← The Art of the Brand
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- [00:00]
Philip Miller
BMW has the brand or the slogan the ultimate driving experience. Then Tesla comes along using AI in a whole different world of looking at the driving experience and has changed the driving experience for less money with better performance. And it's stealing market share at a very fast rate.
- [00:15]
Camille Moore
It's like the number one car, right? How do you compete with that when Prada's product is the same as yours, but they can enter in with what the brand Prada means to the consumer.
- [00:26]
Philip Miller
People aren't going to keep paying more and more to have 25 different moisturizer brands because they're excited about it. At some point that industry going to collapse.
- [00:33]
Camille Moore
And it said you have saved a total of 137 hours on Instacart by using Instacart this year. And when I saw that, it instantly gave me the justification I needed for the the margin increase on the products being sold, the delivery fee and charging it to be expressed. Campaigners welcome meta and YouTube's defeat in a landmark social media addiction trial. I don't think think the solution is to make social media apps less tailored to an individual person. And I think that completely undermines or it completely undermines who Alex Earle is and what she represents because she is a content creator and she understands capturing attention, which is why her launch this past week was a masterclass in anticipation marketing. Barbara Stern was able to sell her direct to consumer line for $400 million. And because all these celebrities organically wanted to take a selfie with Barbara Sturm and post with her. That was her marketing. For me, when I hear this song, this sounds to me like my people are going to be crowding around these events. I better be aware of them.
- [01:42]
Philip Miller
This is North American pride. You're coming into our house.
- [01:46]
Camille Moore
It's also a pendulum swing from the super bowl song, you know, like from doing it all in Spanish, like, this is going back. I just, it. I think it's great. Aries launches campaign starring Pamela with 100% Arie Real pledge, which is a commitment to never using AI generated people or bodies in its marketing.
- [02:03]
Philip Miller
What this is doing is saying, hey, we're humans. Let's judge beauty by actual humans, not by tech, not by AI.
- [02:09]
Camille Moore
I don't just want to celebrate the idea of like, we should protect young girls, we should protect young girls. But at the end of the day, if you're just chasing the narratives of what's the right thing to say versus what's in line with your brand, how does that impact the ultimate end goal of how many products are we Selling. What a brand, what a brand, what a brand, what a mighty good brand. Say it again now. What a brand, what a brand, what a brand, what a mighty. Welcome back to another episode of the Art of the Brand podcast. I'm Camille Moore.
- [02:38]
Philip Miller
And I'm Philip Miller.
- [02:40]
Camille Moore
And this is the number one branding podcast. Today's episode, we're going to cover a ton of different topics. We're going to kick off with the concern of the future of branding and why brands that are not storytelling are losing and that loyalty is at an all time low. We're going to talk about Target investing a billion dollars into its retail experience. We're going to break down Alex Earl and her real actives and what you guys can learn from anticipation marketing. We're going talk about the FIFA World cup theme song and we're going to sprinkle in some other hot topics along the way. So, Philip, I want you to kick off on the concern on the future of branding. You listened to a really interesting episode this week and it allowed for a great dialogue between us.
- [03:21]
Philip Miller
I was listening to the all in podcast, one of my favorite podcasts. Chamath is on there. He helped found Facebook, but he was talking about brand longevity. And I think one of the things that we're encountering are big brands were a little overconfident about how much legacy and longevity they have. They're kind of looking in the past and say, because we've been big for so long, we're going to be big forever. And I've had conversations with some of our clients saying, don't get complacent, don't get arrogant. The hoards are coming for you. And the way that tech is growing so fast with AI, it's changing the timeline in terms of how long you think you can hold the number one position. And what Chamath was saying is because innovation is happening so fast, people can replicate your product, improve it, make it better, and get out five iterations. And your brand promise isn't as strong as it used to be to hold them there unless you're really doing something. The example was BMW that has the brand, the logo or the slogan. The ultimate driving experience. And that held true for like 20 to 30 years. They focused on the driver because their product was so detailed and wired. Then Tesla comes along using AI in a whole different world of looking at the driving experience and has changed the driving experience for less money with better performance, and it's stealing market share at a very fast rate.
- [04:40]
Camille Moore
It's like the number one car right like, it's how fast people have bought
- [04:43]
Philip Miller
the Model Y. Bestselling car on the planet is the Model Y. And people have to keep this in perspective. Nobody had created a new car company for 50 years.
- [04:53]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [04:53]
Philip Miller
And then Tesla comes around and on American soul soil makes the best selling car in the world because he's using tech. So the kind of arrogance of we're Ford, so we'll be here forever, we're BMW and we don't have to innovate and be like, that's really being challenged. I think we're seeing it in some legacy skincare areas. Some other big brands that might be too confident they're going to be around for another decade and they're not focusing enough on what their clients need.
- [05:18]
Camille Moore
Well, it's so fascinating when you consider that Elon doesn't spend money on marketing. Like the product has been adopted so quickly at such a huge rate because it's just far superior from the other products. But it's interesting because that poses an interesting question of like, where does brand loyalty go? If everything is just innovating at a speed that it's so hard to focus in that lagging indicator on brand. Right. Because if you're investing in a brand, but your product just has no. Like, the reason why you build brands is to maintain trust and credibility over time. So if that is in question, kind of being out the window, what does that mean for brands today?
- [06:01]
Philip Miller
There's a gray area where you're gonna stay true to your brand. Cause you prefer it. Right. Like the Pepsi Coke taste test told people, you know, they may have said that Coke Pepsi tasted a little bit better than Coke, but they didn't switch from their brand because it wasn't a huge difference big enough to make somebody break a habit. And in the car example, when the tech is so different that it's noticeable and palatable, it will break a habit. I think it's going to happen in the skincare world where there's people who had their skin care regimes or brands that they were loyal to. But once it gets to a point where there's clearly one substantially better at half price, that's where you lose the brand loyalty.
- [06:39]
Camille Moore
Well, that's why there's a lot of conversation online about dupe culture. You know, it's like a brand spends so much money doing all the R and D, doing this big launch, paying for someone to be the face of it, and then as soon as it hits the market, it can be replicated, slightly tweaked and sold at a fraction of the price, because a big port. The big reason of why beauty also has such big margins, they have to spend so much money in marketing and branding to penetrate through the noise. So it becomes so complicated. Like dupe cultures become such a big thing. Because the idea is once someone's done the innovation and someone can break that off, why pay the premium?
- [07:17]
Philip Miller
And it's harder and harder to protect the IP now because it gets manufactured offshore and comes in and it's. And the direct consumer patent law is
- [07:24]
Camille Moore
like a joke too.
- [07:25]
Philip Miller
Now the direct to consumer online makes it harder to shut down a manufacturing plant or a fulfillment plant.
- [07:31]
Camille Moore
So I was actually talking to Dianessa Myricks about this the other day. Big Beauty brand founder, someone had like completely ripped off their site and was selling like basically her product, but on a bootleg site. And you've been seeing so many founders talk about this because basically people go on and it's like 80% of the price. They pretend like it's a huge sale, they rack up all these sales, they never send you anything, and then they shut it down and they create basically another page by the time that you can catch them. And it's like these huge scams.
- [08:01]
Philip Miller
It's interesting because in the pharmaceutical world, the reason why there's such a markup is they spend in some cases tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on R D to find the formulation, to test it, the product. So they have to spend $100 million to get it. So there's a margin there.
- [08:19]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [08:20]
Philip Miller
Skincare has a giant margin because they're spending so much on branding. Yeah, right. As opposed to you're not spending it necessarily on R and D. Some are like, if they have labs, that makes sense. But if the margin is so high because you're spending it on marketing and branding, why would I be paying for your marketing and branding for my dollars? Like, why wouldn't I just go where I can get the product that works the best for me? And that's where like a retailer or somewhere that has credibility and authority can sort it a little bit for me, and then I can get a price point that's not five times higher. Because they're spending it on marketing.
- [08:56]
Camille Moore
I don't think it's that fair to say. I think that's oversimplifying the complication of what exists to be in a saturated industry where you don't need the product. Right. Like, there's a big margin on beauty. The product is great. If your product is not great, you get blasted. If you've got Great marketing and branding because you also have all these TikTok warriors that create content that your product is subpar. Like there's not a ton of beauty.
- [09:21]
Philip Miller
You just said the products are being copied so the products are good enough. Right. But are you telling me that consumers should pay 5, 4 times the cost of the product because of marketing and branding or shouldn't they just be paying a reasonable markup based on what the product costs and an average marketing campaign? It's almost like the system is amplifying itself. Well, because there's more people. We have to spend more on marketing because we're spending more on marketing. We have to spend more on marketing because we're all spending more on marketing. The prices are doubling. Who's getting screwed as the consumer? It's triple the value of what they're getting.
- [09:55]
Camille Moore
Imagine you're launching a skincare brand and it costs you $4 to make the product. It costs everyone to make four, four to seven dollars to make the product. But the MSRP in the marketplace is for you to sell that from, for 25 to 37. Why would you sell it at 14? Right. That also kind of tells the consumer that they're like, that's where the ordinary kind of came in and they did a ton of marketing of like, we are selling our product at a reasonable price point.
- [10:24]
Philip Miller
But it's if there was only like a razor company that had a good example of that, you know, the everyday razor company.
- [10:29]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [10:30]
Philip Miller
So they came in and sold it because they focused on the value. It was the same components, it was almost the same shave. It was one third of the price. What you're describing in the, in the beauty industry, from what I've seen in other markets, is, is the, the beginning of the collapse when everybody is spending so much on marketing to make so much noise and the product quality is not even featured. As we talked about last week, people aren't even talking a lot about the quality formulations. It's just a competition to out shout each other. In the digital world, the prices are going up. You're going to see a backlash where people are like, I'm not paying all of this all the time for all this stuff. You might see a big collapse in the market as we go back to market indicators that reflect value.
- [11:07]
Camille Moore
Yeah, I mean, I think we got, we got far past the point on the question of like, where is loyalty going in innovation? Like, it's a complicated. We're having two different conversations. If you have to spend 2.2 million to formulate your SPF moisturizer and to get that to market and to launch it and you do all of that and somebody can, an ELF beauty can put it in a century, send it off and be able to get a way crazier moq price point because they're elf and they can undercut it and charge it for $7. How frustrating is that for you as a business owner? Because, like, the tech is now no longer, like restricted. And I think the conversation of where I wanted to take the discussion of where you listen to in the podcast is there's a lot of brands, especially the big brands, that are not doing a good job on storytelling that point of difference, because in, you know, with us just being at Nike, they have an entire university building. Like, it's not legit a university building, but it's the size of like an entire engineering building that you'd see on a campus just dedicated to scientific research on improving their products.
- [12:17]
Philip Miller
Is a university building in that It's a research lab.
- [12:19]
Camille Moore
Yeah, it's huge.
- [12:20]
Philip Miller
They exist on university campuses and they exist on the Nike campus.
- [12:24]
Camille Moore
And it's the biggest in the world. It's the biggest scientific development for a retail brand in the world. And have you ever heard about this? No. We're working with this huge skincare brand in Europe. They have an entire science dedicated science lab, which is one of the reasons why they could compete with these other big houses. So because Estee Lauder and l' Oreal had the R and D on American and European soil, what's changed is that the tech has been democratized and it exists in emerging economies where you can get it for pennies on the dollar. In fact, Kim Jones, who just left the LVMH empire, is like staying in fashion in Asia because he's like, you have no idea. The tech that these Chinese factories have, it's literally like living in the future. And it's unlike the factory experience in China is so advanced. You know how you talk about having a tank battle and the different countries you're going to resources against and like, you don't want to fight the US in a tank resource. The Chinese factory experience is that analogy that you use of it's so powerful, it's so advanced that we can't compete any longer.
- [13:38]
Philip Miller
The Chinese market was one. First it was a labor advantage and then it was a tool in dying. Like, they can, they can set up a factory line very quickly because they have all of the components there, all the supply there. Like, I think they have a problem in that they have a Manpower shortage coming, Their population is aging and their established infrastructure has been grown over the last 20 to 30 years. Like, I think the US could start using new type of infrastructure to build stuff, new AI and new tech. So you could compete against it, but not just on their terms.
- [14:08]
Camille Moore
What do you think is the solution? Or what should brand founders be thinking of? Based on Chamath's insight from innovation, like, where can brands win?
- [14:18]
Philip Miller
It's something that you should be discussing in your boardroom and your leadership teams is like, where is the tech threat coming from? Is our product good enough as it is? And just don't assume it's going to be good enough for the next five years, depending on what market segment you're in. But you have to respond to the battlefield conditions. And so if people are going to come up and dupe you or copy you and do that all the time, then maybe, as you said, it's the experience, it's the story, it's the affiliation of what it makes you feel rather than what it does. That's where the marketing is coming in. It's just that at that price point, at some point you're going to run out of space. People aren't going to keep paying more and more to have 25 different moisturizer brands because they're, because they're excited about it at some point that that industry is going to collapse.
- [14:59]
Camille Moore
My last point on this, which I think is fascinating for where you took it from. A margin conversation. It's so easy to say that these brands are bad because they're making such a cushy margin. But then on another hand, when we went to the Prada beauty pop up this past weekend, what's interesting is so Prada beauty, of all of those luxury houses to enter the beauty game, like, they're among the last kind of Louis Vuitton has entered since. But really Chanel and Dior are really showing, like, how powerful designer beauty is because of that kind of almost lipstick effect, right? Like, and we saw it when we looked at those touch blushes. They basically created this blush out of the Prada logo. And when I looked at the other products, they're really designed so that when you open up your makeup bag, you feel like you have a mini Birkin and a mini Chanel bag and a mini Prada bag. And how it's going to be even more complicated for these, like, emerging brands to compete with $38 blush that makes you feel like you've got Prada in your makeup bag. And how I saw at a Different level in a like, I mean, I've been tracking the Dior and the Chanel Beauty for years, but seeing how Prada has entered into it so intentionally for that make a bag experience. How much the justification of spending the 38 to $68 on blush, it wouldn't make sense if it was cheaper than that. Do you know what I'm saying? Like it wouldn't make sense. And it's so hard for these other brands to compete because the more space you let between Prada and your Blush when It's only at $68 for a blush product, how do you compete with that when Prada's product is the same as yours, but they can enter in with what the brand Prada means to the consumer.
- [16:48]
Philip Miller
That's the market advantage they have with the well established brand. They can compete on those, those, those margin pressure points and their reach. So you know, it's difficult. You just need good advisors to help you through it. Because I think too many people are just spending money on marketing because they think they're supposed to and they're not doing it well and they're just bleeding their investors money.
- [17:07]
Camille Moore
I think that's a great way to wrap that up. Because what's interesting is we have such an interesting vantage point because we see into both, you know, small businesses to the big businesses and the gap in where the big businesses are struggling the most is on this storytelling. So where I would be focusing outside of what you're saying more the scaling on the innovation in tech. Like you have to keep looking forward and not get comfortable. But you also really need to lean into the storytelling of what makes you different. Which I think is a good segue into Instacart. Because this week I was on Instacart and I use Instacart quite a bit. And after making my last Instacart purchase, a screen popped up at the end after I created my transaction or right when I was clicking the Apple Pay and it said, you have saved a total of 137 hours on Instacart by using Instacart this year. And when I saw that, it instantly gave me the justification I needed for the, the margin increase on the products being sold, the delivery fee and charging it to be express. Because funny enough, I was actually going to the Ulta red carpet that night. We're going together and I needed to get. The belt that I was wearing was too big, so I needed to punch a hole. So I ordered it from Home Depot and how guilty I felt that it was you know, a $75 purchase. But then when it reframed my time with the time cost analysis, how much more indebted I felt to the platform.
- [18:37]
Philip Miller
And even if you look at the way that Camille is talking about it, it's brilliant because it speaks to the ego of the customer so much. You saved 100 hours. Oh, my God, this is so good. It doesn't speak to the fact that you probably spent three to four times more than you would have normally. You probably could have organized your list to go to the shop once a week, rather than they're saying, because every time you order, it would have taken 45 minutes to go buy that, they add it all up. So it's just a very effective way to capture it, as opposed to. I always revert to the. You know, what is the real message is it's not necessarily. It could be that we're buying too much too often, but you can get your customers to spend way more by speaking to the problem that they think you're solving.
- [19:23]
Camille Moore
The core takeaway from this is that why you need to focus on problem matching. Like, what does your customer care about? And how do you spend? Speak to their hero story. Because the whole what Instacart is doing that's brilliant is they understand that they're a guide. Like, they're guiding you on your problem to give you a better solution. And even the way that Philip and I see this differently is so interesting because he's someone that's critical of me wanting to cut corners and order it to the house. Like, he's someone, like, even the way that you just heard, he would rather rearrange his entire week to, like, go do it in person. I would rather pay the 30% difference, have it delivered to me so that I can keep working and focusing on whatever I think is more of a priority. So the way that Instacart, I'm more of their ideal customer. Because Philip wouldn't use Instacart as often. You wouldn't use it as often as I do.
- [20:19]
Philip Miller
I don't like shopping, but I think we could be more organized and deliberate about our purchasing as a society. But when you get addicted to Instacart, something pops in your head. You pop on Instacart, it gets delivered to you.
- [20:31]
Camille Moore
I didn't have time that day.
- [20:32]
Philip Miller
No, no, I'm not talking about that day. But in your mind, if you say, hey, I'm saving time by using Instacart, it gives you permission to be ordering things that maybe you shouldn't be or maybe we should be planning on it. There's that whole thing before you buy something, wait a day. The belt thing, we need it. But if you wait until the next day, often you don't buy it. But it's called Insta Cart.
- [20:51]
Camille Moore
I feel the opposite. I feel like I get more of. I find when I go to the grocery store I end up buying more stuff I don't need than if I'm in.
- [21:00]
Philip Miller
Because you don't have a list.
- [21:01]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [21:02]
Philip Miller
People who are organized know what they need for the week. They've got their meals planned out and then they buy.
- [21:06]
Camille Moore
Also the way that I'm using it, I don't have kids, I'm heavily focused on work and any way that allows me to put more hours into building my business is a better use of time for me. So from a who is that?
- [21:19]
Philip Miller
What I would just say to business owners is often don't believe your own hype. The way to save time is to plan. But in a busy culture where we're constantly distracted, nobody's actually taking an hour out and planning and putting their phone down and saying what do I need this week here it's a market reality that you could take advantage of in your business. But if you're a business owner and you want to save time, it's not by having everything instant, it's by carving out three hours a week to actually do deep thinking and plan on what you need in the week.
- [21:45]
Camille Moore
I just have a different mindset. That hour is worth so much more to me than me for me to write out a grocery list and for me to go than for me to have the AI that's pre programmed that knows what I like to buy. For me to create a visual list, see the products and then have it be at my front door in an hour. And me, I've tipped the person that has been able to drive it to me.
- [22:05]
Philip Miller
The beauty of it is it creates a fake sense of power by allow but you actually are losing power because people we're going to talk about on the social media segment, people are losing power but they think they're more empowered because they're controlling small things.
- [22:20]
Camille Moore
Well, let's talk about it. Well, let's talk about the social media. So what happened this week? There was a huge headline between Meta and YouTube having to pay out a
- [22:31]
Philip Miller
20 year old female in California who sued saying that the social media platforms were destructive to her and gave her four or five different ailments made her unable to operate. TikTok and Snapchat were on There I think they, they settled before, but to do a jury trial in California is very dangerous. Juries in California love to give away money and they awarded a few million dollars to this young adult female for all these ailments that were apparently caused by social media.
- [23:00]
Camille Moore
What do you think about it?
- [23:01]
Philip Miller
There's a few levels there. One, my kind of rogue lawyer level, like there's an accountability crisis in the world. There's also having worked with trial lawyers and I respect a lot of what they do, but they will create industries for money. And we live in a society that has commodified victimization. So there's 500 more times ailments today than there was 30 years ago. So we're creating ailments, we're fitting them into circumstances. And it's never the person's fault, it's always the corporation's fault. And that makes a lot of money for the law firms, especially in jurisdictions like California. My thought is like, should you sue your parents if they let you on the platforms? Like if your parents let you play with a blowtorch, you know, and you knew it was dangerous. Do you see the blowtorch company or is it the parents at fault? I don't know. From an accountability perspective, it's very interesting. But I think, you know, in our business where we operate on social media platforms, we want them to perform, to deliver what we want as a customer.
- [24:00]
Camille Moore
I think it's complicated. So basically the headline is like campaigners welcome meta and YouTube's defeat in a landmark social media addiction trial. So the way that it was positioned is that like these platforms are so addictive and the UI UX is contributing to. So the actual design of the platform as well as the content that's put on it are all contributing to the destruction of society. And Snapchat and TikTok paid. They settled earlier so that they wouldn't make the headlines. But what's interesting is like she was only awarded 6 million, so it's being split 3 and 3. Yeah, well, I mean in a for California, the verdict sizes that they get are u usually insane. Like they're crazy numbers.
- [24:47]
Philip Miller
So from a California psychological injuries.
- [24:49]
Camille Moore
Yeah, I know. It's crazy that they did personal injury damages. The thing that was complicated in me, like listening to what people are saying about this is I don't think the solution is to make social media apps less tailored to an individual person. It poses an interesting conversation. Like when the social dilemma, when that movie came out or the documentary on Netflix and everyone was so blown away by it. I'm like, this is kind of the social contract in that I get annoyed when I see ads that aren't tailored to me. When I'm on my phone and I'm scrolling and I see, like an F150, like, very, like, trucker, like a fisherman kind of commercial, to me, it's like a waste of my time because based on everything that the platform can know about me, like, why isn't it better tailored? Same thing of when I go online and I see content that's not tailored to my interests, I don't find it interesting. So I. It's an interesting dilemma because I think now that we know that things can be tailored and customized for you, why would I want to go back to a generic model? Like, TV was good when TV was all that could exist.
- [25:55]
Philip Miller
Social media is an entertainment platform. Every entertainment platform has as its goal to be as entertaining as possible. So a video game. People get addicted to video games because they're trying to be as entertaining and enjoyable as possible. At some point, it becomes a consumer's role to say, I don't want to do just what's fun or just what's convenient. I want to do what's smart and what's good for me. Right? And that's the issue. Movies try to be as entertaining as possible. TV shows, video games, social media. That's the issue is should social media not try and be as entertaining as possible? What people have to understand is that entertainment isn't the path to happiness. If it's entertainment alone, you have to be able to control it. But when it's put in the hands of a child. Tobacco companies realized decades ago that if you could get somebody aligned with your brand in high school, they'd stick with it for two decades. So they actually did advertising campaigns that were directed at children because they could get them hooked early. I'm not sure men in YouTube are directing anything at children. Their content is just great.
- [26:55]
Camille Moore
And so YouTube has YouTube kids.
- [26:58]
Philip Miller
So if you have YouTube, that wasn't part of the algorithm that was manipulating them. It's more like the shorts and the flash. But YouTube kids are. That's just child programming. Right?
- [27:08]
Camille Moore
I want to break this down, and maybe this is like a hot take or an unpopular opinion, but it's easy to use language that the content is manipulative because it's tailored to what you have expressed wanting interest in. And that's where social media has become, to me, the most powerful tool in the world. When I create content online or when we create content online, it goes exactly to our target customer. Like, that is the best. Like, from an hour. Like, if we spend an hour recording this and it's 8 hours to edit it, those hours are used to the greatest advantage because it's being served directly to who would best benefit from the content. Like, that trade off to me is so important. I understand why there's an issue of, like, misinformation and the problem with fake news and like, I understand there's a larger issue with that. But at its core, do we pay out damages as being platforms that offer the ability for users to create content that's tailored to service niche audiences?
- [28:09]
Philip Miller
There's three things I take out of this. One, these cases will be appealed. So, and usually on appeal, these awards don't, don't survive because there's a business interest. Because if these things keep happening, social media will go away in some cases, and society won't allow that to happen. If you care about children, there's a couple things you should know. One, the people who own these platforms don't allow their kids on it.
- [28:31]
Camille Moore
Yeah, that's a great point.
- [28:32]
Philip Miller
So. But they parent. Yeah. So they're like, I, you know, this is for this person. It's not for you at eight years old. Right. And so they don't allow it on there. The problem is, is socioeconomically, you know, for people who don't have as much money or can't afford babysitters or can't take them to all the activities, you know, a phone becomes the babysitter that allows a single mom to work. So is that the angle? How do you fix that angle? That it's just incredibly entertaining for a young child to be on a tablet?
- [29:01]
Camille Moore
Well, I don't think you're explaining this as clearly as what you're saying is, like, it becomes a class issue. So the people who are the most successful, and we're speaking more broadly, like the shamas that were involved in creating Facebook, they don't allow their kids on the platform. And they go to schools where social media is not allowed. So it doesn't.
- [29:20]
Philip Miller
The phones are put in Faraday bags so they can't be used.
- [29:23]
Camille Moore
It doesn't become like a group, you know, like what we were talking about last week of, like, these moms having to be like, every. Every kid in the classroom has the $8 lip gloss. How come my, like, you know, is your daughter the only one without it? Social media is actually a banned policy in those elite schools. But when you look at lower class or lower middle class or middle class you don't have those guardrails. So it's becoming this gap where socials are or tablets or phones are given as a way to help parents parent.
- [29:57]
Philip Miller
But there's the phones now you can give the flip phones that just have a GPS and you can just call. Right. Or text. So if the parent gives the child the phone without restrictions on the phone, is the parent not responsible for what happened to the kid because the parent knows that that's on the phone?
- [30:13]
Camille Moore
Well, the other thing that's complicated too is like when you talk about, in broad strokes, some parents who might not be watching the best TV programs that might be scrolling themselves on social media all day, they don't think that it's as problematic because those parents didn't grow up with socials, but they are surrounded by socials. So, like the language, you know, like how Maha is now doing all of these advertising commercials of like, eat apples, eat vegetables. Like, is the onus now on the government to start creating these PSAs of like, create limited social times because of X. Right. Because I think it is a gap in education.
- [30:51]
Philip Miller
If Apple wanted to do something that helped kids, they should come up with an iPad that is very easy for a parent to set up with controls on it that says, okay, this iPad is filled with 20 educational apps. And so you give, if you need to give it to a child to occupy them, because you don't have babysitting, have it. So they have to do 20 minutes of work on educational app and then they get 10 minutes of something that's a little more fun. We could actually. It's the tech, it's the access to the apps through the hardware, which is really where you can put the governors on. Because if you put like age restrictions on these social media platforms, there's lots of ways to bypass it. The kids want to be on them. You have to find a way to keep them off it. It's not by. I don't think it's by suing the apps. I think it's by controlling the hardware.
- [31:36]
Camille Moore
Well, you had a really good idea about, like, for kids that want to go on an app, they have to do like five minutes or 10 minutes of like critical math or like, oh
- [31:47]
Philip Miller
yeah, 20 minutes of learning apps and then you unlock 10 minutes of fun.
- [31:52]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [31:53]
Philip Miller
And kids would do it. You'd gamify it. They could level up so they would be actually using the hardware, you know, for an act of good rather than just let them go down a rabbit hole of social media.
- [32:02]
Camille Moore
I think that's the Thing that's complicated for me is that Gary Vee talks about this a lot with his kids, and he's like, we're in a digital world. Like, why would I keep my kids from digital stuff? So that, what, by the time they're 18, they have no digital experience? Like, that's also. It's. It's complicated. But I think overall, it's about understanding how to live with technology. And we have to start thinking about it in a way of it is so powerful, it can be so positive, but it can also be so negative if you're not aware of how addictive easy entertainment can be and how manipulative it can be as well. Next, I talk about Alix Earl and her line that she dropped this week, Real Actives, her skincare line. And there's definitely some controversy there that we can get into. But what's more interesting is that people are grouping this as if it's just another celebrity skincare brand. And I think that completely undermines, or it completely undermines who Alex Earle is and what she represents, because she is a content creator and she understands capturing attention, which is why her launch this past week was a masterclass in anticipation marketing. And it's relevant because people are. People undermine that she's just gonna sell out because of who she is, and they're not connecting that she is going to sell out because of who she is.
- [33:25]
Philip Miller
The difference between her model and a celebrity brand model is, let's say there's a famous celebrity who starts a beauty brand. They're well known because they acted right. They took roles, they acted a role, and then a production studio made it for them, and then they said their lines and they were glamorous and famous and people will buy because of that affiliation. But a content creator who becomes a celebrity has done the reps making the content.
- [33:52]
Camille Moore
Yes.
- [33:52]
Philip Miller
Like, actually in the production and then connecting with their audience, not through lines told to them, but because they are trying to connect with their audience so they have an established communication for it. So Alex Earl, when she does her thing, she knows what she's doing.
- [34:06]
Camille Moore
Yes.
- [34:07]
Philip Miller
Like, the quality of that campaign on the billboards is as good as I've seen.
- [34:11]
Camille Moore
Top notch.
- [34:12]
Philip Miller
Right.
- [34:12]
Camille Moore
It's even more than the billboards. Like, there were so many Easter eggs that came before it. And she's maintaining the narrative by bringing her community along. And it's what people are missing, is that the way to win in launches is to stop thinking that the world is waiting for your perfect product to come out and to, like, everyone's just going to have their wallets ready to go. She has captivated the Internet's attention for the last two and a half weeks. The product's not even for sale yet, so that by the time it's ready to go live, people can mark it in their calendars. Like, it's why Chelsea park and her park sweaters have been so successful. She's created anticipation. Same with Dairyboy. They let their community know what's coming and when so that there's a lineup of people ready to go when it's time to buy.
- [34:56]
Philip Miller
It's an interesting conundrum because these celebrity brands can do very well. But if you're a celebrity, you're used to working with, like, production studios and big PR or agencies. But that's not actually the model of what makes it work. It's these. These creators who have the most experience creating things that are interesting for people.
- [35:16]
Camille Moore
Yes.
- [35:16]
Philip Miller
And Hollywood isn't really creating things that are interesting for people anymore. No, they're recycling things. They're doing productions, they're spending millions.
- [35:24]
Camille Moore
And all these brands are doing the same thing. They're doing this expensive launch event where they have someone there and they drop this product and they, like, get a few pieces online and they hope it's gonna sell out. And, like, that's boring. People want that. You have to do these tease strategies. You have to do this anticipation and hype these events.
- [35:41]
Philip Miller
When I look at through my cynical. All they're doing is making your friends who want to get invited to things feel good. And everybody gets to take pictures, but you're spending millions of dollars and you're not getting the impact you should be getting.
- [35:52]
Camille Moore
No, it's a huge cash burr. But I do want to talk about the controversy side because I was with our friend Shani Darden, fantastic facialist, got a line at Sephora, and her and I were talking about Alix Earle, and she was like, I don't understand why she. And this is not a her thing. My entire feed, because we're so connected with beauty founders, has just been ripping that. Alix Earle launches this skincare line that documents her acne journey, where her products are filled with ingredients that cause acne. And they're all up in arms like, they're so. They're like, how could you do this? When everybody's new Shopify website has the same AI tool where you. You can copy and paste the ingredient list and tell you what is clog pouring or pore clogging and what is whatever not good for your skin not clean, blah, blah, blah. And what's so hilarious is that beauty brands are so fixated on criticizing why everybody is not good or not, like not perfect enough, opposed to realizing that when you create demand and anticipation and you create a narrative storyline that people buy into and make them feel excited, that's what they're looking for. Because this approach and it's sad and like, that's the thing that's like, hard for me to say out loud because Alex has gone on Accutane several times. When you look at her extreme before and afters and the inflamed red face that's not being done by these skincare products that are being sold, she is leaning into a narrative that isn't 100% truthful and is misguiding her fan base of younger people. But then there's another side of all of these skincare founders are floundering and struggling because they want to tell you how wrong and how shitty your product is without learning what they can take from these strategies.
- [37:41]
Philip Miller
It goes back to the signal and the noise. There's always going to be tons of noise of shitty people trying to rip you apart. If you've got more than air in your ingredients, somebody is going to find something that causes cancer.
- [37:52]
Camille Moore
Not organic air.
- [37:53]
Philip Miller
Right?
- [37:53]
Camille Moore
Not organic.
- [37:54]
Philip Miller
It's the whole clean. The whole clean industry now is also about trying to get more audience. So everything causes cancer except for the. But some of our products.
- [38:04]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [38:04]
Philip Miller
From Alex Earl's perspective, she just went on a journey. Like she has a real life journey and trauma through it. So for her to come up with a skincare, I'm not offended that it's not Accutane in it because she tried everything to get through there. So her product is trying to help teenagers not have to go through it as bad as her. Yeah. Right. And so I think that's a cool message and that's what I would double down on with her. And of course you're going to get all these people, mostly failed people will come and start attacking her and saying, you're not righteous enough, this isn't organic enough, there's not enough of this. And it like all that's noise. She's winning because she understands how to connect with the customer.
- [38:36]
Camille Moore
And what also these people are not, are not realizing too is like, you're not the customer. Right. Like, because people were criticizing, you know, the, the dermatologist that she partnered with and like not agreeing with the steps
- [38:48]
Philip Miller
down the line acne cream. And you have somebody complaining that it's going to Give me age spots.
- [38:53]
Camille Moore
Literally. Literally. I wanted to kind of pull on this because this past week, Puck did an article on Barbara Sturm. And in the article, and this is not like a Puck criticism. This is like, again, this purist attitude is like, Barbara Sturm, who sold her Co. For $400 million, is an. An orthopedic specialist. She's from Germany. And the reason why Barbara Sturm's products went to critical mass is because she created this proprietary technique where she would extract your blood. She'd put it in a centrifuge, and she'd create a custom cream with your blood in it. And the reason why her line did so well is because all of these celebrities had to get on the list from when Barbara flew from Europe to America. And she would set up in a hotel room in New York and in LA and in Toronto and in Miami and in Chicago. And it would be. There's a scarcity to who got on that list and who got the custom Barbara Sturm face cream. And what's hilarious is that there's no blood in the direct to consumer Barbara Sturm line. Like what you see at Sephora and the department stores. There's no blood in it.
- [40:00]
Philip Miller
You should have a kit. But you kind of.
- [40:02]
Camille Moore
It's even smarter, though. But. But it's even smarter because Barbara Stern was able to sell her direct to consumer line for $400 million because all these celebrities organically wanted to take a selfie with Barbara Sturm and post with her. That was her marketing because, and we didn't know this as the average people buying the shit off the Sephora shelves, they're only taking photos with her because she only does 11 slots a day and there's 25 celebrities that want in. So the. So when Victoria Beckham takes a photo with her and posts about it. Victoria Beckham is securing her spot for her blood cream next month when she shows up again in London.
- [40:38]
Philip Miller
You just wonder why there's all those, like, conspiracies about celebrities, like blood cults. Like, you could just imagine sucking up. But it makes sense to blood because to me, as a consumer, I'm like, okay, I'm putting my DNA in with the skincare products. So it's kind of tricking my cells to absorb it because my DNA is right with it. Yeah. So that makes sense to me.
- [40:58]
Camille Moore
But here's my point. It's so easy for, for these very intelligent news publications that I love to follow to be like, oh, you know, she's an orthopedic specialist and she Says that you shouldn't be wearing your chemical sunscreen every day. And she's not even a skincare doctor. And my point is, is it's like I'm gonna say something a bit, a bit brash here. The reason why you're struggling is because you're so focused on being perfect that you're not doing anything different. And sadly, the way to win is you need to have a great product. You should be a good person, but you gotta make yourself 15% uncomfortable of how you want to operate, because those are the people that are winning. And the longer that you try to stay safe, the more blood spinning one on one cream specialists are going to take your spot for that $400 million exit. Because as long as your product's better, but you're not telling your story, the longer you're losing.
- [41:53]
Philip Miller
There's the arrogance. I call it the arrogance of the industry that looks at somebody who's coming in now as beneath them somehow. A peasant shouldn't have an opinion here, shouldn't do anything. And Elon showed the automotive industry as a guy who started PayPal. He taught them how to make cars again, like, so that the people who attack you always ask where they're coming from. If Barbara Stern is saying we don't need to have as much sunscreen, she could be right. I don't know what the damage is of putting chemicals on my very absorbent skin all day long, as opposed to the sun that we evolved to absorb. Like, when an industry makes billions, they can control the story that goes to the customer.
- [42:30]
Camille Moore
You make a great point. And I want to just make sure that this is synthesized in a way that, like, makes simple sense. The problem is, is that the industry loves to criticize. That's going to happen anyways. At least shoot your shot and just expect that the criticism is going to come because as long as you have attention, you're winning. Like, as long as, like, don't do it in a way that's stupid. Have, like, have common sense. But people are, are faster to be like, she's an idiot. Opposed to, what can we learn from her? And it's the same problem with, when I bring up, like, what can we take and learn from Trump? And in most rooms, they roll their eyes like, oh my God, I can't. It's like, no, the longer that you have that kind of a reaction, opposed to, clearly there's something successful here. What can I take from him? Because I'm better in all these other ways. And like, you have to have a mindset shift.
- [43:28]
Philip Miller
Let me capture that for. I was on a big Canadian show this week, and they were talking about their politics, and the guy goes, what in the world could you. You could learn from Trump. He's got 98% negative media coverage. And I'm like, I wish you guys. I just paused, and this is what I want everybody to learn. I wish we would step back for a second, actually. Look at their words. What in the world could you. I guarantee you could learn something because he's been the president twice.
- [43:55]
Camille Moore
My brain goes making sure. What do you mean? There's everything to learn from someone that's got 95% negative press and won twice.
- [44:02]
Philip Miller
Yes. And so what you have to keep in mind is you don't have to play by the rules of the institutions that tell you how to play by the rules. He said controversial things. The institutions wanted to criticize him so much that they put him on every day, and then he just ignored what they wanted and said what he thought the people wanted to hear. Now, you might not agree with what he said, but get the press.
- [44:23]
Camille Moore
Yeah, I got the press.
- [44:24]
Philip Miller
Be controversial and then say what your customers want to hear, not what the industry thinks you should be telling your customers.
- [44:30]
Camille Moore
Golf clap point. I also just want to get this out from a. From the way that my brain is thinking. I know a hell of a lot about beauty. I did not know that Barbara Sturm got all of those celebrity photos. Like, seriously, all of these. Like. Like the 0.1% of the 1%.
- [44:48]
Philip Miller
A lot of them, but most of them.
- [44:49]
Camille Moore
A lot of them.
- [44:51]
Philip Miller
Just protecting you from a lawyer perspective.
- [44:52]
Camille Moore
My point is, on my feeds, all of these extremely wealthy women I knew were, like, ogling to post a photo with Barbara Sturm and these celebrities. And from the outside looking in, it didn't even reach my feed that they were getting a different product than what I thought that we all had access to, and that's why her product sold for so much money, is that the consumer thought the Barbara Sturm line that was sold on the show was what all of these famous people were celebrating. And my point is, is that even when you're at the top from, like, a. How much I know, how much I'm researching what comes across my desk, it is still so hard for people to know the full story because people are, like, distracted and the main characters of their own lives. And it's why you need to let go of being absolutely perfect or if you're gonna be perfect, hammer people in a way that's constructive and be controversial. That creates conversation because otherwise everyone is busy watching videos on. On corgis. Like, you need to, like, really break through.
- [45:56]
Philip Miller
You're competing with Corgi videos. You're talking about how Target is dealing with.
- [46:00]
Camille Moore
Yeah, so this is the Camille ate her crow moment. So Philip brings me this headline, which is, Target bets $1 billion on the in store experience. So Target announces the largest store transformation in a decade. They're refreshing their assortments, are redesigning their floor plans, and they're putting hundreds of millions of dollars in additional payroll. And which shows you that at a moment where the conversation on retail is definitely in question, people are like, is retail dead? What's happening to retail? Target is genuinely doubling down.
- [46:30]
Philip Miller
It speaks to what we were talking about with Nike, but it also speaks about what you were talking about with Saks is that they didn't change the retail environment. They were just arrogant that they could keep doing the same thing. And hats off to Target and whoever's behind that. They're looking at the future and saying the only way that we can stay relevant and profitable is if we make it a great place for humans to go. Yeah, not a great place to put stuff on. Put stuff on shelves so they buy my stuff and make me money. It's a great place for humans to go to improve their lives. And they understand that to do that, you have to have amazing humans in your store. Not just minimum wage or, or cheap immigration. You know, I mean, you have to have the best people in your store to make your customers lives the best.
- [47:10]
Camille Moore
You had a video that went super viral on this this week. Like, why don't you talk about your Tim Hortons kind of story? Because a lot of people really resonated.
- [47:19]
Philip Miller
As a case study, Tim Hortons was a very. Is still a very famous Canadian kind of coffee and donuts shop. It was started by a hockey player who opened it up in his hometown of Hamilton. He ended up dying tragically in a car accident. But it was a place where everybody knew your name. It was kind of like the cheers of Canadian donuts. They knew what your orders were, where you worked in. If you walked in with a Tim Hortons traits, your co workers, you were a hero. Everybody's like, I gotta get a Tim's. It became part of the national identity of Canada, but it was sold at one point to Wendy's Corporation and then to International Brazil brand or something. A Brazilian brand that owns Burger King. And the model that we see that's happening in brands is there's nothing better than a founder brand in my perspective, a founder builds something, builds a connection with people. The brand has equity, but the business runs at a high expense rate because they care about. Tim Hortons used to make all the donuts in the store, right? You could smell the bread, you could smell the donuts. Now a big giant corporation comes in with MBAs and goes, hey, look, we can make them all across the country, ship them all in frozen. So essentially, they just take the brand and they just strip the brand of its value by making it more profitable. And what happened in Canada because of the immigration policies is it became very hard on the franchise as the franchises were going under, until they found a program that allowed them to bring in immigrants from India, for the most part, or Malaysia who could work at a subsidized level. And now every Tim hortons store is 95% new immigrant applicants working there who don't know your name. English is clearly not their first language. And the corporation is still trying to sell it as a Canadian brand. It's not owned by a Canadian company. It's not employed by Canadians. And it just shows you where a brand can go once it gets taken over by private equity corporations.
- [49:06]
Camille Moore
Yeah, like, Canada's left the building. It's so complicated because, like, that's this kind of, like, sadness of brands. Is that what made it the art of the brand is now this, like this, like, hollow shell, you know, like there's nothing to it anymore other than that. It's the idea of what it once was. And that's where once you understand that that's what branding is, it should be in your best effort to. For where that gap is now is where you should focus on. Right? So if you're a business owner and you have a comparable experience, whether in you're in the US or somewhere else in the world, these examples of private equity killing these brands are fricking everywhere. But whatever, to your point, like, whatever is missing, like, if it's the customer service, if it's the uniform, if it's the ordering queue and flow, if it's the quality of the food, those things that you're noticing as a founder, that's the gap, that's the gain that you need to focus on as a business owner, because that's what's missing in the branding experience at the current moment. Not the visual identity. It's everything else. And that's where you can win.
- [50:12]
Philip Miller
It's also cost accounting, and because everybody shits on labor costs. But in a world of AI, in a world of constant distraction, the one thing that's going to matter the most in the coming years is the human experience. And so if you say, well, why would I pay somebody more than minimum wage to just sit at the front and do retail? Well, my friend, because when you're not there, if your minimum wage paying person is on their phone ignoring, going, hey, not answering company's questions. Yeah, you're saving three bucks an hour, but clients are walking out and not paying.
- [50:40]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [50:40]
Philip Miller
Whereas if you have somebody who. It's a bookstore, you have somebody who loves books like, oh my God, welcome to our bookstore. This is the best bookstore in the region because we have da, da, da, da. Let me know if I can help you. That person, you're paying four bucks more an hour, can generate 250 more in revenue a day. But people aren't looking at it the right way. And your businesses, for the people who are listening to us, find out the most important customer interface in your business and make sure you're paying them really well to do the job properly.
- [51:07]
Camille Moore
I think what's complicated about last week's segment of, like, where we disagreed is that I think the problem of where I struggle, as it's more of an art conversation, is that the way that businesses should look at it is not that the cost of our labor is going up. So therefore our expenses are more and we're making less money. It should be that we are now making more money because we're investing in better labor. And I think that's where the problem is of, like, the mindset shift of don't offset that to the customer because you see it costing you more to make sales. See it as you're making more business because you're investing in a better labor resource.
- [51:52]
Philip Miller
Don't give lip service to the word brand ambassador. Ambassador. Because an ambassador to a country is one of the most important people in the. In the country.
- [52:01]
Camille Moore
Yep.
- [52:02]
Philip Miller
The ambassador to a country is the face of the country in an. It can, it can ward off emergencies, it can find opportunities. But if you say, oh, we're hiring brand ambassadors, but you don't treat them like that because we're in the Nike store. And I'm like, I didn't know that much about the, the Air Force ones and all of those things, I said, so what's new about what's good about this shoe? You're like, oh, it's got a good color. If you would have told me, do you. Are you aware that that shoe was. Was created in the Nike research lab where LeBron sat in there for three weeks with a hundred different things. And they tested this, this, this and this. That shoe represents what LeBron, you know what I mean? Like, maybe it's Jordan or whatever, but I'm just saying that would be a brand that would make me, if I bought the shoe, love that shoe so much. You got a story storytelling, that's brand ambassadorship, not somebody who gets a box and checks you out.
- [52:49]
Camille Moore
That's why when we do discoveries, it's so important for us to sit down with the founder and it really be almost two hours. Because it's never like the initial questions, like the stuff that leaks out that's really good that they don't even think is interesting. So you almost need someone when you're leaning into your storytelling of just being able to just talk and then ask questions, because it's like, it's the stuff that leaks out along the sides that you don't think is as valuable.
- [53:13]
Philip Miller
It takes me to the other point. In today's world of hyper distraction and suppressed anger, making eye contact, making physical contact, saying somebody's name means more than ever. And we were talking about it in la driving, it's amazing how many people who you can, who have the most world friendly stickers all over the back of their car will pretend not to see you and not let you in. You'll be driving and somebody will pretend not to see you and won't let you merge. And you'll see them, they're sitting there not looking at you. They know your car is there. You know they see you because there was a little gap there. They saw your indicator come on and then they inch up. And that anonymity allows them to do things they wouldn't do. But if I just unroll the window, I give them a quick wave and they look over because they see the wave. And I go, hi, do you mind letting me in? All of a sudden, giant smile, like, of course I would. I don't know how I got up here. And then they let you in. You have to connect with humans at the retail level, just like you have to in the personal level. Chris Voss is one of the easy. FBI negotiator taught me this. He says, and this has worked in a bar. If you go into a bar and somebody is getting very aggressive to you, you just put your hand and say, hi, my name is Philip. What's your name? And then they go, Greg. And I'm like, greg, it's really nice to meet you. As soon as you've put two names, the chances of aggression and violence goes down. Like 80% interesting, right? That's why in retail we hear use people's names, remember their names, get those people at your front lines connecting with humans because humans are hungry for human experience.
- [54:33]
Camille Moore
Oh, such a great point. All right, we got two things to wrap this up, so let's get through them quick. Let's talk about the FIFA World cup song. So in case you haven't heard it, this is a jelly roll song with Karine Leone. And this is the World Cup 2026 song. Very Ford commercial esque, getting a ton of controversy online. Philip, what do you think of the song?
- [55:00]
Philip Miller
First of all, I love the English and Spanish. The Spanish singer is amazing. It's got that kind of first, I'll suck back. For Americans, it's important to know that soccer is the most popular sport in the world. More people watch the World cup than the Olympics and the Super Bowl. Combined, combined, combined. So if you're in the business of brand, you have to understand how powerful soccer is on the psychology of people, especially people who come from other countries, because national identity is so important. And North America is hosting the World cup this summer. Mexico can in the usa. This is a beautiful brand moment.
- [55:34]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [55:34]
Philip Miller
They're like, we're not going to try to be like Europe. And essentially, I bet you they're loving that Europe is upset that this is too American of a theme song. They're like, oh, it should be more global. It should be more this. They're no, they're unapologetically. This is the North American World Cup. I love that they're leaning into that. Again, it goes back to our comment earlier. There's going to be haters. Whatever song you had, you could have had joy to the world. You know what I mean? Like, there's always going to be haters to the song, but if you're going to be hated, like you said, be hated. Being true to your brand, not watering down your brand.
- [56:05]
Camille Moore
When I listen to it, it's incredibly strategic and intelligent because it's bringing in an audience into a sport and making them feel welcome where they didn't before. And it's relevant that the people that are criticizing the sound are already soccer fans. And that's not how you expand the sport. And when you look at how much America has invested in growing soccer as a sport, creating soccer clubs within these major city centers, you need to have something that's more culturally relevant, that invites people into the game. And that's where this song to me is so well done is I'm not someone that feels like, soccer is a. Is not that I'm. I don't feel welcome. It's just. It hasn't been something that's ever spoken to me. Like, I didn't grow up in a soccer household. I didn't really have friends that really played soccer. So for me, when I hear this song, this sounds to me like not that country is my music, but like, more like my people are going to be crowding around these events. I better be aware of them. And that, to me is very powerful, especially with bringing in the Spanish, is that we're not losing, who are among those amazing soccer fans throughout the country. But let's bring in something that's a little bit less European, because they're already gonna watch.
- [57:22]
Philip Miller
Oh, and just to pick up on a Gary Vee kind of angle is you want attention, arbitrage. The world pays attention to the World Cup. Right. America, not as much. But still, in America and Canada, more kids play soccer than any of the other sports.
- [57:37]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [57:37]
Philip Miller
So most kids have played it. It's just that advertisers and business owners want to be part of the football or the base basketball or the baseball, because that's the cool thing. But if you want to get arbitrage and your money spent, the World cup is a great place to put some campaigns this summer because everybody comes from somewhere. The Polish people are looking at Poland, the Portuguese, the Mexicans. Like, everybody in America comes from somewhere else. They're going to be paying attention to where the country comes from, and in your community, they're going to be paying attention. So doing some campaigns that get that arbitrage gives you a little more bang for the buck.
- [58:11]
Camille Moore
Well, it's also. It's a big deal that the World cup is getting played in North American cities. It makes sense to make it American. Like, it makes sense, you know, even when you think about, obviously, Canada is a part of North America. Duh. But a large. No, of course, a large part. But they have Spanish in there. I'm saying that's being covered. A large part of the western Canada and outside of the major city centers are huge country music fans. Although we're saying make it American, the country music that very like grassroots outside of city centers is a huge part of Canada.
- [58:42]
Philip Miller
It's almost like. And this is a controversial brand thing, but I think in the next decade, there is a North American brand that involves Mexico. Because Mexico doesn't like Central and South America. No, they like North America. Don't be like, everybody thinks just because people might look the same, the same There's a North American power base that is going to be against the Europeans. And this is like something from a brand perspective, I think this song. Mexico builds so many trucks and cars.
- [59:07]
Camille Moore
Yeah, true.
- [59:08]
Philip Miller
That's right. Canada used to do that, too. We're like saying this is actually not just. This is North American pride. You're coming into our house.
- [59:15]
Camille Moore
It's also a pendulum swing from the super bowl song, you know, like from doing it all in Spanish. Like, this is going back. I just. It. I think it's great. I think we made our point. Let's move on to the last point in today's show. So I wanted to talk about the Aerie and Pamela Anderson campaign, because so it's 100% Aerie Real anti AI campaign. So what happened? Aerie launches a campaign starring the iconic Pamela Anderson, who, I'm sure this is not a surprise to anyone, is at a full 180 on her personal brand. She is very much into this raw, real, unfiltered beauty. She's leaning into aging. And she's really become iconic for changing what it looks like to show up in culturally relevant celebrity moments. So she's not going on red carpets wearing full face of makeup. In fact, she's really not wearing makeup at all. So Aerie has launched this campaign starring Pamela with 100% Aerie Real pledge, which is a commitment to never using AI generated people or bodies in its marketing. Basically, the campaign starts with kind of showing how AI can, like, easily manipulate the way you look, the way that your body is positioned. And then Anderson's voice prompts the system to start generating models. None of them feel human. The camera shutters. It breaks kind of this fourth wall. And these real women walk up to being real with Pamela Anderson. And the ad campaign basically says, like, we're here to celebrate you in real life. And the timing is surgical because when you look at, like, a Valentino and a Gucci, they both face backlash for using AI generated images. You have H M and Mango and Zara and Nike. They've even are. They're expanding AI everywhere. Zara even using AI models, like, not real models. So there's a lot of comment and controversy in the fashion world right now. And I wanted to break this down because I thought the campaign was intelligent. It made me stop. It made me watch the whole thing. But I had criticism, and as I thought deeply through this week being critical of these campaigns, I feel that my bar has changed because what these brands are doing, like Mother just launched with Martha Stewart and Frankie's Bikinis just launched with Jenny. All these brands are in a race of hitching their horse to someone with like, value and impact so that people think about their brand, go to their homepage and buy some product. And I think the aim for how good it has to be is much lower to what I would want from like an art standpoint. And that's where I wanted to have this conversation on this today. So what do you think?
- [61:52]
Philip Miller
I think it's a brilliant campaign. People have to understand the life cycle of adoption. We've talked about about that before. If you do something that's different, you're originally going to be ridiculed by people who aren't doing it and you have to have the ability to get through it. And then you'll get an acceptance after a while and then you might get a little acknowledgement and ultimately respect and then envy. That's kind of. But you can never get to great or that envy point where people are envying you if you won't go through the uncomfortable point where people are ridiculing. And I think Ari was a little forward thinking, recognizing that human experience is the most important thing right now. In a world that's getting so cluttered with AI and so they break through it in a way that's a little bit shocking. It's not going to change everything. On day one, everybody's just not going to say, oh my God, I've been so consumed with the wrong things. But there will be early adopters and a market segment that is ready for it and you'll see people move into it and then we'll see how they do after that is whether or not the movement, the migration continues. Because the human psychology element that we all struggle with is that we always want more. You never buy your Mercedes, whatever class and are happy. You're going to see one that's upgraded, you're going to see Bentley. Same is true with in beauty. Right. If everybody looked like an 8 out of 10 today, if that was the average, then an 8 out of 10 would be average. Right. It wouldn't be beautiful. If the best car in the world 20 years ago is seen as junk today, they don't want it. So. So we're always moving the boundaries. What AI is created an existential threat to change how humans think they should look.
- [63:23]
Camille Moore
Yeah.
- [63:24]
Philip Miller
And so it's not going to. AI isn't going to correct itself to bring human beauty back to a natural standard. It's going to keep going crazy. At some point the lips are going to be Half the face. What this is doing is saying, hey, we're humans. Let's judge beauty by actual humans, not by tech, not by AI. We're just going to show humans how they look because they were still beautiful at an age, because beautiful is always like the top 10 or 20% of it. I love this angle. There's an element of risk to it, but I think they can capture a much more reliable market share than the ones that are just flipping around to whatever the newest technology makes them blink.
- [63:57]
Camille Moore
I'm not in disagreement with you that this idea of the campaign was smart. It's more, does that make sense for Aerie? Because from the Pamela Anderson, like, who that's relevant to is an older millennial audience. I don't know how many of them are shopping at Aerie in the mall. And that was kind of more where I was critical of is like, is Pamela Anderson relevant to who the average Aerie customer is? Probably not. And that was where it was more. The idea is smart. Was it the wrong brand that picked it up?
- [64:28]
Philip Miller
It could be, depending on the strategy. Because I think there's a lot of young girls that feel pressured to be beautiful, to do sexy, you know, And Pamela lived it. It's kind of like Alex Earl with her acne a bit. She lived this world where you had to sexualize yourself to get attention. You did all this stuff, and now she's got to this point of wisdom where now she can share wisdom to a market segment that's younger and saying, look, you don't have to buy into all that. I went down there, and now I've realized I can be myself. It's not going to change the entire market, but you could get 10 to 20% of young girls who can sense that the market is manipulating them into false beauty standards.
- [65:03]
Camille Moore
It's not a good. I know. That's, like, why it's, like, not a good position for me to argue that. Because on the face of it, those words are gospel. But she also wouldn't be relevant to have that conversation if not. And I don't think anyone made Pamela do what Pamela decided to do. She was this, like, a fringe sexualized person. And when you look at who are the most powerful today, Alex Earle's not too far off from being naked and having plastic surgeries and being injected.
- [65:35]
Philip Miller
So.
- [65:35]
Camille Moore
But that's my point. It's like, it's a prodigal thing to say, but then it's like, is it also what sells?
- [65:42]
Philip Miller
But is makeup an accentuator?
- [65:44]
Camille Moore
No. No.
- [65:45]
Philip Miller
Aries underwear Underwear. Okay.
- [65:47]
Camille Moore
The Aries underwear and loungewear in a mall. It's a sister brand to American Eagle. And it to me kind of skews 21. Like oldest 21.
- [65:54]
Philip Miller
That, to me, isn't the perfect match.
- [65:56]
Camille Moore
Yes.
- [65:56]
Philip Miller
But the message is on and I'll give them credit for the message.
- [65:59]
Camille Moore
That's like where I just feel like there's where I want to have critical dialogue because on the face of it, it's intelligent and when I look at it, it's smart. It's just how much is it selling for aerie, which is like that second and third order thinking. And when I want founders to show up in here is I don't just want to celebrate the idea of like, we should protect young girls, we should protect young girls. But at the end of the day, if you're just chasing the narratives of what's the right thing to say versus what's in line with your brand, how does that impact the ultimate end goal of how many products are we selling?
- [66:29]
Philip Miller
I think it was a very mature and intelligent way of dealing with. With that particular brand strategy. Probably there's more to it that we need to know, but on its face, I think there's some interesting angles there area reach out.
- [66:39]
Camille Moore
Well, guys, I loved being able to connect with you guys again. On another week of Art of the Brand, as you guys know. Please, like comment, subscribe and send this to somebody else because we would just love to be able to impact more people.
- [66:49]
Philip Miller
We got an amazing planner coming. Stay tuned for some some breaking news.
- [66:54]
Camille Moore
First week of May, guys, speak soon. See you next week.