Steve Nober at MTMP 2021
Steve Nober: (00:02)
Thank you guys. Happy to be here and so happy MTMP is back and we’re all here to enjoy a couple of days together. I’m going to start this with a quick video, just to set the tone of what I want to talk about.
Video: (00:25)
So using this equation on the upper left right there, I’m projecting that you need to win at least 99 games in order to make it to the post season. We need to score at least 814 runs in order to win those games and allow no more than 645 months.
Video: (00:45)
What’s this?
Video: (00:46)
This is the code that I’ve written for a year-to-year projections. This is building in all the intelligence that we have to project players.
Video: (00:54)
Okay.
Video: (00:55)
It’s about getting things down to one number. Using stats the way when you read them, we’ll find value in players that nobody else can see. People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws, age, parents, personality. Bill James and Mathematics cuts straight through that. Billy, on the 20,000 notable players for us to consider, I believe that there is a championship team of 25 people that we could afford, because everyone else on baseball undervalues them like an island of misfit toys. Billy, this is Chad Bradford. He’s a relief pitcher. He’s one of the most undervalued players in baseball. His defect is that he throws funny. Nobody in the big leagues cares about him because he looks funny. This guy could be not just the best pitcher in our bullpen but one of the most effective relief pitchers in all baseball. This guy should cost three million dollars a year. We can get him for $237,000.
Steve Nober: (02:26)
Movie’s Moneyball. If you guys haven’t seen it, great movie, and I’m a big Dodger fan. Anybody caught the game last night, I thought this would be appropriate given it’s baseball season for the Dodgers. So why show this clip? I’ll tell you. For those that know me, we talk about Moneyball. We talk about metrics and data. This is really relevant to what we’re going to talk about today in Master at Marketing. The whole idea of Moneyball is using data and metrics to make decisions. And sometimes decisions that no one else understands, right? To be competitive and find opportunities. And so the question often is does that relate to marketing? And I would argue, it does because it’s all about probability.
Steve Nober: (03:03)
And so probability is interesting because with jury selection and I’ve given this example years ago at MTMP, but if you go into jury selection before a trial, can you imagine waiving your rights to jury selection, telling the judge we’re good. You guys, you pick who you want, right? And I know how many in the room would do that. And you guys, there’s no way, right? You guys are all thinking, there’s not a chance, right? Well, why not? It doesn’t guarantee you the outcome, but it does improve your probability so much that you laugh at the thought of waiving that right. So it’s interesting, but I don’t know how much time you really spend thinking about the depth of that. It’s really about probability and it’s not a guarantee, but it does raise it up. So it’s ridiculous to not do it. Well, I would argue advertising. It’s exactly the same thing.
Steve Nober: (03:51)
So there are things we can do to improve probability so the results of the marketing are better in your local market, national, mass torts, single event, it doesn’t matter. It’s all about sometimes data metrics and decisions. So I’m going to go through some of that today and give you some examples. And so we think it absolutely is relevant to advertising.
