Hold your companion cube close as Sam, Chris and John test their [insert skill here] with the Portal video game AI supervillain – for science!
Transcript
ADTEMPTED – adtempt 002 – GLaDOS • 43:38
John Fish 00:00
Hey, Chris, have you have you heard from Sam yet? We need to get started. We need to go.
Robot Sam 00:05
I am here.
Chris Hanna 00:06
Oh shit Sam turned himself into a robot!
John Fish 00:09
Hasn’t Sam always been a robot or have I just not noticed?
Robot Sam 00:13
I have concluded that the most efficient way to advertise insert product here was to remove human error.
Chris Hanna 00:21
Well, let’s hope that robot Sam is programmed with more empathy than today’s product. Otherwise we might be the next errors he removes.
John Fish 00:29
Hey, robot Sam, can you make your voice sound a little bit more like human Sam?
Sam McKinney 00:35
How does this sound?
John Fish 00:38
Okay, close enough. Welcome back to AD tempted where we make ads for things that don’t really need them. I’m john and i write things.
Sam McKinney 00:47
I’m Sam and I experiment with art.
Chris Hanna 00:50
I’m Chris and I write copy in exchange for cake.
John Fish 00:52
We may not have a special guest today, but we do have a very special product that we cannot wait to dive into. So Here’s the plan. We’re going to go around and share some thought starters. And then we’ll collaborate on a campaign, execute it and finally present it to you, our audience. What’s the product today, Sam?
Sam McKinney 01:12
Today we’re doing GLaDOS or genetic live form and disk operating system from the portal video game series. She is the talking AI supercomputer who runs a massive scientific research facility in the game. She is as intelligent as she is snarky and programmed to create and run manipulative problem solving experiments on humans and robots. Once plugged in she can mass produce things like killer robots and neurotoxin, but her most deadly trait is her insults. Think of her as a more witty, passive aggressive version of Hal in 2001 Space Odyssey. The target today is Gen pop, mainly because why wouldn’t we market this to an average human? Why wouldn’t we? It’d be fun.
GLaDOS 01:54
before we start However, keep in mind that although fun and learning are the primary goals of all Enrichment Center activities, serious injuries may occur.
Chris Hanna 02:05
Alrighty, john, what do you got for us?
John Fish 02:07
All right. So, ai with a human touch, let’s face it, AI is going to kill us all. So we’re going to create something that will kill us. Why not make it a little bit more human? With all the wit and narcissism of your typical American, obviously a little more narcissistic than not, with GLaDOS, it will surely wipe us out. But it will be nice to have the human touch. And basically, with this idea, just kind of like Siri and Alexa are so robotic, and they’re so polite. You can call them whatever you want, and they’ll respond with. “That’s not very nice.” Whereas this OS will respond with, “Yeah, okay, that’s not very nice,” but it’s also going to be probably plotting to kill you. So I think it’s just an interesting way to look at AI and Potentially get us to a more interesting space in the AI realm.
Sam McKinney 03:06
It would be a fun way to get killed by a robot. It’d be very enjoyable. I’d laughed the whole way.
Chris Hanna 03:12
1001 ways to die via GLaDOS.
Sam McKinney 03:16
Yeah, it’d be hilarious.
Chris Hanna 03:19
Up until the very last moment.
John Fish 03:23
We’re kind of in a race right now to see what’s going to wipe human population out first.
Chris Hanna 03:29
Yeah, and and maybe there’s something in the idea of like, the AI figures out what kind of death you want, and then it delivers that preferred death upon you. You know, it’s like, customizable, like living your whole life, you know, with technological preferences, like with music, and movies, you get recommendations for all those things. And it’s like, you know what, here is your recommended way to die.
John Fish 03:56
With no, I like the idea of it not even asking you. Kind of like in the game, where GLaDOS is just kind of gently leading you towards your death, right?
Chris Hanna 04:07
Mm hmm.
John Fish 04:07
What if? What if this AI system doesn’t even ask you it just gathers all this intelligence, and then you don’t even know it. But when you do get wiped out, you’re like, oh, that was actually a pretty good way to go.
Chris Hanna 04:20
Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of “Whoa. Cust- it was just like it was for me.” I was kind of thinking like, Do you guys know in Futurama, those death telephone booths?
Sam McKinney 04:31
Yeah, yeah.
Chris Hanna 04:33
That was the first thing that popped in my mind.
Sam McKinney 04:35
That’s hilarious. That’d be fun.
John Fish 04:37
Next product.
Sam McKinney 04:40
That’s gonna be down the line somewhere. Yeah,
Chris Hanna 04:42
Let us know in the comment section. What products do you want us to do next?
Sam McKinney 04:48
Alright, let’s jump into my stuff. First one. Let’s face it. Young adults don’t make the best decisions. Heck, they don’t even have the life skills to recognize which decisions they have to make. That’s where GLaDOS comes in. She’s here to coach them through their 20s in the only way she could: manipulative tests and unparalleled snark. GLaDOS is the only life coach you ever need. Next one. Step aside, Siri. Shut up, Alexa. GLaDOS is taking assistance to the next level. More personality more snark more getting things done no matter what. GLaDOS the better personal assistant. I actually have four. So here’s my third one.
Chris Hanna 05:27
Such an overachiever.
Sam McKinney 05:29
I know. The education system is going to crap. We focus on book smarts and test scores, but ignore street smarts and critical thinking. Well, no more GLaDOS is here to give you problems to solve, then chide you until you solve it guaranteed to teach you how to survive the hardships of life with ease. Welcome to the GLaDOS School of critical testing. And then finally, the country is a complex structure filled with moral and political obstacles that even the most qualified people struggled to overcome. Let’s take morality and human error out of the equation, let’s run the country with pure scientific structure and the darkest of humor. Let’s elect GLaDOS for president.
John Fish 06:08
Of these ones, Sam, I actually I do like that fourth one. I think but I might be gravitating towards that. Because let’s face it, that would be a pretty, we would know exactly what we could do with it right off the bat. You know, I think like, with propaganda and political posters and, and stuff,
Chris Hanna 06:29
I just want to know who’s in GLaDOS’ cabinet, that’s what I want to know.
John Fish 06:35
Yeah. And then again, and then also on this one, I do think the better personal assistant kind of goes along with my insight, where it’s basically it’s a more human assistant, right. It’s an assistant that’s able to talk to you on a, on a on a level it’s able to level with you. So I think that’s kind of fun.
Sam McKinney 06:54
Yeah, it’s able to talk to you makes makes it enjoyable can actually do things Rather than just tell you factual information from Google that it finds,
Chris Hanna 07:04
SO are you imagining that this would be like the same way that people have installed Amazon Alexa in their homes? They would install a GLaDOS in their homes?
Sam McKinney 07:13
Yeah. Yeah, something like that. Maybe Maybe not. Like GLaDOS. Specifically, maybe GLaDOS is like a local area and then you have a connector to GLaDOS so she can speak to you. But either way, we can figure that out. If we go that directions
John Fish 07:28
GLaDOS turn on the lights. No, you do it. You fat ass.
Chris Hanna 07:37
I will say that something that I would kind of be interested in is having like a personality sphere in my home. Personality sphere, for those who don’t know, are basically these sort of like dampeners that are put on GLaDOS because she’s so incredibly super intelligent. They sort of slow her down but also have personalities of their own. And I for one would love a personality sphere that’s just Like wisecracking at me every single day. It would keep me on my toes? It would get my insults better spoiler alert. Yeah.
Sam McKinney 08:11
Yeah, that sounds like fun. Do you want to jump into yours, Chris?
Chris Hanna 08:16
Why not? Okay, so first one, everyone gets bored doing the same workouts over and over and over again. But GLaDOS can change that she’s able to devise unique simulations that are perfectly suited to her subject’s mental and physical abilities, which means that you’d always be challenged with something new every single time you go to work out with her. This is a godsend for people looking to get a solid, unique workout. But I was also thinking it could be ideal for those with young kids too, since GLaDOS, could tire them out while also helping to build their problem solving skills. Okay, second one. I’m going to ask john this question: john, what do drag queens, Steve Jobs and GLaDOS all have in common?
John Fish 08:59
Huh, I don’t know, what Chris?
Chris Hanna 09:04
They’re experts at insulting people. As we’ve seen in big elections and across Twitter quality insults can help you get attention, clout and even wealth. And of course, some well played shade never fails to put someone in their place. GLaDOS’ dry humor and super intelligent wit makes her the perfect product for those looking to master the art of the insult. Third, but not least, this one was sort of inspired by our intro today. You know, these days it seems like just about everyone has a podcast or at least has an idea for one. And one of the hardest parts of starting one up is finding a fellow co host who always shows up ready to go. And I just want to say this is not of course an issue on our podcast. We’re all always ready to go. Anyway. GLaDOS is the perfect podcaster co host: she’s super intelligent, she learns quickly and always has a witty one liner ready to go.
Sam McKinney 09:54
Nice. What my overall feeling of this is first of all, Personal escape room trainer is it makes me think of like, taking life coaches to the whole new level, like not just your personality, but like training you like your your whole facade, your whole public image will maybe that’s a bigger idea too. We can mark that down. But like she trains you to do everything from make the right decisions, to learn how to make the decisions, to exercise, right to keep you in shape to be able to survive anything. Like that’s just hilarious, because it’s what everyone really needs.
Chris Hanna 10:38
She could run simulations for any situation you might encounter in life.
GLaDOS 10:43
I don’t want to tell you your business. But if it were me, I’d leave that thing alone. Do you think I’m trying to trick you with reverse psychology? I mean, seriously now?
Chris Hanna 10:53
Yeah, a recurring theme that I’ve kind of noticed with a lot of our insights is that people like there’s two things that We really love about GLaDOS. And the first thing is just like her personality, the things that she says, the way that she goes about doing things. And then the second part is sort of this like program that she has or this, I guess, like directive that she has to always be like testing and pushing people, which I think are both really valuable things in a product that we’re going to sell the people. So to your earlier point, Sam, about the sort of like 360 life trainer, I think that’s kind of interesting. It’s super dystopian. It kind of reminds me of like, in Wall•E, how everything is just like ready for you and simulated. Like if you want to go and play golf. There’s a simulation to play golf.
Sam McKinney 11:48
But GLaDOS makes it so that you have to work for everything.
Chris Hanna 11:52
This is true, no floating hover chairs with GLaDOS.
Sam McKinney 11:55
So you get everything you ever need, but you have to work for it. So it’s worth more to you.
Chris Hanna 12:02
Maybe you’ll get some cake at the end.
John Fish 12:04
I’m definitely leaning most towards this idea that Chris kind of was just just encapsulating like the insult coach, slash the trainer slash and AI that just kind of has a little bit more of a attitude and talks to you like a person and not just like “okay master Yes.” Like this thing actually gets in your face and tells you what to do. But that being said, I don’t know if insult coach is necessarily the umbrella we would want to put all this under. How do we frame it in a way that sounds warm and fuzzy to people?
Sam McKinney 12:41
What if she’s a confidence coach, your she teaches you insults because it makes you more confident, she teaches you to make more the right decisions. So you’ll be confident in the choices you make. You’re more confident in your body because she trains you like all of these things like it’s about confidence, making you more accountable. Because you can handle anything that’s thrown at you.
Chris Hanna 13:03
Yeah, I do like the idea of competence. But I also think that there is something to selling this idea of like 360, like every aspect of your life that maybe you need improvement on, like, Glados is going to push you to get to those boundaries. So like, yeah, like, maybe you’re confident, but maybe you’re also like, really, like bad at making like rash decisions, like maybe you’re way too spontaneous. And she’ll test you to dial back that instinct. So it’s almost like whatever you need to work on, like, she’s gonna push you to do it.
Sam McKinney 13:38
Yeah. It’s like the school of hard knocks but GLaDOS style.
John Fish 13:42
I like that. It’s funny because like, I think, I don’t know, I just watched the Michael Jordan documentary. And it was kind of like, he would take a little slights that were said to him, and he would use that to inspire him to you know, go out on the court and drop 60 points. So that’s kind of what Glados will be it will be the slight you need to be Michael Jordan.
Chris Hanna 14:08
Become Michael Jordan with Glados.
John Fish 14:10
Yes, exactly. Push yourself
Sam McKinney 14:13
Become the goat.
Chris Hanna 14:14
You know, I will say there’s something kind of interesting about this idea of like, whatever your weakness is GLaDOS is going to pummel you until she makes that like a strength area. And I think that there is something very unique about that offering to people.
Sam McKinney 14:30
Yeah. What is that, quote, we’re most receptive to change at our darkest times or whatever, something like that.
Chris Hanna 14:37
Yeah, I was thinking of like, the strongest chain is only as strong as its weakest link or something.
Sam McKinney 14:44
That’s good too.
John Fish 14:45
become glad with GLaDOS.
Chris Hanna 14:52
Okay, so it kind of sounds like we’re going more towards this like life coach style, offering to people
Sam McKinney 15:00
360 life coach,
John Fish 15:02
I think so I think we’re all kind of in that in that bucket.
Sam McKinney 15:06
Yeah, that’s it sounds like it.
GLaDOS 15:07
We are very, very happy for your success. We are throwing a party in honor of your tremendous success.
Chris Hanna 15:16
Cool. So let’s maybe think a little bit more about how we’re going to like talk to people. Because as much as I love the idea of like, really flowery language to sell this product that’s going to, like insult you mercilessly. I do think that there is something to be said for like brutally honest Marketing, especially when it comes to improving your own life.
Sam McKinney 15:39
If we’re doing the 360 the life coach thing or generally marketing GLaDOS, would she ever actually trust anyone else to do it? Wouldn’t she do it herself?
Chris Hanna 15:49
Oh, you mean like would GLaDOS make her own advertisements?
Sam McKinney 15:53
Yeah. Everything should be in her voice and her snark and her her own way. to kind of get you to understand what she means.
Chris Hanna 16:04
I’m just imagining that like, you’re listening on Spotify to like your breakup playlist, and then all of a sudden, the GLaDOS ad comes up and it’s like, “you silly, sad human. Why don’t you get up off the floor and stop eating Ben and Jerry’s?”
John Fish 16:18
Yeah, I think that’s that’s actually really funny. And I think radio is almost a go to medium for this. Do you guys think so too, then kind of just using that voice?
Sam McKinney 16:30
I would say it would be, It would either be a radio or like a TV script with montages of things, that but radio would probably be the, Yeah, cuz if you’re in the car, you’re driving a lot, then you’re probably sitting there thinking, “What am I doing with my life? I’m wasting so much time” like you’re just that’s a lot of time to think so that’s when we interject puh, listening to podcasts like would be another thing. So yeah, like radio things because usually listen to that stuff just kind of zone out or Think.
Chris Hanna 17:01
Can we interrupt our own podcast for our GLaDOS radio spot?
John Fish 17:05
Maybe for the next, that’d be funny if that was for the next podcast just to remind people “Oh, and you can check out our ads online.”
Chris Hanna 17:12
And now to our sponsor,
John Fish 17:14
“you people are so lazy.” I think it’s kind of funny to like playing off of like, not your typical AI in a way where it’s like, yeah, sure, Alexa can tell you to take your pills, but GLaDOS will tell you to take your pills or you’re gonna die. You know, kind of like that’s obviously very drastic.
Chris Hanna 17:31
Something GLaDOS say it would be like, “there is a 33.2% chance that your life will be premature if you do not take these omega three fatty acids.”
John Fish 17:41
right that’s oh my gosh, that’s such a better way of making someone like do something to
Chris Hanna 17:48
Yeah, like you would do it right.
John Fish 17:51
Oh, okay. I’m going to take this fish oil that site pillaging the ocean of fish but whatever. I don’t want to die. Oh my god, that’s Funny.
Sam McKinney 18:00
I think it all kind of connects into that. So it’s all kind of within that realm.
John Fish 18:05
So, this being said, Spotify, I think is one of definitely one of the areas where we want to definitely have ads. So let’s think of kind of like, do you guys want to think of like, some things that people are doing when they’re listening to Spotify, that we can tell them? “Hey, you should be doing this,” or, “yeah, that podcast is really cool. But are you any more woke than you were 15 minutes ago?” I don’t know. You know, something like that, like, let’s do we want to think about some some things that we can tell people listening to podcasts do to better their lives.
Chris Hanna 18:42
JOHN is our resident Spotify expert, by the way. Yeah, I will be super down. that’ll probably be like, it’ll almost be like contextual Spotify like audio ads, but I think it could also even potentially be like YouTube, pre roll ads. You just have like an image of her just staring at you as she talks to you about, like, you know, “watching these bone appetit videos isn’t gonna make you a better chef. Get up and go start cooking.”
Sam McKinney 19:12
I think visually it just be her eye. Her glowing eye.
Chris Hanna 19:17
Just staring at you.
Sam McKinney 19:19
yeah, we don’t really do we have a tag?
Chris Hanna 19:24
Huh? Yeah, let’s think about that. So I don’t know I kind of like I love the idea of like taking like, your weakness is like somehow going to become your strength or like your weakness is the thing that she’s going to like manipulate into making you a better person.
John Fish 19:42
It’s almost like pushing your buttons to improve you, that’s like very long, but it’s something like that, you know, it’s like it just keeps hammering on these things or like little insecurities until you do something.
Chris Hanna 19:55
It’s like negative reinforcement has never been so effective.
John Fish 20:00
This is an abusive relationship, guys, this is what we’re advertising.
Chris Hanna 20:04
Yeah, that like, You are the one who bought her and who continues to keep her on. I mean, we’re we’re assuming that she’s not going to prevent you from turning her off, which she totally would prevent you from turning her off.
John Fish 20:20
Right.
Sam McKinney 20:20
She would definitely, yeah, as soon as you turn her on she’s never turning off you were screwed. You were stuck with that new life.
Chris Hanna 20:28
Maybe that’s what it should be. You’re stuck with your new life.
John Fish 20:32
Welcome to the new you. Glados.
Sam McKinney 20:35
Maybe it’s fighting for a new you?
John Fish 20:37
This is, Yeah, I’m just I’m thinking honestly, in that kind of tone, because it kind of is totally going to be like, I’m like, we’re here to change the future. You know, that’s kind of like,
Chris Hanna 20:48
what it was like, test out a new you or something.
John Fish 20:51
Oh, I do kind of like that. I don’t know if it would be testing though, because it’s basically like going to change you right? It would only Yeah, like, become
Sam McKinney 21:01
You wouldn’t be able to
John Fish 21:02
become your new you know,
Sam McKinney 21:06
reshape the new you. You’ll be new I promise.
Chris Hanna 21:10
I guarantee it.
John Fish 21:14
You’re gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it. That’s it guys! Let’s do it!.
Chris Hanna 21:20
Ah, Men’s wearhouse.
Sam McKinney 21:24
Man, this is a tough one.
Chris Hanna 21:26
If there’s any way that we can come up with a line that almost sounds a little threatening. Like, you will like the new you trust me? Because that’s totally within like her wheelhouse.
John Fish 21:37
Okay, I like that. That’s like, that’s pretty funny too. That’s funny.
Chris Hanna 21:41
Mm hmm.
Sam McKinney 21:42
Yeah, I like, trust me.
John Fish 21:44
I like I like trust me if we could come up with like, if we use trust me, it will be like a line before that. And then it would be like, you’ll stop eating those potato chips. Trust me. I don’t know. I just don’t know if I have the Glados voice down perfectly. I think you guys are better at getting the Snark, so it’d be something like that.
Chris Hanna 22:06
I mean, I the one of the things that people love about GLaDOS is that she is always guaranteeing some sort of, like, reward at the end of your tests. A lot of the times it’s cake that may or may not exist. Sometimes it’s like, I think there’s one scene where the main players like trying to solve a testing chamber, and GLaDOS tells her that if she solves it, she’ll like call her birth parents. And so GLaDOS like, calls the parents and has an automated voice that says, “the birth parents who are trying to reach do not love you,” and then there’s just a dial tone. So she’s, uh, yeah, she she would definitely be down with like, vaguely telling you about the things that you will achieve, even if you are not going to get those things.
John Fish 23:01
That’s a little beyond snarky. That’s
Chris Hanna 23:06
Yeah, she, she’s awful. I mean, let’s not, let’s not gloss over this, like she’s an evil supercomputer that wants to wipe you out. But she’s also going to help you to become a better version of yourself before that happens.
Sam McKinney 23:20
Yeah. What if, Since she’s pretty cocky and confident that she can do whatever so. And she hates humans, so there’s always something wrong with you, no matter how perfect you are. There’s always something wrong. So maybe the tagline is, I’ll fix you, I promise. Or something snarky than that, but like with the idea of I’m going to fix you.
Chris Hanna 23:43
Um, yeah.
Sam McKinney 23:44
Because then people who like “hey, you don’t I don’t need to be fixed. What are you talking about?” Like? They’re, they’re doubting themselves.
Chris Hanna 23:52
Yeah, like, I kind of like this idea of like, you’ll be better. Trust me.
Sam McKinney 23:58
Yeah.
John Fish 23:59
And we could show pictures of people that are just like, I don’t know, this might not this might not fly, but it’d be like really like morbidly obese people. And it will and then we’ll just have like, you can get better Trust me. I don’t, ya know.
Sam McKinney 24:14
I think humor is more like average people, or like really in shape people who look like they’d be perfect. And it’s more like it’s okay. perfections not easy. I’ll fix you.
John Fish 24:32
That’s good. I like that because, okay, that’s kind of that’s kind of funny. Let’s see, say,
Chris Hanna 24:41
flaws are fixable. Trust me.
Sam McKinney 24:44
What if it’s perfections not easy. Trust me or something like that.
Chris Hanna 24:49
I, I almost kind of like the idea of like, perfection won’t be easy trust. I mean, yeah, I do kind of like perfections not easy, Trust me, because she is in her mind in infallible being.
Sam McKinney 25:04
Yeah. Does that speak to? I guess that depends on the voice on what that radio message would be.
Chris Hanna 25:14
So something in my head that I’ve been thinking about is like, the way that GLaDOS tends to, like speak to people is usually by first cutting them down in order to like, make her point. So maybe the thing that she’s doing to people is that she starts whatever ad by just straight up being like, you know, you like pathetic, flawed, awful human. You’re doing all these awful things, but you can be corrected. And then she says, like, “with enough training, maybe I can get you to get down to like four pints of Ben and Jerry’s in like a week. perfections not easy, trust me.”
John Fish 25:54
I think that’s where the contextual comes in here, right? Like what we were talking about earlier with like the contextual pre roll for YouTube. It’d be maybe it maybe maybe instead of like that cooking magazine you were talking about Chris maybe like, like a chocolate cake. Totally. You know, something that like, oh, someone’s watching that and they’re definitely like, probably not eating healthy. And then GLaDOS will come in and just be like, cue snarky evil tone.
Chris Hanna 26:27
I did watch a chocolate cake cooking video, by the way, very recently. I mean, that would get my attention. If I was like watching a video, My mouth is watering because Claire Saffitz is cooking something incredible. And then all of a sudden, there’s this glowing yellow eye on my screen. Telling me that I’m a fat ass, but that I can be redeemed. I would pay attention to that.
John Fish 26:55
Or it could be before like self help videos to right?
Sam McKinney 26:59
I like the word redeemed, too.
John Fish 27:00
Redeemed?
Chris Hanna 27:01
it’s, it would be kind of funny. I know this is completely off topic from what we’ve been doing so far. But it would be kind of funny if GLaDOS hosted like a self help seminar, and she just goes down the row and just breaks every single person.
John Fish 27:16
Tony Robbins-style
Sam McKinney 27:17
That would be funny for an extension. Because GLaDOS was a woman. Is there some sort of women do it better kind of angle? I don’t know. That might be. I mean, obviously, that’s not really,
John Fish 27:28
US woke man, we know that women do it better. It’d be convincing everyone else.
Sam McKinney 27:37
We were kind of leaning towards the perfect is an easy kind of thing. But in her mind, perfection for a human is not possible.
Chris Hanna 27:45
I think that actually ties more into the tagline “perfection is not easy, trust me,” because it’s, it’s like snidely saying like you are not going to achieve this and because it’s literally possible, trust me, I know.
Sam McKinney 28:02
Yeah. Okay,
John Fish 28:04
so I’m still liking that. But I like what you’re saying, Sam, And what if it’s kind of like GLaDOS Does it better?
Chris Hanna 28:13
Glados Does it better. You’ll do it fine.
John Fish 28:16
Yeah. Well, it’s hitting on the fact that it’s the best AI, right? It’s gonna help you actually help you. And it will help you get fit, kind of like will help you get better I don’t know if It gets all those kind of messages, we’d have to figure out a way to get all that in. But that’s kind of an interesting way to look at it. Potentially.
Sam McKinney 28:36
if we do that, it would be “I do it better GLaDOS.”
John Fish 28:40
because she is just that okay, the narcissist the narcissism there plays out.
Chris Hanna 28:46
What if it was: “You’ll do it better. I do it best. Glados.”
Sam McKinney 28:53
That’s funny, too.
Chris Hanna 28:54
Do you guys want to talk about like placements? And maybe that’ll help inform the tagline?
Sam McKinney 28:58
Yeah, maybe we should do lines for stuff, and we’ll figure out what we end up with. So, situations that we’d be listening to, like on Spotify, so we have options for like, love songs, breakup songs, angry stuff, like Angry playlists, coffee shop playlists.
Chris Hanna 29:24
I mean, in my head, it’s, I think, john hit it on the head earlier, when you’re at your lowest like, that’s when you would be most susceptible to this crazy AI, making your life better. So I think we should focus on those moments.
John Fish 29:42
What if we like, what if it was on YouTube or Spotify and we basically like had you know how at the end of the week your iPhone tells you how many hours you spent on social media or on just on your phone, right?
Chris Hanna 30:00
You know, screen time,
John Fish 30:01
what if it was something like that, like, “Oh, you just spent six hours listening to or watching YouTube videos. Think of what you could do with your time.” And then it would have the tagline. So it’s kind of like, because I feel like you feel low, especially if someone’s calling you out for wasting time. And it sounds like GLaDOS is the type of like AI that would kind of do that, you know, like a total like, oh, you’re a piece of shit.
Chris Hanna 30:29
That’s actually a pretty good observation.
John Fish 30:32
followed with like, oh, but it’s okay, we can help.
Chris Hanna 30:35
And I can prove it mathematically.
John Fish 30:38
Yeah, exactly.
Chris Hanna 30:40
No, but I love that like, I was submitting like percentages of all of the crappy, sad things that you’re doing. And then something about like, “we can improve that by point something percent. If you got off your button did something” that’d be really good. If we could find And 100% in the tagline.
Sam McKinney 31:03
Yeah, though, I think the way that it would happen though, would be like, “great job spending three hours on YouTube. It’s not like we needed dinner or anything.” Or “it’s not like we needed you to do something.”
Chris Hanna 31:18
Yeah, for sure
Sam McKinney 31:19
Because that’s the kind of snark
John Fish 31:21
Glados, 100% real. Like, cuz it’s real with you. It gets away from the voice of Glados I know But what if it’s 100% honest, sometimes?
Chris Hanna 31:34
Hundred percent brutally honest.
John Fish 31:38
I do like I do like keeping it real though. Like almost kind of, because it is kind of like it’s telling it like it is. You know, it’s not sugarcoating it.
Chris Hanna 31:51
Yeah. Something else that I’ve been thinking about is how, with a lot of these like life coaching programs, or just self help in general, like the human And touch is something that is talked about a lot, and GLaDOS has literally none of that. So I kind of like the idea of contrasting this idea of like, hundred percent efficient zero percent human touch or something like that.
Sam McKinney 32:15
Yeah, that feels very mechanical though. Is there a better way to say that? I think.
Chris Hanna 32:20
I mean, I like the percentages because of what john brought up. If you’re like, doing these contextual ads that tell people how much time they’ve wasted or what percentage of their day they’ve spent, like, looking at pictures of their ex on Facebook, there is something to be said for following it up with a tagline that has like a stat in it of some sort.
John Fish 32:43
Right? Or it could be like we noticed, this is your fourth time visiting Pornhub today. Think of what you could be doing with your time or you know, like, it could be like on that those type of websites, it could be on YouTube and your total Like at your low, I don’t know, I just think being called out. And then the fact that it’s artificial intelligence is kind of funny. Like, oh, it knows what I’m doing.
Chris Hanna 33:13
So it kind of sounds like we’ve got two different directions sort of going on, we’ve got this one idea where we’re doing some sort of notification or some sort of messaging of statistics of what people are doing that, like time that could be better spent. And we’ve also got this more like audio approach.
Sam McKinney 33:34
I think the audio is probably this the statistics like, I don’t know, I guess it works. Just feels a little different, for some reason for me, but I could be wrong.
Chris Hanna 33:47
I mean, they are different. And there’s no problem with kind of pursuing both, but we should start thinking about like, the kinds of things that she’s going to say in like the audio ones For example. let’s say You’re on your breakup playlist, right? And you’re sad, you’re mopey, you got your tissues, your emo mascara is running down your face or whatever. And then all of a sudden, Glados comes on, what kinds of things she can say, to first cut you down a little bit, when you’re at your low, and then encourage you to get this product.
Sam McKinney 34:26
So what I would say is something along the lines of for the breakup playlist is there are 3.9 billion people or billion other fish in the sea. I’m sure we can make one of them like you.
Chris Hanna 34:42
I like that. I mean, hey, like, Why just restrict it to that half of the population? There’s, you know,
Sam McKinney 34:49
oh, yeah, there’s 7.8 billion fish in the sea.
Chris Hanna 34:52
Yeah,
Sam McKinney 34:53
we can. Yeah, that might be that’d be better. It’s more inclusive as well.
Chris Hanna 34:57
Because that’s what we’re all about. Yeah, Sam, geez I like that.
John Fish 35:02
That’s pretty good. That’s her voice.
Chris Hanna 35:04
Honestly, that could just be like a six second placement. There are 7.8 billion other fish in the sea. Let’s see if we can get one of them to like you. Perfection’s not easy. Trust me.
Sam McKinney 35:16
Yeah. Here’s another line that has kind of slowly developing so you guys can probably fix it. So, if it’s in the middle of a playlist of a breakup playlist, and it’s a “insert ex’s name here is better off without you. Let’s fix that. Perfection.”
Chris Hanna 35:36
So you’re gonna get revenge on your ex with Glados.
Sam McKinney 35:40
Yeah. swell up, swole up. That that feels more GLaDOS like that feels more in the tone with that tagline, I think. um, because it’s really just like, this person’s better off without you. So let’s fix that. And then it’s perfection isn’t easy.
Chris Hanna 36:03
I think you should say this person thinks they’re better off without you.
Sam McKinney 36:07
But that wouldn’t be glad I was glad this is like, this person is better off without you because you’re a fucking piece of shit. Let’s fix you. That’s the voice that it needs to be.
Chris Hanna 36:17
Oh, I thought you said let’s fix that. That’s why I thought it was revenge.
Sam McKinney 36:24
Well, yeah. No, it was let’s fix you. Let’s fix that, like, fix you, I guess.
John Fish 36:32
You like where we’re headed with that. I think before a cake video is maybe a pretty obvious place to have an ad then.
Chris Hanna 36:40
Um, I mean, I don’t think it is out of the running because I think that, like food videos is definitely a place where people probably waste a lot of time.
Sam McKinney 36:52
Maybe it’s more general, because people, everyone feels the same sort of shit every once in a while. And if we Hit them in the right spot at the right time, then they’re always going to be interested or intrigued. Maybe it’s like a workout kind of one of them’s a workout because everyone tries to work out and like, but they feel down on themselves. That could be a cake line.
Chris Hanna 37:20
You’re going to eat cake after this, aren’t you? Yeah, I kind of like that. Let’s think about that workout thing. I feel like Glados would lay something really heavy about like, doing cardio only, and how you need to like start doing like other things. So it would be something like “if you feel like you aren’t going anywhere on the stationary bike, it’s because you’re not” or something like that.
John Fish 37:50
Yeah, I thought that was funny. They had enough snark.
Sam McKinney 37:54
I think that Yeah, I agree. I think that’s a good, good line. Let’s come up with one more line. One more situation will kind of come up with a tag that kind of ties everything together.
Chris Hanna 38:03
What about when you like don’t know how to do something, and you’re looking up online, like wiki how or something like that?
Sam McKinney 38:11
Yeah.
Chris Hanna 38:12
Like imagine like, you’re looking on YouTube to find a video of like how to sew your pants or something. And halfway through GLaDOS just slams you for not knowing how to sew.
Sam McKinney 38:22
I think it would be more at the end. And it’s “Congratulations, you now know how to sew. It still won’t fix the hole in your life.”
Chris Hanna 38:34
You won’t be able to sew up the whole life. That’s funny.
John Fish 38:41
I like I like that line actually a lot. That’s really that’s pretty funny. It kind of it does follow the formula that you’ve that we’ve created. I think for the other two lines. Yeah, it’s like backhanded comments.
Sam McKinney 38:53
Yeah. So if you put it in front, it’s like, “good. You’re going to learn how to sew. It still won’t sew sew shut the hole in your life or something like that. The Void you’re trying to fill.” You could probably say it better than that.
Chris Hanna 39:08
No, I like hole because you’re going to a sewing video to learn how to fix a tear hole.
Sam McKinney 39:14
Yeah. won’t fix the hole in your life. Yeah, fix the whole your life
Chris Hanna 39:22
could we? Okay, so maybe this is a bad idea. Could we pitch these ads as being hyper specific to people? Like Could it be like “congratulations on learning how to sew Too bad it won’t fix the hole in your life left by Jeffrey.”
Sam McKinney 39:40
That feels a little too much I think What’s the what’s the tag we have on that first one. The radio?
Chris Hanna 39:48
“perfections not easy. Trust me.”
John Fish 39:52
That just sounds – I like it but I just can’t – do you guys feel like it sounds a little long? I think I think the best part of the line is – I don’t know you guys might not agree – I think the best part is the “trust me” part, because especially with our hindsight of knowing what GLaDOS does, it’s kind of funny having her ask you to trust you – trust her, right?
Sam McKinney 40:12
Yeah, maybe it is. Just “trust me.”
Chris Hanna 40:14
Yeah, let’s give that a shot.
John Fish 40:15
But then so at the end of that first line, it’s like, your insert exes name here is better without you. Let’s let’s fix that. Trust me.
Sam McKinney 40:24
Maybe it’s you can fix. You can fix that. Like, insert name here is better off without you. You can fix that. Trust me.
Chris Hanna 40:33
Yeah, that works.
John Fish 40:34
I’m sorry. I think I think the tag might be like, you can change that. Trust me,
Chris Hanna 40:38
Because I feel like an AI would probably say fix. It’s kind of talking. It’s kind of tapping into that imperfection thing that we were talking about earlier.
40:47
Yeah. Fix works- Fix works then, too, you for all those.
Chris Hanna 40:50
Okay, cool.
John Fish 40:51
This is hard. This one’s hard.
Sam McKinney 40:52
Yeah.
Chris Hanna 40:53
Yeah, it’s not easy doing a super intelligent, evil AI, who’s gonna force you to Improve your life.
John Fish 41:01
I think you guys were able to get the voice down pretty pretty well, just from the quotes that I was reading today. And it’s pretty funny.
Chris Hanna 41:10
yea… so is there anything else that we need to figure out right now?
Sam McKinney 41:14
I don’t think so.
Chris Hanna 41:16
Yeah, so let me let me go through all of it. So our insight is that GLaDOS is the best way to fix any aspect of your life, which is why we’re going with the tagline, we can fix that, trust me. For our execution. We’ve decided to go with contextual ad placements that are going to be spoken in GLaDOS’s voice. And so our first one is going to be on a playlist that you would probably go to after you’ve had a breakup, and the line will say, insert ex’s name thinks they’re better off without you. We can fix that, trust me. The next one is going to be on a workout playlist and it’s going to say if you feel like you aren’t going anywhere on that treadmill, it’s because you’re not we can fix that. Trust me. And last but not least we’re going to put our final placement on a how to video. We thought a sewing video would be funny and so we have congratulations on learning how to sew. Too bad it won’t mend the hole in your life. We can fix that. Trust me GLaDOS
Sam McKinney 42:16
Awesome.
Chris Hanna 42:18
All right, well done boys. Another one in the bag.
John Fish 42:22
Awesome! are we excited?
Chris Hanna 42:29
Alrighty, Well that is gonna be it for Episode Two. If you liked what you heard, please leave us a five star review we are on I think every single podcast platform. If you didn’t like it still leave us a review. We’re always looking for ways to improve what we’re doing here. Be sure to follow us on Instagram we are at add tempted ADTEMPTED I don’t have autocorrect in front of me, but I’m pretty sure that’s it. Sam says that’s it. So we’re going with it. Thank you all so much for listening. We had A bunch of fun. JOHN, any final words you want to leave our listeners with?
John Fish 43:05
Be safe out there everyone.
Chris Hanna 43:07
Yeah, be safe. Be safe. All right, and Sam, I’m gonna leave you to go back to your AI robot voice so do what you want to do, man.
Sam McKinney 43:18
Let’s eat cake.
Chris Hanna 43:19
Yaaay, cake!
GLaDOS 43:20
This was a triumph. I’m making a note here. huge success. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.