Chuck Nguyen, Hired

Kicking off our 2nd Season of the Appy Hour Talk Show (and Podcast), is the always fun and always thinking Chuck Nguyen, who’s the Director of Growth Marketing for Hired! Chuck joins App Growth Summit’s Managing Director, Louis Tanguay and NEW Season 2 Co-Host (and Queen of All Content) Ariel Neidermeier to discuss ad creative strategies, slipping on banana peels, and that time Chuck was on an MTV dating show when he was in college. You’ll also be introduced in this episode to Ariel’s “mugs in the cupboards” OCD complex. Enjoy, and subscribe so you never miss a fun episode!

Episode Transcription:

Louis: Great applause from Chuck.

Chuck: Wow. It was a silent applause, I didn’t want to interrupt you guys here. How many times did you work on that? Just out of curiosity.

Louis: We just made it up, just now.

Ariel: Yeah. That’s the first take, Chuck.

Chuck: Impressive.

Louis: Charlene, the amazing engineer just said, “Go.” And we just came up with that. Do you like it? We should keep it.

Ariel: Yeah, off and running.

Chuck: Love it!

Ariel: Hi Louis. This is Louis Tanguay, our Managing Director here at App Growth Summit.

Louis: Hey, Ariel. That’s Ariel Neidermeier who is our Director of Content, or Queen of Content.

Ariel: And we also have Chuck Nguyen here, the Director of Growth at Hired. Hi, Chuck.

Chuck: Hello. Thanks for having me.

Ariel: Thanks for coming. So tell us about Hired. What do you do there?

Chuck: So, I lead consumer, marketing, acquisition, all that good stuff, all that B2C fun stuff and at Hired, we’re a marketplace where we have over 2.7 million candidates in our lifetime. Been around for almost seven years and it’s basically a site where engineers, product managers, IT, all the different technical roles come and we place them at jobs, pretty simple. We’re a job site. We place them at jobs at all the top companies in the Fortune 50, Fortune 500, etc. and we really pride ourselves on all the machine learning, all that fancy algorithm all the engineers do. And my job is to get the engineers to realize they probably have a better job and come to the site, sign up and get an interview as soon as tomorrow, to be honest. So, that’s what I do.

Ariel: Nice.

Chuck: Hired.com.

Ariel: I just wanted to be clear. Does Hired currently have an app?

Chuck: No, we do not have an app. We are thinking about it.

Louis: Get out!

Chuck: The thing about apps is, as you guys know, a lot of people, especially with jobs apps, will download it and then delete it after they’re done with it and so it’s one of those concerns that where we’re like, do we want to invest in it? So it’s kind of one of those TBD, probably in the future, but not right now. Myself personally, I have a lot of experience with the app marketing from years past, led acquisition at DoorDash, before that led marketing acquisition at Yelp E24 division, and before that at Yay Mobile as well.

Ariel: Yeah. So your roots in the mobile space are pretty deep.

Chuck: Correct.

Louis: And growth strategy is essentially the same, no matter what the product is. It differs a little bit, and tools are different, but.

Chuck: Yeah. For the most part, you are right. It does differ a little bit, but in the end it’s still people where they are. Obviously with mobile, you have more thinking around fraud, around tracking retention. You probably have different signal points as well and you can tie in different data points. But at the same time, offline behavior, you actually have a ton of … sorry, by offline, I mean non-mobile app and behavior, you actually have a ton of data that privacy wise, you can’t even get on an app because a lot of apps have these different permissions with like CCPA and GDPR and all that. So yeah … but overall strategy is still the same. Marketing’s marketing. What can you track? What can you do?

Louis: So actually, since you mentioned the privacy issues, are GDPR and the California Privacy Act, are these getting more difficult for you to do your job and to find the right candidates?

Chuck: The answer is mostly, yes. It is getting more difficult because of all these changing laws. I’ll give you an example: Facebook recently changed their laws for three kind of verticals around credit, around housing and around jobs, because all three of those are very easy to discriminate. And as you know, marketing works, show an ad to someone, they click on it, they convert. Awesome, right? Well, in these three different verticals, credit, housing, and jobs, you could easily show it to a specific racial group, a specific gender, specific people who are interested in something even down to the zip code level and totally discriminate against another group and so, that’s the power of marketing there, so they’ve changed that recently.

Chuck: So, the answer is mostly yes, it’s harder, but there is a silver lining. It’s for the good marketers if they can figure out how to get ahead of the laws of the changing algorithm, the changing audiences. For example, we’re doing a lot more specialized lookalike groups on Facebook, which everyone should be doing anyway. I wouldn’t say we found out the secret sauce, but we know how to get ahead of it before our competitors do. So we’re really targeting the right people and getting the perfect segments in these very small little 1,500 people group showing them ads and getting the highest conversion rate before the competitors hop on and figure it out and start taking that traffic. So, there’s a silver lining.

Louis: And you’re going to tell us right now, on the Appy Hour, what that secret formula is, right?

Ariel: Give us your recipe.

Chuck: I can give you some of it.

Louis: Talk nerdy to us, Chuck.

Chuck: When you have a database in the six figures, you can cut that shit down so many different ways, right? So you’re looking at signaling, and one of the things, especially in the job world is people they grow in their jobs. They start off as a Director, next thing you know, they’re Queen of Content, some things happen fast. Our smart analysts and engineers do this, they age people in the background, they’re like, “Okay, this person came from this background, did this project. What is the most likely thing they’ll be doing now?” And then giving a propensity score, for example, this person worked on Uber’s algorithm to do Uber Pool. They’re probably doing something in a marketplace or working with real time data, etc. So it’s like trying to predict people’s behavior.

Chuck: And then, in the end, they lent me a group of, on a CSV, as simple of, “Here are the device IDs.” And for me it’s like, oh, perfect. That’s the right group. I gave you the exact right cuts. Now I’m going to make the perfect ad knowing that these people came from this background. I’m going to make these the perfect user colors, use the right copy to call them out, etc. Then show these small groups of ads and then do it really small segments. We’re talking about 1,500 to 10,000 people at a time, not trying to blast a Superbowl ad to the entire audience, we’re just doing 30 different cuts of $2,000 a week ads, 30 times over with different segments and really using the math and that digital marketing to figure out what works.

Ariel: Sounds complex.

Louis: That’s why he gets paid the big bucks.

Ariel: The big bucks. Okay.

Chuck: Oh, free macaroon.

Louis: Yeah. Take them. No, seriously, they are free macaroons.

Chuck: Did you make them yourself?

Louis: No, turn it over and look at it. It says AGS, it has our AGS logo on them, they’re for our guests.

Ariel: I know, it’s fancy.

Chuck: Every morning when I take a shower, this is not going to be a dirty story, by the way.

Ariel: Yeah, where are we going?

Louis: What are you doing with the macaroon?

Chuck: I turn on the AGS Bluetooth speaker and the portable charger.

Louis: There you go. Look at that, see?

Chuck: So the first thing I think about is you.

Ariel: Is Louis, in the shower, haha.

Chuck: Great gift.

Louis: That’s not the first thing you want to think about, trust me.

Chuck: No, it’s not, but you know.

Louis: That’s not the first thing I want to think about.

Ariel: Oh my God.

Louis: So yeah. Well, one of our speaker gifts was a branded Bluetooth speaker, that’s also a charger and it’s good to know that they’re being used and there you go, used aplenty. And if you want to use one of these custom macaroons, then please do consume it.

Chuck: Gift for later, I appreciate that.

Louis: Yeah. Save it for later. It would be a weird podcast if we continue talking about macaroon.

Chuck: I’m just sitting there like, “Hold on. Give me 10 minutes.”

Louis: Okay. Ariel, let’s ask some fun questions.

Ariel: Oh, yes. Do you want to answer some fun questions, Chuck?

Chuck: Anything. Pretty sure I’m not shy.

Ariel: Only the not fun questions.

Chuck: So actually, I have a reason I’m leaving at 6:00.

Ariel: What is it? Oh, tell me.

Chuck: So, inside my backpack, I have a VHS tape. It’s from the year … This is clean, another clean story.

Ariel: I love that you came to the recording with a show and tell piece. Please tell us.

Chuck: Yes. This is a video from 2005, when I did a reality dating show on MTV.

Ariel: What?

Chuck: Yeah. And I kind of forgot about it, or not really forgot about it, but haven’t ever converted to DVD or to a digital file and then my friend and my old roommate who was also on the show. It was a show introducing a thing we use everyday called text messaging, Motorola 2-way pager.

Louis: What was the show?

Chuck: It was called MTV TailDaters. So long ago.

Ariel: Wait, wait, what? TailDaters?

Chuck: If you’re around age 30 to 34, you’ve probably watched it, it was the most viewed show at 3:00 PM back in there.

Ariel: I’m almost 30.

Louis: Too young. You missed the window.

Chuck: You’ve heard of it?

Ariel: No.

Chuck: See, exactly.

Louis: See, you missed the window.

Ariel: Wait. Okay. Describe the concept again. So it was text messaging?

Chuck: Yeah. So two people go on a blind date and they have two friends in the back of a moving van, two friends each, and these people are on this device called the Motorola 2-way pager. This is before text messaging existed. You couldn’t actually text someone, so you had this device called a Motorola 2-way pager and every time you clicked send on your little keyboard there, it charged 10 cents. So we were sending them advice, but at the same time, it was funny because the whole joke around people who had Motorola 2-way pagers is, you hate the people who answer with one word or one line and they send 20 things because that’s 10 cents at a time and when you’re 18 years old, it’s a lot of money. So, yeah we were just in the back, I’m giving my good friend advice on the date, and as you may or may not know, it’s kind of scripted a little bit, there’s a creative director.

Ariel: So it is scripted?

Louis: What? Reality TV isn’t real?

Chuck: It’s crazy.

Ariel: How scripted though are we talking? Do they totally just feed you lines? Or do they give you some will about it.

Chuck: They definitely give you some will but then if they see you straying they give you some different lines and they’ll tell you two versions of two different characters, they want you to portray.

Ariel: Oh, so you get to choose.

Chuck: The bad guy or like a really nice friend.

Louis: And they’ll figure out and post.

Chuck: Yeah. Exactly. Then they’ll edit and post away.

Ariel: Interesting, so who are you, what was your role that you played in this?

Chuck: I’m usually the bad guy.

Ariel: Were you?

Chuck: Clearly a bad.

Ariel: What are you doing after this then with the VHS?

Chuck: I’m going to the store two blocks away to get it converted.

Ariel: You have like an appointment?

Chuck: They’re going to put it on some digital file or MP4 or something like that.

Ariel: That is hilarious.

Louis: What’s the name of the store?

Chuck: Digital Enterprise.

Louis: All right. Digital Enterprise. Now you can tell them, you just plugged them on a podcast, get a discount.

Ariel: Heard it here first.

Louis: So if you need your old dating show, VHS’s converted…

Chuck: Old tech here.

Ariel: That is so funny. Where was this filmed?

Chuck: Burbank.

Ariel: Oh, hilarious. And your friend, did he end up actually dating this girl?

Chuck: They made out but nothing really happened afterwards. He was from here, she was from San Diego. So yeah, that was fun, still Facebook friends.

Louis: This is Burbank. So did, were you in LA at the time or did you, were you living here and whatnot?

Chuck: No, I was in a UC Davis at the time. I was young, I was 18. This is 18, 19 years ago and yeah, flew us down to Burbank for a week, we’re too young to drink alcohol or anything. So they gave us a card and said, get whatever food you want. So we ate a lot of lobster and a lot of steaks.

Ariel: So is that the one and only time you’ve been on television?

Chuck: Shoot. I think so.

Louis: That he was aware of.

Chuck: Yeah. Right in front of, yeah. I filmed a bunch of commercials marketing wise. I did a super bowl commercial with Snoop five years ago.

Ariel: Wait, what? You were a treasure trove of like a little media appearances.

Louis: I think you put it on your LinkedIn.

Chuck: There you go. Yes sir.

Louis: Got something about Snoop on it.

Chuck: It’s my Superbowl commercial, Snoop Dogg.

Louis: Are you actually on the commercial too?

Chuck: No, I’m in the back.

Louis: Oh. Okay.

Louis: Yeah. So go to Chuck’s LinkedIn. Chuck Wynne on LinkedIn.

Ariel: Yeah. And have there been any other, like funny, weird happenings in your life recently?

Chuck: Wow. Too many to name.

Ariel: I feel like you have a very colorful, fun life Chuck.

Chuck: Yeah. Let’s see. It’s like everything’s relative. I just got back from a crazy trip to Cairo, Istanbul and Israel.

Chuck: And on the way back, they’re like, “Sir, you’re flying during a very strange period of conflict in this Middle Eastern region and not many people go to these three countries in that order, we have a bunch of questions to ask you.” Being on LinkedIn they’re like, can we look you up? I’m like, “Here’s my LinkedIn. You can look me up. I’m a legit, just a regular marketer. I’m just the marketer person.”

Louis: Just don’t look at the VHS tape.

Chuck: Yeah. So, too many crazy stories to name. I’m trying to think of a good marketing story.

Ariel: Have you tripped recently.

Chuck: Nah, none of that.

Ariel: No slipping on a banana peel while using your phone outside?

Chuck: You remember that story?

Ariel: I know all Chuck.

Louis: Why did not you tell me because I never heard it?

Ariel: I actually thought you were kidding.

Chuck: No, I’m dead serious.

Ariel: Okay. So what happened?

Chuck: It was couple years ago near Montgomery bar. I was just on my phone and there was a banana peel on the floor.

Louis: Like a cartoon.

Chuck: But honestly, if you walk down a Montgomery street, you’ll see random food things and I was on my phone and of course I didn’t look and tripped right on it. Luckily, I didn’t fall over backwards, like in a cartoon, but yeah I tripped on a banana peel.

Ariel: That’s so funny.

Louis: Did people see you?

Chuck: Of course, there was like six people.

Louis: Did people start Snapchatting you?

Chuck: Nah, it happened so fast. Maybe someone has it on their phone, but.

Ariel: So funny. Okay. Well here are some fun questions. What makes you feel like a kid again?

Chuck: Ooh. So I’m super competitive. I hate losing at everything. Some people find it the opposite of relaxing, but I think competition in sports and everything is, so I love all types of competitions, so that’s just my kid moment. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing, flipping a coin or playing board games or whatever so.

Ariel: But what happens when you lose, do you just turn into the Hulk and go argh?

Chuck: In my mind, I’m a composed adult, so externally I don’t show it, but in my mind, definitely a sore loser.

Ariel: What was a game that you just got so upset that you lost maybe recently?

Louis: The Superbowl.

Chuck: Okay. I have a nephew. He just turned five, super cute kid named Jacob, but he is a genius at the game of memory and at the age of four, he doesn’t lose. I don’t know how he does it. It’s like, flipping the cards, memory right? And yeah, I’m just really upset that I 50-50 against a four-year-old. I’m an educated person, but yet I’m being beat by a four-year-old and I’m trying my hardest and so yeah, trying not to show it, but I have to take it out on him another game. So we play some Mario cart and he tells me he’s the greatest.

Ariel: So funny. What is one thing people buy that you think is a total waste of money?

Chuck: This one’s going to be controversial and this is great for marketing.

Ariel: Do it. Do it.

Chuck: Diamonds.

Louis: That’s a no brainer.

Ariel: Oh, well, yes. That is absolutely ridiculous.

Chuck: Diamond rings. I took a whole three month course on out of home marketing and De Beers came up with the whole concept of, “Diamonds are forever.” One of the characters was turned into the TV show, Mad Men named Peggy Olson. If you’ve ever seen it and she came up with a genius copy around like two months’ salary, now it’s three or whatever the heck it is.

Louis: Three or so.

Chuck: Exactly. And it’s just this fake feeling that diamonds actually have real intrinsic value and really they’re shiny, they’re nice, they’re good for mechanical properties, but they don’t really do anything and they’re not really worth what they are and it’s a lot of marketing.

Ariel: I totally agree.

Chuck: It’s all marketing.

Ariel: I actually have no interest in ever having a diamond ring. I’d rather have like a different, but still completely like a moonstone.

Chuck: Good for you. That’s a clap.

Ariel: Moonstone is very mystical.

Chuck: I’ve definitely offended different women I’ve dated around like I’m never going to buy a diamond ring.

Ariel: Yeah. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Where can you find the best view in San Francisco?

Chuck: Ooh. That’s a good one. I would in the mirror … It’s kind of a cliché spot, but it is a great view, it’s Twin Peaks. You guys should go, it’s great because you get that 360 view.

Ariel: I know, but you can never get a good photo because the wind is like, just so crazy.

Chuck: True.

Ariel: But you know, it’s great.

Louis: You mean, you can’t get a good selfie.

Chuck: Yeah. You can’t get a good selfie.

Ariel: Also the shadow, there’s always the shadow of the person who took the photo.

Chuck: Sounds like she’s been trying a lot to get the perfect photo.

Louis: Every week she’s up there.

Chuck: I need to go to San Francisco for work, there’s some content.

Ariel: Can we please stop at Twin Peaks? I need some content to update my profile picture.

Louis: You can just hire a photographer, then they’ll bring their own lights.

Ariel: God.

Chuck: That’s true. I notice a lot of people have done wedding photos and they pay a lot of money for that.

Ariel: They do. Chuck, what is your idea of relaxing after a hard day in the growth marketing trends?

Chuck: Yeah. The answer is a massage for me. I am a sucker for a good spa massage. So vacations got to come with like at least one or two massages every few days and I think, being a good marketer, it’s constantly fast-paced. Always be thinking on your toes and think about, I have random people in my campaign managers walk to me and like, “Hey, this campaign is going out right now, do we want this color or this color on this?” I’m like, should we put the call to action here? Should we be targeting this group? Should we be doing this? Should we be? Yeah. It’s like a lot of snap decisions as a Head of Marketing if that makes sense. I think that’s one of the things that you have to do as, as a boss in any job but especially in marketing. That’s more digital marketing focus you got to make snap decisions. So yeah, it gets fun stressful. I love it, wouldn’t take it back for anything, but yeah, massages.

Louis: What’s the last decision that you had to make that you regretted?

Chuck: Oh, that’s a good one.

Louis: That’s what we do here.

Chuck: Okay, all right. There was a display, a programmatic display test. It was from a company that, I’m sure, many of our mutual friends in the industry have worked with and it’s a country company that’s on the down swing. It’s hard to compete against the Facebooks and the Googles of the world for display traffic and all that, and so they made a fantastic offer of matching the ad spend for a one month commitment.

Chuck: I was looking back at two months before that the CPMs are ridiculously cheap for supposedly segmented traffic. Then unfortunately their publisher sites were just really weak and they were like, it’s kind of a blind thing. We can’t show you every publisher sites, a whitelist and pick from here and from here and it’s all programmatic and all automatic in there. So gave it a gamble but unfortunately pretty clearly after like a week or two, the traffic was not converting. You just get a bunch of junk clicks there, and it wasn’t fraudulent, but at the same time, it’s hard. I’m not saying I’m against these small players. A lot of them have great sites and great value, but it is in the age of Facebook and Google dominating, it does make their life harder.

Louis: Do you think that there’s going to be any other Avenue that’s like Google or Facebook, or do you see anyone else coming up that could be viable, like maybe Adobe or someone?

Chuck: It’s a great question. You know, Adobe has different options, you talking about, even Amazon, as they continued to take over the world, has a ton of options that is Rakuten. And you see a lot of people doing more Amazon advertising for all sorts of things that aren’t really related to Amazon product. So that’s one for sure. I think all the kids these days are on TikTok. I sound like old person here, I’ve definitely used it. I’ve never filmed anything.

Ariel: I don’t really understand what’s happening.

Chuck: I think Snapchat and Instagram stories, but like a long-form creating a lot more content with splicing videos.

Ariel: Right. Are you guys doing stories at all?

Chuck: No, our base is mature-ish, over 21 year old professional tech workers and so no. We do plenty on Facebook, Instagram stories is amazing, that’s like the place. If Instagram stories didn’t exist, I don’t know if I’d be doing my job as well as I could but if you have a product that is younger or you want future value, TikTok, Snapchat for sure but not me really.

Louis: Now that you mentioned Instagram stories, is there a special kind of strategy that you’re using that is working for you as on such a visual photographic type of platform?

Chuck: Yeah, absolutely. I think what you shouldn’t do is create just an ad and then put it on Facebook and say, you guys choose the placement. I think a lot of things that are for the Facebook and the Instagram wall, the regular newsfeed is way different than Instagram story. Instagram story, you got to get like a hook in like the first half a second because people would just tap through as opposed to like a scrolling behavior where people might stop and for a whole, one second, you got to instantaneous there and you’ve got to actually change the copy to be like shorthand.

Chuck: If you look in your Instagram, you’ll see like a sponsored ad every five to 10 posts, depending on your behavior. A lot of people put like a long form things. Nobody’s reading that, just put something short and then swipe up to learn more and then use a lot of the features, they have tons of like polls and gifts and all that that are actually really effective. They work on me and sometimes I see an ad, I don’t even realize it’s an ad and I’m like, cool. I didn’t want to check this out for sure. So the answer is making a custom Instagram thing also skewing it a little bit younger, the audience of Facebook versus Instagram is a little different. So you want to make the Instagram creative a little bit more applicable to the younger audience, I say.

Louis: Just one follow up on that. What’s one campaign that you did recently, what was the theme of the ad for the Instagram stories?

Chuck: Good question. Yeah. So it’s new year, everyone’s thinking about our backstory is, you go home, mom asked how’s work, honey, and everyone says fine, good and you know, half the people inside are like miserable. I hate my job. My boss is nowhere like Louis. Then they go and they look at new jobs and this is why obviously everyone’s searching for new jobs and all that and the craziness of early January. So we ran an ad, of course we separated between Facebook and Instagram. Imagine your iPhone alarm, you have like three of them in the morning, whatever two, some people have five who knows, but I don’t know how people have one by the way those people are in.

Chuck: I have four. I have like 7:20, 7:22, 7:25 and then the emergency one 7:40 just in case.

Ariel: Yeah I have countless.

Chuck: My Google home mini has a separate alarm just in case my phone dies or for some reason it’s acts wonky.

Louis: Then you hire a clown to come in and just whack you in the head.

Chuck: Also effective, lol. So did one that looked kind of like an alarm, except every, each one of those alarms, was like, get a job now and like, “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” If you don’t like your job, get a new one down. So very effective. It’s a simple moving thing but everyone identifies with that early morning alarm. And even though we set it throughout the day, we try to segment it sort of like morning traffic if that makes sense.

Ariel: Yeah, good.

Chuck: Hit the people when it matters the most. So just like dinner ad, do you want to show that around like 4:00 PM, right when people are thinking I’m getting a little hungry, what am I going to eat later? So, not at like 10:00 AM? Exactly.

Ariel: Chuck, what would you be if you weren’t an app growth expert?

Chuck: Ooh. It would be something in the sports coaching level, too competitive. Just want to do that. Or maybe I watch way too many movies as a kid but something like one of those crazy investigators of crime.

Ariel: Like a true detective.

Chuck: Yeah. One of those that seems so fun.

Ariel: Oh my goodness. What’s a common misnomer in the industry that you’re tired of hearing?

Chuck: Fraudulent traffic, a lot of people lump this as, “Oh, this is fake install.” It’s not a real thing. And there absolutely is a ton of fraudulent traffic, but I think it needs to be divided into kind of like two or three buckets. So there’s one, there’s a huge amount of fake installs, and all these companies are paying for it and as they should be, essentially, they con people and heard many stories and almost everyone I know who has done app marketing for the past three, four years has a case, at least one case of not a ton of it. So that’s one, but I think there’s the, I don’t know if it’s called bait and switch, but it’s basically, they start you off with the absolute best traffic and of course there’s natural diminishing returns.

Chuck: They’re not going to find every user who’s perfect for you off the bat but eventually they realize you’re at a point when you’re happy and then they start putting in that lesser quality traffic a little bit at a time, you know? And I don’t even know if that’s fraudulent or if it’s just like, “Hey, they don’t have the inventory to give you their best and they got to sell it to the other people.” They got to give that impression to the next person who fits that whale category or that high user, or that person like me, who clicks on ads and buys things online and loves marketing supports my fellow, sisters and brothers in the marketing industry.

Ariel: That’s so great. You actually do?

Chuck: Yeah. All the time. I’ll pay for your Google ads, I’ll do your Facebook ad, I’ll click this.

Ariel: That’s nice of you.

Chuck: Yeah. I hope so. But yeah, so I think that’s important to know that a lot of people, you can’t just label it and shut things off. You got to figure out is this something that’s ongoing? Or is it just because you’re spending more and they don’t have enough good traffic, you know. Maybe they just ran out of that and so you have to lower your spend levels to get to just the good traffic levels or the good publisher sites without going to that next tier of lesser quality.

Ariel: So, we are going to play a game called This or That. I am going to name two things and you have to pick one.

Chuck: Okay. Do I have to do it instantaneously?

Ariel: Yes. I want it to come from the heart.

Chuck: I like a heart. Power of spontaneous thinking.

Ariel: Circles or squares?

Chuck: Circles.

Ariel: Burgers or tacos?

Chuck: Tacos.

Ariel: Day or night?

Chuck: Day.

Ariel: Tea or coffee?

Chuck: Coffee.

Ariel: Comedy or drama?

Chuck: Comedy.

Ariel: Sitting or standing?

Chuck: Sitting.

Ariel: Being too warm or too cold?

Chuck: Being too warm.

Ariel: Wild animals or domesticated animals?

Chuck: Wild animals.

Ariel: Music or podcasts.

Chuck: Music.

Chuck: Yeah. I’m a crazy person who listens to podcasts.

Louis: I Listen to podcasts more time, like when I’m on long drives or commutes or whatever, not that I commute anymore, but I’m on long drives or flights or whatever I’ll listen to podcasts but once in a while, you’re just tired of listening to people, talk and think and everything. You just put the music on.

Ariel: Okay. Work hard or play hard?

Chuck: Play hard.

Louis: I think Chuck would be both. He’s on the fence and he’s 51-49 maybe.

Ariel: You did. Yeah.

Chuck: I agree.

Ariel: Form or function?

Chuck: Function.

Ariel: Oh, okay. New clothes or new phone?

Chuck: New phone.

Ariel: Nice car or nice home?

Chuck: Nice home.

Louis: And the last one that rhymes.

Ariel: Oceans or mountains?

Chuck: Mountains. That was a tough one.

Ariel: Okay. This is a question that I’ve been so surprised by the answer from someone, so many people we’ve asked. Cups in the cupboard right side up or upside down right side up?

Chuck: Ooh, right side up.

Ariel: What is wrong with everyone? I am the only one that does upside down, is no one thinking.

Chuck: I could explain it.

Ariel: Is no one thinking of dust in the cup when it’s right side up?

Louis: You’re the only one who’s thinking of bugs and dust and things crawling in there. You’re the only one.

Ariel: Okay, fine. Chuck, explain yourself.

Chuck: Wait, right side up as in the cup is facing the way you drink it, right?

Ariel: Yeah.

Louis: Exactly.

Chuck: Yeah, I just feel like there’s a lot of cupboards that are dusty, dirty, and I don’t want to put it face down and have it touch the bottom.

Louis: Oh, see.

Ariel: But to me, I think there’s a lot of cupboards that are dusty and dirty and dust falls into the cup.

Chuck: Fair. Most people I’ve seen it, it’s a little bit more right side up then I’ve seen, it’s like 60-40 in life.

Ariel: I guess I’m the only one.

Louis: I think it’s way more than 60-40.

Chuck: Do you think most people do it right side up?

Louis: Yeah. Every single person we’ve asked has been right side up.

Ariel: Everyone.

Louis: And I have them right side up.

Chuck: What’s the sample size on that?

Louis: It’s small, we haven’t interviewed 1,500 or 10,000.

Ariel: Good question from our marketer over here.

Chuck: Yeah. Sample size matters on everything.

Ariel: Right. I just can’t get over it. I just can’t believe I’m the only one. Okay. Email or letter?

Chuck: Email. I don’t have time for letters. Like what’s a letter is it the IRS, what’s going on?

Ariel: Yeah, is this like jury duty? Like what is happening? Okay. Texting or calling?

Chuck: Texting.

Ariel: I’m the only one. I prefer a handwritten note.

Louis: She’s afraid of bugs crawling in her cups and she into phone calls.

Chuck: I did not know this about you.

Ariel: Last and most important question. I haven’t asked anyone this question today. I’m actually quite curious with you Chuck Nguyen, what are your love languages? Do you know what they are?

Louis: The five love languages, and it’s really easy because it’s like, I like to spend time eating tacos with you.

Ariel: I like to give you tacos, like buy them for you. I like to make tacos for you. I’d like to talk about tacos with you. Okay. So the five love languages. Everyone communicates their love in all five, but you have a top one and I’ll tell you what they are.

Louis: Educate him.

Ariel: What?

Chuck: Educate me in love.

Ariel: Okay. There’s five of them. There’s words of affirmation, that’s when you tell someone why you feel the way you feel about them. There’s gift giving that’s when you buy them like a little trinket or something like you were thinking of them on your trip. Acts of service that’s when you go over and you like wash their dishes or you like fix something. Physical touch, obvious and quality time when you spend time with them but maybe you’re not demonstrative directly about your love.

Chuck: Mine’s easy.

Ariel: Okay. What is that?

Chuck: It’s quality time. So that’s why I don’t do phone calls. I don’t love phone calls because you can’t actually see someone’s emotional reaction even if it’s FaceTime, you know? I’m all about that face to face interaction.

Ariel: So you can’t do a long distance relationship ever?

Chuck: No, 12 mile radius on the Bumble and hinge.

Ariel: 12 miles, is that like Oakland?

Chuck: It’s like Oakland, very minimum.

Ariel: Yeah. Right. But even that you question it.

Louis: That’s long. Just do look one or two.

Ariel: Down the street, we can’t meet at my grocery store, this isn’t worth my time.

Chuck: Like, do you want me to get on a train?

Ariel: Louis, what’s yours?

Louis: I have no idea what the question is. I have to pick one of those five?

Ariel: When you communicate your love to someone, which would you probably use?

Chuck: He gives a lot of good gifts, I will say.

Ariel: Yeah, the macaroons. I know mine.

Louis: Are they written somewhere that I can choose or I have to like, remember them?

Chuck: Did you forget them already?

Louis: Yeah. Of course.

Ariel: Words of affirmation. Quality time. Saying like, I love you because X, Y, and Z.

Louis: Yeah, that would be mine because I usually, when I’m dating someone, I always tell her how much I love her, appreciate her, something like that.

Ariel: Aww, Louis, that’s really sweet.

Chuck: Heartsy’s. Hold on. Let us guess yours.

Ariel: Okay. You tell me?

Chuck: Louis, do you got a guess?

Louis: Definitely something with feels.

Chuck: It’s old school.

Louis: Yeah. It’s not cool. I don’t think it’s buying gifts though. I don’t think she cares that much.

Chuck: You know what though? It’s not about buying the gift. I think it’s about the act of giving the gift.

Louis: Yes. That’s what I was going to go with, act of service.

Chuck: I don’t think she wants someone who is in service of her.

Ariel: I love this psychoanalysis of me before my eyes.

Chuck: Yeah. Right. I’m going with act of service.

Ariel: Okay. Final answer. What’s yours?

Louis: I’m going to go with gift-giving. Okay. So together, we have a 40% chance of being collected.

Chuck: Correct, that’s true. I think we’ve narrowed out the yeah.

Louis: I think we’re close to 50-50.

Chuck: I agree.

Ariel: All right. Okay. So, actually it’s a tie it’s words of affirmation and gift giving. So my perfect gift is actually a handwritten card because there’s words of affirmation in it and it’s like a physical thing.

Louis: Basically, set us up for an answer, we could not be right on.

Chuck: Yeah. 50-50.

Ariel: But that’s why rather than email, I would love a letter.

Louis: All right. Anyone who wants to write a letter? Contact handwritten note marketing.

Chuck: It’s a thing out of home. There are actually machines that will print a handwritten note.

Ariel: That is not the same Chuck. That is not.

Chuck: There are a machine that can print out a handwritten note.

Ariel: Chivalry is dead. Honestly. Technology has ruined.

Chuck: What is that word? No, I open doors for everyone and I was telling you I am low key offended if you don’t say thank you. I’m not even low key, I’m like straight up offender straight.

Ariel: You’re high key offended.

Chuck: You’re welcome.

Ariel: The passive-aggressive you’re welcome is my favorite. Like, you’re welcome.

Chuck: No, I admit this is, I was proud of myself and, and both like, ah, I should have let it go but when I dropped off my dog for doggy daycare, someone pulled up and parked in a handicap spot and she gets out to let off her dog and I was about to go in. So I held the door I’m like, let me hold the door for you. since you’re handicapped. She obviously was not handicapped. She was parked in the spot like, “Oh, you’re handicapped. Let me open the door for you.” And she goes, “Oh, okay.” And then she goes to come out, but I was holding the door because I had dropped off the dog. So I’m like, “Oh, let me get it for you again, since you’re handicapped.” And she’s like, “Oh, well it’s not blue.” I’m like, “I guess the sign doesn’t work.” And then she like, “what?” So that was my passive-aggressive.

Louis: Good East Coaster you are.

Chuck: Yeah. I had to say something.

Louis: Well Chuck, thanks so much for joining us. How can people follow you?

Chuck: You can follow me on Instagram, Chuck D the letter D and then my last name, Nguyen or find me on LinkedIn, whatever I’m real active on and on social media.

Louis: See this is a commercial that he did.

Chuck: That’s true.

Ariel: Well, thanks for joining us and taking the time it was so fun.

Chuck: Pleasure and make sure you clean your cupboard.

Louis: Yeah. Thank you, Chuck.

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