Mark Vandegrift 
Welcome to the latest episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Vandegrift, and with me today is our pro podcaster Lorraine Kessler. Lorraine, how you doing?

Lorraine Kessler 
Well, that's really a cute intro, Mark, given that my surname before marriage was Procacci.

Mark Vandegrift 
We'll have to call you the Procaccia podcaster.

Lorraine Kessler 
The Procaccia Procaster. I can't even say that so we'll have to let that one go.

Mark Vandegrift
Well Lorraine, most people probably know about your passion for positioning. So we can call you the positioning Procaccia pro podcaster. But you do have another passion and I didn't realize you were into it. Now, is this a recent phenomenon or something that you've always been into regardless of whether it's podcasting and that's true crime.

Lorraine Kessler
I have long been into true crime and certain books years ago before podcasting kind of hooked me on the subject. The one about Ted Bundy, I think it's called Something Beside Me written by someone who worked with him. Bitter Blood. So some of the books from that author really hooked me. And I've always been interested and I've tried to figure it out why. And I think because at least the ones I follow, for the most part, end up getting solved, right? It ends up being a trial and it just feels like there's some justice in the world, if you will, right? But it's also...

Mark Vandegrift 
That's interesting. So it's a feeling that you're getting with justice that it satisfies your soul. Is that what you're telling me?

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, because there's so much today that there's so lack of justice in so many ways right. So it's a, and I also think it's just that the, what humans are potentially can do to each other. It just, it boggles my mind. I mean, it just absolutely is a curiosity as to how do people get to that point where they exact these types of crimes on others.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, this is a positioning podcast. So we have to talk branding. We have to talk brand strategy. We have talk positioning principles. So for our discussion today, I'm going to let you run with this. I want to see how true crime podcasts are your angle from a branding standpoint. So tell me how they're doing it.

Lorraine Kessler 
Right. Well, think, you know, first of all, you look at the whole ecosphere of true crime podcasting, and I have to give kudos to some of the first to the gate. Nancy Grace, for example, who really has made her entire career about this and has near 900,000 subscribers. But then courtroom TV and long crime have come along and they're kind of more like big network gets small network on the podcasting platform and they kind of followed that that I guess venue or that hallway if you will to the podcasting but there's been so many new that have sprung up that have amassed amazing audiences most of which you won't never even heard of like Grizzly True Crime. She has almost 500 subscribers. She's amazing. She is the queen of snark. She's the queen of snark. She's the queen of intelligent, funny, kind of, if you can be funny about some of these things, in an appropriate way. So what I'm saying is there's people who have not stepped out of normal network and have really developed this podcasting ecosphere quite well. And when I looked at it, I thought, what are they doing that they're so successful and they're getting all these audiences? I mean, certainly there's other people like me interested in true crime and how are these things progressing through the courtrooms and all of that. But when I looked at it, I saw, first of all, they're doing some classic branding and promotional strategies that we would applaud and that we would ask our clients to do for whatever their marketing. The first thing that they have, almost every single one, is they have a personality, right? So there's a brand of personality. Whether it's Joel Waldman for Surviving the Survivor, which is one of my favorites. Whether it's Gisela K. from Grizzly True Crime. Whether it's Pretty Lies and Alibis and their host, her name escapes me right now, but I really enjoy her. They have this personality.

Mark Vandegrift
Gigi McKelvey.

Lorraine Kessler 
Huh, what's that? 

Mark Vandegrift
Gigi McKelvey.

Lorraine Kessler 
There we go, Gigi McKelvey. Yeah, see, you do know this. Whether it's Ashley Banfield, who's kind of come over from the more network side of things with her now Drop Dead Serious podcast. But they have personality. So they have a following already. So that's one. And we know that brands that you try to create a persona for a brand, but if you have a personality, that is your brand. So that's part of it. But then there's great storytelling. Each have a distinctive angle that they kind of take. So, that they, even though they're covering maybe the same crimes in the same courtroom cases, they have an interesting angle, an interesting perspective, maybe a different format in terms of how they treat with guests and things like that. Like Surviving The Survivor is always promotes himself as the best guest in the best community, okay? And he always has tremendous guests. And he is very blatant in the positioning by stating that, which I think is great. Then on top of it they create an identity around their show and the name whether it's the Lawyer You Know or Surviving The Survivor or Grizzly they call people who are kind of tough and fight back for justice and she'll call them grizzlies you're a grizzly or this attorney's a real grizzly and so that's kind of fun but there's also they do a lot of identity with their logo with merchandising whether it's you know, t-shirts or hats or swag, mugs, logos. So they're very smart in how they merchandise the brand.

Mark Vandegrift 
Have you bought any?

Lorraine Kessler 
I've not. I've really thought, I did buy a book, the Surviving The Survivor book about Joel and his mother. His mother is a Holocaust survivor who was a young child, I believe, in Hungary, who, even though I think she's Serbian, but she, maybe she's Slovenian, I'll have to check again. But anyway, she was a young child. She was taken in by nuns in a convent and protected. Her father kind of delivered her. And so she made it through the Holocaust. So he wrote a book about that, his mother's relationship, which is a big part of his that's he's survived the survivor. That's the title of the show. But they've used multi-channel platforms. So they're not just on YouTube. It's Spotify, it's Patreon, it's Apple Podcasts. So we understand that, right? You have to kind of right.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yep, we're on a lot of them.

Lorraine Kessler 
Right. And they never forget the ask. They never forget the very basic thing anybody's listening 101 marketing don't forget the ask. Hey, please subscribe Become a member like and share all of them. They all do a great job with that and that's why their Subscription base has grown so very quickly. Now memberships a little different because membership you have to pay to belong to. Right now I do pay to for Patreon, but I don't pay. I think I pay for Surviving The Survivor. I might pay for one other, and I can't remember what it is. But that can get kind of pricey. So I suffer through the advertising, right? So that's how they monetize. I think the other thing that they bring, I just think this is such a textbook for any brand. Like, how do we do this? How do we always have great storytelling? Well, in true crime, it's handed to you because you're not creating the stories. You're just reporting on them. And you're trying to report from them from very, very different perspectives, from experts to family members who are impacted from the victim's point of view. So you have like a wide berth that you can cover these stories from, which is really fantastic. So the stories are kind of handed. So, you know, remember Law and Order. And they used to say, you know, ripped from the headlines. Well, these are the headlines. So, there's no. So but what they do understand really well is how to build the community of like minded people. They're super respectful to the community. There's an ongoing chat and they'll bring the chats up right live when they're having their panel or discussions and talk to the people who chatted or commented as if you have a really close connection. so Joel Waldman also says, best community, not only best guests, but best community. And that's really, that makes loyalty. People feel like they've been listened to. I've had some of these hosts like Gavin from Gavin Fish respond to me via email. And some others and I think that's just great because I can't imagine how much communication they have. So they're very intentional on the community and what they're delivering to the community and very respectful. And then there's an element of differentiation because you know once you have the personality and that's how they approach the subject matter is different. Obviously Nancy Grace is her own thing, right? But there's I think fortunately others who approach it a little differently. God bless those who love Nancy Grace. Nothing wrong with that. But there's someone for everyone. I think one of the things they're differentiated from, they're wildly different than traditional news. It's not about opining or opinionating so much as if we have to just sit back and take, you know, it's like one way communication. They speak and you have to accept. It's very much two way, very feels collaborative. And the way they talk about things, it's very real, it's authentic. Sometimes there's technical glitches or microphone. People forget to mute their microphone or forget to unmute it or they go out because of bad Wi-Fi and all of that's right there for everybody to see or hear. And I think that's great. It just makes it so approachable and real. So it makes these conversations much more two-sided and really about being approachable. And I think that's, I can't say enough about how the contrast between nightly news and their reporting and this is, these podcasts are. So, anyway, lot of the people, most of the people who do head up these podcasts have expertise too. They're either lawyers, they were past prosecutors who became defense attorneys or they're journalists or of some ilk like that. And the lawyers, there's different programs of lawyers, sometimes help you better understand like The Lawyer You Know is more about the actual courtroom and what's going on kind of breaks down and there's one called Professor Joe, she used to be a guest on Surviving the Survivor and she now has her own podcast. They kind of break out what's going on in the trial, like why there's a recess or why there's a sidebar or why there's an issue with a piece of evidence not coming in, whether the defense has made a good point or crossed the line. And so you get a real education on how courtroom is run because they're lawyers and they have that expertise.

Mark Vandegrift 
Do you find that, like most of the podcasts I listen to, they're having guests from other podcasts and they're promoting other podcasts and it kind of expands the community? Do the true crime ones do that too, like cross promotion?

Lorraine Kessler 
Absolutely. There's so much, there's such a collegial spirit among these podcasters. I know, for example, that Josh Ritter, whose Courtroom Confidential, the first time I saw him was on Surviving the Survivor. And then he has his own show. And then he sometimes the same guest he has will be on another show, like an ex-FBI person talking about the most recent, the Nancy Guthrie case. And I see those FBI people dance around from different shows, which is always interesting. But Josh Ritter is now a Fox News contributor on crime. Yeah, he's a pretty tight together guy, very approachable, great personality. There's a guy named Mike King Profiling Evil, who just has a new book called Gardens of Evil, where that book is about the Zionist society cult that was years ago, I think in the 90s, when he was a cop and he broke that case. And this cult was taking in young children. It was very much about kind of an LDS offshoot that was polygamist offshoot that was 10 Shades of crazy. So yes, will see Gigi McKelvey has been on Surviving the Survivor, Joe Waldman has been on Vinnie Politan, Court TV. So there's a lot of sharing back and forth.

Mark Vandegrift 
What's interesting because the only true crime series that I've ever really followed, which isn't real, is Only Murders in the Building, which is on Hulu. And I just love the storytelling in that even though it's made up. But it's funny because they're like frenemies in that one with the one gal in there that has a competing podcast and they're always going back and forth with each other. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yes, yeah. Isn't that Tina Fey who has the, you know?

Mark Vandegrift
It is.

Lorraine Kessler 
yeah, okay, yeah, I love that show.

Mark Vandegrift
I didn't know if you watch that series, but it's from an era where you and I appreciate Martin Short and Steve Martin's comedic capability. So I don't watch too many shows like that, but that one's pretty funny. So have you seen with the Nancy Guthrie case, it's dominating the news. Do you find that it's dominating the podcasts that you're listening to?

Lorraine Kessler 
Absolutely. That and the Corey Richens trial out of, I think, Utah where she supposedly, allegedly poisoned her husband with fentanyl. So they now have like dual competing news channels. And of course, everybody's waiting to hear something about Nancy Guthrie and what's going on there. Hopefully that has a happier ending than it seems like at this point.

Mark Vandegrift 
Now I want to draw a distinction on something because you were comparing this to personalities and brands. You know, the personalities of these podcasts are very specific to the individual. You know, I think of Microsoft and Bill Gates, if you ever go to LinkedIn or X or any of those, there's millions, millions more followers of a Bill Gates than there is a Microsoft as a company.

Lorraine Kessler 
Well, that's interesting.

Mark Vandegrift 
But I guess the question I would ask is if these personalities leave the podcast, I would assume the podcast is dead.

Lorraine Kessler 
Or if they do something themselves, that's the ruinous of the brain.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah. Which of course that's a, that's a deadly combination for a brand. Cause a brand can't survive on necessarily on the person. Although we have seen many brands go downhill when a primary person leaves the organization. I think of Steve jobs, right? Mac, Apple's never been quite what they used to be, but they're still, they've kind of created their own persona since he's been gone. We would never want to tell a client, hey, you need to be the brand and if you're not there, then it's deadly, you know, cause things happen.

Lorraine Kessler 
Well, I think that's a risk you have to assume in this category because I don't know how you separate the personality. Like Brian Entin, for example, who is on the scene reporting, is one of the most credible, thorough, polite, is not sensational. You can trust what he says. Has an amazing amount of trust. And even the other podcasters will sometimes have him on or talk about him and how he's so trustworthy. You remove him, you remove him, you don't have Brian Entin. And sometimes he shows up on News Nation. I don't know what the relationship is there with Jesse Weber, who's very good too. But yeah, you can't have Grizzly True Crime without Gisela K. You just can't. I mean, she's an amazing. She's South African, she has this amazing accent. She's so amazingly brilliant and smart, but snarky too, the queen of snarks. And she brings something to it that is just, and I smile because I can just see her and how she looks at some of these people who are definitely then found guilty, the testimony they might give on the stand and her reaction is just precious. Gigi McKelvey. Yeah, so I think that's an inherent risk and hopefully they don't do anything to themselves where they get caught on Epstein's list or something.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, I have a question on, we were just discussing AI and the Olympics and something that I'm noticing pop up in advertising, which is the, lets just say, let's limit it to the U.S.. The U.S. has a moment, right? And it feels like advertisers are trying to hop on the moment. So what I mean is someone wins the gold in the Olympics and an hour later, of course, the Olympic actual Olympic medal was awarded maybe five, six hours ago. But by the time you watch it in the evening, they already have commercials with that moment within the ad. And we're also seeing AI ads generated that are trying to capture moments. So it's like brands are chasing moments. And I was just wondering what's the speed of which these podcasts are coming out shortly after the event. So you have Nick Reiner or you have Charlie Kirk. You know, like how fast after those events happened, do you start having either the whole true crime podcast or conspiracy theory come out? What's the relation there?

Lorraine Kessler 
It's pretty fast. It's pretty doggone fast. Yeah. And it depends, I think, on the distance of the podcaster from that crime in terms of like courtroom, Court TV, Vinnie Paltan, who has several different, there's different podcasts with him. But Court TV is the one that most comes in mind. They're a little more, they're a little closer to network news. It seems like they're a little less on it. But Brian Enin, he's there. I mean I don't think this guy has a home because I only see him in the place or in a hotel. Like he has been in Tucson for the last 25 days that this has happened. And before that, he was in Utah. And you know, he's flying all over the place. And I would say that it's rarely a 24, it's very often less than a 24-hour cycle that I see in new shows.

Mark Vandegrift 
Let me ask you a question. It sounds like you're describing a citizen journalist versus a true crime podcast where all the evidence has been laid out and you have justice being served. Are you seeing that these hosts are overlapping in those two areas?

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, they are. What happened with just to give you Surviving The Survivor, originally it was about alleged crime, alleged criminals and crimes that were pretty well known, right? Whether it's the Murdoch or the Adelson trial, which really they owned. They owned the Adelson trial out of Miami and still do. And then after watching them for well over much time I watched them, they then opened a channel that's all about being in the courtroom. So they now have like another Surviving the Survivor, but it's from the courtroom. So live courtroom. Now they get the feed from Court TV, but they have a whole show on it. And they might use this Professor Joe to kind of explain what's going on in the courtroom. So meanwhile, they've been covering crimes before they get to the court, alleged criminals, you know, that kind of thing. And now they've moved into the court.

Mark Vandegrift
Sounds like line extension, Lorraine.

Lorraine Kessler 
It is, but it all works because they have a unique, as long as each show, like if you ever want to listen to the most relaxed, easy to listen to guy, who's just so credible and so likable, it's Mike King from Profiling Evil. And he's the one who wrote that book, Gardens of Evil. He's just so wonderful to listen to. If you want to really understand what's going on in the courtroom, then you want to listen to Lee Wallace, and her show is Lawyer Lee, or Peter Tragos, The Lawyer You Know, and there's a couple of others too who do this, those are two that I follow more, that really break down everything from a legal standpoint, from the lawyer standpoint I think Lawyer Lee used to be known as Harvard Lawyer Lee and they made her drop the Harvard because like what a branding thing.

Mark Vandegrift 
Okay. Yeah. Well, we like brand loyalty, right? And there's nothing better than that. What would you say, and I'm going to compare this to the addictive nature of these shows, what makes the show so addictive and create the brand loyalty to the True Crime Podcast?

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah. Well i had been aside from personality and they all have a different personality like Lawyer Lee is very southern she has that beautiful southern charm and hospitality Mike King is just so easy to listen to so credible. Surviving The Survivor does have some of the best guests. He puts a panel together I don't know how he, it's a kind of a family affair his mother Karmela will be on and they do a show every Friday just with her. She's like a celebrity on her own, because she's just such an interesting woman. And their relationship is interesting. And then his wife is what he calls the COE, Chief of Everything. So it's a real family thing. You really get a sense for that. But he has all these great guests. And if you, I just think Gigi McKelvey, again, she has this beautiful southern accent and it's just, she's so good on the detail. So, so good. Peter Tragos, he's out there. He really is very much liked for his good looks as well as his great lawyerly sense. And sometimes he'll have his father on. He's a lawyer and the father's excellent. They all bring a little bit something to their format and what their angle and then capitalize on their personality in some way.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well it's amazing, we're in that era of entertainment consumption and people have become the product, right? And they just have a topic that they can dig into and it happens to be true crime. So I think we could probably talk about this for another episode. Do you mind if we have you back to talk about a part two here?

Lorraine Kessler
yeah.

Lorraine Kessler 
Sure, we could do that. That'd be fine. I'm sure in the meantime, sadly, there'll be many crimes to talk about. I mean, the docket is already filled, right? 

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah. Can you imagine? I mean, we just saw about the gal where she kidnapped a young girl. She was staying with the family because she was transient and trying to find a place to live and the family let her live there. And then she ended up kidnapping the girl. And then some movers helped this, they happened to run into, I think it was a security guard at a store and somehow they worked together and they pulled the moving truck in front of the vehicle so this girl couldn't leave. And they ended up getting the cops out there and they recovered this little girl that had been kidnapped. It was an Amber alert that created the whole thing.

Lorraine Kessler 
The crimes against children, which I tend not to watch a lot about those because they're so painful, so, so painful. The missing children in Nova Scotia, the mother who took off and made like a five state run and then killed her daughter, who was nine, left her somewhere. I mean, I have a really hard time with those cases, the Soto case out of Florida, Madeleine Soto. I tend to not watch those as much just because they're so painful, so, painful.

Mark Vandegrift 
We'll tell you what, let's revisit this in a couple of weeks and you'll probably have some updates and I'm sure our listeners will be intrigued on how we can make more connections between True Crime Podcasts and the best way to promote their brands.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, well, I think anybody takes their template, they're going to have a good template for building your own brand, whether it's a product, information service, whatever.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah. And really that, again, that only point of departure is to be careful that you don't connect your brand to something that could easily leave or a person that is not solid within the organization cause you know, that would be devastating to a brand. Yeah. Good. Well, thank you for joining the brand shorthand podcast Lorraine as usual.

Lorraine Kessler 
Thanks.

Mark Vandegrift 
And we thank you for our listeners. And so that I don't forget the ask, please like, subscribe, share with your friends. Did I mention subscribe? And even comment. You have our email and you can email us questions and we love to address those on our future podcasts. So until next time.

Lorraine Kessler
Where's our merch?

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, where's our merch? We could easily get that made. So we'll have the store open here for you next week, Lorraine. So until next time, have an amazing day.