SHOW NOTES
In this episode, Dr. Dave and co-host Joe Schmidt welcome Elijah Mayo from Rumble, where he works with top creators like Steven Crowder, Tim Pool, and Devery Dawkins to build brand partnerships that actually work. Together they explore what it takes to create messaging that resonates rather than repels.
Ads That Don’t Suck: What a Crying FedEx Rep Can Teach Us About Finding Your Customer
I have sat through hundreds of marketing meetings where everyone agrees on what they want to happen. They want more sales, more leads, more demand, but nobody can articulate who they’re actually talking to.
That’s the problem.
In my latest conversation with co-host Josef “Joe” Schmidt and Rumble’s Elijah Mayo, we unpacked why so much Christian marketing (and honestly, all marketing) fails at the most basic level: understanding your audience. Bringing these guests together is a masterclass in authentic messaging, opportunistic marketing, and why the best brands are the ones brave enough to be themselves.
The Megan Moment That Changed Everything
Joe told us a story that has shaped his entire approach to marketing.
Years ago, he and his business partner started a company that printed photographs on canvas. They knew what they were selling, but they didn’t understand why it mattered, until their FedEx rep Megan showed them.
Megan had picked up some canvases they’d made for her. Joe’s partner Tom pulled into the parking lot and saw her sitting in the front seat of her car, weeping. He knocked on the window, concerned something was wrong.
She wasn’t upset. She was overcome.
The canvas on her lap was a 16×20 photograph of her two daughters horseback riding. Between gasps for air, she started telling Tom about that day, describing every detail and every memory that picture unlocked.
Tom rushed into the office and grabbed Joe. “We have got to find our Megans,” he said. “The whole purpose of this company is to make what just happened in our parking lot happen to millions of people at home.”
From that moment, everything changed. They surveyed customers and asked a question Joe thought might be stupid: “How many of you cried when you opened your canvas?” Fourteen percent said yes. People started calling customer service not to complain, but to say thank you.
That’s when Joe realized: if customers are picking up the phone to thank you, there’s a nugget in there. That’s where the good stuff is.
They built their entire company around finding Megans. They decided they’d never use an automated phone system. No “press one for crying, press two for more tissues.” They were going to be the first voice on every call.
The Danger of Marketing to “Everybody”
This is where Christian organizations consistently miss the mark.
I’ve watched ministry leaders tell me “the gospel is for everybody” when I ask who they’re targeting. And technically, yes. But when your marketing is for everybody, you’re talking to nobody.
Elijah, who manages creator partnerships for some of Rumble’s biggest names, put it bluntly: “People can sniff out somebody that’s fake.”
He shared a counter-example that perfectly illustrates the problem. Joe and his hunting buddies were watching football between hunts when a Celsius ad came on. The commercial showed guys throwing Celsius energy drinks in their Yeti coolers for a bass fishing trip.
Every guy in that room was a bass fisherman. And every one of them looked at each other like, “What in the hell is that?”
It wasn’t just that the ad missed, it actively turned them off. The space where a Bud Light should be sitting in a cooler had an energy drink, and the disconnect was so jarring it made them dislike the brand.
Authenticity Over Religious Window Dressing
Elijah runs a side business called First Cup Coffee with three brick-and-mortar locations and an online store. What caught my attention wasn’t his marketing strategy, it was what he didn’t do.
“If you walked in our store, nobody would know this is a Christian-owned business. We don’t have any scriptures on the wall. Nothing. I never wanted it to be in your face. I just wanted it to come through our staff, the culture, and who we are as people.”
He shared a cautionary tale: First Cup took over a location from a previous coffee shop that had scriptures plastered everywhere. Turned out those owners got evicted for not paying rent, and one of them went to jail.
Jesus everywhere. But not actually good Christians.
Elijah’s approach is the opposite: prove who you are through your actions, then let people discover the faith element organically. After a community prayer and worship night following a national tragedy, he realized they could extend their in-store ministry online.
Now every box ships with a sticker customers can put on their coffee maker. The sticker has a QR code asking “How can we pray for you today?” A dedicated prayer team responds to every submission.
“We’re not selling prayer,” Elijah explained. “This is what we do in our store every single day. Why can’t we do it for our online community too?”
The beautiful thing? He doesn’t care if it generates a single new subscription. It’s authentic to who they are. And that authenticity is exactly what builds lasting brands.
Riding the Wave: When Opportunity Meets Preparation
One of my favorite parts of the conversation was Elijah’s story about working with Graham Allen during the Silicon Valley bank crisis.
He was driving through Louisiana on a Sunday evening when news broke about the bank collapses. Graham had been promoting Birch Gold (a gold and precious metals company) for four years. Elijah saw the wave building and called Graham immediately.
“Go hard on social right now. This is the prime time. You’ve got to catch this wave.”
Graham went live on Facebook – not because Birch Gold asked him to, but because the partnership was real enough that he wanted to. He told his audience, “This is why we’ve been talking about Birch Gold for the past four years.”
Ten minutes later, Birch Gold called Elijah freaking out. “What did Graham do? We got so many leads it’s insane.”
That single social media post hit Graham’s three-month lead count.
This is what Elijah calls being “out there on a surfboard to catch the waves when we can.” The relationship with the advertiser was strong enough that when opportunity struck, they could act immediately without bureaucratic approval processes.
Good creative gets you on base every time. But if you’re prepared to swing when the right pitch comes, you can hit a grand slam.
Creative That Actually Works
We spent part of the episode reviewing ads that cut through the noise. My favorite was from the Guatemalan lottery: a photograph of a well-worn Buddha statue with the headline “Don’t rub for luck. Scratch.”
The statue’s belly was polished smooth from years of people rubbing it for good fortune. The visual instantly communicates the message with almost no words needed.
Here’s the principle: David Ogilvy said, “When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to find it creative. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”
Word count matters. If you’re over thirteen words, you’ve probably missed it. The Eurostar train ad was simply “Time flies when you don’t” next to an image of a stretched-out logo.
A complaint-generating dog photo captioned “We get so many complaints from your neighbors” for a pet-related brand. Brilliant simplicity.
The Natural History Museum took a huge creative risk with their “FOMO erectus” campaign. Try getting that through a nonprofit’s approval process. But that’s exactly what makes it memorable.
He Gets Us: Christian Marketing That Doesn’t Suck
Joe shared something that blew my mind: the He Gets Us campaign sponsored every seventh-inning stretch across Major League Baseball. A hundred million dollar campaign.
Their creative broke every rule of fear-based Christian marketing. Instead of judgment, they showed Jesus in relatable human moments. “Jesus went all in” over an image of Las Vegas. “Jesus was fed up with politics too” over imagery of him overturning tables.
This is PhD-level Christian marketing: leading with relevance and humanity rather than condemnation and doctrine.
Advice for the $5 Million Business Ready to Scale
Someone asked Elijah what he’d tell a $5 million business that’s never invested in real marketing.
His answer surprised me. He doesn’t tell them to hire an agency first. He tells them to become a student.
“Find a channel like YouTube or Instagram and start watching videos. Learn. Place your first ads yourself. Make the creative, place the ads, watch it work, put a little more money in. It should be your side gig for three months.”
The amount you’ll learn as an entrepreneur running a business while also learning to run ads is invaluable. You might discover it’s not your gifting, but you’ll appreciate it. And you’ll never be at the mercy of an agency you can’t evaluate.
He told us about two partners who did exactly this. One would lock himself in his apartment for two weeks straight, treating their $10,000 ad budget like a betting platform. They started at $1 million in revenue. They’re now a $50-60 million company.
For those who do hire agencies, Elijah offered a warning: “Your business, when it comes to ads, is always a toddler. It never grows up.”
You have to watch constantly. If you’re not watching your ads like a parent watching a child who touches everything, someone else needs to be.
The Bottom Line
Here’s what I took away from this conversation:
Find your Megan. Get clear on who you’re actually serving. Not demographics on paper, the real person who will weep in their car because of what you created.
Be authentically you. Stop putting scriptures on the wall as a substitute for actually living your values. Let people discover who you are through the quality of your work and the warmth of your culture.
Stay ready for the wave. Build relationships deep enough that when opportunity strikes, you can move without committee approval.
Simplify your message. If they have to burn calories figuring out what you do, you’ve lost them.
Don’t be afraid to be edgy. You have to give people something to talk about and remember. Otherwise, you’ve just wasted your money.
The best brands are the ones true to who they are. Everything else is just noise.
The R7 process helps Christian leaders and marketers discover their purpose and build actionable strategy around their calling. If you’re ready to stop using calling as an excuse and start living with championship-level intentionality, tune in to The R7 Christian Marketing Podcast for more faith-driven conversations about excellence in business and ministry.
Remember: Eagles don’t seek approval. They just fly. What’s keeping you grounded?
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