Is Anything Real In Paid Advertising?

All right, welcome to Is Anything Real?

In Paid Advertising.

My name is Adam W.

Barney, and I'm very excited here

today to have my guest, Christy Bloom,

who is the co founder

of Rising Tide Cooperative.

It's great to have you here.

I'm hyped for this one.

Christy, quick gut check.

Is anything real in paid

advertising right now?

Or let's give a little background

on where you come from.

Where do I come from?

So I come from a,

career in corporate America.

And I loved my time there.

I learned a lot, but I was ready

to not be there anymore.

And so over the past nine months, ish.

I have been, building the new career.

Building my new career, which

includes a solo, consultancy.

But what I'm really excited about

is we just launched a, partnership

called Rising Tide Cooperative.

And in and around that,

I do some other things.

I teach yoga, I'm writing a book,

I do some coaching.

And, you know, I'm just creating

a life and a career that I.

That I really love.

Yeah, I love it.

Awesome.

I, mean before we.

So to get into it, you've been

in the trenches, clearly.

How would you see that the AI tools

out there are shifting how we build

trust or scale brands, or how does

that intersect with what you're working

on with Rising Tide Cooperative?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, I think a lot is

changing with the AI tools.

I think since, coming on the scene

In November of 2023,

when we all learned what Chat GPT was,

people have, have been experimenting.

The data shows that as well,

that individuals and organizations

are experimenting, but largely,

the organizations themselves

aren't quite ready for it.

And so, you know, as the tools continue

to evolve and we all continue to learn

more about how AI can help us in our

daily lives, I think it's time for

organizations to think about what it

looks like to have AI as part of the

organization.

Not just, you know,

something that people play with.

And I think it's representing

a really big transformation.

And so Rising Tide Cooperative

is really built for that.

It's really built for those moments

of transformation based on

decades of experience in doing this,

doing transformations.

Right.

So, whether it was pre Internet days,

whether it was when we were

talking about digital transformation,

and I know that's

still very real conversation

for some organizations, AI is a.

Is a transformation of that magnitude.

And so, I think that the challenge and

the opportunity is for organizations

to really figure out what does it look

like to embed AI inside of your

organization and Inside of your

strategy versus kind of leaving it on

the sidelines.

Interesting.

And then to connect that sort of back

to the idea around paid ads,

how does that sort of fit into your mix

of strategy that you just mentioned?

Or what does that gut check look like?

Or what's a myth?

Looking at paid ad strategy going

into the heat of the summer in 2025,

what does that feel like

or look like from your perspective

in building Rising Tide?

Yeah, yeah.

So I think paid ads are interesting

as we think about

the intersection with AI.

Right.

So I think there's a myth that says

know AI can just do them.

And I think AI can create efficiencies

as we think about advertising.

But I think particularly in the world

of paid advertising, right.

The human decision making is one thing

that, that AI shouldn't be as good at.

Whether it is or not I think remains to

be seen and it's getting pretty scary.

But, but I think that that human,

strategic decision to say how am I

going to go to market what is important

to me from a marketing and advertising

standpoint will always be critical.

Even as AI comes in and creates

efficiencies and how we create,

distribute, you know, revise,

measure advertising and marketing.

I, love it.

I love it.

And I mean in that, in that realm,

you know, I love to dig into

and think about how the AI tools

either lie or they hallucinate.

Right.

Which is a, concerning thing.

I've, I've seen actually a lot of, of

conversation around how it's not

going to be about, you know, the

disappearance of the jobs because of

AI as much as it's going to be about

shifting the jobs also from, from

what they're traditionally known as

to people who can prompt properly or

audit properly.

So the training and the auditing I think

are going to be the biggest pieces

of the, the mix here.

That's, that's going to keep help,

you know, moving.

But also in the short term I

think we've seen skepticism grow.

So I'm wondering with the clients

that you're bringing in or looking

to bring in with Rising Tide or that

have inspired you with this, how has

that skepticism, you know, led you

to build this and how does that come

into play or the alternative side of

that?

Is there right now a more hands

off approach with those AI tools

in the mix and how are you changing

the game in that regard?

Yeah, yeah.

I think right now what we're seeing, and

the data shows there was a study from

McKinsey and Company, in the last three

months, they surveyed organizations and

what they found was, again, employees

are very much using AI, even in the

organization, but they don't trust

their, their leaders, have a strategy

for it.

And I think that that can

be a lot of things, right?

It can be the overwhelm,

it could be the wait and see.

There are real security and privacy

concerns with AI and then as you

mentioned, the hallucinations and

the, the inaccuracies that as a, as

a leader of an organization, those

can cause real risk for your

company.

And so, you know, I don't think that

the hesitance has all been unfounded.

But certainly there's a need

to bridge the gap.

And so again, figuring out how we

play in a world where AI may always

hallucinate, who knows, Just as

people on our team have

hallucinated over the years and

lost as we go, right?

It's the same thing.

But, I go back in my, you know,

years of managing over $100 million

in ad spend in paid chann,

I continually go back to things we

dealt with, with clients, right?

Where going through the 2008 financial

crisis, for instance, working with

financial institutions, we had to start

to integrate SOX compliance, or I've

worked with a handful of medical

companies where we have to deal with

HIPAA compliance.

Think about privacy.

I think that there's a next level here

that we get into, because especially

when you think about small business

owners or entrepreneurs, they're just

throwing probably a lot of their

business secrets into tools like

ChatGPT, Quad Perplexity, whatever

those tools might be.

And I think that there's, there's a risk

probably that we need to talk about

there because, you know, unless you

know how to prompt properly also and

use that insight to drive it, you could

risk losing, you know, your business

secrets.

And I'm not talking about the big impact

of, you know,

patent protections and those kinds

of things or trademarks,

because that'll always be enforceable.

But it's the little pieces of leakage

that can come out there and can eke

into what I think of as the, you

know, Google is still the primary

search engine, but how do we think

about how that creeps into the search

bar across all of these other

platforms, whether it's Reddit, you

know, TikTok, people go in their own

little niched corners to find

anything that they want and those

things could become uncovered.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

And that is, that is

100% the risk as well.

So, yeah, I mean, in that regard,

where do you think this goes next

and what's going to break first?

Well, I think organizations will

make mistakes in,

in how they make decisions.

So, there was a company, and I

don't want to name a name in case.

I get it, I get it wrong, but

there was a company in the news

last week who made a quick

decision to hire all of their

customer service staff because AI

can handle that.

And they were in the news

because they realized they need to

bring them back, that AI is not ready

to handle that just yet.

There is that again, human decision

that needs to be in the loop.

You know, I think we're starting

to see those things happen as well.

Companies who are trying to jump

in early and make some decisions

and then realizing that perhaps

they're not the right ones.

I think from a, you know, again, a risk

and compliance and security standpoint,

there is that real risk of

confidential information leaking out.

Now, is it greater?

I don't know.

You know, with the digitization

of documents, you know, I could send

anything to anybody at any time.

Right.

So the leaks have always existed

and bad actors have always existed.

But I think it's about, you know,

continuing to reinforce what is

appropriate to put into

a tool like Chat GPT

for the sake of analysis or comparison

or rewriting and what is not.

But again, I don't think, I don't think,

the mechanisms to share information

have been around for a long time.

It's just that the ability to then

for that information

to be distributed on a broader scale

has just magnified with AI.

That's a great point in that regard.

Is there anyone in your orbit with

Rising Tide or where you've been over

the last couple years who you see doing

things the real way and the right way?

You don't have to name names, of course,

but what are some strategies that

they've maybe used to be a little bit

smarter, be a little bit more protected

and guarded in how they're using these

tools.

Yeah, yeah.

Again, not naming names,

but I think the organizations that will

get this right will be very strategic

about it and they will take

very practical approaches to it.

Right.

So on the one extreme,

it's shut everything thing off.

I don't think that's

a practical approach.

Right.

Again, employees are already using it.

I don't think that's ever been

a practical approach in any business.

Exactly, exactly.

But I remember the days, right,

when when the Internet first arrived

on the scene, but especially when

social media first rose on the scene.

Some organizations like

really locked down browsers and maybe

that protected them a little bit.

But, but it also probably had an

adverse impact on things like

employee satisfaction and retention

and you know, their ability to

Google something when they needed

to because they needed to get an

answer quickly.

So, you know, it has adverse impacts,

but it is a strategy.

Right.

Organizations could continue

to shut things down.

That's one extreme.

Right.

I think the other extreme is, you know,

don't create any rules and just

hope that things go well.

And I also think that is not a,

viable strategy for most organizations

unless they're really small.

And there's, you know,

there's a lot of communication

about who's doing what and how.

You know, I don't know that

that's a viable strategy either.

And so I think the organizations

that are being successful are

taking a look and saying, how do we

put some guardrails on this and how

do we make a, comparison to, again,

some of the systems that have been

in place?

So browser lockdown.

We don't lock down your browser.

Right.

We're not also going to lock out any AI

tools, but we expect you to behave as

adults, act as, an owner and steward of

our company brand, make good decisions.

So organizations that are taking that

approach and then maybe giving some

examples of this is appropriate usage,

these are things to be careful of.

They're the ones that are going to

get ahead fastest and in the most

logical way without those wild

swings of we laid off all of our

staff and now we need to bring

them back.

I love it.

I mean, I think that that,

that gets into the way that I've always

led and managed teams also.

It's about not, not managing down

on people or, or you know,

leading them to not have

the opportunities to test things.

It's about being a little bit more

proactive to lift, lift things

up in the right, the right manner.

Yes, yes, exactly, exactly.

Let me, let me ask Christy, where can

people find you if they want to see

what real looks like in this space?

You know, where, where can they

track you down with this?

With the new venture, with, with Rising

Tide, what's the best way to to track,

track your expertise down here?

Yes.

Risingtidecooperative.com is

our website, just launched.

We also have a business page on LinkedIn

and you can find me on LinkedIn.

Christy Broome K R I S T I B R O O

So happy to connect any of those ways.

And look forward to chatting

with people about AI and strategy.

Awesome.

And then finally, I Like to end things

with one last big question,

can you provide an example of one

client request that made you laugh

and get into that a little bit?

One client request that made me laugh.

Okay, I'm going to have to go back

a little bit in the brain because

I've had really great clients that

I've been working with recently.

So they, they haven't

made me laugh recently.

But let's see, way back, you know, I, I

suppose, in my days working for

organizations and working with their

clients, you know, I would get some

requests about, you know, kind of what

I would consider, kind of off the wall

configuration system to the point that

it would kind of negate the purpose of

the system.

So you know, if I,

if I use AI as an example, right.

Can you give me chat GPT,

but turn off the LLM would be a,

you know, a correlating

kind of ridiculous request.

Right.

Like you're going to turn off

the capability of the tool if,

if you take out the LLM.

That's what ChatGPT is.

That turns, that turns it almost

into what's the point.

Right.

Why exactly.

Why are we even doing this?

Yes, yes.

So those sorts of requests, right.

Kind of not understanding their purpose.

But I'll have to think about that.

What request that makes me laugh.

I'll, I'll reach back out, Adam,

and we can laugh together.

When I think of it, I have

to think, I have to think

the things that it brings.

The realism though,

when you run into those situations of

the fact that we're all humans working

in this world together,

that's when that humor comes up.

And you know, that's, that's

an incredible place to come from

when we realize that there,

there's levity within each of us.

We're all humans, we have to, even

when we stumble, give ourselves

that little bit of grace that

allows us to say it's okay, we

can get back up and we can try

this again.

I think that's also something

that I could feel threaded

through the conversation here.

But it's about trying things and having

the autonomy and the agency to try

things and maybe not going with two

feet fully into the pond, but putting a

couple toes in there to understand

whether something works and to validate

it if it's the right business case, use

case for a business before you go full

into it.

And that also gives you time

to build that strategy perspective on

being very thoughtful and methodic

about how you step into it.

And you, you don't lose sight

of just nimbly tossing

all your eggs in one basket.

I think, you know,

you and I probably both know that

as entrepreneurs and founders,

and this is probably what's led you

also to co founding Rising Tide.

You learn from your mistakes,

and you also lift up and come together

by trying different things and being

calculated and responsible with.

With it, rather than just shooting

at everything all at once.

Yes, agree, agree, agree.

But I, And I think the key moment

or the key, phrase there is grace.

Because I do think there are

organizations that, you know,

resist that failure, and they move

so slowly because of it.

And I think, you know, as entrepreneurs,

we have likely both learned

that action is really critical,

and if it's not the right action,

pivot and take another one.

But it's better than,

you know, analysis.

Paralysis by analysis.

Analysis by paralysis.

That's the phrase.

It's better than over analyzing

everything to the point of inaction.

So, yes, taking that grace approach,

that I'll figure it out if it doesn't

work approach and trying new things

is really, the way that organizations

can be successful as well.

I love it.

Any.

Any last tips you'd want to add

about someone who's trying to

figure out what's real in their funnel

or any quick additional

wisdom to wrap things up here?

You know, trust your judgment.

Trust your judgment if it doesn't feel

real, if it doesn't feel right, you

know, go with that again, give yourself

grace if it's not right, and make

a different decision next time.

But, you know, go with your gut more.

More often than not, it's right.

I love it.

Fantastic.

Fantastic wisdom to have here.

Well, thank you, Christy,

for joining us.

Remind us one last time

where to find you with Rising Tide and,

how you can help people out.

Rising Tide Cooperative,

we help organizations

through big transformations.

The one that we're all going through

now is AI skills are on the horizon as

well, and there will be more to come.

We help organizations and people

through transformation.

Fantastic.

Well, thank you, Christy,

for joining us here on Is Anything

Real and paid Advertising.

I, look forward to having you back at

some point as you continue to build

Rising Tide into something that's, for

lack of a better analogy, rising the

tide for the companies that you work

with.

Great, great.

Yes.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Awesome.

Thanks, Adam.

All right, thanks for joining me

again and signing off here from Is

Anything Real and Paid Advertising.