John Jantsch (00:01.21)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Ernie Ross. He’s a globally recognized branding strategy and innovation leader, founder of Ross Rethink and creator of the Intangence Methodology. His award-winning agency has shaped brands, political movements, and ideologies throughout the Caribbean and beyond. We’re going to talk about his new book, Intangence, How Human Connection Creates Value.

between people, brands, and ideologies. So Ernie, welcome to the show.

Ernie Ross (00:34.594)

Thank you so much, Joan. Thank you for the opportunity.

John Jantsch (00:37.4)

Alright, so I’ve been in marketing a long, long time and one of things I know is that creating a new word is really hard. To take something, create it, even though if it makes complete sense to you, you still find you have to explain it a lot and have people understand it. It’s like creating a new category of a product.

So why’d you do it, Ernie? Why did we need a new word? And then, of course, obviously, I’d invite you to explain, what is it? What do you mean by in tangents?

Ernie Ross (01:10.808)

Well, you’re right. It was a challenge. To define a space so exclusively that you own it. And intangible values and the science of human connection. Well, it is defined as the language of human connection. I like to say there are over 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, but the language of human connection is not one that is oftentimes.

John Jantsch (01:42.158)

Well, I suspect trust is a giant part of it as well, right? I mean, that’s one of those things that a lot of a lot of very established brands have a lot of trust with their market, their their customers. And sometimes that’s hard to put. That’s hard to measure. It’s certainly I think people understand it has value, but it’s hard to say, it’s worth X. So are you are you suggesting that not only do we need to focus on these things, but that they might actually be

Ernie Ross (02:05.006)

Sure.

John Jantsch (02:11.842)

more tangible than we think.

Ernie Ross (02:13.76)

Absolutely. Actually, I would go as far as saying trust is the new brand commodity. We live in a world where it’s hard to determine fact from fallacy anymore. Whether it’s AI generated or it’s being generated by a human being that is manipulating us, that’s one of the imageries on social media. So here’s an example.

John Jantsch (02:19.406)

Yes, yes.

Ernie Ross (02:39.372)

that if you take a look at what’s happening either politically or with a product or brand, it is difficult to discern whether that image or even the spokesperson is actually real. It’s very difficult for us to determine that. Or in reality, if something goes wrong with a brand or a company, within a fraction of seconds or a minute, that image and those opinions, whether it be internal or external to your company,

goes viral. So that we live in a world where intangible values matter more than ever. And if there’s anything I wanted your audience to take away today, John, it is the…

cornerstone of the principle of intentions and that is something only has value when it holds meaning to you. Nothing in life, whether it be a physical asset or a human relationship, is what I call derivative meaning. It only has a value because of the meaning you attribute to it. Worth, on the other hand, is a little different. Worth is what the market is willing to pay for it.

Value is determined by meaning. So what determines work? The extent to which you believe in the value, which takes you through what I call the circle of consumer sentiment back to meaning at the end of the day. That’s what determines our lives.

John Jantsch (04:01.902)

Yeah, I want to stay on that point of trust a little bit because I think I read, who’s the group that puts out the trust index every year? It’s an all time low. And I think as you mentioned, one of the things that’s making it even worse is AI, to the point where I think people are actually now assuming what they’re looking at is not real.

in a lot of instances. And so how do you cut through that? mean, to somebody who is being real, that is very authentic, but now is kind of being lumped in with what the sentiment is, how do you break free from that?

Ernie Ross (04:25.815)

of this.

Ernie Ross (04:42.488)

You know, much like any human relationship, we’re measured by more than what we just offer. We’re measured by what we mean to someone. And to show up authentically is really to be true to manifesting those ideals of your brand as you would in any human relationship. Here’s an example of that. You would pay around $11.5 million

for a one minute ad on the Superbowl, transient medium. And there’s an ad I always like to refer to for a particular brand that I would pause after 58 seconds of its television commercial. And I would ask the audience, tell me what story is being told, because you never see the product being referenced or used at all.

And the ad is really about the relationship between a father and his child. The entire ad just shows fathers interacting with their children. And after 58 seconds, if you had spent $11.5 million of your client’s money and said, is what I think you should run, you’d think you were crazy. And finally, in the last two seconds, the logo comes on for Dove Men’s Care. But…

It was more than that. You can’t just tag a logo to the end of an ad like that. They launched this movement called That’s Care dot com, which supported a paternity care for men and championed the cause of men as parents around the world. You can imagine which soap I use, by the way, as a single ad.

So it’s really about not just showing up by having an intangible value and putting it in a commercial, but manifesting that value and being true to it. In fact, Edelman just put out a report in 2024 that showed trust was the number one factor in influencing consumer decisions and that 85 % of the market

Ernie Ross (06:51.01)

was willing to pay more premium price for a product that they believed in and would even be forgiving when there was an error in it. Like any human relationship, you would forgive someone you really care about if you felt they were acting in your interest.

John Jantsch (07:07.322)

I certainly know I’ve done that, paid more and I’m willing to pay more. And I think a lot of people are, mean, that we’re risk averse. And so a lot of cases, I think that if we know we can trust a certain brand or something, we’ll just go back there because the risk, I suppose, of being let down is too high, even if it’s imagined.

Ernie Ross (07:31.0)

Sure.

John Jantsch (07:31.738)

Talk a little bit about, mean, obviously, as AI is replacing humans, or at least that’s way it’s being pitched in a lot of cases, how do we make sure that we are nurturing human connections as people are feeling more and more distance from you?

Ernie Ross (07:49.868)

You’re absolutely right. While I’m not a critic of AI, I think it has a phenomenal impact on how we’re going to develop as a species. But here’s the difference that I’d like to carve out of it. Artificial intelligence is not artificial intelligence. It could mimic human emotions, but it cannot actually encounter and experience it. It cannot encounter love or grief or hate or anger or fear.

So that’s what’s unique about us. If you gave me a work of art, John, and I loved it, and I said, wow, John, this is incredible, I’m gonna hang it on my wall, and you said, well, it was created by artificial intelligence, it would immediately be diminished in its value to me, or a piece of music for that matter. Those are expressions of our humanity, that’s what makes us real. And nothing can mimic that. So that artificial intelligence is limited by the fact that it is not human.

cannot encounter those human emotions. And that’s the space and role we will always have, I think.

John Jantsch (08:54.446)

Well, I agree with you thoroughly, but let me back up on that a little bit. If I think a piece of art is still a piece of art, why should it matter how it was created?

Ernie Ross (08:58.222)

Sure.

Ernie Ross (09:06.818)

Because as much as though, if you had to show the whole intangible space, if there were Picasso that he had created, but he had never signed it, it would not be authentic, right? It would not have the same intangible value. So that it is determined by the ownership of an individual that has created that piece. Here’s an example. You might have heard about the duct tape and the banana.

John Jantsch (09:14.394)

Sure.

Ernie Ross (09:32.206)

that was created at this station. It sold recently for $2 million. Or John Cage, who created four minutes, seconds of this piece that no one plays. Those are examples of what is authenticating and giving it value and validating it is our regard for the person who is originating the piece. But if it’s done by AI,

John Jantsch (09:32.881)

yes, yeah, of course I did.

Ernie Ross (09:58.306)

then it could be duplicated and replicated a hundred times over. It’s AI generated, it’s not created by John. You are unique in the world. So when you create a piece, is unique to its own individual that would ever exist on this planet ever again. And that’s what makes us unique and that’s what makes the pieces created by human unique.

John Jantsch (10:19.61)

You

started off by, or you gave the example of the Dove and Men’s Care products, and really you kind of put the word in the story they were telling. And I want to go back to that a little bit because I think one of the most powerful ways you can make connection is with stories. And I think a lot of marketers have woken up to that idea, certainly the last five, 10 years. So what role do you think storytelling, authentic storytelling plays in

in communicating what a brand stands for.

Ernie Ross (10:54.356)

Absolutely. Telling an emotionally compelling story, any narrative of that kind, makes it memorable. It connects you authentically with your… We’re essentially, as human beings, sentient beings. Most of our decisions are being made by the way we feel, not by logic as much as we’d like to think it is. And we’re engaged by stories. And it is essence of who we are.

It is what we’re created of memories, memories that are made of stories. So providing a brand is embodying an intangible value woven together through an emotionally compelling story. While that is happening, that will certainly be a point of resonance once the shared intangible value has been embodied in that particular offering. Here’s an example. If you and I were going into the beverage industry,

And I said, John, I’ve done everything with this product. I don’t think it’s going do remarkably well. It’s not particularly attractive in its colors. Black.

It has no nutritional value whatsoever. I’m not going to sell it in flavor. But I’m going to guarantee you 1.9 billion units every day around the world. You think that’s crazy. But that’s exactly what Coca-Cola does. And it’s woven together by these really emotionally compelling stories. They don’t sell it in flavor, taste, the feeling, open happiness, real magic, all themes over the last 10 years. So if a product, a beverage,

that has no nutritional value, that contains 38 grams of sugar, can be sold as an embodiment of the satisfaction for the craving of human connection. Woven together tree, more shake-upelling stories, I think is the best evidence of the fact.

John Jantsch (12:38.234)

Okay, well again, I agree with you, but I’m going to push back on another. They’re selling poison under, you know, that, right? And so are they really manipulating people to buy a product that is really not good for them? I would suggest that that’s probably using what you’re talking about, you know, for evil rather than for good.

Ernie Ross (12:59.982)

Very good, absolute point. I remember I had to give a talk at the Global Happiness Summit right here in Costa Rica, the United Nations established University of Peace. And I gave a talk on Coca-Cola and everybody in the room was stirring and said, why are you doing that? I said, well, don’t shoot the messenger. They own the space on happiness. Now, who determines whether it’s manipulative or positive is based upon the lens you’re filtering it through. I agree with you.

John Jantsch (13:17.439)

the

Ernie Ross (13:28.706)

But they’re using techniques and devices that are so compelling that’s effective. Maybe those of us who are pushing climate change or operating an NGO could learn from some of these techniques. Because ultimately, it’s determined by outcome. But if we can employ and deploy some of those techniques and devices that those big brands are using, maybe we would push the needle forward a little bit in terms of the

the more noble ideals and projects that we have. So you’re absolutely right. It’s more about how are they achieving it than whether it’s being done for greater good.

John Jantsch (14:00.42)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (14:06.648)

Yeah. So if I’m a company not of a Coca-Cola size by any means that has been selling features and benefits and I now think, hey, we need to change and we need to connect and we need to discover our purpose so that we can actually tell that authentic story. Where do you help people start?

Ernie Ross (14:30.84)

There are three schools of thought that make up the tangents. The first is called pillars of purpose. It’s an introspective process that asks the most three probing questions you can ask of a brand or of yourself. Question one is who am I? Question two, and is who am I to you? Question two would be what is my purpose? What greater purpose do I serve to you? And the last question is how will I be remembered?

What lingers with you after interaction, whether you see the packaging or an ad that was run, what stays with you? And out of those three are like signposts to take you to what I call the universal truth. Something that is your brand ethos that is universally acceptable. As an example, if you were a brand of water, it could be no one in the world should ever go thirsty. So it would…

That would be building the brand architecture in an emotional space. Notice it’s not what is it, it’s who am I? What is my purpose? How will I be remembered? And then the second school of thought is what is called currency of conversation. How do you make the message viral? How do you get the message out there? And that lands on three principles. Is the message relevant? Do I have a high regard from where I’m hearing or it’s coming from? And does it resonate with me at a deeply fundamental level?

The final school of thought would be the science of human connection, which are the techniques and devices you’re using to be able to create that connection based upon purpose, passion, or do you get a passion following what I call a polyphonic understanding of the marketplace polyphony.

coming from a musical term where an instrument can play more than one note at the same time. In much the same way, you have to track what’s happening with emerging trends, changes in attitudes, consumer behavior, and so on, to be able to travel ahead of your headlights, so to speak, so that you can measure the response that you need to have in your brand storytelling.

John Jantsch (16:32.515)

You work in some different markets outside of the US. In your view, do you think there are cultural differences in not only how people market, but how people build trust, how people get connected to brands?

Ernie Ross (16:45.62)

Absolutely, absolutely. Each market has its own dynamics and so on, but there is, however, that space that I call the universal truth, where it’s all expansive, regardless of what market. But at the end of the day, reality is really a perspective. In our offices, as you come into the building, there is a very unusual object that reinforces this.

It looks like what appears to be a mirror with a crack in it and there’s a broom perched against it. A lot of people come into the office and they say, why do you have this object here? And I said, you tell me. And they look at it and they talk about maybe the frailty of life. so I said, no, it’s just what it looks like. And the.

It is done by, it’s an installation done by an artist from Argentina called Leandro Ehrlich. And it’s actually an illusion. He’s just created an open space, put a frame of metal running across it diagonally, and makes it look like a crack. He’s put a broom in the front and a broom in the back. Now you can see right through this object, John, you don’t see your own reflection. But nine out of 10 people stand in front of it, including me, when I first got it.

and see a mirror. And it’s based upon the whole principle, know, that we don’t see the world the way it is, we see the world the way we are. And it reinforces the idea that we have to question this version of reality. So to your point about what works in what part of the world, it’s about that point. Being able to question the reality as determined by the audience that you’re reaching to. What is their version of this reality before you begin to authentically connect and do it?

John Jantsch (18:21.774)

You spread the word of intangence. What do you kind of hope for maybe the wider world of marketing leadership, human behavior for this idea to catch on?

Ernie Ross (18:33.868)

For that I’ll go to the last chapter and I just want to read a little bit of it for you, if I may. This is really to me key to what I would love everybody to take away from it. It reads, if nothing from nothing is an irrefutable law of physics, then what could possibly have first existed before anything else? In the beginning, everything was entirely intangible.

This is a profound insight into the question of what first existed. And throughout the book I demonstrate how real and powerful the world of intangibility is. As an example, if you took all the companies traded in the S &P 500, the value of it is about $28 trillion. And if you sold every physical asset, you wouldn’t even get to 20 %

of the $28 trillion. So it’s all intangible assets and defined through an intangible meaning. So the world exists. What is one of the world’s largest transportation companies? Uber. How many cars do they own? What’s one of the world’s largest retail companies? It’s Amazon. How much mortar and stone do they actually have? And if you looked at all the major brands in the world, every single one from Apple to

Microsoft or to Coca-Cola. They have charts done by their accounting firms that are measuring their intangible value greater than that of their tangible value. If I sold you the Coca-Cola company today and I give you all the factories and all the buildings and I kept the name, I would be the one to win the game. So it’s an intangible space. And so that’s what I would like to take away from. To recognize, if you took this into a…

a spiritual realm, if you will, and you ask the question, how did we actually begin? How did this all begin? Now you’ll get theories from scientists to religious people, but if we can agree on one principle, that is all intangible. I have a little cartoon in the book of a magician pulling things out of a hat, and it says it can’t be weighed, it can’t be held, it can’t be shipped, but it exists. It’s intangible.

Ernie Ross (20:52.502)

So essentially that’s what I’d like to think we are at the end of the day.

John Jantsch (20:57.602)

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there somewhere you would invite people to connect with you, find out about your work, and obviously connect with your book?

Ernie Ross (21:08.408)

Sure, it’s intangines.com. It’s spelled I-N-T-A-N-G-I-E-N-C dot com. That’s the website. The book is available through Amazon, Walmart, Target, Indigo, and several other outlets. There are courses that are taught. There’s a four to five minute master class. And there’s a three day program validated by the United Nations Established University for Peace. And in Europe through the…

business school called Ecole des Ponds. So the work has been, the body of work has been given great assessment and testimonials by Harvard professors and so on, but more importantly, it’s the number of people around the world, over 10,000, that have participated in the program. I’m humbled by the responses we’ve got, and I’m grateful to you, John, for giving me yet another platform to ventilate the views.

John Jantsch (22:06.202)

You bet, and we’ll have a, for those of you listening, we’ll have a link to Intangence in the show notes as well. So, Ernie, again, I appreciate you stopping by and maybe we’ll run into you one of these days in Costa Rica. All right, take care.

Ernie Ross (22:18.946)

I look forward to that, John. I’ll be your guide for sure. Thank you so much. Cheers.