Podcast_intro_1
(0:02) Hi.
(0:04) Hello…My name is Cate Banks and I'm here from my dorm at Emerson College in Boston at this moment and I'm here with you, David Banks.
(0:17) Yes, I'm David Banks and I'm recording live from my home in beautiful Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. So we are here today to talk about an exciting new thing that we're pulling together. You know, it's really a long-standing love that both Cate and I have had for a really long time and it's great to be partnering with somebody who is in the cutting edge of what's going on in the digital world today and it just happens to be my daughter, so that's great. And we actually like very similar things and don't like very similar things on many occasions as well, but we've been kicking around this idea since, how long ago, Cate?
(0:58) I mean, since the fifth grade from what I can remember, so that's a pretty long time ago.
(1:03) Since you really discovered Bobby Flay and guys' grocery games and everything that was going on the Food Network and discovered this whole flavor and fragrance world, so I think, you know, that's been a while.
(1:16) And I think for me, really what I've seen from your guidance in my life as well as just my personal, you know, self-discovery and interests and everything, this intersection of mainly it started out as flavors. I was very into Food Network growing up, you know, we are a big cooking family, that type of idea, but this intersection between, you know, flavor, fragrance, sense, you know, sensory experiences with media. I always think back to, like I said, Food Network, Bobby Flay, all that, but I also, you know, I'm Gen Z, so I grew up on YouTube and I grew up on, you know, early internet. I am a digital native and I was raised watching BuzzFeed videos and, you know, food challenges, Rhett and Link and Good Mythical Morning, all of these really big media players who, you know, for some reason naturally combined this flavor world as well as this media world and a bunch of other things. And I think we've just naturally found this kind of connection spot between the two of us that's really propelled into something more like this.
(2:35) Yeah, yeah, I think, and you know, and even going back to Bowling Green and my foundation of popular culture. I mean, I think that's really what my love of useless knowledge and many other things, I mean, having a degree in that and going through that program in undergrad was exciting and I don't think I ever let that go. I think, you know, we started kicking around the idea of doing something like a podcast to talk about what's going on in today, you know, just with popular culture, how that influences the senses and how that plays into, you know, the world that I've been living and breathing and loving every single day for the past, you know, almost 25 years. Just being exposed to this sensory world that really does come into play on every single thing we do every single day, every single interaction, you know, and we'll get more into a lot of that, but we really just wanted to kind of talk about, you know, what we were going to be doing and let you know what's going on.
(3:32) What's coolest about this experience in this project that we're working on is this multi-generational point of view and you are an industry expert in this and you have not only grown up with all of the technological advances that have begun within popular culture, within celebrity culture and product culture and everything, but also you've worked within it and you've actually kind of started from the ground up and been in the belly of the beast, if you will, and I'm just now starting out, but I'm also probably a lot more oversaturated when it comes to exposure to media and exposure to all of these cultural things and so I think having those two ends really is such an interesting place to intersect and to connect on, especially because, you know, a lot of the media that we see now, it's a lot of conversation but within the same types of people, I feel like sometimes and having this diversification of conversation within a more social and a more like socially cultural aspect, I think is a very cool underutilized conversation to be had, so that's why I'm excited to start this podcast off and, you know, if there's one thing you and I can talk about, it's popular culture.
(4:59) Yeah, absolutely and I think, you know, one of the things that I've always been fascinated with in terms of popular culture and everything and even, you know, the flavor and fragrance world is how we as generations are different in terms of what we like, what we see, how we observe, but also are there different preferences and do we see things differently, do we taste things differently, you know, obviously music is much different when you're younger than when you're you still listen to it like I'll throw on Bleach or, you know, or a Pearl Jam album any one of these days, but it definitely has a different influence and a different feeling than it did back when I was, you know, 17, 19 years old jumping off the stage, so that hurts a lot more now, but even just the whole energy that comes around it and I think that's what, you know, we really want to explore is, you know, this generational difference, you know, this demographic difference, you know, whether it's your ethnography, that's where your background, whoever you are, I mean, what makes you tick and what makes things really connect with you and I think that's the backbone of this entire multisensory journey that we're all on, right, I mean, on a daily basis, we're all on this journey to find new things, to connect with things and it is understanding those cues that we can really help, you know, a brand or a company or a product really, you know, hone in on what is important to that particular group of people. Number one, it's identifying who they are and number two, then it's identifying, you know, what is the obvious things that they're doing in their choices and that's the easy part, but, you know, it gets into that other part of it, the senses and the non-conscious triggers that are also making us do things and feel certain ways, so, you know. I know that's getting a little bit deep into the woods right now on this first podcast, but, I mean, I do think that that is a very exciting place to be. It's cool to have a partner that is not only my daughter, but also, you know, someone that's in it every day and you're in one of the busiest and most influential places in the entire world in Boston, where it's all happening, so it's really cool to have, you know, the old man experience, but then ultimately the young mind experiences that are happening as well.
(7:17) Yeah, no, and I think if there's one thing that I've really thought about between our conversations and that when applied to the industry at large is also this kind of gap between humanizing consumers and just treating them as data and I think that this sensory market and the sensory experience, the stuff that we can apply to services, products, whatever, combines those two things and bridges that gap. It brings the humanity to the data or it brings more data to this kind of sensory abstract concept, but to continue on as we were planning and preparing for the website launch, one thing that we talked about is our sensory mapping, our sensorial experiences, all of these things within the greater context of popular culture. Where do we see smell, taste, you know, unique sites and all of these different components? Where is all of that existing in popular culture and how can we see these trends that are popping up within all of those factors? And through that, through our conversations, that kind of spiraled into this idea of, you know, making this podcast and talking about, hey, we are two very different people but very similar at the same time and we both are players and involved in this sensory and popular culture market and how can we connect the two and, you know, show that to you, show that to you to indulge in as well as maybe use to see as, you know, data, maybe use this to see as what is trending, what is popping out, what is hitting both taste and scent at the same time and get something from that, you know, something along those lines.
(9:29) So, we have personally mapped out our five senses together but within popular culture and that is what we're going to dive into. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really fun exercise to be able to think about how we both are being influenced by the five senses. Some of the things that we're seeing, we're actually seeing in different channels, right? I mean, your channels are going to be a lot different than mine that I'm consuming on a daily basis and so I think it is going to be a fun, quick, hopefully gets you away from the nonsense of every day from time to time but also gets you into, you know, making sense of what's going on around you and that influence that'll have. So, we're setting it up, you know, like Cate said, we're going to have the five senses across a popular culture perspective, what we're seeing across the five senses and then kind of compare each. We'll probably do kind of a highlight top line one and then dive into each of those senses on an individual basis and episode basis. Looking forward to doing more.
(10:26) Yeah, no, this is very exciting and I think there's no better time than now to start thinking about the literal humanization of media. Media is already so oversaturated. The digital landscape is already completely full and we're almost overpopulating this digital landscape. Everything is kind of almost humming at the exact same frequency. How can we differentiate ourselves? How can we differentiate our content? How can we make things more human? How can we make them make sense from a literal sense standpoint and how can these very personified things be applied to tech? And I think that is also an industry and a path that is not going downhill anytime soon.
(11:14) So, yeah, we're going to be doing more of these podcasts.You can be able to find those on my LinkedIn handle as well as at davidbanks.net and Cate will also. What is your?
(11:28) catebanks.com on the internet and Cate Banks on LinkedIn and then _.sitka._, that's S-I-T-K-A on Instagram and TikTok.
(11:43) All right, yeah, thanks. Stay tuned, stay happy and ultimately stay aware. That sounds like they're going to get hit by a car or something. Yeah, I know.
