered. A lot of what we talked about before, this nudging memory wouldn't work if the ad didn't also make us feel something that could be humor. I think about the work in the insurance category. My gosh, there's so much humor and yet warmth also works, recognition works. So it's not just about being present, it's about being meaningfully present in a way that creates that memory. If your brand shows up often, but never moves anyone, that's just noise. Emotion is what makes it stick.

Rob: I agree. And rational ads are boring too, and they're also just boring to make, like nobody wins. We go into this business to have fun and to tap into emotion and uncover that story that's within the product. One of my favorite print ads, print ads used to be in these things called magazines, Elena, and you would just have this, it'd have a headline in it and it would have a visual, and one of the ones that I always look back on and go, such a great threading between doing the job of speaking into rational but tapping into an emotion. And that's the iPod, and we've talked about this headline in the past: "A thousand songs in your pocket," right? And you're like, well, that's a rational headline, Rob, that's like a nerd wrote that. That's not an emotional one.

But if you think about it, a rational argument for that print ad would be "a one gigabyte hard drive that can fit in your blue jeans and hold all kinds of stuff" versus "a thousand songs" defying the laws of physics, empowering you as a human to be like, that's to me the magic when you can tap into both, like anchoring it in some level of rational. When you do that, it can become irrational and emotional and magical.

Elena: Yep. I agree with both of you on this one. I don't think it means that there's never a case for rational advertising. Like sometimes you're at the bottom of the funnel, you're just needing to remind people. Marketing Architects does TV advertising and not every advertising message has to be emotional. Maybe you don't need that for some of those short-term sales, but the data's clear. And I liked what you said, Ange, about how emotion is persuasive and emotion is memorable. So this one sort of builds on the other theories. It's not all you need, but it can help you be persuasive and it can help you be remembered in a buying moment.

It reminds me of one of our direct response TV campaigns we did for Stuffies, where you had a little kid talking about their stuffy with their grandparent, giving them a stuffy. And it was cute and memorable, but it's persuading at the same time and part of the reason why it persuaded so well was because it was emotional.

Angela: We've had such a wide, sorry, Rob, to cut you off. We've had such a wide range of creative messaging work since 1997, from radio to TV and our own journey into the awareness around the empirical data and marketing research. And I think this topic is so crucially important. Like you can't get this right if you don't understand the long and short of advertising because rational, boring messaging will absolutely drive sales. It will. You do it in a direct response way. Rob, how much data do we have on phone calls, web visits?

Rob: Plenty of data.

Angela: But if you don't understand the long, you have a gap in your awareness of what marketing can do in general. And if you just go out with a highly emotional ad, maybe little to no VO, a ton of awesome narrative happening in a 30 or 60-second ad and then you turn around and go, well, that didn't make the phone ring or it didn't drive web visits. That's where it falls apart for people if they don't get how this works.

Rob: Right. I think Elena, you would agree with me on rational advertising is the other side of laziness.

So if you were to go, okay, well I just am gonna put all the features and benefits of this particular product in an ad for 30 seconds, I've done my job. No, you haven't. Right. So it's the other side of the coin to the dancing chicken.

Elena: Agreed. I agree with you there. And I think you see that a lot in B2B. You're thinking, if I just tell them about all the great speeds and feeds they're gonna buy. That's, that could work in certain circumstances, but if you wanna balance it with the long, you need that as well. Well, the next theory I wanna talk about is called the Cultural Branding Model. This one comes from Douglas Holt, and he says that great ads work by embedding the brand into a cultural narrative. Instead of nudging memory, persuading or inspiring emotion, they create what he calls identity value.

Think Nike and empowerment, Apple and creativity. It's less about reminding you, it's more about making your brand culturally iconic. So this theory is definitely not without its skeptics. I wanted to bring one up. It's a little more controversial. Do we think this is realistic for most brands or, Ange, what do you think? Is it just an interesting idea that applies to maybe certain circumstances?

Angela: It's hard to argue that for a handful of brands it's been transformational. But I would say that for most brands, this is aspirational at best. Cultural branding requires timing. There's a lot of risk. There's real, I would say creative courage, not to mention a brand with the credibility to say something culturally relevant. It's not impossible, but for me it's hard because it's not a playbook you can just copy. For many brands, it's more practical to maybe borrow elements of this model, like, I don't know, tapping into cultural tension or symbolism or something like that without trying to become the next Nike. But it's just not universally able to be replicated very easily. I don't think. You have to earn that kind of cultural relevance. And for most marketers, there are probably more reliable levers to pull first, I would say.

Rob: Dang it. I'm so frustrated with how in sync I am with Angela this podcast.

Elena: It's probably a good sign for the agency.

Rob: I just, when you were reading this one, I'm like, wah, wah, wah. Come on. Who can actually do this? Yeah, great in theory, almost impossible in practice. And when brands try to do it, they usually smell inauthentic, and everybody rolls their eyes. So yeah, I think sure. Wouldn't everybody want to be culturally iconic? That should not be on your brief.

Elena: No, and I think brands have moved further away from this model recently. It got popular. But I agree with both of you and I think I always come back to marketers should stay close to revenue. And I think there's a lot of other theories of advertising you can apply before you do this, and it can come across when brands are trying to do it inauthentically, right? It comes across as like marketers just getting on our high horses and thinking that advertising is more important than it actually is.

So I think there's plenty of other theories you can apply to your brand before you try to become a part of a broader cultural narrative. I think the risk is fairly high too that you're not gonna meet the mark and you're right. It happens naturally rather than trying to force it. All right, I've got one final theory for us, it's signaling theory and this one is typically attributed to Rory Sutherland, at least the discussion.

He brings it up a lot. He's a fan of behavioral economics and he argues that advertising often works not because of what it says, but because of what it signals. For example, we spent a fortune on this ad, so we've gotta be legit. Why brands buy things like Super Bowl airtime, it can be a sign of quality. Do we think that advertising can actually shape how people perceive a brand just by the fact that it exists and shows up in a certain way?

Angela: Rob, why don't you go and then we'll see if I'm aligned with you.

Rob: All right. One, I definitely think it's effective. I'm not sure it's efficient, but I definitely think it's effective. When you flex on something like the Super Bowl, you're obviously real, you're obviously big time. You're Budweiser, you're Coca-Cola, you can afford to do that. So it is definitely a luxury. So I don't think it's necessarily always the most efficient way for someone to break through, but it leads to credibility. If you can drop 7 million on 30 seconds, you're a legit company.

Angela: Yeah. I would say you don't have to be on the Super Bowl to signal and get the payoff, like just being on TV in general. I'll never forget when one of my girls brought me a, I think it was before they actually had the Temu app, but wanted to buy something off Temu. And I was just like, heck no. I never heard of them. I was like, my credit card's gonna get stolen for sure. This is not happening. And then they grew and their advertising grew. I don't even know that they were on TV yet. But so I think there's a lot of ways to signal, but TV for sure is one that helps create that credibility in the space. Whether it's valid or not, I think it could be argued, but in a world full of noise, showing up with confidence and craft might be a really great clear signal you can send your consumers.

Elena: Yep. Agreed. I think in an ideal world, this theory is something that you can take into account, and when you're choosing where to invest your advertising dollars, maybe you decide to prioritize something like TV, even if perhaps the immediate result from it is less than something like digital. You're thinking while this is helping with things like signaling and cultural imprinting, just another reason to invest in it, but I agree. If you're only pursuing advertising for signaling, it's gonna become not super efficient.

And I also agree that the Super Bowl is not the only way to signal. We know that, we talked about TV being high up, but also radio's up there, print's up there, out-of-home. There are a lot of different ways that you can invest in advertising and signal. I bet some influencers can help with signaling. Maybe just something to take into account. All right, so we covered a couple different theories here.

We covered memory nudging, persuasion, emotion, culture, signaling. Which theory do you personally subscribe to the most? Or maybe what feels the most true to how you think brands should approach advertising?

Angela: Yeah, this was hard for me. If I had to choose, I'd probably lean most towards just mental availability and signaling. I think mental availability in my head is just foundational. If people don't think of your brand when it matters, then it's hard to win. But I also love the elegance of signaling too, just showing up consistently with quality. And like I said, confidence can really shape perception in powerful ways.

That said, I would say that every brand category context is different. What is your competitor doing? I think the real art is knowing when to nudge memory, when to persuade, when to tap into emotion. Are you a brand that can play into that culture? Maybe, maybe not. I think the best advertising doesn't just follow a copy-paste playbook theory. It follows the customer, it finds the simplest way to matter in their world and takes into context their environment, their industry, and their competitors.

Rob: Those are all really good. My favorite, I'm not gonna say it's the most effective, but my personal favorite is the emotional priming. I just think that's such an interesting lever to be able to pull. Ange mentioned we had many years in direct-to-consumer advertising, which can be both logical and emotional and trying to understand what drives people to act and people act out of emotion. So being able to play with that lever is just super fun and interesting as a marketer.

Elena: Yep. I agree that this is an unfair question because the answer is you probably should use all these theories in some way if you can. But I would agree with Ange about mental availability being first because if you're not easy to notice, if you're not recognizable, if you're not recalled, you're gonna be in a tough spot. But then my second one I would agree with Rob is emotion. I think we've learned from the "Cost of Dull" research that so many ads are so dull, and you can increase your effectiveness by bringing in emotion. I think it's something that more marketers could do. So I had to focus on two of them, I think I would pick those two. Also the most fun. So...

Angela: Agreed there. Yeah.

Elena: All right. We're gonna wrap up with a game that I'm going to connect to this episode because I really wanted to do it as soon as I thought of it, and I'm like, does it connect? It's about the Mandela effect. I'm calling it the Mandela Effect Showdown. So I'm gonna give you a brand or a phrase and you have to guess what's real versus what has been misremembered, and now I'm connecting this to the episode because it shows how important memory is and how whole groups of people can remember a whole different thing. That's not even true. It's not even a fact. And so maybe your brand can, this sounds bad now, but I'm just saying that with enough advertising, with enough word of mouth, people can remember your brand and wanna buy you in a certain situation.

So the Mandela Effect, these are gonna be things I'm gonna give you a list of questions and I'm gonna see if you correctly remember them because the Mandela Effect, do you know what that is, Rob?

Rob: Is it Nelson Mandela?

Elena: Yes. So it's a phenomenon where a big group of people share the same false memory about an event or detail. So it comes from Nelson Mandela. A lot of people think that he died in prison in the 1980s. He actually died in 2013. So it got called the Mandela Effect. It's just when big groups of people remember something different.

Rob: Interesting. All right.

Angela: Smart. Okay.

Elena: So the first question is, does the Monopoly man wear a monocle?

Rob: No.

Angela: I have to be honest, I was gonna say yes, so I'm gonna say yes.

Elena: Yeah. The answer is no. He just has a top hat and a mustache, but a lot of people think he wears a monocle. I would've said monocle. All right. Can either of you describe the Fruit of the Loom logo?

Angela: Ooh, it's grapes, isn't it?

Rob: Boy, I would've gone with the whole cluster of fruit.

Elena: Okay. You're both right. A lot of people say it's a cornucopia with fruit. But it's just fruit on its own. Okay.

Rob: No cornucopia?

Elena: No cornucopia, no. All right. How do we spell the Berenstein Bears? Is it B-E-R-E-N-S-T-E-I-N or B-E-R-E-N-S-T-A-I-N?

Angela: E.

Rob: I would've gone with the E too.

Elena: Yeah. So I, this one really bugs me. It's actually like Berenstain. It's with an A.

Angela: Hmm.

Elena: I know. I do not remember it that way at all. This one really bothers me, but yeah, it's B-E-R-E-N-S-T-A-I-N.

Angela: That was the best book series.

Elena: All right. In the classic Disney intro, does Tinker Bell dot the I in Disney or draw the castle?

Angela: Wait a minute. Say it again, sorry.

Elena: So in the classic Disney intro, does Tinker Bell, does she dot the I in Disney or does she draw the castle? Is she a part of that intro?

Angela: She draws the castle.

Rob: Wait, say that again?

Elena: In the Disney intro, like to Disney movies...

Rob: Yep, yep.

Elena: Does Tinker Bell dot the I in Disney or draw the castle? Does she do either of those things?

Rob: Neither.

Elena: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Never happened in the original intros, but we remember it for some reason.

Angela: Okay. I think I'm over for like a hundred.

Elena: You're doing the game right. How do you spell Febreze?

Angela: How do you spell Febreze? F-A-B-R-E-E-Z-E.

Rob: No. It's F-E-B-R-E-E-Z-E.

Elena: You're both wrong.

Rob: Ah.

Elena: F-E-B-R-E-Z-E.

Angela: Oh goodness.

Rob: Wow.

Elena: All right. Does Mickey Mouse wear suspenders?

Angela: No one's gonna listen to us after this. Does Mickey Mouse wear suspenders? I'm gonna say no.

Elena: No, never has. What does Pikachu's tail look like?

Rob: Pikachu. Oh, oh, I didn't even know Pikachu had a tail. Oh God.

Angela: I'm not up on the Pikachu character. I gotta pass on this one.

Elena: One guess.

Rob: Pikachu does have a tail.

Elena: Yeah, he does. What does it look like? Can you take a guess?

Rob: Is it like triangular?

Elena: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

Angela: What I was gonna say. It was a little triangular thing.

Elena: No. Okay. A lot of people get confused about thinking it has a black tip at the end, but it doesn't. I would've thought that. All right. Not fans of Pikachu on this podcast. Apparently. All right, but that's it.

Rob: I have one. I have one.

Angela: All right.

Rob: All right. So Beatles, the Beatles. Explain the name.

Angela: Oh.

Rob: Okay. How do you spell Beatles? The band.

Angela: Oh God. I'm so scared to answer. Beatles. B-E-A-T-L-E-S.

Rob: Right. How many people know that it's spelled the way that you would say beat, not the way you would spell the bug? Because that's actually, I'm stealing this from SmartLess, but they were talking about how you spell the Beatles. And I actually fall into the weird majority apparently, that never made the connection that it was like the sound beat and the Beatles.

Angela: I don't know that I made that connection, but I knew how to spell it for just seeing it.

Rob: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I fall in that. So you did two an...

Angela: No, I knew it was BEAT, but I didn't tie it to beat like a music beat.

Rob: See, I butchered that because I'm with you. I knew how to spell it. I just never made the connection with the beat. Maybe that has nothing to do with the Mandela effect. I'm not sure.

Elena: We can't all host fun wrap-ups at the end of the podcast. It's a hard job.

Rob: It is a hard job. You do a much better job, Elena.

Elena: All right, here we go.