Latest / Palafox Media Network / Political Matrix News Meets Crowds on Demand
Transcript
- speaker-1: Hi folks and welcome to the Political Matrix. I'm Scott Miller with my partner Greg Fink here, and today we have a special guest, Adam Swart. Adam has a very you interesting business, you know, that frankly I I wish I'd have had for a for a lot of the campaigns that we've had in the past because you know sometimes they start out have a little slow roll going, but but Adam has a great business, I think, that that can can help, you know. Give your room a little bit more ⁓ more of the pizzazz that probably really more reflects the support than it has than the, you know, half dozen or so people that can manage to get off work that day. So so Adam, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your business? speaker-2: Greg Scott, thanks so much for having me. ⁓ great to be with you guys. I so wanted to be here to s chat with your amazing audience. I've heard a lot of great things about. Now, what I will say is you got you said it perfectly, Scott, which is that what we do is we provide attendees. You know, we in addition to, you know, PR stunts, you know, advocacy campaigns in the broader sense. ⁓ goal is to put your movement, your campaign, your company in the right context. ⁓ sometimes you can have a great message, but if you don't have a catalyst, you don't have people there, and it's not easy to get people there, no one's ever gonna pay attention. I mean imagine if Martin Luther King had given I have a dream speech in front of five people, right? Wouldn't have had the same resonance. And sometimes you need to prime the pump so to speak and get that because especially I think especially if you're a common sense kind of candid. One of the things I noticed is the extreme right, extreme left, no problem. Turning people out because those people have nothing else to do. They're they're in their mom's basements. They're they they they live on the internet. But if you have a common sense centerist campaign, norm center right, center left, any kind of common sense, people are working. Your people are supporting their families, right? They don't have the time to necessarily be here and there and ⁓ and just being at dumb things, right? Right. ⁓ as result. Our people can kind of provide that manpower that that are that's important. speaker-0: So what's the number? speaker-1: Let me give a a great real world example of speaker-2: Crowds Demand is the name of the company. Crowds on Demand. So founder and CEO of Crowds on Demand, and my name is Adam Swart. speaker-1: Well, let me give you a real a really great real world example of that that that, you know, the media was able to handle through some clever camera angles. But but in justification, you know, in the two thousand election certification with George Bur Bush versus versus Gore. when you you know, all that came down to a handful of votes that had to be certified in Tallahassee ⁓ and and a younger y a much younger man I decided I wanted to go and see that and be part of history and watch that certification. When I got there, there were there there were conservative and Bush f Bush people everywhere. people, a small handful. Well, the truth is that, you know, Florida was was literally fifty fifty. So if they'd have just taken a strict camera view of that, then then it would have looked like, well, there's a crap load of people that want Bush and hardly anyone that wants Gore and why is it and why is it that, you know that the ⁓ vote seemed so even. So if if you if there was something kind of to fill that in and make it more representative of the actual election facts, it you know, it it would have made better optics. speaker-2: Well, think you make an excellent point, which is that that this is really about filling it to to kind of speak oftentimes for whoever doesn't organize oftentimes like does not get results. And by the way, the Bush people did organize. That was Roger Stone. That was called the Brooks Brothers Rally, riot, I think is what they called it, right? For those students I was I think I was eight at the time, so I was probably too young to be sort of a consequential part of anything in two thousand. But The the point being that the Bush campaign knew that they wanted they needed to have people out there, you know what I mean? And because because they wanted to make it look and and it was a successful effort, they wanted to make it look like Bush was the the sort of guy and Al Gore was just kind of being a sore loser, right? And they actually marketed that really well. So so it's interesting. so in my line of work though. So we work for a lot of common sense. So a lot of times people say, ⁓ crowds on demand, they're there to make the kind of unpopular minority opinion heard over the will of the majority. Well it's actually in fact the opposite. We're there oftentimes on behalf of common sense causes that just that don't get the same resonance with turnout that extreme causes do because And especially the type of people we turn out, they're ordinary people, right? So they have jobs, they have families that they can't just go somewhere even for a cause they agree with. So what Crowds on demand does is we facilitate people's engagement for causes that they do agree with. Right. And it works really well. ⁓ examples of like of common sense causes are like most eighty, ninety percent of people oppose defund the police. But those people don't show up. It's the defund people who show up. Right. Right. the one that's like even kind of an insane example ⁓ is Los Angeles City Council was considering a measure to ban child offenders from camping near schools. ⁓ Right? So don't know whether you could imagine like I I ⁓ I know have friends on the left, on the right, I don't think I know a single person that would oppose that idea. And yet there were 300 activists that stormed City Hall and In opposition to this, right? So but but there was no one there in favor of it. You know why? Because there's certain have you heard of the idea of the the certain truths are self-evident, right? The truth it is self-evident that this shouldn't happen. So why would a parent think like, ⁓ I'm gonna go spend my entire Tuesday night at the LA City Council saying that child sex offenders shouldn't camp near my kids' school? Like, why should that require me to do that? That should just be done, you know? Or many would assume that this is already in the rega a rule. You know what I mean? So so this is just these are just sort of examples. And so we actually oftentimes are brought in by the silent majority, you know. And so I actually think that's sort of a role that crowds on demand fills in the sort of discourse at national, local and state level. speaker-0: and so compared to like the Occupy movement and the other movements that have been happening over the last ten or twenty, you know, years where the entire credibility of protesters have ⁓ has been totally taken away. How how do you separate yourself as a business model from I mean I mean, whenever you're telling people what you're doing, how do you ⁓ you know Characterize it to where it's different. 'Cause I know Occupy guys, I mean, a lot of the ones here in ⁓ North Florida, they're getting paid like a thousand a week, fifteen hundred a week and stuff like that. And I mean ba they're paid I guess by move on dot org and other George Soros groups and stuff like that. So I mean so you're explaining that to people, you know, I mean basically how does that work on the ⁓ comparison difference? speaker-2: Well, we pay people enough to compensate them for their work, but not so much that it encourages them to ban to to d to like go against their core convictions, right? Okay. So it's it's kinda funny. I have a lot of critics in the media, and it's it's really fascinating because like people like Joe Rogan and others ⁓ will will criticize like this business model of paid protesting of people getting compensated and it's like ⁓ they're someone getting paid two hundred dollars is somehow doing it because they're paid. But he who's getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars. no, no, that's all genuine. Exactly. You know what I mean? So I think that you're actually like, it's disrespectful to people to say that they would sell their core convictions out for a couple hundred bucks. They wouldn't do it. I don't know whether you guys are liberal or conservative, but I imagine you wouldn't go to the opposing rally for a couple hundred dollars. ⁓ is a price I know that probably people would do a lot of things, a lot of people would, not everybody. ⁓ this is my thing, is that this whole thing is just sort of ridiculous. I think that the that that that concept. Occupy though, of course, is one of the biggest failed movements in American history. ⁓ because they've achieved exactly nothing. Believe me, I just came from New York today and and believe me, Wall Street is ⁓ very much prosperous as ever. So I guarantee you and none of those CEOs are in jail. So so the funny thing is Occupy Wall Street took a great hand And they just totally effed it up. they had Obama in the White House, probably the most l one of the most liberal presidents ⁓ had been elected, right? They had a two-thirds Democratic majority, and in theory, Democrats ⁓ be the ones more in a tie Wall Street, right? No, that's changed, but at the you know, theoretically. and came in, they didn't make any demands. So the most the dumbest thing Occupy Wall Street did is they had no ⁓ centralized of hierarchy, which ⁓ sounds egalitarian. But they never had any demands. So, what did they do? They allowed politicians to give them lip service. So a politician could act like, ⁓ I like what Occupy is doing and I stand in solidarity with them without actually doing anything for them. So what's really fascinating about it is politicians are experts at saying what you want them to say without doing what you want them to do. And one of the most effective things you need to do if you are running a movement is to be aware that. They are very good at that and to not let them get away with that. speaker-1: know, you know, one of my ⁓ you know, Occupy Wall Street Wall Street was a great example of one of my core theses, ⁓ is that there are a lot of these movements that are out there that have absolutely no interest in solving a problem because they make so much money off the fundraising. speaker-2: Well yeah, look at S PLC. I mean, look, I don't want to comment on on allegations to be clear. speaker-1: They they're one they're one of my one of my primary c primary ⁓ targets in that ac act. speaker-2: But but look, without getting into the case itself, I would say that they because because they have the right to defend themselves, of course, it it ⁓ but it does feel that SPLC, I do what I will say just objectively is they've named a lot of groups hate groups that obviously aren't hate groups that maybe they disagree with. That's fine. But say you disagree with it, but they've they've used and they've weaponized the group that term hate group. And I think the ⁓ of the biggest dangers that we have in Today is language. Is if you call everything a hate group, if you call everything racist, if you call everything anti-Semitic, then at some point you've cheapened these terms, homophobic, right? Transphobic. If you've cheapened these terms, and you guys are in the polling industry, so you know. Now it used to be if you said this politician is a racist, 15 years ago, that was that was like whoa. Exactly. That was taken seriously. Now it's like, ⁓ well, you that's what you say about everybody. So and it's the same thing. So now when SPLC has called these groups hate groups, now when if they say the KKK is a hate group, which it is, that has no resonance because they just called a bunch of other groups hate groups that aren't. So it actually cheapens their mission. But really what you guys are right about is SPLC's ultimate mission isn't to fight hate groups, it is to raise money. And The hay groups is just the means to an end. speaker-0: and we see that a lot with a lot of these ⁓ different groups. I mean, it seems like, you know, and this is one thing Scott and I talk about a during the podcast, is that it seems like these protesters, these anti Israel protests and these ⁓ ⁓ other different protests at all different college campuses for the last summer last couple of summers and and all those things were were more or less just organized just to raise money and not awareness or to make any kind of change whatsoever. speaker-2: Yeah, well what's interesting is I generally am not in the fundraising business. So our our protests and our campaigns are generally focused on actually creating some kind of change. ⁓ know, so so some of what we've done, for example, I mean, we ran the delete Facebook campaign that actually was so effective that it Facebook changed its name. They call themselves Meta now and they crack down on political advertising. ⁓ we and sh We solved insurance companies from actual instances of discrimination against the LGBT community. Right. So insurance companies were using whether you people took this anti-retroviral drug, which was a drug that is meant to solve HIV, they use that as a back door to discriminate against gay people, right? So my thing is there's actual bigotry, actual hate going on. But what these corporations do, which is fascinating, is they people pay people like Al Sharpton and others. So if you pay Al Sharpton, in the N national action network or whatever, that is almost the best sign that you people should look into what you're doing because you don't pay Al Sharpton because you're not racist. You pay Al Sharpton because you've done something racist and you want Al Sharpton to cover for you. And Al, if that's not true, show me your books and show me like like this is this is the whole thing is that the and there's there's there's plenty of organizations, Al is the the best example of it that that do this. And It's actually sad because I mean Al Sharkens has also served as like a spokesperson for payday loans that is ⁓ high ultra high interest rates loans targeted toward black people. So, you know, he he's done really a massive disservice to his own community. But of course his own community is not black America, it's actually just, you know, himself. ⁓ so the thing is that ⁓ is really important to know is that a lot of these groups are are there to actually raise money. ⁓ goal is You know, I have more opportunities than I can possibly deal with. Like we have a ton of people who come to us. I've been in this business for 15 years. Like you guys, I'm mission driven. My goal, I mean, of course I want to make money, but my goal is to serve causes that are impactful in the world that make a difference, while of course helping my bottom line, but at the same time ⁓ making a difference. speaker-0: So so so what's your main causes that you like to, you know, represent? I mean, what what drives you? speaker-2: So some of the biggest concerns right now, social media, right? And now social media coupled with the power of AI is like exponentially more dangerous. Because social media is already dangerous with its algorithms, because the algorithms know everything about you, right? They know exactly they know more about you than you know about yourself. You know how I know that? So on Twitter X, if I just hover over a really offensive post. They might think Adam's really interested in this offensive thing. So they're gonna start showing me more of that stuff. Even if I didn't wanna even see that, they they their algorithm tells that me them he's curious and maybe he doesn't agree, but if they send you down a rabbit hole, then that helps their bottom line, and that's good for their business, right? Because the longer they keep you there, the more ads they sell, the more money they make. So it's it's as if Coca-Cola. Could engineer specific drink that is addictive to you, Greg, or to you, Scott. So the food companies make it addictive, but these guys know so much more about you. It's like a perfectly engineered product toward each person, preying on our worst impulses. So I wanna I wanna really take that on. the food companies are bad too. I mean, again, Coca-Cola, you know, McDonald's, all these companies, again. These are the most racist companies in the world because they target specifically to Coca-Cola, I think is most popular in Mexico than in the United States. ⁓ know, so they're targeting to the Latino community, McDonald's, every McDonald's ad I see has it's all it's black people on there, right? Because they want to get black people like people I know in the nation of Islam, they don't eat McDonald's and c coke because they know that's they say it's like the poison, right? So and So these are and and then of course who do they put on their board? They put high profile people from those communities. So it's actually like this massive scam being perpetrated. I want to like expose those scams to those communities because like people don't always know that they're actually being victimized by these companies, unfortunately. speaker-1: no, who knows? speaker-2: And then the third thing I wanna take on is our cities. Our cities have become unfortunately dangerous. that is a combination of left-wing soft on crime policy combined with policy from really both parties, probably more conservative than liberal, not having enough funding for really good transit systems. Like I wanna like go to Tokyo. I mean, they they have beautiful it's just a beautiful city. Why why can't we do this? Japan is a free country. They don't, you know, there's no secret police. You know, you can't compare it to like an autocratic country, but they just have a clean city because they just don't tolerate otherwise. You know, why I mean, even cities in Europe are much cleaner. Like we we we can do better, and I we need to push our leaders for that, you know, and we need to have like no nonsense. Like what Spencer Pratt is talking about is is good, but again, all these people talk. Everybody talks. But I don't even like, is he gonna do anything if he actually wins? I don't know. So like these people need to act. So you need massive public pressure to force these politicians to act because a lot of politicians say the right thing, but they don't do the right thing. speaker-0: Unless they're on the left like Mandani. Mandani says what he's actually trying to do what he says he's gonna do. I mean, he's being as crazy as possible up there in New York. speaker-2: Sure. Yeah, sure. sure. There you go. So yes, it's a speaker-1: yeah. Yeah, he he has he has a ⁓ his own ⁓ yeah, he he is he is definitely trying to, you know, apply the ⁓ agenda that that he ran on, but you know, he ⁓ you know sadly think he's gonna run it run into the a brick wall of of reality, of being of what he's able to do. But ⁓ speaker-2: There's a genuineness to it. Yeah, go on. Yeah, go on. Sorry, ask your questions. speaker-1: And here's here's what I want to do. I wanted to try to kind of encapsulate your company a little bit because what I the vi the vibe that I'm getting is that what you really are is a company that enables people who otherwise, you know, would be busy working and providing for their family to be able to afford to take the time off to go and express an opinion. speaker-2: That's correct. Exactly. We facilitate that. And we therefore also facilitate common sense movements from happening. Right. So a lot of times, people, normal people just don't have the opportunity. Like, do you see a lot of protests? It's either retired boomers ⁓ college students because they have no opportunity cost to go, right? They have the money to go, they have the time to go. Right. Whereas if you're 40 years old and you have two kids and you work an hourly job. Going to a protest means you take unpaid time off and you pay child care. So it's just a very expensive proposition. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So so so you in in that regard I I I think it's a great business model, honestly. speaker-2: Well, that's that's what we do, and we also provide strategy. So one of the things I always try to do in everything is I apply a formula to out to my work. And this doesn't matter whether it's politics or corporate, because a lot of what we do is are pushing on corporations, is distill an objective, right? Occupy failed on this first task, right? They didn't distill an objective. Number two, figure out who actually can help you do that. So a lot of times I see protests are like, ⁓ we're protesting at the LA City Hall. Because of Donald Trump. Well, I don't think there's a single Republican at LA City Hall. So why are you protesting them about Donald Trump? You know? So, so I think that you have to figure out, okay, who actually has the power to help me on this, right? Then ⁓ once figure that out, you gotta figure out, well, how do you persuade them, right? So I've always said you you have to hit right from right and left from left. ⁓ So you're Let's just say you're mad about a homeless tent encampment and it's happening in a far left council district in let's just say LA or San Francisco. Well, if you say, well, this is hurting local businesses and commerce, they're gonna tell you to pound sand. They don't care about local businesses and commerce. But maybe you you call it racist because you say, Hey, the community, this is a disproportionately Latino community, and you're allowing this drugs and predators in our community. So you're putting you're actually a racist. Right. And if that's a white liberal, white liberals don't like to be called racist, right? So you use that against them. Right. Similarly, if it's a if it's a Republican, you say you're soft on crime, you're weak on the border, you're, you know, you you want to hit right from right and left from left, because otherwise you end up actually creating a situation that helps them, right? Because if you ascend MAGA protesters against a liberal, or if you send blue-haired lefties against a MAGA, right? That helps them because then they're like, hey. These guys hate me because I'm working for you, you know, and that actually helps them. So figure out what tactic. And if it's company, companies generally are risk-averse. They don't want bad headlines. They don't want, you know, their CEO contacted, et cetera, et cetera. So you wanna, you know, figure out what resonates with those companies and maybe you find the board members, right, of the company. So figure out who actually the arguments are to actually persuade them. speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: will I will agree with you that it that that you you you neither want the multicolored hair crowd on one on the left or you know the the the shaman from January sixth on the right. You don't want those guys those aren't the guys you want representing your protest because the opposition is just gonna make is just going to use those two people to focus and define your entire protest. And that's just not you're speaker-2: Well, the other thing that I do think is funny is like I always see both sides do it. The right, right wing YouTubers or like on the left, you have like the Daily Show, like Jordan Kleber and others. They go to the other side's rallies and they try to find they they interview like 30 people, they find like the two dumbest people, and then they put that clip out on there. So number one, they're say what understand when you see these clips of rallies and like there's someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, it's like, well, number one, that was selective, who you chose. And number two, I guess I have a really interesting perspective on this that maybe not everybody agrees with. It's like you shouldn't have to be informed on an issue to speak out on it. Right? I know people who are very pro choice and I know people who are very pro life who could not make a super well potent argument on that subject. Right? they not have the right to express their opinions on that subject even if they can't articulate it well? You know, ⁓ My opinion is like you don't have to be well informed. This is America. You can show up and you're not well informed. You this is how I feel because this is how I feel. speaker-1: Yeah, no, I I I I I get that. I mean and and frankly, you know, I I don't know what's worse, the uninformed or the faux informed, you know. speaker-2: Yes. Yes. Well, that's almost worse than with the with the AI makes it so easy because you now have more and more fake content ⁓ that's just circulating ⁓ discerning is gonna be such a big concern ⁓ in our like when I was growing up there was always s some sense of objective truth. Maybe you ⁓ you on the gravity, but if I say there's zero people crawling over the border every day And you say there's ten million people coming over the border every day, how are we supposed to decide what our border policy is? Because if ten million people are coming over, well, you gotta send the army over there. You gotta send a hundred thousand men. Right. And if if there's no people coming over, then maybe what we're doing is working. So do we know if can't agree on the basic premise? ⁓ So a big concern. speaker-1: do. That's I think that's I think that's probably as fine a point as you can put on there. speaker-0: Exactly. speaker-2: But yeah, like what we do is basically we're we're facilitating activism. We run these campaigns. What I always try to help is my clients to be strategic. So in addition to providing the people, I like to I see my clients lots of money by merely applying my checklist of being really focused on who we're focused on, what our objective is. Because you could do a rally with two thousand people that's a total flop. I could do a rally with twenty-five people that's very successful because it's more targeted. speaker-0: So how many people do you usually bring to a a tour rally? I mean, what's your average size? speaker-2: Fifty to a hundred. Fifty to a hundred. A lot of people think it's thousands. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. See the ⁓ see and that makes all difference. Well how how many people can you put in a put in a camera shot, I mean, at one time. speaker-2: Seriously. And by the way, it's a controllable and you know cost friendly. And and you you can make a you can make a big scene with 50 to 100. You don't often need thousands. And I think oftentimes what I say when people want thousands, and we've done thousands, but is I would rather have 50 people out there every single day. Because the biggest thing that politicians fear and CEOs fear is relentlessness. They don't mind because because one of the other things I do is I advise companies on how to respond to protests. And how to respond to PR campaigns. And I always tell ⁓ to just ignore, ignore, ignore. And the way you have to do it is to you have to call that bluff and be relentless. Be there every single day. Because when you see that, you know, okay, I have to take it seriously. Even a thousand people are outside Coca Cola today, okay. Yeah, they're not just gonna take they're gonna look at it. But if they're not out there tomorrow and they're not out there the next day, okay, fine, move on. Business as usual. speaker-0: I remember during the B P. oil spill they were having ⁓ protests w with B P and and people were always trying to stage those and they were trying to see what they could do once again without an objective or without a goal. And so I think ⁓ you know, I mean speaker-2: Gotta be strategic. Go to the investors, go to the board members. They they also have to you gotta feel focused on who are all of the point people who have some power in this, and you need to go to those people, right? Merely a protest at the corporate headquarters may or may not make a difference. speaker-0: Exactly. And so that's where something like what you're doing is definitely mu much more strategic and much more powerful. speaker-2: Yeah. I try to be very strategic with with our customers and that's why ⁓ that's why we're still in business in fifteen year almost fifteen years. So I try to Yeah, I've been doing this since I was twenty years old. speaker-1: how do people get a hold of you? Well you know what what less talk let's talk about that. speaker-2: crowds on demand dot com, or ⁓ you can ⁓ follow me on Twitter at CEO Adam Swart. ⁓ but I would prefer if you have something interesting for me, ⁓ go ahead and contact us or if you wanna work with us, ⁓ leave your info and we'll ⁓ we'll look at it. speaker-1: Well, it's it's a very exciting business model and and and and and f and frankly I think a very misunderstood business model. And I'm glad we have opportunity to kind of talk ⁓ to to talk about it and and wrap our heads around what the reality of it is. speaker-2: Appreciate the opportunity to be on your program. I've heard amazing things and about what you guys do, so keep doing it. speaker-0: thank you. And we hear we hear a lot of really cool stuff about what you're doing. I mean, it seems to be a whole different approach, I mean, from from what we're used to hearing. And so thanks so much for explaining everything so well. speaker-2: I really appreciate it. You guys have a great night. speaker-0: You too. speaker-1: All you have a good night too.