Jon Pfeiffer: Flipping the Script

Our interview of Jon Pfeiffer for “The Creative Influencer” podcast is available today for download on iTunes, Spotify, and premier platforms everywhere. We flip the script and interview Jon Pfeiffer.

We talk about Jon’s experience as an entertainment lawyer, his work with influencers and creatives and his thoughts on the shifting landscape of social media.

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A transcript of the episode follows:

Michael:
I am joined today by Jon Pfeiffer. Welcome to the podcast.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Thank you. That should be my line, but go ahead.

Michael:
Well, yeah we wanted to flip the microphone today. You are an entertainment attorney in Santa Monica?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I am.

Michael:
And adjunct professor in media law at Pepperdine University?

Jon Pfeiffer:
At Pepperdine, I teach a media law class to the undergrads, is a required class so if you're a communications major, you're going to see me.

Michael:
And of course you're also the host of the Creative Influencer Podcast?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yes.

Michael:
Listeners will recognize my voice from the introduction usually so you get a behind the scenes peak today. But maybe I left out the most interesting part of your bio, which is you are an Admiral in the Nebraska Navy.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I am.

Michael:
What is the Nebraska Navy?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, I like to tell people that the Nebraska Navy is undefeated. We've never lost Naval battle. But the flip of that is we've never won a Naval battle because it's just an honorary thing. Kentucky will give you a Colonel ship, you're a Colonel in Kentucky's whatever. Nebraska makes you an Admiral in their Navy. And this was something that I was given when I was in college by the governor.

Michael:
Wow. So did you grow up in Nebraska?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I did. I grew up on a farm 15 miles outside of a town of a thousand people around Nebraska.

Michael:
And how many people were in your high school class?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Not very many. I think it was 24. But about half of them, I went from kindergarten all the way through my senior year of college with.

Michael:
And so you grew up on a farm, what made you want to be a lawyer?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I grew up on a farm. You got to remember this is pre-internet. So if you were on a farm, you were isolated and I just wanted to be around people. And the answer, the lawyer part is it just seemed like something I'd be good at.

Michael:
Well, so how did you become a lawyer?

Jon Pfeiffer:
How did I become a lawyer?

Michael:
How did you become a lawyer? Walk us through that journey, from farm to lawyer in Santa Monica.

Jon Pfeiffer:
The snotty answer is I went to law school, but I knew from the time I was in a junior high school, I wanted to go to law school. And back then the majority of people would go straight through as opposed to taking gap years after college. So in college, because I knew I wanted to go to law school, I applied right away, went right away. And then practiced in Denver, which is where I went to law school for two years. But my last year of law school, I met my wife. And when we were talking about what we want to do with our lives, she had been living in California at the time and we agreed that after two years we would look at California. Well, what I didn't realize, because I wasn't thinking, was, man, I had to take another bar exam. And after I took the second bar exam, the California bar, I was like, "We're not going to look, we're going to move." And I realized I really like California because it doesn't snow where I live.

Michael:
Which I personally am from California so I think it's opposite sometimes for me where I live.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, I'm off the Mine Snow, you should be visiting.

Michael:
True. Well, so, I mean, journey to Santa Monica, but you worked in Denver, you mentioned, I mean, was that an entertainment law and how did you become involved in entertainment law?

Jon Pfeiffer:
When I was in law school, all I wanted to do was try lawsuits. So I worked at a small firm in Denver where I got to try some lawsuits, my few years of being a lawyer. Moved out to Santa Monica. And I got to try a bunch more lawsuits. And as it was at a small firm, I decided I wanted to try working at a big firm, an international firm. So my calling card was that I actually tried lawsuits. And while I was at the big firm, a friend of mine, second chair to case with, which means I was the lead lawyer, he helped me out, prepared witnesses and things like that. He left the firm and went to work at a small entertainment firm, small entertainment company, then called Summit Entertainment.

Jon Pfeiffer:
And that's when Summit had, I think seven people and Summit eventually got a billion with a B in financing. They put up the Twilight movies, they then were acquired by Lionsgate, but that was in the mid '90s. And I started doing entertainment work. And it just grew from, so much of it about who knows you and who likes you and who trusts you. And it just grew because I realized I like this. So I worked at growing it.

Michael:
And so your practice is mostly in entertainment law, but do you split your time within that category? How do you split that time?

Jon Pfeiffer:
About 40% of my time right now is representing influencers. So about 40% of my clients are influencers. I started doing that about five years ago, maybe longer. And I realized it's such a wild, wild west because the law's not settled yet. And it's a lot of fun because you're learning something you're trying to learn, the different platforms to keep up with the changes because they are changing every week and just the deals are changing. So it's been a real kind of a resurgence because it's just so much fun practicing in an area, this cutting edge. I mean, litigation has never been cutting edge. I mean, it's back in the Old Testament, they had litigation, finally, I'm on a cutting edge practice and it's just a lot of fun.

Michael:
Also what's the difference between what you do for influencers versus litigation and to ask that in a different way, what do you do for influencers?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, I'll give you the first answer is litigation's, whether is a lawsuit or there's a dispute of some sort, so you're already in a fight. What I do for influencers is I try to keep them out of fights. We'll look at their agreements when a brand deal will come through I'll look at it to make sure that one, it really tracks what we agreed to, but two that whatever we're agreeing to are things we can live with. We're not giving away name, image and likeness rights in perpetuity to what we're not getting paid for. So a lot of it is, for influencers I'll look at all of their agreements, the brand deals, they all have merged.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So I'll look at the merger agreements. Many of them have podcasts so I'll look at the podcast agreements. Some of them have products in the stores. I have a couple of clients that have product lines, so we'll look at all those kinds of agreements.

Michael:
So those are a lot of different kinds of areas that you work with influencers and what kind of law applies to them? It sounds like there would be several areas.

Jon Pfeiffer:
There are. There's a lot of just general contract law just overlying it. But then there is intellectual property/copyright law when it comes to the rights of the different media they've created. And then there's the FTC, the Federal Trade Communication on the rules that you must have certain disclosures with a video post on YouTube or live streaming or on a tweet if you're getting paid for, or you're affiliated or Instagram, we try to keep them on the straight and narrow in compliance with the FTC. And that's kind of a moving ball too, a moving target because there was one policy, the FTC announced on their Twitter page. And so you have to subscribe to the FTC's Twitter if you want to completely keep up.

Michael:
Well. So, I mean, with all those moving balls, how do you stay up to date on the law for influencers?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Part of it is because I see several agreements every week. You see the evolution of what brands are trying to do and then whenever you get a Google agreement, they are by the way, the most onerous agreements you could possibly have, but you'll see what Google thinks is important. And then there are certain email, newsletters that I follow. One of them is Tubefilter, they will give news and then there's certain websites that I'll go to just to keep up, and you use where you go on Instagram, I mean, as a consumer, you scroll. So when I'm scrolling in line, I'm doing research, I'm not mindlessly killing time. Or you'll go on YouTube to see how YouTube Shorts it's working. All the different things they are announcing you want to see that just by consuming a lot of it is easy to keep up with.

Michael:
Right. You want to keep up with the changes in the platforms too and...

Jon Pfeiffer:
So you know when they call out a certain deliverable and then it's going to be supported by, oh, true Instagram static posts, a story. And I haven't seen him do Instagram TV, but at least you want to be familiar with what they're asking the client to do.

Michael:
Has there ever been a time where they've asked a client to do something that it's been impossible or...

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah, there have been. And it's been largely because and no disrespect to 22 year old, 23 year olds, but many of the people in dealing with had just gotten out of college, you're working at an ad agency and they haven't been on the platforms. They don't know what is really possible and what isn't possible. And they certainly don't know what the law is, intellectual property law. So sometimes they'll ask you to do something and if you did it you would immediately be in breach of that agreement. But you have to be very careful how you explain that because you don't want to offend them because how would they know they didn't go to law school, but you generally, well, what's your thought on that? Why do you need this? Here's what I'm thinking. So you want to walk them through what your concerns, as opposed to just making changes to make changes.

Michael:
Right? Well, I mean, this is a good segue. I mean, we were talking about keeping up on the industry, which is also, it seems of course, lends itself to what you do here for the creative influencer podcast. So I wanted to ask you about that and how do you start the podcast and how do you even get the idea for the podcast in the first place?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I have been a podcast consumer since the first iPhone. Largely because I transitioned from PC to Mac and I wanted to just immerse myself in the Mac world so I knew how we use it. Because, it seems obvious now you pick up a Mac. Oh, I think, it works. Well, not if you've used a PC your entire career. There's just some conventions that are different. So I started to listen to a podcast called MacBreak Weekly and I don't listen to it anymore, but I would listen to it on and off for years because podcast, those podcasts listeners, know that when you get to know the hosts, it's like dipping in an old friend and catching up. And that's what got me with the idea of, would it be cool to take something that I really enjoy which was doing the influencer work and take a deeper dive by interviewing people in the field?

Jon Pfeiffer:
So I got the idea. And then what's from idea till actually launching, it took a year because the advice I'd have for podcasts which is now there's resources on how to start a podcast, take advantage of those resources because there's a lot of fits and starts about what works, but doesn't work. What platforms I should use, how I set up, how I recorded, where you put the recordings, all of those things that you have to work through the first couple of times see you know what you're doing.

Michael:
See, I wasn't involved in that part of the podcast. So I know that was a long process.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I had an assistant that basically was working full time. She would do little else, but try to help set up the podcast for a couple months. Now it doesn't take that long if you want to start one now, but it sure did for us because we didn't know what we were doing. And then you'd come up with a logo. No, I want a different logo or no, I want this intro, no, I want to play with the format until you finally get your stride.

Michael:
Well, so, I mean, you mentioned how you got part of the idea, but how did you get the idea for the topic, the Creative Influencer and focusing on influencers themselves?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, I knew, I mean, I really liked the legal area. I really liked representing them. And I thought, I bet I could get to know even more about them and about that segment of entertainment industry that being influencers, if I were to interview. Because everybody's going to be a little bit different influencer because there's so many different kinds of influence. For instance, one of our guests was Beto O'Rourke and he was famous for when he was running for Congress and then Senate against Ted Cruz on how we use social media. Well, he uses social media completely different than Alicia Murray, who is a YouTuber. She creates YouTube videos, but you get a better feel for the fabric of what's possible when you expose yourself to how different people are using the media.

Michael:
Well, and so you mentioned two of the guests that you've and how do you find the guests that you have on the podcast?

Jon Pfeiffer:
A couple of ways. One, I will ask guests if they know anybody that would be good to the podcast. I am now at the stage where I have people reaching out to me, I have a fair number of requests every week. People want to be on the podcast. And then I have my target list. People, wouldn't that be fun to have this person on the podcast. So, frankly, it's easier to get guests now than it was at the beginning because we have a track record, we're starting season five all by the time this airs, we will be in season five.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So it's the concept will improved the sense of, yeah, he's not going to do it for five episodes and then quit, which statistically I think I saw a year or so ago that most podcasts end after their seven episode. Because people get on it and they realize there is a rhythm to it and there is work to it. I can't just start talking and have it be something people want to listen to.

Michael:
Well, that's a good segue to the difficulty of running a podcast. And now is it... of course it sounds like it is difficult to make one well. Now is it easier or harder than you expected? And in which ways?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I'm going to say it's both. it's harder in the sense of, we put up transcripts of the episodes on our website. So I didn't think that through, on how to get the transcripts done and have that other support, the social media support for each episode. That just takes time. What's easier is the conversations. I still do a deep dive in each guest. I'll do as much research as I can. And with YouTube and Twitter and Instagram, it's pretty easy to do a deep dive. So I want to keep the questions interesting. But if somebody's online, they're probably pretty clear. So I remember sitting outside my first interview and being nervous because I assumed it was going to be a lot like taking a deposition. Where depositions where you put somebody on your oath in a lawsuit and they don't want to be there. And they don't want to answer your questions. But when I was interviewing this particular guest, it just flowed because she's so used to talking on camera, that it was fun. We got into a real conversation.

Michael:
Well, I mean, it's funny. Of course, as I put together the podcast, I hear some of the B roll before and after, and I've heard after I've heard guests say that, "You're good at this."

Jon Pfeiffer:
I should be. I ask questions for a living.

Michael:
Well, that was actually going to be my next question was how do you think interviewing for the podcast is similar to asking questions in a trial?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I remember there was a legal commentator. He did these tapes on how to be better trial lawyers. And he said, the number one thing to be a good trial lawyer is you have to listen. So many lawyers don't listen, they're looking down at their next question so they don't listen to the answer they get. And I think that's the advice from trial work to podcast, so many times a guest will drop something in, that I said, "Wait, what did you just say?" And you'll follow up on that. And it turns out to be really interesting. So the advice I would give is to listen, so that... it sounds so simple.

Michael:
Good advice. I mean, not just for podcasting, right?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah.

Michael:
Now, shifting gears a second, I just want to ask you about some of the mechanics of the podcast. Pre COVID, you would always do the interviews in person. I just wanted to think that the gear you would bring. And this is going back to some of the things that you might've thought about-

Jon Pfeiffer:
I will bring to each recording, I bring my microphone, I bring my computer. I mean, those are the two big things, your computer and your microphone. So a little portable studio you're bringing with you. And I had pre COVID said, I'll never do an interview unless it's in person. Boy have I changed my mind? Because yesterday I did an interview with an author from New Zealand. Now there is no way I would've ever had her on the podcast if I had stayed to that same rule. So I'm finding it so much easier get national guests, international guests, because Zoom is so easy.

Michael:
Right. But, moving forward sounds like that might be the focus, but-

Jon Pfeiffer:
I think it will be. It will be. Because we have the videos now, too. It used to be in the first season or two. In the early part of the podcast, we will put them up on YouTube, but it would only be the audio recording. Now we put up the Zoom video recording. So we have that too. And frankly, I think it's easier. I mean, I'm watching you and you're seeing me. Yes. It would be better if I were sitting across a table from you, but it's still pretty good.

Michael:
Right.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I mean, especially if you have high-speed internet.

Michael:
Which, back when... I guess this is a looking back question that's appropriate now because you won't be doing many of these in person or as many in person, but what's one of the favorite places that you didn't interview? Or most interesting place, I mean, whatever pop comes to mind.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I'd the most interesting was Ricky Williams' house. Ricky Williams is a former NFL player. He won the Heisman Trophy and he's now big into cannabis. So it was surreal being in his house because I'm a huge football fan where that part of his life is completely behind him. So that was fun. One of the earlier interviews I did was the head of digital for UTA talent agency. So walking in with all that gear, everybody was like, "What's he doing?" So that was fun. But those are the two that stand out in most.

Michael:
So the first season had just interviews and regular episodes. Then you started doing minisodes, which are a combination of questions that are sent in and then topics that you've selected more recently to expand more about and talk more about. That being the trend now, how did you select some of the topics that you decide to really take those deeper dives and discuss?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I mean this last season, a lot of the minisodes were about student athletes being able to exploit their name, image, and likeness. And the NCAA was changing the rules and get different than to do, there was a Supreme court case against the NCAA. So it was a... and I being a sports fan, I thought this is an interesting topic, at least to me. So that's how I picked a lot of the minisodes that were based on just a topic that I did. On the questions that come in, I try to pick them on timely topics. So that's another way I stay up current with things is when I'll get a question about a certain topic, I'll do a deep dive so I can learn about whatever it is I'm going to answer. And hopefully convey that and not as much time as it put into the deep dive, but that's the balance.

Michael:
Well, and it sounds like an eye both to keeping up as well as informing your clients and listeners of this podcast.

Jon Pfeiffer:
And it has to interest me. That's the benefit of it at this point. So far all the questions or the topics I've done I found interesting. And hopefully if I find it interesting, somebody out there will find an interest in one of our listeners.

Michael:
Well, given all of that, I mean, one of the burning questions in the back of my mind about your podcast is why you don't run ads. And it's a very strange... it's not typical at all. So it almost is like your own little experiment just to do the research.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I mean, it's a great question. And I've been asked that by a lot of people is why don't you monetize this? And I made the decision early on that it was going to be easier to get guests, right or wrong, if that decision is right or wrong decision, is easier to get guests if they didn't feel that I was trying to monetize them. Because I've had on a couple of politicians, Will Hurd and Beto O'Rourke that I didn't want them to think I was making money while they were giving their time. If that makes sense. And then some of the podcasts, because I'm a huge podcast consumer, some of the podcasts I listen to are so monetized and there's so many commercials, it's frustrating and it loses flow. So it was a combination of hopefully getting better guests and two making it a better listening experience. And I didn't set out to make money off, I set out because it was going to be fun.

Michael:
But, totally shifting gears, but since you just mentioned it, you mentioned that you're a podcast consumer. And you also mentioned how listening to some podcasts gave you the idea for this podcast. Two questions about that, first of the podcasts that you listened to, do you borrow any particular style or ideas from others that you listen to?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Somewhat. There was a podcast I listened to where they suggested if you're interviewing an author, you should read a passage from the book and ask them about that. And I have done that and sometimes they're successful and sometimes the author had no more to say about what was in the book, but you live and learn. But so I borrowed that. And a lot of it, the other part I borrowed is I try to not edit the interview. So it's what you hear is what was really there, as opposed to a highly edited Malcolm Gladwell ask product. Even though he is one of the podcasts I listened to, Revisionist History, because it's a great podcast, but it's highly edited and you would need a team to be able to do that.

Michael:
More like Joe Rogan experience.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah. Only shorter.

Michael:
Have you ever... when you were in person, did you ever share a stogey with or whatever it was that he would pass around?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I think it was Obama, no, it was Elon Musk. H wa smoking dope on the podcast. No, I've never done that on the podcast.

Michael:
And then about the podcasts that you listened to, you mentioned Revisionist History, but any others that are-

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, I had a couple others... I'm quirky this way because I have like 20 of them I subscribed to. Now jump in and out, but the ones I've listened to regularly are Reasonable Doubt with Adam Carolla and Mark Geragos. It's a combination of humor and law, it's entertaining to me. Another one that's kind of niche is Story Worthy, which is a storyteller that's won several math competitions. I think he's won like 50 of them, 45 of them. They'll play a story and then they'll analyze it after they play it on how the story was structured well and things they could do to improve the story.

Jon Pfeiffer:
And it's just basically you're getting storytelling lessons without the pain of getting storytelling lessons is entertaining. And that's what I just recently found. And then I still had the ones on tech because at a certain level I love the computers and I love to keep you part of it. You got to dip in and out of that, I can't listen to that every week.

Michael:
Right. But I mean, something I wanted to talk to you about, but yeah, we have to go back because you mentioned stories and it reminded me, I wanted to hear not just about some of the interviews that you had with the Creative Influencer, but some of the fun stories that you might've had both with influencers themselves or other trials. I mean, anything that comes to mind, I wanted to talk to you about some-

Jon Pfeiffer:
I'll give you an influencer story and I'll give you a trial story.

Michael:
Okay.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Okay. I'll start with the trial story. It was several years ago. I was trying, it was an associate when I was still at international law firm and the judge is walking and the client turns to me and says, "So how many times have you done this?" I'm clearly nervous. And I said to him being a smart ass, I said, "Counting this one?" Then he said, "Yeah." At that time, I think I said 40 and whatever it was, it's a lot. And unbeknownst to me, the second chair that was sitting with me, the young associate, the other client turns to him and said, "How many times have you done this?" And Chris says, "Counting this one?" The client says, "Yes." And Chris said, "One."

Jon Pfeiffer:
And to the client's credit, the client said, "Me too." So I always thought that was just everybody's concerned about how much you've done. And then the influencer story, and I'm not going to tell you the influencer's name. But he or she wanted to film themselves, I'm trying to keep his gender, wanted to film themselves being pulled down Ventura Boulevard by TikTok stars in their car. We talked him or her out of that. There's all sorts of things you don't think about. You're going to have to shut down Ventura Boulevard. You're going to have the police come to the film sets and there were public areas, there's going to have to be security there. And set aside the number of people you've got to really off because you shut down Ventura Boulevard. But I thought that was kind of unique.

Michael:
So I take it that they didn't do it.

Jon Pfeiffer:
They did not do that.

Michael:
Well, so given your work with influencers, some of those fun stories you mentioned that it's only been for the last five years and it has been a growing part of your work. Do you see that continuing to grow? Where do you see that industry developing? How have you seen it, maybe I should have asked first, how long have you seen it develop in the last five years?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Got much bigger. And from all estimates, it's going to continue to get bigger because traditional media isn't as effective. I mean, it's like me talking about, I'll stop in a podcast to listen because they're like old friends with followers of some of my clients. It's like following a friend, following a sister, big sister, following a brother that you get to share in their lives. Even though you're not participating, you feel like you're part of it. From an advertiser's perspective it's much more, the return on investment is higher. And the industry estimates, if you look at the ad companies and the ad firms attract this stuff, they're predicting it's only going to continue to grow.

Michael:
I want to come back to your predictions in a second, but you mentioned that brands are only continuing to put more money and have you seen that more brands are coming to influencer marketing and that's becoming more mainstream now?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yes, it is. I mean, because some of the agreements I'll be dealing with, I've never heard as a company in the sense of they're very new in the field because... they're frankly sometimes the hardest ones to negotiate because they don't know what is good for them. They don't know what's a good deal point for them. It's still working it through. But I'll see companies that are new to the field and then I'll see brands that have been in the space for a long time, increase their spend.

Michael:
Well, and does that mean that it's still in its infancy stage or has... what I'm really getting at is the law aspect and has that do you think matured yet or is it still in its infancy?

Jon Pfeiffer:
It's in its infancy. Because we have laws that really apply to TV and radio and movies and billboards that were trying to pigeonhole influencers on YouTube videos and under that law. So it's still shaking out. Which is what makes it fun for me is because we really don't know where it's going to go. I can predict, and that prediction is it's only going to be more regulated, but we don't know how it's going be more regulated. We don't know where it's going to happen ten.

Michael:
And when you say we don't know any indications or it's just so unknown.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Pre COVID, FTC announced that they were going to issue new rules. They were going to have public hearings while the hearings was supposed to be in July of 2020, they never happened. They were talking about making not just the influencer responsible, but the brand responsible and the advertising agency responsible, which would be a real change. And there would be a lot more compliance I predict if everybody in the food chain were responsible. And I think eventually we're going to get there.

Michael:
Well and before we talk about some of your other predictions, what I wanted to ask you since you asked this of most of your influencer guests is, and you might have a unique perspective on this now, is what you think it means to be an influencer.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Because my guests have been so diverse from YouTube stars, that they have millions and millions and millions of followers and views, billions of views in some instances to politicians, to people in the industry, it is do people look to you, even if it's only one or two people, do they look to you and they respect your opinion. So you don't have to be on YouTube to be an influencer, although that's how the common parlance, that's how it's thought of. But if you are out and people are looking to you for guidance of people are looking to you for some different view then you're an influencer. I mean, if you're a rabbi, a priest, a minister, you're an influencer. If you're a lawyer, you're an influence, not in a traditional, what did you see my Instagram, But you still are.

Michael:
Well, so how closely do you think the use of social media is to being an influencer? And that's become so closely connected, especially in your line of work.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah. You don't have to have social media to be an influencer, but it certainly magnifies your influence. It's me walking out my front door and yelling to the world. Okay. Maybe two or three people could hear me and maybe I influenced them as opposed to going on YouTube, making a video and 9 million people watched that video or more. So you're still an influencer, but social media magnifies your ability to get whatever that message is out.

Michael:
So you use social media to promote the podcast and for your business as well. Right?

Jon Pfeiffer:
We do.

Michael:
So have you learned any lessons so to speak or taken any notes?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yes. The lesson I've learned is patience because especially we have an Instagram for the law firm. We have an Instagram account for the podcast. We have a YouTube account. We have a Twitter account, we have LinkedIn. All of that is more from my perspective it's about being there to be found and people are looking a lawyer in the field. The most important platform for me is my website. Because five years ago, if somebody would have called and said, "Hey, I Googled you and I found your website." It never happened. Now it regularly happens. I mean, it's several times a week. People will say I found you on the internet. So it's important to be there.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Because, I have friends that I know, colleagues that I know they're not there. And now the opposite is starting to happen. If somebody Googles you and they can't find you, it's like all sorts of red flags come up, is he a serial murder. I mean, why can't I find this person? So you don't have to make your life being on Instagram or being on any of these platforms, but you need to be there.

Michael:
Which is part of my question and I wanted your perspective on, because it's not just because you work with influencer clients, it's because of traditional marketing principles-

Jon Pfeiffer:
Right. Traditional marketing, I mean, I pay more attention to it now that I've influencer clients because I realize some people really pay attention to it. And I was asked one time what my favorite platform is. And I had two answers. My favorite platform for consuming is Instagram. My favorite platform for business is LinkedIn. Because it just conveys different information. So I think my advice would be to, if you only have time to be one or two platforms is to pick the one that speaks to your niche. If you're an influencer pick the one that speaks to what your passion is and what you're need to be doing videos and posts about. If you're a lawyer, same advice. If you're a doctor, same advice

Michael:
Just occurred to me, I mean, as you say that in the brand deals that you see for influencers, do they tend to include all platforms in the kitchen sink, or do they focus on just the ones that the influencer is known for?

Jon Pfeiffer:
In the early days they include everything. Now if you do a YouTube video, there's always a required support on Instagram posts, Instagram stories some of the deals required TikTok. I haven't had a Snapchat. You have to do Snapchats for quite a while because it's much like stores, because it just goes away. There's always Instagram and funny in the early years it was Facebook that always had to be Facebook posts, Facebook isn't nearly as popular in the sense of requirement for brand deals as it used to be.

Michael:
Well, that's an interesting transition that you've seen or evolution. What would you say at least right now are the platforms that are focused on most in the deals that you see?

Jon Pfeiffer:
YouTube is still King. I mean, YouTube is still king. Instagram's queen. TikTok is prince. Twitter is the joker, tongue in cheek, but not really.

Michael:
Well, okay. Segue to, I mean, what I really want your opinion on is some predictions about this too. But I thought it was appropriate since we've heard so many of your guests make predictions, you've had some exposure then and insight both in hearing their thoughts, but in your day to day. So I want to do get out your crystal ball and look into it. So platforms what do you think the next big platform is going to be?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, I'm going to give you two answers but one answer is if I knew I buy stock down, but I'm going to give you the category of platform. I think it's going to be ideological. I think the whole pumping kicked off of Twitter. I'm not even going to go there on should they, shouldn't they, but I think the reaction will be, there'll be ideological platforms for both red and blue in different causes. I see a growth in that. So like-minded people will find like-minded people easier and you don't have to worry about terms of use for your particular view of things. In what form that's going to be. I don't know.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I mean, I don't think it's going be Facebook groups. I don't think it's going to be hashtag trending on Twitter. Is yourself worried about the terms of views. But I think there'll be platforms designed the different points of view, which is both good and bad. Because the bad part of it is, it's like the people who only watch CNN or the people who only watch Fox, you don't know the other side. So that's the bad part. The good part is, is... I don't know what the good part is other than there's a market for it.

Michael:
Well, you use your TV analogy. I mean, what I want to get at is, and think about with you is how this affects influencers. Would we have the same influencers advertising on all of those platforms, like running the same commercial on CNN and Fox?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I don't think so. And the reason I say that is because most of the brand deals required you to be in your posts, apolitical. Which means they don't want a political position. They don't want you to sniff at a political position. They don't want to offend either side. It's funny because they want unique personalities to sell their brand or to talk about the brand and on the one hand, but then they want a vanilla influencer on the other.

Michael:
Well, to put it in perspective, I guess you're not seeing the same kinds of goods advertised on cable news versus influencers have, I mean, it will be interesting to see the day when we have an influencer hawking a pharmaceutical drug.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, if you call Chloe Kardashian an influencer, she does the Botox, one of the migraine medicines.

Michael:
That's right. That's right. That's a crossover.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Exactly. Like the Kardashians needed any more exposure.

Michael:
Well, I mean actually thinking of crossover, it will become more mainstream, do you think we'll see influencers in mainstream media as well?

Jon Pfeiffer:
They're going to try. There have been a few movies cast with influencers, the idea of being as they have a fan based that can come and branch to the movie, but when, and there will be a few successful doing that. But the reality is if you're a good YouTube star, you're probably aren't going close, there's a different skill set. So there will be some, it's just like the Rock who was a professional wrestler, now is on screen. Okay. We haven't seen a lot of other professional wrestlers make it to big moves. So there'll be some, but we won't see a lot.

Michael:
But then I wanted to ask you about your predictions for some of the technologies that we're seeing. This is going back to a couple of seasons ago, you had Robert Kozinets on and you asked him about, and he gave some specific predictions about technologies like AR, augmented reality or VR, virtual reality, or artificial intelligence. And I know from listening to your interviews, that's been something on your mind in the past. So is it still and where do you see that going?

Jon Pfeiffer:
It is. I think as AR and VR get better and they're so much better now than they were even a couple of years ago. There's going to be some sort of integration within YouTube or within Vimeo or whatever the platform is. It's competing with YouTube where you can actually have virtual reality or artificial or augmented reality in the video. So you could actually step in the video, walk around to see what that influencer is seeing, try out that product. I mean, maybe we're years away, but they're working on it.

Michael:
But, and then you mentioned how the law is very much in its infant stage to follow that. I guess my first question is, how far behind is the law, is it 10 years behind? Is it 15 years behind? Is it 35-

Jon Pfeiffer:
The truth is it's 10 years behind. But the technology changes every two or three years. So I don't think on this area of the law we'll ever catch up.

Michael:
But where do you see the law going? I mean, where's your-

Jon Pfeiffer:
I mean, more regulation. Just as I said before, I mean, there'll be more liability for more players. In many ways, is an effort to reign people in which is funny because you want to reign them in and false advertising, but you don't want to reign them in so much if it infringes on the first amendment.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So there's going to be those battles. What can private companies do to regulate what people on their platforms say? I mean, the Trump app, that is the one good thing that came from that, is it created that discussion. Because it's a discussion you can't, I mean, I don't think Donald Trump was doing on Twitter, so here's how I say this, but it's the discussion now is that we had a private individuals say violated terms of use. So now let's talk about that issue and let's put Trump aside, let's pretend it wasn't Trump, let's pretend it was Howard Stern.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Put it in when you reframe it, then you can have a better discussion as opposed to politicizing it where it's like, well, okay, I didn't want to hear what he had to say. Or I wanted to hear what he had to say. Let's talk about somebody that doesn't have that baggage with Howard Stern, probably a bad example, but somebody that, that is a name that you would want to talk about those policies

Michael:
Well, and mentioning Trump and what you think is going to happen around that...

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, he recently filed a lawsuit, which he's going to lose because it's just established law that right now, the platforms with the terms of use can set the rules. If you violate the terms of use, you don't have a first amendment right to be on Twitter. It is a private platform and Twitter can kick off whoever violates the terms views. So his lawsuit is dead in the water from a legal perspective. But from a pandering to his base perspective, it's already been successful because when Hillary and Trump were running, I made a mistake of subscribing to both sides, emails.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So I wanted to hear what Hillary was saying about Trump, I wanted to hear what Trump was saying about Hillary. And when you do that, I wasn't thinking ahead, it means that I still get both sides, emails. I got all these emails and honest take on all of this is he's turned it into a fundraising event. So even though legally, I predict he has a 1% chance of rule, like economically it keeps him in the fundraising mode. He needs money to file a lawsuit, so there are other reasons I think he filed that lawsuit.

Michael:
Well, I mean, beyond that lawsuit, it seems, you mentioned freedom of speech and first amendment rights, as related to that. I mean, are there legal rights that you think are at issue over the next couple of years and what are they?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, the US Supreme Court held in a case called Pakenham, that it was a convicted sex offender that North Carolina said could not be on social media. And he went on social media, when you got a traffic ticket to talk about Jesus is good because he's traffic ticket got dismissed in the case, where all the way to the Supreme court and the Supreme Court said, you the government, can't keep people off of social media because it's like the new stump in the park where you get to stand up and talk and give your view of things. So the government can't keep you off, but the way the law is now going back to Trump example is the platforms can keep you off vis-a-vis terms of service.

Michael:
So it's less like the stump in the public park and more like a stage in a private corporate business park?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah, no, I mean, I heard Adam Carolla describing as it's like giving the guy in charge of the microphone, the power to unplug you if they don't like you. So I think there will be some discussion about that going forward, but we have to get past the fact that it's Trump, that it will take some time, but there will be discussion about that because there is the one thing Trump lawsuit does have correct is that there is a lot of power in the hands of the technology companies, and it's just a discussion we should have about, are we okay with that? Should there be some regulation? And I don't know where that's going to come down, other than there will be a discussion, further discussion.

Michael:
Do you think the consequence of whatever regulation you see happening I guess first, do you see that as an potential negative impact or maybe specifically what could be negative to influencers or is that even something that they should be worried about? Is that more-

Jon Pfeiffer:
I don't think it's something they should be worried about, because I mean, for instance, Facebook has a policy you can't add nude. Okay. I'm not sure, not Facebook, probably Facebook has that policy too, but YouTube has that policy. Well, there are other platforms, Vimeo and Dailymotion. I don't even know if Dailymotion still exists, but they allow nudity so it was a really smart business decision in their terms of use to not allow nudity because it made the platform more accessible to a broader audience. So I think from an influencer's perspective, it depends on where you are. If you're in the political influence field you're going chafe at some of the rules. But if you are just doing brand deals in a health and beauty category, it's probably not going to affect.

Michael:
Shifting gears, since you do towards the end of your interviews, I want to ask the same quick fire, 73 questions-

Jon Pfeiffer:
Okay. No, it's not fair because some of the questions I ask, I know part of like, "What would I say?"

Michael:
Okay. The one that I think is your most unfair question is what question do you ask to find out the most about a person?

Jon Pfeiffer:
See, I've actually thought about that question. The question I would ask is, do you like dogs?

Michael:
Okay. And do you like dogs?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Of course I like dogs. Dog people are good people.

Michael:
Is that why you would ask the question?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah. I mean, it's kindred spirits. I like dogs. And if you don't like dogs, I mean, sorry, non dog lovers, but that's a character flaw.

Michael:
What question would you most like to know the answer to?

Jon Pfeiffer:
See, that's the one that stumps my guests too. I mean, I could go existential on what's the meaning of life, or I could go, who's going to win the next Super Bowl? Because if I knew who's going to win the next Super Bowl, I can go to Vegas, put down some money now and I'd be okay. So I guess that I'm going to do the cop out and say, it depends for everybody. And right now I don't have one that's been burning at me.

Michael:
What's your first concert?

Jon Pfeiffer:
My first concert? It was a concert in Kearney, Nebraska, and I don't even remember the band's name. The one thing I remember about it, was it was so loud. Just before musicians started to wear ear pieces so they could have the wires put in their ears or the beat put in there ears, I remember they had to cover their ears like this. They were all singing with the ears covered so they could have the right pitch as they were singing.

Michael:
What's the best concert you've ever been to?

Jon Pfeiffer:
It's a tie. It would either be a Bruce Springsteen or when I was still living in Denver, I went to see Ashford and Simpson. Ashford and Simpson were an African-American couple that I loved. And the reason it was the best concert was, there were two white people in the entire auditorium. So it was just so much fun to watch everybody just kind of let loose and I loved the music. So I was among like-minded people with Bruce.

Michael:
What's your guilty pleasure?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Law & Order. Law & Order I can watch... with the exception of the first couple of seasons because I don't like that prosecutor, I could have Law & Order on in the background, even if I've seen him five times.

Michael:
One talent that you wish you had?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I wish I could play the piano.

Michael:
What's your biggest pet peeve?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Oh, arrogant lawyers. How's that?

Michael:
That's good. We should leave it there.

Jon Pfeiffer:
We probably should.

Michael:
So last question.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Okay.

Michael:
Where can people find you on the internet?

Jon Pfeiffer:
@pfeiffer P-F-E-I-F-F-E-R law.com or just Google my name and I'll come up.

Michael:
Thank you.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Thank you. It's fine, there's a shoe on the other foot.

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