Episode 1291: The Royal We

Zain 0:01

This is The Strategist, episode 1291. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, it's Corey Hogan. And of course, it's Stephen Carter. And yes, featuring a nice San Pellegrino. Go ahead, Corey.

Zain 0:15

I have to say, that's the first time. Do you

Carter 0:16

you not get the carbonated? Is that what the issue is? Are you getting- This

Corey 0:19

This is the fourth member of our podcast since

Carter 0:24

since Annalise is not here. I'm not sure. We weren't really consulted on the development of this character. You're

Zain 0:29

You're kind of insulting Annalise by saying we've replaced her with a lemon-flavored San Pellegrino. That's

Carter 0:35

Listen, a lemon-flavored San Pellegrino always answers my texts. That's all I have to say about that.

Zain 0:41

I mean, why would she answer your texts?

Zain 0:44

You've been on a tear recently. By the way, there's been many texts, many notes to us saying, listen, now

Zain 0:50

now that, you know, things have happened in the orbit, is the podcast still alive? Is the podcast still going to happen? Guess what? We're fucking here. the podcast talks

Zain 0:59

talks about the issues okay cory it talks about all of the issues it doesn't care which side any of us might be on we address things head-on we're in the moment and we we we live for the moment fuck this

Corey 1:12

this is what we live we're all about being head-on yeah i

Zain 1:16

think that's how you describe yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah not head-on uh but head-on yes that's that is correct some of So

Corey 1:23

whatever campaigns we may or may not be supporting in any capacities, may or may not be doing, we're

Corey 1:30

we're always to the point. We're never vague. We don't beat around the bush. No matter what we might be up to, which, you know, we may or may not get into at different times, occasionally.

Zain 1:39

We give it to you straight.

Zain 1:42

hallmark. We're actually adopting your hallmark for the podcast, giving it to the people straight. straight i'm

Carter 1:48

i'm just happy that you two have finally joined me over here on the side that talks to the audience and gives them the straight goods i mean you guys have couched things for so long to be honest

Corey 1:57

honest i've been lying to the audience for years go

Corey 2:00

ahead cory many years anything

Zain 2:01

anything you want to admit right now cory

Carter 2:02

cory was actually never the executive director of the alberta liberal party

Zain 2:07

so wish that was true steven couldn't exactly so wish

Corey 2:10

wish that was true let's

Zain 2:11

let's not let's begin our first segment political regrets uh cory yeah what is your political regret oh

Corey 2:18

oh man you know that actually probably is the real answer there is staying in that job as long as i did because i hated it i wanted not to do it anymore but i was i foolishly believed i was the only thing holding things up and if i left things would go bad and then people would blame me because i thought being an executive director mattered that's

Zain 2:37

that's an interesting answer but it is wrong carter what is your political regret uh and i'll jump in with mine as well well

Carter 2:45

well okay right now all of them uh all of them okay the

Zain 2:51

the correct answer universally for all three of us is say it with me

Corey 3:00

i'm not gonna say that why say

Zain 3:03

that it was our

Zain 3:06

why was it not our ultimate political regret steven carter because uh

Carter 3:09

uh it was it was pretty much our ultimate political

Carter 3:11

political regret i mean my favorite campaigns are with the campaigns where the candidate doesn't listen to you uh harshly

Carter 3:17

harshly right like it's one thing not to be listened to but it's not it's something completely different to not be listened to uh aggressively and harshly and i always appreciated that about it

Carter 3:27

built me a lot of character a lot of character you know what

Zain 3:31

okay carter you know i i love you you know it is it is a brotherly love uh sometimes it is a tough love uh especially we're on different sides of things but you know one thing cory that we've never been on different sides have we we'll

Corey 3:45

we'll see no we've

Zain 3:46

we've actually think we have yeah

Zain 3:48

you've been you've been on you've been on pine tar recently quite a bit uh which is sixth man of the year steven carter are you in your sixth man phase by the way

Carter 3:56

way i mean i do what i lovingly refer to as senior advisor phase yeah

Zain 4:03

modern six man stuff jason terry style sixth man stuff you know cory one thing people don't talk about carter is how good he is at cutting his losses and

Corey 4:12

and i got a question for you what's better than winning sixth man of the year uh seven

Zain 4:19

seven seven is this a joke it's

Corey 4:21

it's not it's not i mean it's not a very definitely wasn't a good enough joke to warrant that is just to actually be a starter yeah

Zain 4:31

that's true there's very few players that's really upsetting i was just trying to say Carter, you cutting your political losses, I think, is one of your best political skills. And I just want to, you know, use this time on episode 1291 to compliment you for that. I should have told you this many years ago. I should have told you this many years ago, when Stephen Carter just was not there. I was like, wait, Carter brought me in. He just was not there. I like that.

Carter 4:56

that. Yeah, you know why?

Carter 4:57

I just left. I remember that.

Corey 4:59

Now you just left.

Corey 5:01

I was done. I at least had the courtesy to say, I'm leaving. Yeah,

Corey 5:04

it was a rough one. But like, It was only because I got very busy. Neither

Zain 5:07

Neither of you had the courtesy of telling me, just a basic text.

Carter 5:11

I didn't even remember you were there, to be honest. I mean, I would have sent you a note had I remembered. I feel bad now. Now I feel bad.

Zain 5:19

I'll just say, have

Zain 5:23

have lukewarm success in politics.

Zain 5:30

Let's move it on. Like I said, Corey, we deal with the issues head on. We're going to move it on to our first segment.

Zain 5:33

segment. we don't first we don't censor ourselves yeah we don't

Zain 5:37

we've never censored ourselves okay we don't have anything to protect let alone zane

Carter 5:41

zane why'd you lose no

Carter 5:44

no just just keep going keep going i'm sorry i interrupted yeah can

Zain 5:47

can you can you maybe start asking that question about like t minus six months can you just park that and we might be able to have it again just to let you know if you want to have that conversation twice in a row uh it's

Corey 5:58

it's zero answers a bit of debt here a bit of debt you You might have, yeah.

Zain 6:01

Zero answers. Let's move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, Corey, Purple Rain. It is the biggest story, right?

Zain 6:09

right? It's all about- I don't know if it's the biggest story. I think it's the biggest story. I understand

Zain 6:13

why you might think it's the biggest story. It's sucking up all the oxygen. It is an undeniable force. It is catching the internet by storm. It is catching people on the street by storm. It's all about the

Zain 6:27

the Royals, Stephen Carter. Oh, my goodness. What has happened to Kate Middleton? Is she alive? Is she dead? Was she alive in

Corey 6:37

reckless speculation even by our standards.

Zain 6:40

We've got the best libel insurance known to men, okay?

Zain 6:44

That's not a thing. That's,

Zain 6:45

yeah, okay. We've got libel insurance. Trust me. I have a PDF, okay?

Zain 6:53

we're going to spend the entire episode talking about purple. Royal purple.

Zain 6:57

Because this story, Corey, is gripping.

Zain 7:01

all seriousness, this is a fascinating story, and it has tons of strategic and communications implications, and I want to study them while we're living them. Corey, can you give us a bit of a high-level summary around what the hell is going on for those that are uninitiated, which I suspect are very few people, on the story that's taken the world by storm?

Corey 7:19

I mean, I kind of feel like I'm uninitiated at a certain level. level that's not going to stop me from commenting and probably getting some of the facts wrong welcome to this podcast

Corey 7:29

podcast thank you welcome to this podcast yeah uh that

Corey 7:32

that so kate middleton has been out of the public eye for quite some time the royal family's going through a bit of a thing right yeah yeah

Corey 7:39

uh charles is dealing with cancer not a lot of details there has come out of the public limelight camilla the the queen has uh kind of joined him in kind of stepping off of the campaign trail, so to speak. But also what's happened in there, and the thing I think that we're going to be probably talking a bit about the

Corey 7:57

the strategy of, shall we say, along the way is Kate Middleton, Princess

Corey 8:03

Princess Catherine, you know, Willie Windsor's wife, whatever you want to use to describe her particular role and connection to the royal family, underwent

Corey 8:14

underwent surgery. The surgery seem to be somewhat sudden again not a lot of details and it seemed to go on for a longer recovery period than anybody envisioned given that events are now being cancelled a little bit later on and nobody has seen her since then and why this is particularly noteworthy is this is a woman who within like hours of giving birth was wearing a dress and holding her newborn baby and waving you know outside of the hospital where this occurred here so it's not as though the royals are particularly camera shy at moments where you would expect normal people to be camera shy so

Corey 8:51

that's all like stuff and you know it sounds like the family's going through a lot and obviously queen elizabeth died not too long ago too and it's been a bit of a go for them fighting with harry and megan markle and the drama never ends but

Corey 9:07

uh now now what has kind of kicked everything into like 20th gear is on

Corey 9:15

on what is mother's day in the united kingdom a a tweet was released by kensington palace which is the the prince and princess of wales like they're kind of their buckingham palace right yeah they're

Zain 9:28

they're off that exactly yeah

Corey 9:30

yeah that has a picture of kate with the three kids kind of outside and

Corey 9:38

and it was released through official channels. And then Associated

Corey 9:42

Associated Press and Reuters and all of the various kind of wire services sent out what's called a kill notification saying, this is doctored. This is clearly a doctored photo. Pull this down from all of the stories. And so the speculation of where is Kate, which has always had a bit of a conspiratorial bend, people saying, did she leave William? Did she she die you know to kind of talk about the kind of the things you were alluding to like some really kind of like i've seen stuff that is kind of like quasi seriously presented insofar as like she's imprisoned by them because she tried to leave william all sorts of crap right and

Corey 10:21

and in this kind of morass which is kind of that usual internet dreck they release this photo which is now photoshopped and uh and and nobody has still seen her since like the the palace did not then put out another photo of her, the palace didn't provide any other kind of proof of life, so to speak, or anything like that. And so the internet has gone to fucking 11 by internet standards as to what in the world is happening here. And I got to tell you, I

Corey 10:48

I think I'm becoming a Kate Middleton truther. I'm just going to put it out there here. I think we all are, Stephen

Zain 10:53

Carter. There's so many things to discuss here that fall into the lane of the strategist podcast. podcast. And let's start here, Carter. What should the official response of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta be in this situation, asking for a friend?

Carter 11:09

I mean, the Lieutenant Governor is probably going to be approached by media all day long tomorrow about this, especially after this episode. And my recommendation would be, don't speculate. Make sure you say the truth with authority. And that truth is that she's been abducted by aliens. So make sure that that That truth is said with authority, because if you if you sound if you make it sound like it was a joke or something, it won't play. She's been abducted by aliens and obviously Williams in on it. He probably asked the aliens to abduct her. That's what I'm hearing.

Corey 11:47

So, Ray, go ahead. Jump in on here.

Corey 11:50

I'll just say that Occam's razor probably applies here. It's probably pretty simple. she probably had a worse go of surgery than was reported the recovery time is probably longer she's probably not at all fucking feeling that she'd be in the media probably a combination of things like i'm not going to play these petty royal games right now william i'm sick of this shit and it's just kind of elevated now into some sort of wild thing but

Corey 12:16

but this is where we're at and we're at a situation where people are dissecting footage of her in her car going places and asking things like, is that really her? And do you think that that's, like, is she being weakened at Bernie's? You know, like, it's just like some of the nonsense is

Zain 12:31

Tell me this, because I'll be serious for a second. I think there are things that really apply to our lane of strategy and communications, Carter. And let me start here, which may not be the natural point to start, but I think it's interesting, which is, what has the last week week or so taught you about virality or change your opinion around virality, especially when you have an issue that comes up that has been an undercurrent, potentially niche, and then goes mainstream like this. I find this so fascinating. Any thoughts to that from your perspective as you think about it as a comm strategist around when we talk about going viral and the current nature of viral? This is a very interesting version of it because it's almost building on, Corey used the word truther, but like, you know, internet sleuths one upping one another and like kind of undercover, you know, people are deep into this in a really interesting way. Has

Carter 13:27

Has this taught you anything?

Carter 13:28

Yeah, I mean, first of all, never leave this space for rumors to develop. Always get a definitive answer. And I think that the palace has always taken a really lax view towards giving a full and complete answer on things that they just don't want to answer um in today's society historically

Zain 13:49

historically had to be accountable to anyone really in today's

Carter 13:51

today's society you have to be accountable to the to the mob if you will because if you're not accountable to the mob the mob will come after you and that's what's happening here uh the mob has come after them and now what i think is fascinating is the mainstream media is coming after them and most of the mainstream media are coming after them either

Carter 14:11

either tongue-in-cheek or reporting what um you know reporting about the virality doing what we're doing right oh this is a viral story so uh we'll talk about the virality rather than talking about the veracity and that is a uh kind of yeah you know the mainstream media's trick to get in on these uh you know sordid stories is to talk about the process by which we got here i mean oh my goodness did you see how viral that went we have to talk about it on our on our show because this is the first time anything's ever gone viral Truth is, they're chasing ratings, right? And whether it's The Daily Show covering it or, you

Carter 14:51

you know, the late night shows or the tabloid media in the UK, all of them are chasing the same thing, and that is eyeballs. falls.

Zain 14:59

That's a really interesting distillation, that virality is the story, that something going viral is covering it for that rather than what's perhaps deeper in it, and at least for a first round of media. Corey, do you agree with that? And I guess what lessons has this taught you about modern-day virality? Because we've had that term kind of statically applied for the past decade, and I'm just wondering if a story like this clarifies what virality means in a calm sense today so

Corey 15:28

so i agree but i think it's more than that it's more than what steven said one of like i don't know when you all became aware of kind of the kate middleton rumors for me it was why

Corey 15:38

why does her name keep trending on twitter it wasn't a big conversation for me it was suraya like

Zain 15:43

like my wife was like yeah and i'm like i don't know what the fuck you're talking about so right but so i clicked

Corey 15:48

clicked and i saw some of these stories and i sort of understood it but it was all internet rumors still So when I say it's more than that, there's no doubt in my mind that all of Fleet Street, all of the UK press has been talking and speculating about what the hell's going on with Kate Middleton. But there's no way to write that story, right? There is no way to write that story. And so they were waiting for an opportunity to actually say something. And by the way, we've done this. Like, remember that episode we did in December about the NDP leadership? It was like a two hour banger. We were waiting for a piece.

Corey 16:20

Yeah, mark us off. We needed something, because everybody knew who was actually in, like at least everybody who's sort of orbiting around it. Everybody's having those conversations. Nobody is putting it out there, and we didn't want to be the people. And at this point, the

Zain 16:31

race wasn't official, sort

Corey 16:33

sort of thing. The race was not official. Rachel had not announced she was stepping down. And so we were waiting for something that would justify us saying it, that it didn't make it just sound like a bunch of rumors. And they got that with the kill notice, with the photo and the kill notice. And I actually think that that's one of the more interesting things here, is that if the Royals had not done this, if they had just stayed a little bit more in their lane, put out a text tweet where people would say, why can't we see you or whatever, right? Right.

Corey 17:02

The media would not have had this hook. But the minute that there was actual news and let's be clear, a kill notice about something coming out from the royal family that is speculatively like manipulated propaganda imagery. That is actually a story. Right. So once they had that story, it allowed them through innuendo to fill in the backstory. And so that I think is an important part of what's occurred here too. But I also think it is a bit of a template now that media know or hear more than they can actually report on, and they love these hooks that allow them to actually address the rumors, as Stephen said, without addressing

Zain 17:42

veracity. With some scaffolding, that justifiable or not with some scaffolding. And so if we talk about, if we keep it on strategy, Carter, what was the lesson here around like, and I guess you said, in this age, you need to respond to the mob in some way, you need to be accountable to them in some way. I'm paraphrasing you, feel free to correct me. but don't you think that the proactive action by kensington palace to release a photo was the pent-up sort of like this is our response to the mob leave us the fuck alone here's a photo she's alive and well like did they like in your mind don't you think that was exactly what they did and now are facing a series of perhaps

Zain 18:21

perhaps with that unforced error a series of other hurt or other problems?

Carter 18:26

they lie, Zane. And you can't lie and think, oh, well, we've solved this communications problem. Lying is a cardinal sin in communications. And by doing so, basically, the royal families put themselves into a really difficult spot. And you

Carter 18:43

you just simply, if you're going to take a lesson from this, learn a couple of different points. Don't lie and make sure that you're filling as much of the news cycle as humanly possible and it doesn't actually even need to be with news it can be with process we plan to update you on this day we plan to give you more information on this day we're asking for our you know in this hour we're asking you for your for privacy at this time we're we're going to be moving towards an answer in full time you know a fulsome answer at this point but it appears that they just are skipping over different steps If you're in a crisis, and I've been in crises where you've really had to, you don't have a lot of information to update the media with, but you still have to do the update. You don't get to just say, well, you know, we don't want to do this update right now because there's nothing to say. You have to do the update because if you don't do the update, it looks like you're hiding something. something so every hour on the hour in a real crisis you're giving an update and that update

Carter 19:49

keeps you out of hot water um because otherwise you you wind up uh

Carter 19:53

uh really in a lot of trouble

Zain 19:57

yeah your thoughts on this and then i've got like a follow-up around like which lens should they have taken if they if the crisis comms lens was the wrong one to proactively take here but i'm curious cory any any reaction to what carter's put on the table yeah

Corey 20:09

yeah no i think I think that the crisis comm stuff you put on the table is exactly what I was hoping we could at least chat a little bit about here, because it

Corey 20:17

is interesting. I don't think that the royals appreciate they're in a 21st century social media crisis, right? And there are rules like don't lie. The adage is always open the door or they'll come through the window. Provide them those regular updates. Certainly don't do, you know, when people, when the rumors are speculating about, is she, I mean, it's nonsense. She's, she's alive, right? Right. But like when the rumors are flying around like that, a doctored photo is just like pouring gasoline on this crazy fire that is the Internet here. And but we didn't even talk about the response from Kensington Palace the next day being like, oh, I just edit. I'm an amateur photographer and I just edited the picture. I hope everyone's well. Happy Mother's Day. Hope everyone's good, but not a picture, you know, either

Zain 21:02

or the unedited, undoctored photo. correct look

Corey 21:05

look this shouldn't fucking shock us that the royal family has one foot in an entirely different century their entire existence oh here we go is an entirely different century here we go the

Carter 21:13

the anti-monarchist comes comes to play oh i'll

Carter 21:16

i'll give you this yes yeah

Zain 21:19

i am not gonna go down this is a general rule you don't get this podcast space to hit on purple keep going oh

Corey 21:28

Yeah, you can learn more about that at betterthanNenshi.ca. Yeah.

Zain 21:33

Which we own, and it goes to Nenshi.ca, which is a site that's seeing a lot of visitors. Yeah, go ahead, Corey. We'll

Zain 21:42

that. Check those domain lists

Corey 21:48

Their shit is stupid. The Royal Family Royal Family is stupid. The coronation, when we got to see it in full color HD, those robes that look so regal in black and white photos and in paintings, they look stupid. And a lot of what they're doing right now looks pretty stupid. It's antiquated. It doesn't actually kind of align or kind of consistently, I

Corey 22:10

I don't know, like support a modern communication strategy. But I think it might, again, be Occam's razor. I think it's as simple as they

Corey 22:19

they don't think that these rules apply to them.

Zain 22:22

This is exactly where I wanted to go, which is how do institutions, Carter, that have flown above the

Zain 22:30

the law continue to do so, right? Right. Like, I like your advice of like, hey, the rules apply to you. But what if the client today asks you, Carter, I've never had to follow the rules and your job is to tell me the rules don't apply to me. Modernize whatever you need to do, but make sure the rules don't apply to me. What if that's the scope of a client and you're a high paid strategist for Kensington Palace to be like, I agree, world's changed, but I'm not going to get into the fucking dirt. Like, that's not what we do, our bar is that we always fly above. If that's the scope given to you, are you turning down that contract, Carter, and saying, fuck that? You know, the world applies to everyone. And Corey, same question coming to you in a second.

Carter 23:13

Yeah, I mean, it would be an almost impossible contract to do. I mean, there are times there are people who are successful in dealing with similar

Carter 23:20

similar types of issues. I mean, Donald Trump is kind of the exception to every rule, right? We know that that Donald Trump is, you know, the where's Melania trope predates this where's Kate problem, right? Like, where is Melania? Did they replace her? Is she a body double? All the same questions, right? We've seen all the exact same questions about Kate as we see with Donald Trump. And he weathered it, but

Carter 23:48

but he weathers it at a cost, right? Right. If you're prepared to pay Donald Trump costs, which is, you know, lighting your hair on fire every time you open your fucking mouth, then you can get away with anything because now people come to see the circus.

Carter 24:02

And if if the royal family wants to be a circus, we're I mean, sure, we can. I'll take that contract and we'll we'll light your hair on fire every three days, which you're pretty much doing anyways. You know, like the royal family is pretty much taking the light your hair on fire, and everybody will pay attention to you a little bit too seriously. So

Carter 24:23

my advice to them, though, would be, listen, if you want to have a normal existence, then you got to stop being the royal family. You don't have to be the royal family. But if you want to be the royal family, then this is the price. Because your royal family isn't the royal family of Sweden, right? It's not the royal family of Denmark. It is the royal family of the United kingdom and the commonwealth and because with that comes a whole lot more attention uh than you know the princesses and princes of monaco um this is just a totally different world so um if you want that attention and everything that comes with it then you got to play by that attention's rules period end of sentence cory

Zain 25:07

cory carter's denying the contract are you accepting it just the scope is the rules they shouldn't apply it's your job to make sure they don't are you accepting that contract to help them develop that strategy i'm

Corey 25:19

i'm sure it pays well and i probably get a really nice monogram to to represent myself and my you know i'll get a royal charter or something actually they give you a

Zain 25:27

a country i think they give you a country oh wonderful which

Corey 25:30

which one yeah yeah which is it a good one they're

Corey 25:33

they're all good ones okay yeah

Corey 25:35

they're all good okay

Corey 25:36

like a bad one when you say that makes it sound like a bad one okay

Zain 25:41

hypothetically cory are you accepting this contract don't fucking skirt the question uh

Corey 25:46

uh yeah i think i mean i i actually think this would be such a fascinating contract to take because you were you were trying to play an entirely different game would you be successful at it i don't think so but i would take it for the money and because it would be interesting here and what would you try

Zain 26:01

try to do what would your framework be how'd you think about tell me about this i

Corey 26:04

i mean i would lean hard into this idea that the rules don't apply to us right if you were trying to make a point that uh you are a royal and you are not beholden to take yourself out into public and show yourself all of the time you're actually doing it too subtly in my opinion

Corey 26:21

right you you actually need to go harder into that space and say listen when we feel like it we'll show up yeah you know but like the reality is you got to do that with a smile and charm but this

Carter 26:32

this is this is kind of that's

Carter 26:34

that's really interesting Interesting, Corey. I think you could go headlong into that.

Carter 26:38

Like, what would you do? We are greater than you. You might get the

Carter 26:42

Yeah, I think I could get subbed in on this. Yeah.

Zain 26:46

Here's the thing. Let's put this in time and space. Work together on this for me. If Kensington Palace came to you tomorrow and said, we need your help, but these are their conditions. We're not going to bow to the mob. we're not like anything we do sets a precedent our precedent not just in the social media era but for years decades centuries has been x which is we are above it all

Corey 27:11

it from today onward you

Corey 27:12

you want to talk precedent there was a tweet that was talking about the princess of wales is missing the spare prince is in exile and the king is treating cancer with herbs this is normally when you'd expect france to invade right i mean like Like, this

Corey 27:25

this is – yeah, there's precedent for them kind of all falling to pieces and all of that. But no,

Zain 27:33

start shitting on them first thing in the meeting. Okay, that's good. Okay. I actually learned that from Stephen. Yeah,

Carter 27:38

Yeah, it's a great technique. It's a great

Zain 27:41

Before nagging was a word, Stephen Carter nagged

Zain 27:44

nagged several prospective clients. Did

Corey 27:47

Did I ever say on this podcast the story about where we started a presentation, Stephen and I have a client, and one of them mentioned they were a republican this is a prospective client we have just now it's a good

Zain 27:57

good now it's about now's a good time as eddie go ahead

Corey 27:59

ahead cory and uh steven says to this client deadpan

Corey 28:03

deadpan not a smile on his face well i thought you were smarter than that and

Carter 28:07

and then proceeded to give the

Corey 28:10

we didn't get that

Carter 28:11

that work which was shocking i thought we had that in the bag do

Zain 28:15

do you think do you think that did you think that lost it carter or do you feel

Carter 28:19

feel like something else no i mean i think we dug our way out of that but uh it

Carter 28:23

it was probably cory's weak performance in the presentation it might

Corey 28:26

might have been yeah

Corey 28:26

might have been i i could never pick my jaw off the floor the entire hour that followed that

Carter 28:31

that was a good one that

Carter 28:33

that was a good that's a good memory cory

Zain 28:36

cory back to you today yeah onwards help them what are you doing they need to be above the rules they've got no desire to get into the to the mud no desire to play by the rules that that that we all suggest everyone should play by. How are you helping them?

Corey 28:52

Put out the picture again and tell everybody to eat shit.

Carter 28:55

Yeah, I think that actually the way to do it... Kind of,

Corey 28:58

Yeah, kind of. I

Carter 28:59

I think the way to do it is to publish a list of media that you're not going to be doing interviews when the princess does return, and stick to your guns.

Carter 29:07

Don't do interviews with them.

Carter 29:09

Fuck them. Here's the way it's going to work. We're returning to the 1950s. We control the media. if you do not do what we want you to do then we're just not going to give you access and access is everything the story is everything now um so maybe you can just start to to really rip apart that relationship uh that exists and and you know if your staff are leaking the staff are fired if the you know like really just jump on to hard ass disciplinary style of uh communications

Zain 29:45

Corey, what do you think? Finish us off on this, and I've got a bunch of follow-up questions here.

Corey 29:51

I do think that you ultimately need to draw some firm lines. The royals have tried that and done versions of that a lot in the past couple of decades to varying degrees of success. You know, they fight the beast and they feed the beast, and this is sort of the nature of royalty in general, right? There's a kind of a resentment of the very thing that that places them in their minds above the rest of us mere mortals but in this particular case if you are going to be out there and trying to assert

Corey 30:18

your kind of differentness and independence um you you got to do this kind of like no sweat no drama you know maybe you uh maybe you just have it so the first time that kate is seen it is in in like a totally i don't know because i i would say like an innocuous situation but that's exactly what they want and that will just sort of create the frenzy i

Corey 30:41

i don't know i don't know if i have an answer to this one zane it is it's part of why i think it's an interesting file you're

Carter 30:46

you're going the wrong direction it's got to be hyper staged it's

Carter 30:49

it's got to be the best media event that's ever been produced by the by the royals and it's charles's funeral

Carter 30:57

yeah i mean kill him and just do this but then you you have this this heavily scripted, heavily choreographed event where the media gets tremendous access, interviews, one-on-ones, tons of information, but it's only the media that didn't fuck you. And

Carter 31:11

And then you move forward.

Carter 31:13

And in the list of people who fucked you, you just keep them out of the world. Like, if you're going to do this, the only thing that I can think of is just to say, okay, fuck

Carter 31:26

fuck it. We're going all in.

Zain 31:29

You know, there's one thing that I find fascinating about this, which is one of the very tactical recommendations that's being floated around. Corey, I'm curious to get your thoughts on this, on this specific matter. And then this question broadened out, which is, why are they even playing on social?

Zain 31:46

Like, shouldn't they just delete social? Like, should they just—and I'm really fascinated in this conversation. Once again, virality, static term, decade ago, hasn't changed, we haven't examined. being

Zain 31:57

an institution like theirs time to re-examine that and then let's talk about other institutions and what your current rule of thumb around social looks like and being on or off it let's talk about kensington palace and the royal specifically and then let's give some advice to other institutions organizations etc on the back end of this because i think that's a conversation that's working its way up through many organizations being like what the fuck are are we still doing here?

Corey 32:23

Yeah, is it more risk than reward? That's interesting.

Corey 32:27

I think it's actually more challenging for the royals because they want to show, again, there's this delicate dance. They're aloof, but they're in touch with the people and they're using these channels, but they're not beholden to them. Delete your account as a strategy, though, is fascinating.

Corey 32:42

fascinating. I mean, especially on a dumpster fire like X or Twitter, right? I think that's not crazy talk, in my opinion, and I

Corey 32:53

I don't know. What do you replace it with, would be my question. Do you literally go back to kind of old school? What

Zain 32:59

What if it's nothing? Yeah, what if it's nothing? Why are we beholden to the TikTok, and I don't mean the app, I mean like the timetable that people are setting arbitrarily for us, right? If the strategy is broadly

Zain 33:13

the construction each of you have presented, which is that we are above the rules, which means one of the rules is you got to be on social. Well, we're off social now. Like,

Zain 33:23

Like, what do you think about this, Carter? I'm curious if you think of that as a tactic or a strategy for them. And then I'm curious about this conversation of being on social broadened out before we come back to the Royals. So that's where I'm going next. Carter, your thoughts here?

Carter 33:35

I don't think they should be on social. I think that especially given the way that it's falling apart, you

Carter 33:42

you know, I'm still on Facebook because family and friends are on Facebook, and I check it occasionally once in a while but

Carter 33:50

but it's really not a social media your minions

Corey 33:52

minions meme somewhere yeah

Carter 33:55

yeah i mean you got to get that you got to get that i'm not on uh

Carter 33:58

uh i do instagram but i don't post to instagram and i'm on tiktok but i don't post to tiktok let's see let's return these things to what they could be and that is their entertainment mediums they're not production production mediums and go back to stayed uh controllable um production and not don't worry about the number of hits that you get on tiktok or the number of eyeballs that you would have gotten on tiktok um i mean fuck they're gonna pull it from there anyways and and clip it up and put it up onto the onto that for you so you don't even need to you don't need to participate and and i i think i would like to take my own advice and return to being off of x because it's a fucking cesspool anybody who's on x is is a lunatic and i'm counting uh cory and i amongst those lunatics

Zain 34:51

yeah you guys have had an interesting just on a personal journey like yo-yoing not to like say anything that but it's interesting just to see you guys off it on it engaged not engaged cory worry which brings me to this i'm going to keep that bracket open of the royals but i want to examine a broader calm strategy of deleting socials organizations

Zain 35:10

organizations are considering this with their net new do we need any and if they're already engaged if they've one of those organizations that's got 12 of them underneath find us on every medium do we call and do we just not worry about this anymore like what how are you processing this as like a comms expert today yeah

Corey 35:28

do think one of of the challenges any organization has is kind of the just

Corey 35:34

just expansion of these things and the fact that some of these channels pay off and some of these channels do not and the channels that you invest in it really is kind of like an investment you've built an audience that has cost money that has cost time and it becomes difficult for people to want to walk away from that kind of investment but i've said all of this and i think that a lot of the time companies go almost by vibe where they're feeling like, oh, we got to be there. And it, you know, there's strong network effects to these things. And

Corey 36:04

And one of the unspoken network effects is if all of your competitors are on social, you kind of feel the need to be on social too, because you don't want to be, it's not so much you want to be in the conversation, it's that you fear being out of the conversation. I wonder in a way if that's not the Royals too. Harry and Meghan are on social,

Corey 36:22

social, so they feel they need to be on social harry

Carter 36:25

harry and megan are on maury povich too i mean they don't want the contrast though they

Corey 36:29

they don't want to look like they're the ones who are out of touch or old-fashioned and and this is this is again this is about companies as much as the royals they don't want to feel like they're the option that can't get with the times but it

Corey 36:44

does sort of feel like the worm is turning on this one and people are starting to say you're not cool because you're on twitter twitter came came around in what 2007 2008 and it's

Corey 36:55

it's it's just not a cool place right like

Corey 36:58

like you don't need to be on twitter to be i wonder

Zain 37:00

wonder if the modern

Zain 37:01

modern day badge of honor carter from a comms perspective is depth it's

Zain 37:09

it's not reactionary and it's not being on some of these platforms and if you're an organization conversation, is the conversation on social toxicity, social media toxicity, at a high enough water level that you could now say, in fact, we're actually not, purposely not going to be on them, and here's one thing we're going to do, or here's a different way we're going to do it, and kind of make that your badge of honor, right? The initial badge of honor was to say, we're everywhere. Where you are, we are. Early politics, early companies, it was about meeting you where you're at. And now it's to say, that place has become too toxic. We're about depth, we're about clarity of thought, we're actually going to remove ourselves from these platforms. We've seen it, but

Zain 37:52

but I'm wondering if you have a bit of a framework for how organizations and even politicians, Carter, should think through this in a certain way. If a politician today wants to express depth, could

Zain 38:02

could they just make the argument that, yeah, I might miss out and be part hard to miss out on the picture, but the identity marker of me not being on there actually means more than me being on there. I'm

Zain 38:12

I'm putting a hypothetical on the table for both of you to consider.

Carter 38:15

Yeah. I mean, I think that one of the interesting things that I've been thinking about as Corey's been chatting is would

Carter 38:22

would I pay to post, right?

Carter 38:24

right? If it took 5% of my budget in my communications budget to post this type of information to Twitter or to Facebook or to to whichever of the social medias we're looking at, would I pay for it?

Carter 38:39

And I think that for a lot of communications companies, or for companies in general, they wouldn't invest the dollars. And that's one of the reasons that they do it. They're able to, for free, get some sort of a hit or a bump that pushes up their social

Carter 38:58

capital, for lack of a better phrase. is um and i

Carter 39:02

i think that you know if you're a company looking at this you should be saying if we wouldn't pay for it we shouldn't be there politicians are a little different because i think that politicians have a mandate to communicate with their audience a little bit differently um like i'm not sure that you know tide

Carter 39:19

tide is is on tiktok you know what i mean like maybe they are you're not on tide

Carter 39:24

i'm not on tide talk you

Corey 39:25

you gotta get on tide talk i

Carter 39:26

i gotta got to get on tide talk um you know but i i think that if you gave the the space back to mr beast then you're probably going to be okay can

Corey 39:38

can i say though one

Corey 39:39

one of the things that steven said earlier that i thought about jumping on just kind of following the thread but ultimately decided not to but now i kind of want to is you said oh the royals can get off it somebody

Corey 39:51

somebody else also post it right yeah

Corey 39:54

but trump has had that

Corey 39:56

that sort of effect

Corey 39:58

don't mean to interrupt you because he's posting on truth social something somebody is taking it to the next place right here's the reality of twitter it's just become a wire service with an audience of assholes in real time critiquing everything this is how a lot of people get their news out you know i i can't tell you the number of times i've talked to people like oh we'll just we'll put it out on twitter it's not We're not emailing the media, but it gets it out there and it's a statement that allows it to be on the record here. And so that is one of the virtues of the channel. It's a lower stakes wire service. It's not actually lower stakes, but it kind of feels like it is and it feels a little more ephemeral. And so that's how many people use it. So to circle back to your like, oh, somebody else will post it.

Corey 40:44

I don't know if that's true, because where are they going to get that content? Are you going to invite these bloggers to take pictures on their phones at Kensington Palace, at Buckingham Palace? Is

Corey 40:56

Is it just going to be the media? Because that's a dying group of people. Yeah,

Carter 41:00

Yeah, I mean, well, maybe the royals decide to prop up the other dying institution.

Corey 41:05

but let's be let's be clear where this is all going it's going to owned media it's going to people building their own content and

Corey 41:11

and if you build your own content you need a way to distribute your own content wasn't

Carter 41:16

wasn't there a company that's the challenge

Carter 41:17

challenge was it you cory who was telling me about a company that had basically built their own socials into their website uh or am i just giving you credit for something

Corey 41:26

thank you for the credit though uh

Corey 41:29

did i build it it kind of feels like something oh

Carter 41:30

oh but i think that people are starting to to look at okay, forget about being on these other socials, be on our webpage. And our webpage will have social interactions for you, but it's going to be curated and controlled because people don't want that experience of complete lunacy

Carter 41:47

lunacy that we're getting right now from

Zain 41:51

Well, and I'm not on it very often, but let's talk about, like, let's make this about us, which we like to do, Carter. I don't

Carter 41:59

don't know if you know that. Because everything is about us, as you know.

Zain 42:02

I mean, we've created an entire community on Discord, right?

Zain 42:06

I mean, you're using the word we pretty generously.

Carter 42:08

generously. Yeah, it's pretty, yeah, liberal. Sorry, I have

Zain 42:12

Yeah, you. I've set the spark. You are the Svengali. I hear I'm a part of the conversation quite often, which is nice to hear. Yeah,

Carter 42:20

Yeah, not in a

Carter 42:20

good way. But you are on the conversation.

Zain 42:24

I understand, which is why I'm not on it usually. But, Corey, there's something to be said there around the state of this going smaller, controlled, closed, even when that was an option available, where we were larger, open, viral in some ways. And not to say it's a direct response to that. I'm not saying we're going analog. But there is a movement here. And I think we'd be remiss to say it's not going to have an impact on how politicians and candidates potentially cull and culminate communities.

Corey 42:53

Well, so it's an interesting, well, first of all, I would say nobody has ever called the strategist discord controlled or ordered in any way, shape, or form. I

Zain 43:01

I mean, I'm rarely on it. So I'm just making assumptions here. Yeah.

Corey 43:05

But it is an interesting point. Certainly, I think you can have a much better conversation there than you can have on Twitter. This almost sounds like a plug. I don't actually mean it as one, like you can actually have conversations. Why is that actually? Because

Zain 43:17

Because you do it, you're on there all the time, you and Carter, like, let's examine, why do you think that is well

Corey 43:23

in part because there's actually like an exchange and a back and forth in part because it's the same people so a certain civility develops as you get to sort of know people's beats and you don't have to you don't have that classic twitter thing where somebody immediately assumes that you are operating from the worst faith place possible yeah

Corey 43:41

there's so that's an important part of it another part of it is it's just it's like it's a little more long And it's a little bit more, I

Corey 43:50

wouldn't even call it gated, but it's

Corey 43:54

a community. It's a community. I don't know. I mean, to your broader point, Zane, this is actually the kind of the macro trend in social, right? right? WhatsApp groups, discords, even Facebook groups that have closed off. You are seeing the walls come up as people decide they don't want to deal with the world outside of them. And they would rather have these conversations with people that they kind of want to be around. And often that is tied around

Corey 44:24

around this notion of community in some way. You know, most of them are not around like

Corey 44:28

like podcasts, but there are ones around your family. There are ones like I think about the whatsapp groups that i have right uh

Corey 44:36

alumni groups that you're members of communities you know physically in the same geography as you whatsapp groups and and people are seeing more value in that and so but

Corey 44:48

but but they're often fed by these bigger wire service style social media things right it starts somewhere and somebody copies and pastes it and inevitably someone says i don't have twitter can you just tell me what that link says and and so on and then they riff on

Zain 45:02

on it then they I just

Corey 45:03

just don't know. Yeah, I think like, I don't know if these smaller ecosystems work as well without the bigger ones out there too. It's

Zain 45:10

It's so interesting, Carter, the parallel there would be, and this is not a perfect parallel, but take a walk with me, which is news needs to be reported, fact-checked, delivered credibly and informatively in order for us to even have a podcast to riff on, right?

Zain 45:28

right? We need a fact base, we need a newsroom, we need the CBC and other outlets to produce what they do so that we can confidently bullshit about what we do right like we don't exist without the new this podcast and by extension our small discord community doesn't exist without you know this so it's like this this really interesting like what's like the 700 people zane we you don't know

Corey 45:50

know why are you why

Zain 45:52

why are you undercutting it okay people can join this amazing club of 700 right they can do that at strategistpatreon.com uh which will uh actually take you to better than nenshi.ca which actually takes you to a poster of me which you can purchase uh carter uh it's a link trail carter any thoughts on this and then i want to summarize this conversation i think it's been fascinating no

Carter 46:15

no i'm good thanks

Carter 46:16

thanks very much uh

Zain 46:17

uh cory what what's what's the ultimate comms lesson you're taking away here living

Zain 46:22

living in this as as an as a communicator who's worked with big organizations, I hate to call them institutions, but they are. You've worked for institutions that have rules, that have boundaries, that have, frankly, like, we don't deal, like, we don't do that style, you know, sort of arrangements that they have internally made and almost biblically carved in stone.

Zain 46:44

As a corporate communicator, as an institutional communicator, put that hat on. What are the lessons you've learned here? here

Corey 46:52

know there's there's this interesting thing about social media in particular where there's this there's this whole body of what is social media best practice right and i use best practice almost in air yeah

Corey 47:02

right it's this idea of what's going to get the most engagement what's going to build you the biggest audience base and

Corey 47:08

and those actually should not be your goals as a corporation they may be in service of goals but those are almost certainly not your goals and And

Corey 47:17

challenge you have as an institution is that best practice is rarely available to you, because it usually requires a singular voice. It requires a personality. That personality often is edgy or provocative, and it has a very strong feel and sense of self to it. And there's back and forth. And institutions have a problem with that. institutions might need to be celebrating a funding agreement in the morning and talking about a death in the evening they they need to have so many different tones they can cover institutions have all sorts of approval levels the institutional account's not going to engage in a back and forth with somebody and they're not as a result going to be able to drive that kind of engagement and move it forward and institutions don't tend to shitpost right Right. You know, Wendy's can talk about round hamburgers. The government of Alberta can't take that kind of edge to things as they move along there. So that's that's a challenge. I'm kind

Carter 48:13

kind of an institution and I kind of ship post.

Corey 48:19

Institutions lumber. And one of the challenges institutions have, and this is broadening to your point about the royals here, is that because of the things that make them institutions, actual things, real things, they're not just being bad at these things. They have to act in certain ways, for certain very legitimate reasons. The government of Alberta Twitter account just can't start randomly spouting stuff off. It could be market moving, it could have major consequences in people's lives, right? But because of those things, they are often judged as like, not up to the moment, or like, man, what a lame account or something like that, right? And this is fundamentally, I think, an exacerbation of a bigger communications problem that exists all the time, but is worth actually thinking about for a minute here, which is that you often have the biggest tensions in communications when the audience expectations and your actions are the most misaligned. And if you're an institution and you're on a social media platform that is a fucking shit-flinging free-for-all, you are going to have those challenges more often, right? And if you're an institution like the Royal Family, they don't get much more institutional than that. So that's a bit of a challenge. They have exacerbated that, however, by carrying this sort of feeling through more broadly, this idea that they don't need to play by the rules. So the rules is just another way of saying expectations, because there are not actual rules in this case.

Corey 49:44

And their actions are not meeting those expectations. Some people, they will intentionally do that.

Corey 49:51

They're going to pay a price. Maybe they think they get more than they lose, but they're going to pay a price for that. We are seeing that price right now. This is the consequence of that kind of approach to communications, where you say, fuck the audience. It's a bit interesting to see, and you rarely get a case study this pronounced.

Zain 50:07

Carter, I asked Corey about the institutional rules and what lessons this teaches or reinforces for him. I'm going to ask you about the political strategy rules.

Zain 50:16

Take this, port it into political strategy. What does it redefine? What does it reinforce? What does it contribute to how you think about things?

Carter 50:26

well i think that it reinforces that you know the medium is

Carter 50:33

you're you're not a producer in the medium right like there's a cost and a consequence that we don't factor into being on the medium you know by producing information by putting up content you are essentially selling something to that medium you're giving it to them for no revenue you and what you're asking for in return is this um eyeballs thing that is not a you know it's it's not actually

Carter 51:01

actually of value necessarily towards achieving your ultimate goal so if you're you know running for office if you're selling cornflakes whatever you might be doing i think that what cory said about trying to really set out what your ultimate goal is is super important when mr beast uses um um his his youtube account he it is the outcome to

Carter 51:24

to have the number of people watching it that is the outcome uh but you know candidates

Carter 51:30

candidates aren't mr beast candidates like the the not until mr

Corey 51:35

mr beast runs for office well

Carter 51:36

well we've talked all the time about jeff jackson north carolina running you know um well the way

Zain 51:42

tiktok once again just like me on discord and you use all the time time yeah yeah

Zain 51:49

yeah all it's been once the royal week the royal purple week oh of course we've got the royal way that's good yeah we we use

Carter 51:56

use you know we talk about jeff jackson because he uses his

Carter 52:01

there's absolutely no sensationalism to it absolutely no sensationalism and yet it still works in the medium everybody else i think is trying to find a way to do the sensational uh or trying to match uh and find views and i just think it's a mistake sake

Zain 52:16

we're gonna leave that segment there move it on to our over under in our lightning round steven carter um steven carter yes or no is kate middleton dead yes

Carter 52:27

was the question i'm sorry what was the question i wasn't paying attention to

Zain 52:32

i said no i've got a no we got the answer no we've

Zain 52:36

we've got the best libel pdf that i could find okay uh

Corey 52:40

uh is she she alive or dead, Corey? I'm sure a Kate Middleton somewhere is dead.

Zain 52:47

Carter, last question to you. I'll start with you. We start with you, of course. Ultimately, will purple be victorious?

Carter 52:55

Purple is a losing color. It's been a losing color for decades.

Zain 52:58

Fantastic. Thank you, Carter. Corey, purple victorious. It's going to happen.

Corey 53:04

I mean, I think you can learn more about the candidates that should win at notamurderer.ca. I can't say anything about why the domain is called that, but unrelated, yeah, purple will not be victorious.

Zain 53:16

Buy your Zane Veldry for Leader posters. They're always on sale all the time, 365 days a year. And that's a wrap on episode 1291 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Veldry. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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