Can Liquid Glass Save Apple's Dominance? & Power Ranking Brands' Marketing

Summary

Morning Brew Daily: Can Liquid Glass Save Apple's Dominance? & Power Ranking Brands' Marketing

Release Date: June 20, 2025
Hosts: Neal Freyman and Toby Howell
Guest: Ashwin Krishna Swamy, Branding and Marketing Expert

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Introduction

In this special Friday episode of Morning Brew Daily, hosts Neal Freyman and Toby Howell delve into the intricate world of branding and marketing with guest Ashwin Krishna Swamy. The episode explores Apple's recent Liquid Glass redesign, the emergence of celebrity-led ventures into unconventional sectors, the pitfalls of AI-centric marketing, and a spirited power ranking of various brands' marketing strategies.

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Apple’s Liquid Glass Redesign: Strategy and Reception

Neal kicks off the discussion by addressing Apple's decade-long design paradigm shift to Liquid Glass, a new design language introduced in their latest iPhone models.

Ashwin Krishna Swamy (03:13):
"There's a stark contrast in feedback between platforms like TikTok and Twitter. Designers and older audiences on Twitter find the Liquid Glass aesthetically displeasing, citing visibility issues, while TikTok users celebrate its customization and playful appeal. This polarization highlights a common resistance to change among long-term users."

The conversation explores whether Apple drew inspiration from existing design elements, such as Microsoft's frosted glass, and the broader implications for user experience. Ashwin emphasizes the challenge Apple faces in balancing innovation with user familiarity, noting, “We don’t like change,” (03:59) a sentiment echoed by many long-time Apple enthusiasts.

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Celebrity Entrepreneurship: Venturing Beyond Traditional Brands

Toby transitions the conversation to the trend of celebrities launching brands in unexpected sectors, highlighting the Smart List podcast's announcement of entering the mobile wireless industry.

Ashwin Krishna Swamy (06:21):
"Ryan Reynolds successfully launched Mint Mobile, selling it for around $1 billion. This sets a precedent for celebrities to explore sectors beyond beauty and alcohol, potentially into B2B and software-driven markets. As operational barriers for software decrease, we might see more celebrities venturing into tech-centric brands."

Ashwin contrasts this with traditional celebrity endorsements, suggesting a shift towards more hands-on involvement in product development. He further discusses the importance of authentic engagement over mere branding, “People can easily see a cash grab when celebrities rapidly launch multiple brands without genuine product-market fit,” (08:24).

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The Pitfalls of AI-Centric Marketing

The hosts and Ashwin examine recent marketing missteps by tech companies attempting to leverage AI, citing examples like Google's ill-received ad during the Olympics and Duolingo's backlash over its AI-first strategy.

Ashwin Krishna Swamy (09:43):
"Companies often make AI the hero, neglecting to address the actual problems they solve for customers. Effective marketing should position AI as a tool that enhances user experience, not the focal point."

He criticizes the overuse of vague AI terminology in advertisements, remarking, “Billboards screaming ‘AI’ without clear messaging leave consumers confused,” (10:09). Ashwin advocates for a human-centric approach, where AI is portrayed as a facilitator for achieving desired outcomes, drawing from his experiences with customer data analysis and creative asset generation.

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Branding Flops: HBO Max and Jaguar

The discussion shifts to branding failures, with a focus on HBO Max's frequent name changes and Jaguar's revamped visual identity.

Ashwin Krishna Swamy (15:25):
"Constant rebranding often signals internal instability, such as frequent changes in leadership or creative direction. For HBO Max, relentless name changes have led to increased public awareness, albeit not always positively."

He explains that large corporations like Walmart and Jaguar undergo rebranding to maintain consistency across vast design systems, which often go unnoticed by the general public until slight alterations spark noticeable reactions. Ashwin emphasizes the emotional investment consumers have in brand aesthetics, noting, “Design decisions are the easiest for the public to opine on, leading to strong reactions.” (19:27).

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Successful Product Launches and Marketing Campaigns

Ashwin highlights Jake Paul’s successful launch of his men's body care line, W, contrasting it with Beyoncé’s more discreet approach with her hair care brand, Sacred. He attributes Jake Paul's success to his strategic use of attention-grabbing content and sustained promotion across his platforms.

Ashwin Krishna Swamy (20:23):
"Jake Paul’s intensive content strategy, including a viral lie detector test video that doubled as an ad, created widespread awareness and sustained interest, which is crucial for a creator-led brand’s success."

He underscores the importance of commitment and consistent messaging in building a brand, emphasizing that attention must be leveraged effectively to translate into successful market penetration.

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Power Ranking Brands’ Marketing Strategies

In a lively segment, Ashwin power ranks various brands based on their current marketing effectiveness across different categories.

1. Running Brands: HOKA vs. Nike

   • HOKA: Ranked #1 for maintaining strong brand loyalty and effective marketing strategies.
   • Nike: Ranked #2 due to recent over-reliance on performance marketing and a retreat from retail, which has impacted their overall marketing balance.

2. Beverages: Red Bull vs. Monster vs. Celsius

   • Red Bull: Dominates the beverage category with innovative and engaging marketing stunts.
   • Celsius: Positioned well through extensive distribution and strategic product placement.
   • Monster: While effective, it slightly trails behind Red Bull and Celsius in day-to-day marketing efforts.

3. AI Technologies: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Meta

   • Google Gemini: #1 for humanizing AI in their Super Bowl ad, making it relatable and beneficial.
   • OpenAI: #2 for maintaining a dominant market position without overcomplicating marketing.
   • Meta and Anthropic: Ranks lower due to less coherent and impactful marketing strategies.

4. Celebrities in Marketing: Timothee Chalamet, Sydney Sweeney, Glenn Powell

   • Timothee Chalamet: Tops the list for his humble and relatable public persona.
   • Sydney Sweeney: Follows closely with strategic and attention-grabbing partnerships.
   • Glenn Powell: While effective, it doesn't quite match the impact of the top two.

5. Wellness Trends: THC Drinks, Creatine, Protein

   • THC Drinks: Ranked #1 for tapping into the declining alcohol consumption trend by offering a social lubricant alternative.
   • Creatine: #2, benefiting from positive shifts in public perception regarding its health benefits.
   • Protein: #3, facing challenges related to product efficacy and consumer skepticism.

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with the hosts reflecting on the dynamic landscape of branding and marketing. Ashwin Krishna Swamy provides actionable insights for launching brands in 2025, emphasizing the importance of social media integration, community building, and adapting to evolving consumer behaviors. The discussion underscores the necessity for authenticity, strategic engagement, and a deep understanding of market trends to navigate the complexities of modern branding.

Notable Quotes:

• “We don’t like change.” — Ashwin Krishna Swamy (03:59)
• “Everyone makes AI the hero and no one cares about AI.” — Ashwin Krishna Swamy (09:43)
• “Design decisions are the easiest for the public to opine on, leading to strong reactions.” — Ashwin Krishna Swamy (19:27)

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For more insights and detailed breakdowns of the latest marketing trends, follow Ashwin Krishna Swamy on social media at @SchwinnabagoBrand.

Transcript

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Hey, Fidelity. How can I remember to invest every month? With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs. Huh, that sounds easier than I thought. You got this? Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys? You will find them where you left them. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC Member NYSE SIPC.

[Neal Freyman]

Good Morning Brew Daily Show I'm Neal Freyman.

[Toby Howell]

And I'm Toby Howell.

[Neal Freyman]

Today we have a special Friday interview episode coming your way.

[Toby Howell]

We're talking with a branding and marketing expert about Apple's liquid glass redesign, smartlist, launching a wireless company, and why AI marketing kind of stinks. It's Friday, June 20th. Let's ride.

[Neal Freyman]

Raise your hand if you've ever had some thoughts on a company's logo change or redesign. Yeah, a lot of you. Everyone has opinions on marketing and branding, but perhaps no one's thought more deeply about the subject than our guest today, Ashwin Krishna Swamy, on a special summer Friday episode of Morning Brew Daily.

[Toby Howell]

Yesterday, Juneteenth was a company holiday for Morning Brew. So today you get to hear us talk to Ashwin. He's a consumer brand builder extraordinaire helping launch numerous consumer facing companies through his own design agency. He's the guy you'd go to to bring your idea for a pickleball shoe company or a non alcoholic champagne brand to life, advising you on stuff like what should your logo be? Who's your ideal customer? Are you even good at pickleball?

[Neal Freyman]

We asked him about some recent branding debacles like HBO Max changing its name every other week and Jaguar doing whatever that was. Ashwin also told us the one thing every AI company is messing up when it comes to their marketing.

[Toby Howell]

All in all, it was a super fun conversation where you'll hopefully learn a lot more about all that goes into a company's design language and but also get some hot takes along the way. But first, a word from our sponsor, Amazon Ads. Neal, you know that feeling when you show up to a podcast and realize you prep for the wrong topic?

[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

So Apple just announced a major design shift, their first in a decade, to a new language called Liquid Glass. What do you think was the strategy behind Liquid Glass? And what do you expect the reception among users to be when it comes to their phones this fall?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

So it's so interesting to see the difference in commentary on Tik Tok versus Twitter, which you probably, you may be seen on Twitter especially like among like design community and like more older people. There is a ton of feedback that it looks horrible and you can't see anything. And then you go and look at the commentary on Like TikTok and people are like, oh, this is so fun. This is so exciting. It's like customization. I can change it however I want. And I think it's just like it's going to polarize people in a couple of different ways. I mean, I've now had the iPhone since 2009 and I've been so accustomed to a very specific design system. Sure they've gone like skeuomorphic to what it is now, but like the liquid glass stuff is a little bit different and I think we don't like change.

[Neal Freyman]

Did they invent this out of thin air or were there existing examples that they sort of drew inspiration from?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

I think there's always existing examples that they draw inspiration from. I don't know what the specific inspiration for this is, but I think like Microsoft probably had some similar stuff like from older versions where they, they pull this idea of like frosted glass. It's funny because the screenshots that I see of users like complaining about it is they'll pull down like their main screen. And it's like when you have glass and just frosted glass, you still like picks up the image from behind. So you lose a lot of detail in the icons and people are like, are there any designers like left working at Apple who actually like, care about design?

[Toby Howell]

I saw some Galaxy Rain takes of how they're pushing towards a, you know, a multimodular system where like, it's based off like the Vision OS software.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Yeah.

[Toby Howell]

And so like where they're going to be layering things in, like, real space and time, so they're, like, seeding people into getting used to that.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

But.

[Toby Howell]

But in the meantime, while we're still having iPhones, it stinks. Like, the readability stink. So I'm glad that you're seeing some people loving it and some people not liking it. But it kind of brings me to my next question. Do you think Apple is okay right now? Like, there's been a lot of reports of its demise and how it's just doing this facelift when they should be getting on the AI train. Where do you think Apple is right now in their evolution as a company?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Yeah, I think. I think they're so number one. I think they're. They're just fine. Right. And it's like, people always talk about, like, the biggest companies in the world, and it's like they're dying. They're dying. There's this idea in, like, technology called the Lindy Effect, which is like, the longer thing has been around, the longer it takes to die. So this was often, like, brought up when people would be like, snapchat is the Facebook killer. Well, it's like Facebook's been around for 20 years, and, like, if anything, they're going to, like, die equally slow death. It's going to be, like, 20 years. But they've just reinvented themselves a number of times. And so Apple's, like, very aware of the writing on the wall and that they're losing, like, some of the AI, kind of, like war to. To GPT. And I think they're just. They're going to be investing in it, and it's like, they're not a stupid company, right? They are. They're very smart, and they know how to, like, design and build products.

[Toby Howell]

Speaking of smart, that's actually a very good lead to this next question. The host of the Smart List podcast just announced that they're starting a mobile wireless company. This is kind of a wild departure from the kinds of brands celebrities typically launch. Does this make any sense to you?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Well, Ryan Reynolds has his telecom company. Right. Mint Mobile. That sold.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

So for like, $1 billion or something. So maybe they're looking at that and they're like, okay, we're not going to do Jason Bateman and who else? Few other guys.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

So, like, all right, we're not going to do a beauty brand. We're not going to do, like, a creator LED alcohol brand. Let's do telecom. I'm not sure what the positioning is on this one. But it's interesting.

[Neal Freyman]

Do you think this speaks to any bigger shift in celebrity entrepreneurship away from, you know, those comforting brands like alcohol and beauty to a more maybe Ryan Reynolds approach where he's like, I'm going to get my hands dirty in like an actual business.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

I have a buddy who does talent partnerships at, at wme, a big talent agency. And they do a lot of like celebrity brand partnerships. And I always tell him, I'm like, Dude, B2B is the next wave. We got to bring in like celebrity software brands. And I always said it joking, but then recently I saw, I want to say it's Ed Edward Norton. He launched like a pitch deck company, like better software. It's called Boardroom or something like better, like pitch making software. And I think that's the first play. And especially as the barriers to entry of creating software decrease, I think we're going to see this play of, you know, just different celebrities saying like, hey, yeah, beauty and alcohol and some of these, like traditional categories, they're a little bit saturated, they're really, really hard to win in. And you have to be operationally excellent on so many fronts. But hey, if we have this distribution, we have a slightly different audience. Maybe they're a little bit older. There could be some interesting software to make and that.

[Toby Howell]

And that's different than Matthew McConaughey being in a Super bowl ad for Salesforce. You're talking about someone getting down and dirty with the product.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Totally. I mean, I don't know that it's so far fetched to think of a celebrity who is super fit and loves to run, going and creating like a Strava competitor with the right team?

[Toby Howell]

What, what do you think is like the future of influencer marketing kind of. On this topic, is it, is it evolving in a way that you think is a departure from kind of slap your name on this brand and just let it do the rest? Is it becoming more in the weeds?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Yeah, I think, I think we are at a point where the audience is so fatigued by celebrity brands that they can very easily see when it's a cash grab. Like last year, I think Kendall Jenner launched maybe five or six brands and posted about it in a two month period. And by the fifth one, people are like, what is going on here? Like, you're talking beauty, you're talking like a alcohol product, you're talking a jeans product, like in such a short time period. And people know when there's that cash grab and they're like, you're already rich. It's Hard to build kind of resonance, especially if there isn't product market fit already. So that doesn't mean there aren't tremendous opportunities for like creator and celebrity led brands. But this era of like, let's take this category, find this like super narrow white space, put a face on it and then we're off to the races and it's going to be successful.

[Toby Howell]

Let's shift gears a little bit to AI. Since Chatbot came out, there's been numerous instances of tech companies stumbling when it comes to their AI marketing. I'm thinking here of Google's ad during the Olympics where they had a dad using Gemini to help his daughter write a letter to her hero. Also the massive backlash that Duolingo got when the CEO came out and said, hey, we're an AI first company now. What are companies getting wrong when it comes to talking about AI to their customers?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Everyone makes AI the hero and no one cares about AI. They care about their problems being solved faster for them. So make AI the secondary thing and talk about how you speed up workflows or experiences or like get people to a desired outcome. And this was so apparent to me. I was driving on a highway in San Francisco. Every single billboard was like AI at the time. The power of now. I'm like what is this? What does this even mean?

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, it's become like you're not even showcasing the benefits anymore. You're just saying the words and just hoping people say does it all. But also we just saw Sam Altman and OpenAI shell out a lot of money, six and a half billion dollars to bring in Jony. I've the former Apple developer to make an AI first hardware product. We've already seen some stumbles with Humane's AI pin that didn't out work. What do you think this could be like, what could be the hardware iteration of AI?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

I think it, it, you know, probably starts. So when you look at the existing model that people are familiar with, it's like Alexa in their home. And we talk to this thing and so I think that's a decent place to start because you have to look at where people's behaviors are because you can't shift behavior that drastically that quickly. So if they use that as the starting point and say, hey, here's this device that's in your home now that you can interface with. And maybe now instead of you having to say hey Alexa, answer this for me. Maybe it's always ambiently kind of like listening and processing and then gives you this kind of active feedback and I think they're probably going to take a lot of insight from how people are talking to chatbots. I talk to ChatGPT all the time, like after meetings, and I just download notes into it. So I think they're going to use that and then look at some common hardware behaviors that we're already used to and then try to, like, blend those two.

[Neal Freyman]

I think our audience is probably very interested in how you're using ChatGPT or AI in your workflow. So I use that. You talk to it all the time. Like, what are you having it doing?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

I talk to it all the time. But I'll give you, like, a kind of tactical example of something that I did super recently. So I have a brand, and we just did a ton of customer interviews. We probably did 50 customer interviews, and then we did a survey with another hundred customers. And so this includes both structured and unstructured data. When I'd say unstructured data, just off the cuff, them talking about the product. We wanted to take all this information and then use it to inform our ads, the audience that we go after, as well as how we talk about our product from, like, a copy and messaging standpoint. Before kind of AI, I would have to parse through all of this, pull out the insights. It'd be an exercise that takes me a couple of weeks to do with AI. I feed it all of the data and then have it analyze it and think like a really smart copywriter or market strategist and say, hey, what are the ads or angles we should test? What should our landing page copy look like? Where is our Amazon storefront? Coming up short?

[Toby Howell]

Are you using it for any actual creative outputs? Like, are you asking it to generate images for ads? Are you asking it to generate actual copy that makes it into marketing materials?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

So I use it because I have some background in design. I use it to generate background assets or supplemental images. I do not use it to generate the entire ad creative that many people do. It's like, we saw Twitter was ablaze when 4O came out. People are like, oh, this is. I'm just going to generate hundreds of, like, sloppy images and run it. It's like, you still need to be, like, a decent marketer and, like, think about the angles. And I think it can, you know, what would otherwise have taken me, hey, I got to get this really specific shot of this mug on this table, and that's just going to be this blurred background image. Well, now I can just generate that image and then create the rest of my creative.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, all Right. We'll be back with more Ashwin right after this. You wouldn't put your cash register in one store and your products in another, would you? Toby?

[Toby Howell]

What a diabolical question. No, Neil, those do always belong in the same place.

[Neal Freyman]

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[Neal Freyman]

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[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

I don't what I am curious about is what has the leadership or management change looked like at HBO over the past four years and how often are people cycling in and out? Because oftentimes when you see brands do these big rebrands thinking that's going to solve their problems, that's just a sign that like a new, you know, CMO or head of brand has come in and they want to put their thumbprint on things and that's the Easiest. Easiest kind of place to start, right. Is overhauled visual identity. So I think it's almost comical. Right? It's a meme, but it's. It's almost getting them this, like, earned awareness where people are thinking about and talking about HBO and Max more than they ever have been.

[Toby Howell]

Do you think they're playing 4D chess? Do you think they're doing that, or. No, it's just bad leadership.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Having talked to a few of these large streaming services from a content and social standpoint and kind of like modern marketing standpoint, there's no way they're playing 4D chess. They just don't understand, like, the Internet at that level.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah. People rarely. Although the last HBO Max rebrand did come with a lot of memes, a lot of, like, leaning into the joke. So I do feel like someone in their social department at least figured out, like, hey, guys, this is what people are saying about us. Let's just get out ahead of it. So there was a little bit of chess going on. I don't know if it was 4D at that point.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Yeah, maybe just, like, they're just responsive to what's happening.

[Toby Howell]

Right.

[Neal Freyman]

On that note, like, how much does a company's or brand's name matter for a.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

When it. When you look at physical products. Right. The physical. Like, when I. When I say physical products, anything sold in, like, a Whole Foods 7 11, you know, any, like, object that you're. That you're purchasing. Brand names and brand identities matter a lot for recognition, discoverability, like word of mouth. When you get into services businesses, and then you get into streaming businesses, especially Right. When we're talking about HBO versus Max versus HBO Max. I think it matters a little bit less because it's like, well, you have the app, you generally recognize it. You maybe use three or four different streaming services. So it's not like, oh, man, I can't remember that one thing. It's like, I just want to watch Game of Thrones. Like, where is it? I'm going to figure it out anyway. So in some categories, it matters quite a bit. In other categories, I think you're okay kind of making these, like, mistakes.

[Toby Howell]

We have seen a couple of major rebrands recently. One minor rebrand was actually Walmart just slightly tweaking its logo. Another big rebound was Jaguar changing its entire visual identity. Both of them elicited pretty strong reactions from customers. What is it about a rebrand that brings out those strong feelings?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Yeah, so. So the Walmart one is interesting because Walmart changed their logo ever so so slightly right, imperceptibly. And then the public, or like the meme is, oh, this was a rebrand and someone got paid tens, hundreds of millions of dollars to do this thing. And what they see is like, the meme that gets shared is like, before and after. And people are like, I could do that, I could type out the word Walmart. But then you actually go into design system that was built for Walmart. What I mean by design system is as a brand grows and you have an international brand with so many different touch points, right? Physical touch points, digital touch points, apps, services, you know, all, you know, on the side of trucks, boxes, etc. You need a consistent visual system, right? Everything from illustrations to iconography to word marks to type to colors that can expand on the system. And what often happens as companies grow very quickly is that all of these different departments will make ever so subtle tweaks because they're hiring external agencies. And then you're like, oh, now we have this like Frankenstein design system where we have 73 shades of blue when we should have just had three to maintain this consistency. So a rebrand that like Walmart did is actually just a slight evolution. But it's really a lot of this behind the scenes, like, foundational design system work that matters. That like a lot of people who aren't designers or have ever operated in those fields, they don't understand the value of that, especially at the scale of Walmart. Like creating consistency there is going to save them a lot of time and money.

[Neal Freyman]

But it's fascinating to see how emotionally invested regular people are in a company's design decisions. For some reason, it elicits like, the most strong reactions of any sort of corporate decision that a company can make.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Well, here's the thing. It's the easiest thing to have a decision on, right? And the easier thing is to have a decision on the more input you're going to get. We've all designed something, right? Even if the last thing we designed was in like high school, like you design a book cover for some report. So we have, we feel like we can have opinions on like, color and look and feel of things. Whereas it's like, hey, should we change our shipping route from like, you know, this country to this country? No one can talk about that. No one has, has the right to have any opinion on it. So that's where I think we see like a lot of the public getting very invested in that type of stuff.

[Neal Freyman]

All right, so we talked about some flops. What are some of the smartest product launches and associated marketing campaigns you've seen this year.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

You know, one that's, that stands out to me is Jake Paul like creator led brand? Well, not, he's not a creator led brand, but he launched W, which is a, you know, men's body care line. He launched a deodorant and all these other products. And what I found fascinating about his launch is he didn't say, hey, one day I'm just like going to launch this thing. And it's this one and done thing where I kind of contrast this to Beyonce launched a hair care brand called Sacred. She, I think maybe posted about it one day, but if you go to her account, like there's no association between her and this brand at all, which can be a strategic and intentional decision on its own merit. But Jake Paul's like, I'm the master of commanding attention. So I am. And this was around the time of the Tyson fight too. So leading up to it, for a week he was creating all of this content. Him and this brother did this like phenomenal like lie detector test video that actually turned out to be an ad halfway through for W. They rolled out in Walmarts nationwide. And then for probably like three weeks afterwards, W played some role in every one of his videos, his reels, his YouTube videos. He changed all of his like social avatars to W and like driving traffic there. And that's where I think a creator led brand has a higher likelihood of getting traction and success when there is a creator who knows how to garner attention and then is repeatedly talking about it over a long period of time.

[Neal Freyman]

Seems like you're talking about commitment.

[Toby Howell]

Yes, yes it is. I mean Jake Paul and Logan Paul, obviously they command a lot of attention. Not all of it good attention all the time. Do you delineate between all attention is good attention or does it have to be like the right kind of attention? Because there's people who can make headlines, but not all of them the most positive. Do you think that brands need to be supported by someone with more positive headlines than negative or does it just not matter?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

I think it's a question of like what, how negative is negative? Right. If they, you kind of look at like Elon Musk and like the impact that it's had on like Tesla and Space X and like how kind of polarizing he has been with like certain views and it's like, can be seen as super negative by a large population of people. I don't see a similar thing like Jake Paul and his brother, like they act stupid A number of times, like, the most negative headline was probably like 15 years ago from them. And so I think in that stage, as long as there isn't this, like, tremendous, like, reputational risk, when they come out and say something, it's kind of just like additional, like, eyeballs and attention on them.

[Toby Howell]

If you did want to launch a brand in the year 2025, how would you do it and would it be much different than it was maybe five years ago, 10 years ago?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Five or 10 years ago? The play was really, we can find an opportunity, and if there's enough, you don't even need that much gross margin on your. On your product. We can just play this arbitrage game on Facebook, right? We can acquire a customer for five bucks. We have 20 bucks of gross margin, and then we can scale that really quickly. Those days are completely over. So one of the conversations I was having, someone was saying, hey, where's the arbitrage right now? And I'm like, you know, for the past 12 months, it's probably been TikTok shop. It'll probably be TikTok shop for the next 12 months. So I'd lean. I'd probably start and lean pretty heavily, like reverse engineer the product and brand to work very well on social. Right? So what this means is for TikTok shop, it's high repeat purchase. It is maybe in the beauty or skin care space, there's a clear kind of demonstration or use case of the product, and it probably sits at under a $40 price point. Again, that's if you want to build a product that can kind of, like, take advantage of some arbitrage that exists from a customer acquisition standpoint. But in terms of, like, foundational brand building, all of that stuff is really the same. And it's like you have to build a community, you have to build loyalty. You can't just rely on one channel. You have to build a kind of, like, omnichannel business. And Those tenants mattered 10 years ago. They mattered 30 years ago. They still matter today. It's just the tooling has changed a little bit.

[Neal Freyman]

You recently went to a Sephora. What did you learn there?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

It's my first time. It was my first time actively at a Sephora. Looking around, there is. There's so much beauty product and there's so many unique names for them. And I'm like, oh, they rebranded lip gloss into like, a collagen lip plumper. Turns out when you do that verbal gymnastics, you can 4x the price of the product. So I think it was an Interesting exercise in seeing how the variety of products, all of the ways that they talk about these products. And then you have some brands that lean heavily beauty and then some brands that lean so heavily into the science and clinical studies that you don't even know what they're saying. And K18 was one brand that stood out to me. They're like biomimetic hair science. And I'm like, do I. I might believe this.

[Toby Howell]

So it sounds like we have to launch a biomechanic lip plumper with collagen on TikTok shop and generate some headlines if we to launch a brand in the year 2025. That seems like. That's all the Venn diagrams right there, right?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

I'm in for a million.

[Toby Howell]

All right, there we go. That's what I'm talking about. All right. We're going to finish off with a kind of fun segment. I just want you to power rank these brands or companies when it comes to their marketing right now. And we're going to start you off in the running space. I know you're a big runner. Power rank on HOKA and Nike.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

So Hoka 1 on 2 onto Nike 3. Why is Hoka 1 probably number one, I really like my Hoka ones. Number two, I think on. On I was really liking until they did this partnership with Zendaya, which I think it just like fell flat for a number of reasons. For me, I think the partnership didn't like make a whole lot of sense, especially as Zendaya has come out and been like, I don't really like run or exercise. And it's like, okay, well, why she like, she plays tennis, the ambassador kind of on screen kind of, kind of. So I was like, okay, what is that? But obviously on is absolutely crushing it. And so it's like, okay, did that one campaign, the one campaign didn't hurt them. But it's like me as I'm staring at him, like, does that make sense?

[Toby Howell]

And then Nike lost its fastball a little bit.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

You know, I think Nike, Nike pulled back so much from their retail distribution and leaned in so heavily into performance marketing. And that's been like the big story and kind of conversation of Nike. And now they're realizing, okay, that was a mistake and we need to like go back into retail and like take, take care of marketing in a less performance oriented way.

[Toby Howell]

Let's do beverages next. Celsius Monster. Red Bull.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Celsius. Well, I think Red Bull's number one. Red Bull's like still goat, right? If we're ranking marketing Consistently their videos and stunts like still pop off and garner so much attention and they've been so good at doing that in a variety of countries, a variety of ways. Tapping to so many different sports cultures in a way that monster. I'm not like terribly familiar with what they're doing still on like a day to day basis. I'm sure it's doing quite well. And then Celsius. Celsius. I see their distribution like you can think of distribution as marketing and they're kind of everywhere and they have these like phenomenal displays and they have a good product that is positioned to like more like a kind of corporate audience. But I don't see what they're really doing from like Brass Tax marketing.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, it's a great point. Like I don't see any marketing for them but you see them everywhere. They're just right.

[Neal Freyman]

When you walk into any convenience store, they're right staring you in the face at the, at the front.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

So which in and of itself clear is that is a really great form of marketing and that can work. And you know they had a huge investment by Pepsi that like opened up all of this distribution for them. But early on I think their positioning was really smart and I still think their positioning is really smart.

[Neal Freyman]

All right, let's go back to AI and we're just talking marketing here. OpenAI anthropic, Google's Gemini or meta. AI.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Meta. I, I haven't seen anything. So. So what will actually worse we'll go anthropic at the bottom. That's like, that's number four. I saw an out of home campaign from, from Claude and none of it made sense to me. Right. The messaging or the positioning. And I think this is kind of a function of you're very close to the product and you know what it is. But the passerby, even people who'd be interested in AI, it's like, well what does that mean? It was like one of the billboards was like your thoughts up and to the right and I was like so like SF coded. And so, so there was one campaign that stood out to me. So I didn't like that. But I'm sure they've turned around, they're doing just fine.

[Toby Howell]

It's, it's interesting because Anthropic to me was the only one with like a visual identity at this point. They have kind of that tan color, they have kind of a fancy font and I'm not sure any of the other ones quite have that same design language. That being said, I don't know what the words are saying on their out of home stuff. They have, you know, a brand. But that's interesting that you ranked it so low because they may have jumped the shark a little bit when it comes to, like, how artsy you can get with AI advertising.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Well, you know what, now that I think about it, did meta I do a ad for the Super Bowl?

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, they did. Well, it was their glasses.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Glasses. Okay. Yeah, that kind of fell a little bit, A little bit flat to me. So we'll rank that as number three. GPT is number two. Because I just can't even think of anything that they've really done. They've just been in this like, dominant number one position that I don't know that they have gone too crazy with their marketing outside of that. And then Google Gemini, you referenced the super bowl ad. I thought that was a great ad because it humanized a way in which you could use AI to some benefit. And I think when the bar is so low that all of these AI companies, it's just like they're talking to other AI leaders at their companies. This is the first one that's like, hey, let's take just like a human first approach and like try to create this narrative that we're like solving their problems somehow a little bit easier.

[Toby Howell]

The bar is so low and people are limping over it at this point. Let's talk about people. These are just the PR images of certain celebrities. And I want you to thank Sydney Sweeney, Timothy Chalamet, and Glenn Powell, who's kind of on top of the heap right now.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Timothee Chalamet, I think is winning. Timothee Chalamet is winning after, what was it his Oscar speech?

[Toby Howell]

Do you want to Oscar? I don't know if he did. He had some speech.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

He had some speech that was super humble and he just kind of like reinforced this idea of just like hard work and like humility. And I was like, okay, that's like, really great. He didn't come in this like, super braggy do show way. I think he just like got great swag that like a lot of people just kind of like, you know, vibe with. And so we'll rank him as number one. Sydney Sweeney's just like been on a tear and so I think she's number two. She did a partnership recently where she bottled up her bath water with Dr. Squatch. And so she plays. She plays her cards to the audience.

[Toby Howell]

You know, what did you think about that?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Partnership gets attention. Yeah, it gets attention. I'm sure they sold those bars.

[Toby Howell]

We tried. No one bought it. We tried to body up our bathwater. No one was really buying the new bathwater. Complete fail on our part.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Well, you know, I think we have a better idea in the Biomechanical Living Plumber.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, exactly. We got that going.

[Neal Freyman]

Emily's telling me the Timothee Chalamet speech was at the SAG Awards. If you want to go watch.

[Toby Howell]

It was.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Toby Howell]

It was about him wanting to become great. Yeah.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Yes.

[Toby Howell]

I mean, yes. If he should have passed on some of the greatness to the Knicks because it didn't work out so well for them. Neil, you want to do our finest final category?

[Neal Freyman]

Sure. Final category. We got wellness trends, creatine, protein, THC drinks.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

God, there's protein in everything.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Khloe Kardashian just launched a protein popcorn.

[Toby Howell]

Hilarious. Because it has, like, five grams of protein. Does that really count as protein? Like, that's hardly anything right there.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

So here's the thing. It seems that people want protein. Okay, fine. We can put it in more form factors. I think the question is how, like, digestible and bioavailable does that protein come? And I don't know the research or science behind that, and I don't know that a lot of people starting these brands also know that research and science. They're just trying to, like, load it up in there. And it's like, well, hey, you're only gonna absorb 2 grams of the 30 grams here because you actually need it with all these other ingredients that make this an unsustainable product to create. So I'm kind of out on that. I think there will probably be some conversation that, like, cools the jets a little bit on protein infused everything. Creatine has had this, like, interesting turnaround because when I was in high school, it was like creatine was this kind of demonized thing. Creatine was almost like taking steroids, right? And it's like, oh, don't do that. It's gonna, like, jack up your mus. Now there's all this research coming out that it's like a performance enhancing, like, you know, it decreases your chance of, like, dementia and Alzheimer's, and if you're tired, you can take it. And it, like, has all these great benefits. So seeing some of that at least, like, headline research come out, I think is turning the tides on creatine. And so there's a ton of demand there. And so, like, if that's true, are we going to see it in, like, creatine popcorn, maybe? And Then so now let me rank it. THC drinks number one creatine number two, protein number three.

[Toby Howell]

Why do you, why are you so bullish on thc?

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

We have people drinking less and I think if you have people drinking less and want to live a healthier lifestyle, it has to be something has to take its place because why were we drinking in the first place? It's a social lubricant. So it's like okay, there's some drug, there's some like mind altering substance that's going to take its place and now that looks like THC and they're putting it in a beverage. So like similar form factor. You can drink it in the same situation. So I think that's hot category.

[Neal Freyman]

I don't know how much THC is a social lubricant.

[Toby Howell]

They're going to lubricate just sitting, staring at immediately down and eating the, probably eating the creatine popcorn because you got a little bit of the munchies. Aspen, thanks so much for dropping by. We love talking, talking marketing and branding with you. We could go on all day. If you want to hear more from Aspen, you can follow him at Schwinnabago Brand great social handle on all social platforms. He posts videos breaking down the biggest marketing stories and brands of the day. So definitely give him a follow. Ashwin, thanks for jumping by.

[Ashwin Krishna Swamy]

Thank you for having me.

[Neal Freyman]

There's something percolating at Morning Brew that we are very excited to share with you all.

[Toby Howell]

Cappuccino machine?

[Neal Freyman]

What? No. The launch of revenue brew on June 17th. We talked about this.

[Toby Howell]

We also talked about the cappuccino machine, but no one ever listens to me.

[Neal Freyman]

And continuing with that proud tradition, we're excited to partner with Outreach for the launch of this new vertical.

[Toby Howell]

Outreach is a single platform supercharging the entire revenue team. Their integrated AI agents help sales leaders increase productivity, make more precise decisions and guide sellers towards activities that generate mort pipe.

[Neal Freyman]

And with their help, Revenue Brew will serve up sales, strategy, operations, tech and everything in between. From the CRO's corner office to the SDR trenches, Revenue Brew serves up cross industry insights including everything from CPG secrets to cutting edge SaaS strategies.

[Toby Howell]

And while I'm still waiting for that, a cappuccino machine.

[Neal Freyman]

So not happening.

[Toby Howell]

A man can dream, Neal. But no dreaming necessary here. Go ahead and subscribe at the very real revenue brew.com for a biweekly dose of revenue review. That's revenuebrew. Com.