Google Didn't See It Coming

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Art of the Brand

Episode: Google Didn't See It Coming

Hosts: Camille Moore, Phillip Millar

Date: June 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, Camille and Phillip unpack major shifts in the digital advertising landscape, focusing on Meta surpassing Google in ad revenue and what that means for brands, strategy, and the future of world-building in marketing. The duo tackle everything from the power of frictionless tech (like Meta’s new glasses), the necessity of social “bumps” in brand visibility, complex legal and ethical questions surrounding AI-generated model imagery, to the perils and benefits of controversial branding in an era ruled by the online mob. The episode is energetic, sharp, and full of actionable takeaways for business owners and branding pros.

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Key Themes & Discussions

1. Meta Surpasses Google: Why and What’s Next?

[00:07 – 13:50]

• Meta’s First-Ever Ad Revenue Win

  • Meta is projected to eclipse Google in 2026 ad revenue:
    • Meta: $243.46B
    • Google: $239.45B
  • Robin: “For the first time ever, Meta has surpassed Google in ad revenue sales.” [00:07]

• Why Did Meta Overtake Google?

  • Meta offers frictive-free, AI-driven, highly visual ad experiences across its platforms, shifting from Google’s search-and-text heavy approach.
  • Robin: “Google isn’t relevant. When you look at a Google search compared to a ChatGPT search, it’s not as good.” [00:26]
  • Phillip: “Facebook or Meta said, tell me what you want to do and our AI will make you ads that are much more dynamic… as opposed to Google AdWords where you’re bidding on words and being buried.” [08:49]

• Platform Comparison:

  • Google’s ad model is increasingly “prehistoric,” dominated by whoever pays most per bid, leading to non-competitive, bland search ad experiences.
  • Meta prioritizes visual storytelling and dynamic placements based on values and interests, helping small brands break through, not just those with big budgets.

• Shift in Brand-Building Tactics:

  • Meta encourages organic brand-building through visual world-building in feed, while Google makes it hard for lesser-funded brands to compete.

Memorable Quote - Phillip
“It’s not just that Meta lets you advertise; it lets anyone be in the game and doesn’t let the biggest spender totally dominate. It caters to what people really want, not just who’s got the most money.” [12:58]

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2. Frictionless Tech & the Rise of ‘Sticky’ Products

[02:30 – 07:49]

• Meta Glasses as a Paradigm Shift:

  • Phillip highlights his firsthand experience with Meta’s new glasses, emphasizing how voice commands, seamless integration, and real-time utility (e.g., translation, note-taking) make them “the new normal.”

  • Phillip:

  “My brain just saw: that is going to be the new normal... These glasses could be Meta's giant thing if they keep integrating software.” [03:05–04:50]

• Sticky Product Design (Uber Parallel):

  • Robin relates Meta’s strategy to the Netflix series ‘Super Pumped’ on Uber—successful because the experience is frictionless and habit-forming.
  • Meta’s willingness to subsidize new products mirrors Uber’s tactic of absorbing losses to get customers hooked.

• Tech Maximalism Critique:

  • Brief discussion on the limits of ‘optimization culture’—balancing innovation with true enjoyment of life.

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3. Brand Activations & Social “Bumps”

[13:56 – 20:50]

• Brands as Content Machines:

  • Robin breaks down how activations like BAZE x Poppy’s Miami pop-up leverage on-site events to create a wealth of sticky, high-performing social content.
  • Robin:

  “The brands that are doing so well right now are the ones that have these moments to create social content to maintain relevance within the algorithm.” [15:44]

  • Phillip:

  “People are craving a deeper relationship with companies. These activations actually let you feel part of something, versus just polished, fake ads.” [15:44]

• “Digital Sidewalk” & Social Bumps:

  • Robin:

  “It makes it like a digital sidewalk...how are you creating and engaging in social bumps for your brand?” [16:28]

• Practical Example:

  • Local Pilates studio FS8’s use of red carpet events and on-the-spot social filming to generate community engagement and sustained visibility.

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4. Content Creation: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

[20:33 – 22:46]

• Evan the Adventurer Example:

  • Phillip: “I found this guy on his 520th daily video. Now I’m addicted. He’s got millions of followers.” [20:33]
  • Point: Consistency and volume are key—breakthrough doesn’t come from a handful of posts, but from hundreds.

• Tree Analogy:

  • Phillip: “Content is like a tree. You plant the seed, it takes years to see results—but if you stick with it, you get an empire.” [21:38]

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5. World-Building in Ads: Nike vs. Adidas vs. Lays (FIFA World Cup Spot Analysis)

[23:32 – 31:15]

• Nike’s Flop:

  • Robin and Phillip agree Nike’s CGI-heavy celebrity mashup “world-building” ad is stressful, lacking feeling, meaning, or a true invitation into a brand world.
  • Robin:

  “…it just seems like an extracted trailer for a movie that I didn’t sign up to... look how much money we have. We’re going to throw so much money into it, but strip it from meaning.” [25:55]

• Adidas’ Subtle Success:

  • Adidas commercial (featuring Timothée Chalamet): slower pace, builds curiosity, and effectively portrays a journey, making viewers feel invested.

• Lays Triumphs with Humor and Americana:

  • Lays’ commercial uses irony and contrast (Will Ferrell’s “bandwagon” truck, American vs. European soccer culture) to create true world-building that’s relatable and appealing.
  • Phillip:

  “Irony is beautiful to get the human brain to pay attention. Whoever did that creative, I’d love to meet them. It was really well done with a good budget, as opposed to Nike—badly done with probably 50x the budget.” [31:17]

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6. AI Models & Legal/Ethical Quagmire

[31:54 – 39:11]

• Rainbow Shops Lawsuit:

  • Francesca Pujols sues for her likeness being used to generate unauthorized AI model images—a warning for brands mixing real and AI assets.

• Legal & Community Building Issues:

  • Phillip:

  “Once you have trust with your customer, you don’t want to lose it... If you’re taking a shortcut, you have to let them know it.” [33:33]

  • Robin:

  “One client is plateauing because there’s no community. A lot of the imagery and world-building comes from behind-the-scenes, not just high-fidelity AI images.” [35:27]

• AI in the Ad Funnel:

  • AI-generated content works as part of an ecosystem, but can’t substitute for authentic, community-building content.
  • Robin:

  “The AI ad imagery is great if you’re at that ad brand trying to get into good brand status, but not to get you from a good brand to a great brand.” [36:23]

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7. Should the Public Own AI Giants? (Bernie Sanders & National Wealth Funds)

[39:11 – 42:25]

• Robin highlights Sanders’ proposal for public (citizens/taxpayers) to own a 50% stake in OpenAI and other AI giants—a controversial idea with surprising bipartisan appeal.

• Phillip on national strategy:

  “If businesses need government help, why not have the government take a stake—so taxpayer money grows with the company?” [39:41]

  • Norway's sovereign wealth fund as a real-world example.

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8. Cancel Culture, Mob Mentality, and Brands Under Siege

[42:27 – 65:41]

• Case 1: Patrick Ta and Makeup Terminology Trademark Dispute

  • Large brands trademarking community/coined terms (“Transition blush”). Debate over the ethics, legality, and race narrative.

  • Phillip:

    “If you only care because it was taken from a person of color, you’re not a good human being. Everybody steals ideas.” [44:06–44:19]

  • Robin:

    “The issue is when you trademark the term, it limits smaller brands or upstarts from accessing something that’s become community language.” [45:43]

• Case 2: Patagonia vs. Patty Gonia (Drag Queen Branding Conflict)

  • Patagonia sues drag queen “Patty Gonia” for trademark infringement, sparking community backlash given Patagonia’s history of activist branding.

  • Phillip:

    “There’s a beautiful irony...this person is saying he's something he's not and Patagonia is suing for it; how do they keep their moral high ground while protecting their financial interests?” [52:53]

  • Legal strategy: Either Patty Gonia changes their legal name for protection; or Patagonia partners and leverages the brand relationship for mutual gain.

• Example: Cancel Culture’s Impact on Artistic Brands

  • Robin relays a client’s experience with a patriotic fashion collection facing cancellation by an online mob, despite inclusive casting and charitable intent.

  • Takeaway: Attempts to “please the mob” end up killing creativity and brand founder vision.

  • Phillip:

    “Mob mentality isn’t just a mob of people—it can be one person or a small group. Once that loses its conscience, it just destroys.” [60:33]

• Broader Social Analogy:

  • Peter Dinklage and lost roles for little people: Good intentions (virtuous mob mentality) often backfire and hurt the very communities they intend to protect.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Content Consistency:

  • Phillip: “I just want to, like, bang their head against the wall and say, like, do a hundred. …The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. Second best is today.” [20:33; 21:59]

• On AI’s Legal Boundaries:

  • Phillip: “You’ve never been allowed legally to use the likeness of somebody without their permission for commercial purpose.” [34:50]

• On Social Bumps:

  • Robin: “It makes [the brand] like a digital sidewalk...that’s how you create and engage social bumps.” [16:28]

• On Lays’ FIFA Ad:

  • Phillip: “Irony is beautiful...contrast is amazing...Whoever did that creative—I’d love to meet that person.” [31:17]

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Timeline of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:07 | Meta surpasses Google in ad revenue: Big paradigm shift | | 03:02 | Meta Glasses: productivity & frictionless technology | | 05:10 | Sticky product design: Uber and Meta parallels | | 13:56 | Activations fueling social content & algorithm breakthrough | | 20:33 | Content quantity vs. quality: Evan the Adventurer example | | 23:32 | FIFA World Cup ads: Nike, Adidas, Lays—world-building breakdown | | 31:54 | AI models, legality, and community building in advertising | | 39:11 | Should the public own AI giants? Sanders, Norway, national assets | | 42:27 | Cancel Culture, mob mentality, branding under siege | | 44:06 | Patrick Ta controversy | | 50:01 | Patagonia vs Patty Gonia legal & cultural conundrum | | 57:46 | Cancel culture disables founder creativity: client case study | | 65:23 | Final strategy: embrace controversy, own your message |

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Final Takeaways

• Meta is winning the ad race by focusing on frictionless, highly visual, AI-powered advertising that is more natural and inclusive for small businesses.
• Social bumps—those event-driven, content-generating moments—are critical for ongoing relevance.
• Over-reliance on AI sacrifices authenticity and can stall community growth; balance is key.
• World-building is more than celebrity cameos and big budgets; it requires emotional resonance, inclusion, and storytelling.
• Cancel culture and mob mentality threaten creative expression and brand identity; founders must own their perspective, respond authentically, and embrace inevitable controversy for long-term brand growth.

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For more deep dives into cutting-edge branding and strategy, tune in to the next episode of The Art of the Brand!

Transcript

[Robin]

Like if you're on the fifth page, like you're dead. As a business on Google, I think

[Philip]

people are craving a deeper relationship with companies.

[Robin]

For the first time ever, Meta has surpassed Google in ad revenue sales.

[Philip]

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. Second best is today.

[Robin]

World building is providing someone a passport, an entrance into a destination.

[Philip]

Like, oh, I've done 10 of them and nobody's watched it. I just want to like bang their head against the wall and say like do a hundred.

[Robin]

Because Google isn't relevant. When you look at a Google search compared to a ChatGPT search, it' not as good.

[Philip]

The fact that he's not sponsored is crazy to me because it's got millions

[Robin]

of views now they have to have these moments to create social content, to maintain relevance within the algorithm.

[Philip]

How does Patagonia keep its moral high ground but protect its financial interests because this guy is ripping them off.

[Robin]

Some of their top performing ad assets are AI generated imagery. 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 good brand. So welcome back to another episode of Art of the Brand. The best part about this week's episode is God bless them. My parents are in the one room over from us packing the planners.

[Philip]

It's the weekend, we brought them in, they're packing. My parents are coming after 90 minutes to. Because Camille Moore, God love her, cannot organize things. And so we do not have, we do not have the capability in place based on the travel and the clients to have the assembly line going. And she's got to sign these books. So she loves.

[Robin]

We're not selling these books. So like, this isn't like a massive like business endeavor that's making money, right? Like, we're really busy at the agency. We shoot the, like, we're really launched the planners because it is a personal touch.

[Philip]

Because it's probably going to be one of my children or one of our parents or somebody on the team who is wrapping your box. It is not getting wrapped overseas in Asia.

[Robin]

No, no. And honestly, as much as you want to laugh at me, because you're right, like, honestly, there is, there is so much to learn whenever you do something like this, like launching a, launching a side business, you know, when you have one. But how hard it is to do something for yourself when you're in the business of service, right? How many people listen to us that are service providers, who. It's like, it's, it's not convenient to spend time on yourself.

[Philip]

It's why at some point you want to go from selling time to selling products. Because you want to be able to make money when you're sleeping. But that transition is very hard because people want your time.

[Robin]

Totally true.

[Philip]

Very hard.

[Robin]

And that is exactly where we are right now. But I didn't want to launch the podcast talking about the planner. I wanted to launch the podcast talking about Philip's new meta glasses. And honestly, I'm not going to make fun of you because I'm super jealous about that.

[Philip]

You have been making fun of me, but sure, you're not going to make fun of me in public.

[Robin]

No, I definitely would make fun of you in public. I just. I actually was thinking last night, I'm like, how can I wheel someone that has perfect vision to get the meta glasses because they're so functional.

[Philip]

May I? May I?

[Robin]

It's just your turn, Robin.

[Philip]

If you call me Robin again, I'm going to flip this table up. I'm going to flip this table up. That was too good. Okay, Sorry. I just bought some Facebook stock this morning. Some Meta stock this morning. I'll tell you why, because you're always telling me I call a trend early and then I never get around to investing in it. And then three years later I'm like, shit, that would have turned into however much money. Meta. I know a friend who got the first Google glasses and it was too early. And often with tech, it can come too early and it's well intentioned, but you have to get those iterations. What I. When I got these meta glasses, I got them for cans, Lions. And then I saw Connor was showing us how it plugs into the. The glass case. And for a second I said, my brain just saw that is going to be the new normal. And the reason why these glasses, I think are going to take off now, you don't have to have a prescription because people are wearing them with clear lenses, they're wearing them with sunglasses. The functionality now has layered such that it's going to cost more to look better than it is to be as productive as these glasses make me. Because you know how many times I'm looking for AirPods.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Philip]

So I can take a call. The calls come right in here. I want to listen to music. AirPods out. AirPods off. Where are my AirPods walking down the street, I just go, hey, Meta, what is that I'm looking at? Hey, Meta, can you translate that? Hey, Meta, can you add this to my grocery list? Like it's right here And Our eyes process the world's information when it's on your. It's connected to your phone. But when your phone is here and Siri is useless, this is actually working really well. And I think what's gonna happen is this is just gonna be the standard and then you're gonna look amazing with other things. And that's why I think this is gonna. This could be Meta's giant thing if they can get more integrations with some of the other software.

[Robin]

You know, it's interesting, there's so many overlapping themes that have happened in my life in the last few weeks that exactly tie into why this is going to be the new normal. It's. Cause it's sticky. Right. And the word sticky. We just finished. What was it called? Super. Super Down.

[Philip]

Oh, no. Super Pumped.

[Robin]

Super Pumped. The. The show about Uber and how Uber was extremely successful because it was such a sticky program. Like how frictionless it was and how they optimized and designed to the point where there was no friction to use the platform and it allowed them to cut some corners.

[Philip]

They knew, five rides, you'll use Uber for the rest of life.

[Robin]

Addictive for life.

[Philip]

Yeah, Right. And so they were willing to lose a lot of money to get them to that stickiness part. And I think Meta is as well, because they're not charging what this is really costing.

[Robin]

And that's the whole point is what I'm seeing. You're using it like. Like Siri legitimately, like unexcusably sucks. Whisper. Whisper Flow is this new app that if you're not using it, you should download it. But the. The prop. So basically it allows. It uses AI dictation to do a better job of translating your Tega voice note text message. The problem is it's not integrated through Siri and it's not integrated perfectly into the keyboard. So you have to like click the world button.

[Philip]

Yeah, you have to press that.

[Robin]

It's got friction. And when I think when I'm watching you use your meta glasses, within 24 hours, I'm like, as someone that loves to be optimized, it's optimizing your life through less friction. Right. Oftentimes, even like last night when I'm laying in bed, I was like, shoot, I gotta send a capabilities deck to this person. Had I been wearing those blue light glasses, watching the movie, instead of me rolling over, unlocking my phone, having to type in the code cause it can't recognize my face in the dark, going into my note app, typing it down, like now, it's instantly um, able to help me get things off my brain in a moment where I just want to be able to talk to glasses like the way that you're using them. Ashwin had a super viral video that was kind of speaking about how these optimized people have kind of gone too far where this like CEO class or this like tech class is so overly obsessed with optimized hacking like stacking. So you have your oura ring and then you've got your whoop band and then you've got your eight sleep bed and then you have so many things that are like that are tracking your biometrics that you're. The kind of. The theme is are you missing out on life? And I see these kind of glasses as the larger trend to this of. In and of itself. It's a quick sidebar conversation that we should have because we recently got the eight sleep.

[Philip]

It's interesting you bring up that Ashwin video about, you know, I think people are trying to criticize the maxing, but when he was talking about like the huberman, all of these things, the one thing I think that was is also a force multiplier is better sleep, you know, and I think eight sleep is one of those areas where you can really change your life.

[Robin]

There's actually a lot of things that Meta is doing right right now. For the first time ever, Meta has surpassed Google in ad revenue sales. So Meta is doing more in selling ad revenue than Google. I actually have the stat here. So emarketer forecasts meta at $243.46 billion versus Google, which is at 2239.454 billion in 2026.

[Philip]

Why or how do you think they were able to surpass Google?

[Robin]

Because Google isn't relevant when you look at a Google search compared to a ChatGPT search and how Google has stacked its ad revenue capability, it's not as good. And Facebook owns this kind of social zeitgeist revenue. I'm sorry, this social zeitgeist world, when I'm telling clients where to diversify their marketing mix spend, It's Meta and TikTok and YouTube. It's not really like the Google where it was six, seven, eight years ago.

[Philip]

Google was winning the AI war early. And what I think Meta has done and I was wondering if meta was dropping the ball. But I think the revenue shift is because Facebook or Meta said, tell me what you want to do and our AI will make you ads that are much more dynamic than essentially trying to find, you know, Google search words. And then bidding on words and then being buried down here above this like that whole interface seemed prehistoric now. But now if I'm in business, I don't want to go do Google AdWords searches like it's. Or bidding, it's clunky. But I can go to, I can go on meta and say, hey, I need to sell this, this is the budget, this is my. And then it'll go and find the target audience. So it's actually made it much easier to advertise as a business. That's why I think Facebook is getting a flood new revenue because that's, you don't have to work as hard to get better results.

[Robin]

Well, it's also apples to oranges, right? Like Google was very like visually top down. Meta is very like left, right. But then also it kind of like zigzags because the way that ads are placed throughout the meta platform are very dynamic and they're more focused on shared values than actual like search specific. So Google obviously has a massive ad revenue capability. Right? There's, there's search ads, there's shopping ads, there's display ads. Like there's an entire ecosystem but a lot of the ads is based off of a specific query. Whereas when you're on Instagram, you're being served ads in very dynamic ways based off of suggested shared values. So when I'm like clicking through stories, I'm being served ad based content that looks very nice, it looks very organic in feed and isn't dependent on a search that I'm typing in. Like best hair salon near me. Right. So it's, it's more of a dynamic way to serve and to engage and to sell ads. And for that reason, Facebook has been really successful for small businesses because it gets in front of shared valued Persona consumers versus just being a specific search query for something you're looking for.

[Philip]

Whenever I go on Google, their ads too are not enticing because it's just text.

[Robin]

Yeah, right.

[Philip]

I do a search, they have multiple though. There's display ads and I kind of want to look past the ads to see what search is providing me. Whereas if I'm scrolling on Facebook, I get an ad. And what Facebook has helped people do is make your ads look a little less ad Y at least there's like a little bit more. It's like a two dimensional or three dimensional if it's a video ad. So as I'm scrolling I can see something that really can catch my attention as opposed to if I do a Google search. You know what I mean it doesn't engage me.

[Robin]

I would also say too that Google really shot itself in the foot and I'm talking more specifically to search ads because there's a whole ecosystem of YouTube ads and that's probably a mar. A large component of a lot of the ad spend for Google because YouTube is a very powerful platform. As we talked about, there is like 44 billion users on YouTube per day. There is the most people on YouTube from a streaming content standpoint than any other platform in the world. It's the number one watched platform within homes. So YouTube is probably holding a lot of this, this revenue number of being at 2.239.54 billion dol. But when I think about the search component, it allowed a lot of these big firms like law firms or these big groups that had a lot of money to win the search wars because they could buy up the local service ads and they would, they would drive up the price point and the cost. And it was so difficult because brands weren't brand building. These businesses weren't able to build a brand. They were just trying to not be buried on the third or fourth page where no one goes to search. Whereas what Meta does with its ads is. It is visual world building. Your brand building if you have these beautiful visual ads on the platform because it's not a search based component that people have to go to the like. If you're on the fifth page like you're dead as a business on Google whereas on Meta your ads are being served in a more organic and dynamic way.

[Philip]

It's true because in the law firm, when the law firm was doing personal injury, still is doing personal injury. But I remember doing Google AdWords and if you like, the most valuable one would be in a car accident, personal injury or something. It was $25 to get a click. Right. So if you're. So the big firms just priced it up so that Google wasn't giving you the best results in the ads. It was just dominated by money. But what meta is doing, it's allowing everybody to be in the game and it's not just going to, you can't just overspend your way to dominate all of Meta. Yeah, like it understands that its platform needs to have a variety and to cater to what people really want, not just what the money people want.

[Robin]

Yeah, agreed. I think honestly, I mean the, the meta landscape is where you should be focusing from an ad standpoint. I'm going to move on.

[Philip]

I just want to say before we go, I wish our agent had have talked to meta because this segment is not sponsored by Meta in any way.

[Robin]

I want the next segment I want to talk about is how brands are using activations as a reason to create content. And this isn't a new idea, but it was reinforced to me that we needed to do a segment on it this week after a video broke through my algorithm from Baze, which is the luggage brand that's owned by Shay Mitchell. So what Baze did this past week is they did a pop up in Miami that was a partnership with Poppy and within this they created this thing, it was called a souvenir shop. And the whole idea is that they had done this collab with Poppy and it was poppy colored. It was this fun luggage capsule and it sold out and they did this souvenir shop as a way for people to come in and buy the product from the capsule at regular price point, which is like was no longer available on the website. And the, the amount of. So what was interesting is they did this one video and it was hilarious and it was Shay Mitchell, who's a famous actress who owns the Bayes brand. And she is doing this video where she's saying she's the founder of the brand and she wanted a photo booth. And then bas. It cuts to like the head of marketing and then they're basically going to say that like it was really expensive and they, and then they cut the rest of that. What that person is saying and she keeps going through the video doing these things of what she's saying that she wants to have. The point is, is that I watched that video and I really enjoyed it. I watched it through the whole way till the end and I watched it more than once and then it made me go and click on the Baze page. And what I realized is that they had 20 like over 25 videos from this Miami activation. And it's such a reinforcement to that the brands that are doing so well right now are the ones that understand that they have to have these, these moments to create social content to maintain relevance within the algorithm.

[Philip]

You know, I don't know if it's just a numbers game because I don't think it's relevance as much as it is. I think people are craving a deeper relationship with companies. And if you're disputing a highly agency made polished set of ads pretending to be authentic, they're not. They're not, they're not. It's not satisfying that hunger. But when you do a bunch of, if you're doing an activation you actually get to see A lot of the people that are there, totally their experience from start to finish, you're actually for the people who are staying at home or only living on their phone. And right. They're actually there feeling like they're engaging in a real way rather than a curated, polished, fake way. And that's what I saw from that. That ad is you can actually just sit there and people watch. Who are all the people here? What's going on? You feel more part of it because it's not so curated.

[Robin]

It makes it. I love what you're saying. It makes it like a digital sidewalk. Right? And that's, that's like the term that I've been using in my brain is called like social bumps. Like how are you creating and engaging in social bumps for your brand? Because we have a brand that we just recently launched that didn't do any of those things. And three or four weeks in later, we don't have any content to maintain the hype and the relevance. And it's why you have to keep creating these social bumps. And we have a Pilates studio that's local to us, that is a chain, it's called FS8. And the owner of the one in our local area ended up actually being flown to Austin, Texas. And she's become like one of the visual models that's on the screen, like globally. Like it was a really big rollout and they made it into this entire social bump. So what they did is they, they ordered probably off Amazon a red carpet and like the red carpet velvet ropes and they ordered all these stars and they texted us the night before to come a little bit early and they had non alcoholic champagne and they had a little photo booth and they had little mics and they like, they interrupted

[Philip]

the workout with a dance down the middle.

[Robin]

She danced when she came on the state and the screen and they filmed the whole thing on socials. And the point of why I'm saying this is we've been talking a lot about these, these adjacent events to events. So like brands doing it at Coachella or at the US Open or now it's swim week. Like the bay's poppy collaboration had really nothing to do with swim week other than that Shane Mitchell's gonna be in the new Baywatch show movie and she's got this kind of tie to being this good looking, you know, famous person that's gonna be in a bathing suit. But other than that, they're, they're truly only using that opportunity to get a social bump. And when you asked me when we were prepping for this segment. You're like, but how did it perform? And when I looked at the content, every single post, like 25 plus posts, all significantly performed. And it broke through the algorithm so that it showed up on my feed. So it shows you that it's not enough to do the activation, it's how are you thinking about using this activation to create really great content that allows it to show up as a digital sidewalk on your customer. Potential customer. Customers feed?

[Philip]

Yeah, I think you captured it there. I. I don't know if it's relevant, but I was thinking about what got my attention this week. And there's this guy called Evan the adventurer. You guys will correct me, but he's. He's rowing around the world and it's. It's literally crazy. He's in this yellow boat, got a little compartment. You can seal it so it can survive waves. 567 days kill me. He puts a minute every day. And I started scrolling. He's now like, it's close to the end, but I literally watched probably 20 of them. Just that little small clip. Like you're actually cheering from this guy. It's just not many things get my attention, but the way this guy was doing, but the fact that he's not sponsored is crazy to me because it's got millions of views now every day. People are seeing if he can get from India to Africa, yet to change direction. And he's by himself the whole time. He chipped his tooth in the middle of the thing, so he's in pain. Like, it's. And he's just catching flying fish or some of the mahi every day, and he's just eating fish. But. And then a big shipping tanker almost ran him over, and then they stopped and gave him some Snickers bars. Like, it's. It's so. It's just. It's just a way to think about content people. That. That's such an amazing story for me. It's really cool.

[Robin]

How do you think he's charging his phone?

[Philip]

He's got a solar panel thing there.

[Robin]

Oh, cool.

[Philip]

Yeah. So he's got solar panels on top of the place that he's in. It's very interesting.

[Robin]

That's a special kind of hell for me.

[Philip]

Yeah.

[Robin]

Like being in one of those boats

[Philip]

in the middle of the ocean, going around the world. Day five seven. I think it's on 578.

[Robin]

That's sick just thinking about it. But you know what's. But like, even what you brought up, he's A different example. And I know exactly who you've been talking about, because Justin actually shared it. He's been doing these, like. And it. It builds. It's episodic. And it's why when we use the word world building. Cause I want to now get into the Nike vs Adidas war.

[Philip]

One second. I only found it when he hit his 520th video. Do you see what I mean? So, yeah, it's when we talk to our clients about doing it, it's like, oh, I've done 10 of them and nobody's watched it. I just want to, like, bang their head against the wall and say, like, do a hundred. You know what I mean? And then it gets.

[Robin]

Well, it's actually what I said to my parents because, you know, I don't get to see my parents a lot. You know, not to, like, call them out, but they didn't even come at Christmas. And my dad listens to this. Dad, I love you. My dad actually does listen to the podcast, which is great.

[Philip]

And he's rapping your pyramid. He's the best, so don't bust it.

[Robin]

But my dad has got a good sense of humor. But the reason why I'm actually saying that is what I said to them before is I'm like, it's actually never convenient for us to record on the weekend, but the only way that we can get this done week over week is because we record on the weekend. And the only way that you can build something meaningful is when you do it to maintain the compounding. Because there would always be a reason. And they support us in deciding to make those sacrifices, because my dad actually loves listening to it every single week.

[Philip]

You know, it's almost content, can almost be analogized like a tree. For most people, you put a seed in the ground, and then they're like, after 30 days, there's nothing going on here. It's a waste of time. Right. As opposed to, you know, in five years, you've got a solid tree. In 20 years, you've got an empire.

[Robin]

Right?

[Philip]

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. Second best is today, but you got to put the time in.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Philip]

Because this guy caught me at the 500th episode, and I'm addicted to it. But now he's got millions of followers, as opposed to the first 200. He probably. We had 2,000.

[Robin]

You know what is actually so crazy, too, is when my dad actually. We've been doing this for years. And when my dad actually started listening, it was actually a moment for me of, like, why we. We truly need to keep doing it. Because it was honestly probably the first time ever in my life that my parents were, like, so involved in something that I was doing. And it's so amazing that when I get to see him, like, he's talking to me about the things that we're talking about. And it's so. And I'm just so thankful, dad, that you listen every week. I love you.

[Philip]

Yeah, my parents don't listen. But anyway.

[Robin]

But they don't. It's true. But they will be here.

[Philip]

But they always supported me.

[Robin]

We can guilt them next.

[Philip]

Yes.

[Robin]

Okay, great. So I want to talk about what Baze was doing is true world building. Because it. They've done this. They've done this multiple times. So the reason why Baze is also so successful is that they've built this community. They connect. They create these earned media value moments. They did the same similar kind of collab with Chipotle where it's not necessarily designed to make money, although does make money. It's designed to be different to give you that social bump. And I just want to compare what Baze is doing to this Adidas versus Nike war going into the FIFA World Cup. So, Philip, why don't you set up this segment? Because it's really fascinating if you haven't seen the two commercials.

[Philip]

And we're going to talk about a third one too.

[Robin]

Okay.

[Philip]

Like, we're going to talk about LAYS as well.

[Robin]

Yeah, but. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause that's not a part of Adidas. I freaking love that commercial.

[Philip]

FIFA is probably is the most profitable. The FIFA World cup is the most watched and profitable sports event in the world. Way better than the NFL. So there's more to the. To sports in the US Way bigger than the Olympics. It's now in North America, which is the best marketing destination in the world.

[Robin]

In the world.

[Philip]

Right. And I think there's a lot of people that want to try and strip it down, but I also think there's a lot of people that have been listening to your. Our world building. Because when we look at the advertisers between Nike and Adidas, they are world building. And then their worlds are dropping bombs on each other, trying to outdo each other with celebrity and like little mini TV show commercials. But, you know, we were talking about it in preparation. I can. I can see the fingerprints all over these as legacy agencies that have adopted world building, but don't really know what world building is. And so they're trying to make an action. They're like making Marvel commercials, like a Marvel movie commercial, which isn't world building anymore. Like, they're not really connecting with anybody. And I think I don't know where to go with that.

[Robin]

World building isn't breaking the fourth wall. And that's what Nike was trying to do in that video, is that they think by starting with X and turning to Y without any plot, without any invitation into a world, without making you slow down and feel is not what world building is. World building is providing someone a passport, an entrance into a destination that has a very visceral and clear ideological and visuality to its brand. And that's not what the Nike commercial is. Like. You can't start with this, like, CGI crazy commercial. And then it leads to, like, an mbappe and then, like, why is Kim K and her son showing up? And it just. It's a celebrity cluster F. You help me get my.

[Philip]

My boof back there. Because world. What I was struggling. What I was struggling. That's what your therapist does. World building. It's like, okay, well, we're just going to put a lot of people together, spend a lot of money, and make a lot of activity that wouldn't bore a chipmunk if they're watching it. Like, you know, and it's so many cuts. It's so much action. It's like, look at this, look at this. Another celebrity. Another celebrity doing this. Like, it's like, that's not world building. That's stress. That's not what we really want.

[Robin]

I was actually stressed waiting. So I was waiting for, like, the. The plot, the point. It just seems like an extracted trailer for a movie that I didn't sign up to because it's just so. It's like, look how much money we have. We're going to take this idea of what people are doing in a strong way online, and we're going to throw so much money into it, but we're going to strip it from meaning.

[Philip]

Yes. And there's a phrase called meaning mapping, and you want to kind of map where the meaning is in your story. And when you look at the commercial world building, you have to feel for somebody. Usually in a world, there's like a hero. There's something going on in this. And when I'm looking at these commercials, it doesn't make me feel like I could be there. I should be there. I'm rooting for anybody. I'm excited to be there or I'm rooting for anybody. It's like, oh, oh, this is. It's like, bang and at the end, you just feel like you were in a pinball machine of an ad that's masquerading as a story. And then an agency executive is like, way to go, Nike. We just world build it right. And you did not Camille Moore that commercial. That's what I said.

[Robin]

No, but compared to Adidas, right, With Timothee Chamilay.

[Philip]

Little better. Little better.

[Robin]

Did we say it wrong? Chalamet.

[Philip]

Chamois.

[Robin]

Chamois. I don't know why that one is chamois. It's chameleon.

[Philip]

No, it's Shalom.

[Robin]

Oh, Shalom. Okay.

[Philip]

I think Adam Sandler would do a good job making fun of his.

[Robin]

I think he has done that. Shalom.

[Philip]

Literally.

[Robin]

We're definitely making a Robin thumbnail. Okay. So she'd fit in a Robin. Talk about, talk about. I'm literally Batman.

[Philip]

Like, you would fit in a Robin outfit. And I have a robe. I have a Batman Look.

[Robin]

It's 2026. Okay? We're reversing some things here.

[Philip]

You can be my Catwoman.

[Robin]

Can you please. Can you talk about the Chalamet commercial? Because it was. I think it was great.

[Philip]

It's definitely. Adidas is winning the world building war. They got theirs out first. And it's also ironic to me that Chalamet is in Adidas and Kardashian is in Nike. Both of them are making money off of the World cup from two seasons.

[Robin]

And it's like all one incestuous family.

[Philip]

It's hilarious. That's an empire. But he gives the vibe because it introduces the commercial a little slower. You're kind of wondering what's going on, Right? Like, you're with him, you can tell they're going somewhere. That's important. Like, there's stuff going on that then when you introduce some of the footballers and the activity, it makes a little bit more sense. You feel like somebody's got invested in this game. Right? Whereas Nike was just activity ball trick, activity ball trick celebrity.

[Robin]

But compare that to Lays, because Lays to me is in this FIFA Americanized World cup celebrity, whatever you call it, lay's is the one that I actually want to. To take my passport into its world because I want to be on that truck. It made me laugh, it made me feel, it made me relate, and it completely resonated with me because I'm not a soccer fan, but I agree with. I want to get on that bandwagon, what Lays did.

[Philip]

And first of all, I don't like the chips. Like, if I was Lays, I would say, let's invest Way more money in making the chips better. Put more salt and vinegar, ketchup or barbecue on those. Those goddamn chips because I'm always wanting the ones with more tips.

[Robin]

They got some good, big ones.

[Philip]

No, that being aside, they got some good ones. The executives at lay's were very intelligent in how they did. I love that because one, they saw a sporting event coming up that a lot of people are going to go to, and it's much more culture in culture in North America. Like, a lot of immigrants are watching these things, like religious servants. But there's a story like Will Ferrell pops up on your screen and you're like, okay, I'm always going to listen to the first 10 seconds of will Ferrell to see what's going on. And then he, and many people may remind it, remember him from Kicking and Screaming, which is a hilarious movie, one of the best kids sports movies ever, next to Sandlot, probably my favorite one, or Bad News Bears. But you're. And then he's just being hilarious, you know, taking the piss out of Americans and their lack of knowledge of soccer, but also acknowledging that a lot of Americans love soccer because their kids play and the World cup is here. And then they have the bandwagon, which is the big tractor trailer that you can see through that people are in. And he's kind of making fun of people who jump on sports bandwagons. Like, there's layers to a story. There's irony.

[Robin]

I want to echo what you're saying. I just wanted. I want to dig a bit more into the creative because it, to me, speaks to the large. It's why it's world building, is that it's speaking. It has so many layers. And the largest layer is that so many of the world FIFA audience is like, why did America get the FIFA World Cup? Like, they're not even fans. And lays echoing it back of like, you know, let's just embrace what this is and let's make it great because we're bringing this sport into this. This country and this culture. And then at the end when he's like, the team lost. It doesn't matter because we're not really cheering for one. We're bandwagoners. It just. It really is true world building because it brings everybody in.

[Philip]

But you know what's also beautiful about it? It, like there's just a bunch of Europeans that want to crap on the US So they're crapping on the World cup song. They want to say the US Is going to screw it up and it's because their own little insecurities and small man syndromes. But what was amazing about America is they're like, it's here. We're going to make it amazing. Because what America does is make things huge, right? They just don't do what's done before. They're going to make it huge.

[Robin]

Will Ferrell super sizing it.

[Philip]

But what I love about it too is when you're thinking about making stories in your business, irony is beautiful to get the human brain to pay attention. And contrast is amazing. And Lays wasn't scared of contrast because you'd have an American talking about soccer and then it would cut to a British person in a pub talking about football. And you were seeing back and forth, back and forth with Will Ferrell being the central train on the story that brings you into the bandwagon. Whoever the person did that creative is, I'd love to meet that person because it was really well done with a good budget as opposed to Nike. Very badly done with probably 50 times the budget.

[Robin]

Ain't that the truth. Okay, so the next thing I want to talk about is that brands are illegally using AI models. So there was a crazy story this week that came out where I'm just going to pull it up here. So Francesca Pujols sued a budget retailer called Rainbow Shops in New York Supreme Court because she alleges that Rainbow photographed her in their clothing against a plain white background, then used AI to generate with her face into images and poses with other models that she did not authorize. And the side by side photos went super viral on social media. And this comes out after a time where there was speculation for brands like Refi that were using full blown AI models, not taking real models likeness and turning it into like AI imagery. And what's interesting about this is one, I wanted to have a conversation through the legal lens because we've got the rogue lawyer who sits here as our co host. And the other angle that I want to touch on too is AI imagery in general because we actually have several brands that some of their top performing ad assets are AI generated imagery. So it's complicated because it's one, there's legal ramifications, there's the rightness ramification of do we just, you know what, what happens to the model. But then on another hand I work with some small and mid sized businesses that have been able to really scale because they don't have to fly to Paris to do a parachute. They can generate it through Higsfield and it looks undetectably amazing.

[Philip]

There's a lot to unpack there. Because the beauty of a parachute is you're in Paris. And so if the consumer doesn't think you're in Paris, you can lose credibility. So you want to. Once you have trust with your customer, you don't want to lose it because it takes a long time to build trust, and you could lose it in a day.

[Robin]

Ain't that so?

[Philip]

If you're taking a shortcut and doing that. So you want to let them know it. Where I think this is interesting from a legal perspective is on one hand, you got, like, Spencer Pratt doing videos where he's showing Karen Bass on AI, like in. You know, we're still on the Batman theme, but like in the villain suits. Right. And then he's showing his opponents and he's showing everybody. But maybe because it's for an educational or a political purpose, he's getting away with it. But he didn't have. He didn't have permission to take her likeness and put it onto a social media post and get tons of traction from it. That would be like if I was Kara Bassett's team and I don't want her to win, but I would be trying to stop that, the use of it in that way through legal challenges. And I just don't think she's surrounded by enough smart people to do that. But people are always trying to mimic what's going on. I think what's more interesting is, or more sneaky are people who see somebody who's beautiful, who's a model, and then ask an AI to make an avatar that looks like them. So psychologically, the human's brain thinks it's them without looking exactly like them. Because you can get some of the bump to it.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Philip]

You've never been allowed legally to use the likeness of somebody without their permission for commercial purpose. We were talking, even going back to the metaglasses, you can video people in public, but you can't use the video you took of them in public for a commercial purpose without their permission. Right. So if I'm. If you're videoing somebody in public who's looking at your taste testing, you can video that. But you have to ask them. You don't have to have a waiver. Just ask them on video. Is it okay if I put this on my website? If they say yes, you're golden. But the fact that people are trying to steal the. Like, steal the image of people who have built a life making it, they're going to get slammed like that. Just like some of the songs I

[Robin]

think you bring up such a great point because the, one of the reasons why this, one of the customers that I'm talking about that's using the Higsfield AI reached out for strategy advice was because the business has grown substantially with these ads. But she's kind of at a plateau because she has no community. And the issue is that a lot of the community or community adjacent imagery comes from the behind the scenes of the shoot. It comes from that idea of the social bump, that kind of that world building concept. What we talked about is if Baze just did the activation in Miami without all the content of setting up the store, Shay Mitchell doing these funny content pieces, all the people that came in, people reacting to the, to the product, the ASMR of touching the products, would that have collab been as successful? Absolutely not.

[Philip]

Yeah, that's, that's a good point.

[Robin]

Right.

[Philip]

So that's why you're paid the big bucks.

[Robin]

It's why it's like, you know, the AI ad imagery is great for if you're at that ad brand, trying to get into a good brand status, but it's not going to get you from a good brand to a great brand. And that is kind of. But, but in addition to that, this idea of the AI model imagery, the way that I think about ads is in terms of categorical buckets. So your ad strategy is built by understanding you have to have different creatives for different points of the sales funnel. And meta prefers when you have a range of ad assets that connect to those different funnel pieces within a siloed campaign. Meaning when we run ads for clients, we'll tend to have four different buckets of ads that serve four different purposes. There will always be an ad or two ads that disproportionately outperform. But you need that entire ecosystem in order for those two to outperform. Because people don't just see and buy, they need to be led into the conversion. And that's why like a brand like Doan is a fantastic example. Right now they have these beautiful lo fi iPhone shot ads of like girls in grocery stores where their heads aren't in the photo and it looks like a real person wearing clothes. And to me it looks like outfit inspo. That's what drives me to buy. But their other admix are like high fidelity, like commercialized shoots or like flat lays of products or like testimonials or reviews. So by having that entire bucket, by the time I'm served that lo fi iPhone shot, I'm more likely to convert, but it's not based on that alone. And what's interesting is the consumer isn't as in tuned as we are of doing this every day. So they don't realize how many times are being served different versions of the message. And that's why you need this, this ad range. So AI comes in as a fantastic aspect to the range, but not the entire thing.

[Philip]

Yeah, I think if you switch too early. In one example, there's an individual I follow. I've talked about Chase Hughes, who's a behavior science specialist I love to study and he's very tech forward. But he, his, his latest course is his AI avatar. But I can't do it. My brain can see that, the symmetry of the speech. You can get a phrase to work or you can do it when you're farther away. But when I'm looking at you from this distance and I'm looking at his avatar on the screen, it actually turns me off. I can't watch the avatar speak because it's not natural enough. And so he did this whole course and I can't watch it even though I wanted to. I think that's what you have to be careful with AI is it's a compliment. It's something that can be a foundation for strategy and help you out. But if you go too far too soon, you're going to break the, break the connection with the human being you're trying to have a relationship with.100%.

[Robin]

Let's move on to the next. Actually, just before we move on from AI in general, I want your thoughts on Bernie Sanders who came out this past week and said that he is arguing for the public should own 50% of OpenAI in Claude and I actually saw a lot of really smart business people that I respect who, who was resharing it, saying that for once I actually agree with not only like a Bernie Sanders point of view, but also that the public should be owning 50% of these massive conglomerates.

[Philip]

I could go down a big rabbit hole here because there's a lot of things related to your country's political strategy that relates to a business owner strategy. So you can get distracted by the stupid things because people who you think are smart around you are telling you it's important to focus on dei. It's important to focus on that. It's important to focus on that. AI was invented at University of Toronto, the first model of AI by this guy named Hilton. And he was blowing up. Canada has no AI industry. Canada has been focused on doing anything other than creating Industry. And I just want to keep that as a perspective because you need to have a long term vision of how to be successful as a business, as a person, as a country. What Bernie Sanders is talking about is not offensive to most conservatives. You know, and the Bernie and the conservative audience will often find a place to meet in the middle because, and this is where people want to vilify Elon. But when Elon asked the government for help making Tesla and he's one of the only, he paid it back in 18 months perfectly with interest. So he paid it back. But he, he had suggested that they could take ownership in Tesla. So if I'm a smart government organization and I'm going to subsidize, maybe subsidize an industry rather than just give them taxpayer money, why don't say I'm going to invest like a pension fund into your company, But I want 10% of your company so that if it goes to a trillion dollar, the taxpayers who lent the money have ownership. Like think of it, if we had done that with ChatGPT, which is worth, you know, almost a trillion dollars, or all of these companies. If you want some government subsidy, we're going to give it to you. If you need roads built to your, to your business so that you can operate, if you need rails, if you need help with all of this, we're going to do it. But you're just going to give the taxpayer a little bit of the piece so that the, so the country now is a pension fund rather than just a bank handing out stuff. And why most politicians, liberal Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, why they didn't do that is because they were all busy getting paid in the back end for their own personal wealth and then getting the populace upset about politics rather than investing in the country.

[Robin]

Does any country do that?

[Philip]

Norway, Norway created a sovereign wealth fund. I think it was like 20 years ago, don't quote me on it. And they just started investing into. Every time a kid is born in Norway, they put like a thousand or two thousand dollars into the bank for them and that just grows and compounds until they're 65. And that's the pension fund. And they were. And if businesses come in there, they take points on the business. So there's very dynamic ways to run a country and be successful. But you, I just trust me, your country, your company, you are not going to be successful. If you're worried about these fringe issues that everybody's having panic attacks over and canceling people over. You have to focus on what's important down the road.

[Robin]

Well, then let's talk about canceling people.

[Philip]

Okay, this is going to be hilarious segment.

[Robin]

We actually have two hot button topics and I want to actually have you guys stay till the end because the second topic that we're going to talk about, I actually have my own example that came through this week with Simone consulting that I did. So the first one we're going to start with is the Patrick Ta drama. So Patrick Ta is in the hot seat because he has taken a beauty term from a person of color. So Painted by Esther is a well known makeup artist in the community, lesser known than a name like Patrick Ta. She does things more like brand collabs with things like Mac right now. And she has become well known for leveraging this technique called Transition blushes. And she's been using this as transition blushes on darker skin tones. So the idea is that you can really see by layering the blush, quite a pink blush on a darker skin. Now Patrick Taw, one of his assistants actually did this collab with painted by Esther and basically had her on camera be showing this product. Fast forward. They launch a product called Transition Blushes and they trademark the term. And because they trademarked the term, the Internet is up in arms. Because the whole idea is that they've taken a concept away from a person of color who can no longer monetize or make money off it because the con, the term has been trademarked.

[Philip]

Like if you only care because it was taken from a person of color, you're not a good human being. You know what I mean? Like you, everybody steals ideas, right? I guarantee you that the person of color you mentioned, you know, at some point got inspiration from somebody else. Like it's, it's not.

[Robin]

Well, that's actually the thing, right?

[Philip]

It's not.

[Robin]

That's actually the thing is that she didn't create it. Right. And it's a lot of, there's been a lot of people in the industry that have been doing even goes as far back as like Kevin o' Coin, who is a famous makeup artist. There's a lot of people saying that it's actually has been a massive trend in K beauty, in C beauty, Chinese beauty and Japanese beauty. The Casey's and the J Beauties. What she made it more well known for was that she was doing it on darker skin, even makeup by our Ariel, Kylie Jenner's makeup artist has been doing it on her. So it's become a thing within the industry. So you're exactly correct. And honestly I just. The, the beauty industry is super finicky.

[Philip]

Let me. Let me defend myself, because I know from the contents people are going to be like, oh, my God, why is this old white guy touch. Like, I care about human beings, right? So if you take something or you steal something from any human being, I want you to be held accountable. But if you have been convinced to think that everything is a giant injustice, like, this woman was killing it with something she developed through a bunch of experience, her personal branding just has to be good. Right. If somebody else takes it and trademarks it, I would just double down and I would say, this guy's using my stuff. That shows that I'm better than him. Like, there's a way to do it without making it look like. Like, oh, my God, somebody has victimized me, as opposed to just saying people are stealing my stuff because I'm the best at it. Like, everybody steals like an artist.

[Robin]

Well, I think where it becomes complicated is, is it stealing like an artist when you trademark the term? And I think that I don't really want to get into, like, the race war component, but I will say that the. What's the thing that's complicated worth discussing is that these terms come out through marketing and. And beauty brands are now going to be able to quickly trademark to own it, and how much harder that's going to be for smaller brands or uppercuts.

[Philip]

You can't own it by trademark. You can trademark a phrase. Right? You can't trademark the process if somebody was already using the process.

[Robin]

No, but they're going to have to call it gradient blushes or diffusion blushes. Like, they can't call it a transitional blush, which is what it was.

[Philip]

But if she used it before and

[Robin]

all of her Instagram.

[Philip]

Yeah, but she'll get a good lawyer. Like, if she was using that phraseology before, because one of the ways to get a trade mark is you have to show originality and exclusivity before anybody else. So there's an interesting legal battle there. And sometimes big companies will just bully somebody by doing it. And because they've trademarked, now they look like it. I. What I want to share, if anybody is interested in some historical analogy to this, take a second to YouTube or Google. Venice, Italy, and Glassblowing, because the trademark secrets within Glassblowing resulted in so many murders in that town. It was almost like Mason's like protecting trade secrets. And it's something that affects a lot of our customers because you want to show how good you are, but as soon as you put it on the digital world, A million people are going to see it and can kind of copy it. So how do you balance that? I need to get traction with my new technology or ideas because people are going to steal it and copy it.

[Robin]

Well, that's why I think it's so interesting because you had like Hailey Bieber who came out with like the glazing skin and like the glazed donut and everyone was calling it glazed skin. If you create these terminologies or the Internet creates these terminologies and then a brand could just swoop in and trademark it. It shows you how fleeting and complicating the trend cycles are becoming through a brand context. Because it shows you that monoculture, if it exists within these industries, are now branded trademarks.

[Philip]

Yeah, but just mobilize your tribe. Somebody comes and takes your thing, they actually have the lawsuit that they can then use. You have to think multi dimensional combat operations. I've spent like, this lady spent a long time perfecting this thing. Somebody comes and trademarks it. I would mobilize my army. I would do a press release that I'm going to sue that guy for. Like, I would go on a campaign of reputation destruction unless he came and acknowledged and did a collab piece with me on my podcast saying, I want to thank you for all the work you've done. I've used some of it. You don't like. I, there's a way to take the initiative and win, but it's not to sit back and say, well, that's what he did wrong.

[Robin]

I mean, I think both are winning because I, he is getting so much, like so much on this. And he's really famous for Blush. So, like, he is very famous for

[Philip]

some person coming and stealing it, like, and never had makeup artist, super famous makeup artist.

[Robin]

And he's super famous for doing Blush. And like, it is a part of his, his trend. What they did wrong is he shouldn't have had someone on his team do content with her if they knew that they were going to come out and take it. Like it's just a bad look. And. But both to your point, like, because of this controversy, she has now become way more famous. Right. Way more people are talking about her. And then on the other side, you also have controversy. Like, I'm sure his sales are going to be through the roof. It's going to be an absolute sellout because people are going to want to try it to also potentially rip it apart. Right. Like, everyone want, is going to want to try the steps. So that was the first one in the discussion on and just beware.

[Philip]

Like, like the. The planes of the business landscape are littered with the bodies of businesses who innovated but didn't think they had to market or create a brand. And they just died on that battlefield.

[Robin]

All right, so next controversial topic. So has Patagonia fallen victim to its own dumb thinking? So Win Wylie is a drag queen who goes by the name Patty Patagonia and he's famous for hiking and trailing and doing this in full drag. And I've got to make sure that I get all of this correctly.

[Philip]

So could you imagine that late at

[Robin]

night it's a, you know, if you see the video, it's actually kind of scary. So Patagonia filed a trademark suit against Patagonia, a drag environmentalist activist, in January of 2026, seeking just $1 in damages, alleging her use of a near copy name commercially in her trademark application pose long term threats to the brand. So she's been basically. The court records show the Patagonia learned in 2022 that she was pursuing brand partnerships with Hydro Flask, the North Face, and asked her team to avoid its fonts, mountain imagery and basically merch that said Patty Gonia on it. And the reason why this is a hot topic is that Patagonia has listed three demands. So number one, one, drop the trademark application. Two, stop using the mountain logo. Pretty reasonable request. And number three, she can't do partnerships under the name Patagonia. And basically it has created this entire uproar on the Internet because I don't really understand why it's an uproar in the Internet. I mean, she's taking the likeness and the name Patagonia to make money off of selling outdoor merch. So, like, you have to suspect that this is going to happen. But I think that the reason why.

[Philip]

Where is the uproar? Is it the uproar because Patagonia is attacking a drag queen who identifies as. Or is the uproar the person who's ripping off Patagonia is doing something bad? Where is the uproar?

[Robin]

No, the uproar is there. People are like pissed at Patagonia because Patagonia has been like pro LGBTQ and pro unhoused people and pro a bunch of these different things. And they have all these people that are like, like, you were our brand. How dare you go after Patty Gonia to not be able to make money off of the brand that she's building. What are your thoughts, Philip?

[Philip]

Ooh, buckle up. I don't know where to go on this one, but there is there's a lot of unintended consequences. And so often, you know, well intentioned policies, if they're not properly thought out, can result in things that you don't really expect or desire. And that's Gad Saad's book, Suicidal Empathy and which I highly recommend you take a look at it even if you don't agree with him. Empathy is good. Too much empathy is suicidal. Right. You don't let murderers into your house because they're unhoused. Right. That's suicidal empathy. You're going to get killed. I love Patagonia. When I was in the military, I loved their, they had the best design, they had the best outdoor wear. It made me feel vibrant, strong. Somewhere along the line they kind of got too much into politics and rather than just focusing on nature and the environment. And then you and I had gone into a couple stores, stores over the last two years and it just was, it hadn't it, it didn't resonate with me at all.

[Robin]

No. Because on the King west location outside the store, it was like, we support our neighbors. Intense. Like stop kicking them out of their homes.

[Philip]

But they're, but they're not giving them their tents. And this is why the issue I had with land acknowledgments, don't acknowledge you're on somebody else's land unless you're going to pay rent. But to have a sign saying, you know, let's respect our unhoused people in tents out there. None of them are Patagonia tense like so I hate that empty virtue signaling. And they got very, very pro down that, that one road where they essentially accepted that you could just say you're something that you're not and then be recognized as it. And the beautiful irony of this story is that this person is saying he's somebody that he's not and they're not recognizing it and they're actually suing him for it. Like it's this, it's this really ironic, you know, soup of how does Patagonia keep its moral high ground but protect its financial interests? Because this guy is ripping them up off, blatantly ripping them off. Made his name that used their logo and essentially has the arrogance of saying you have shown, you know, uncritical thinking in some of your other ventures. Don't try to apply it to me now because based on what how Patagonia recognized things. Right. They have no, they have no moral standing to now say. But in a case when it affects our bottom line, we're now going to call out reality.

[Robin]

I, I do want to speak, though, to what makes this case really interesting, because there is a culture to like the drag culture, where a part of their name tends to be something funny. So, like, they will.

[Philip]

Or they're mimicking a celebrity.

[Robin]

Yeah. So they'll play on like a celebrity name. And like. So it is an impersonator. It's an impersonation. Yes.

[Philip]

This is not an impersonation, but it's an impersonation in a way that defraud a company that has spent decades.

[Robin]

Well, that's what makes this complicated. Right. Is the, that there is this aspect to drag culture, which I think a lot of the people that are in defense of Patty Gonia is saying that, you know, this is someone that makes them laugh. They're enjoying, like, stop taking this so seriously. This person should be supported. They're creating such great content. We're a part of this community and culture. On another hand, it shows you, when you allow looseness within what you expect, how that can turn and bite you in the butt, because you are. When you give an inch, they'll take a mile.

[Philip]

This is why you can't live in a society where people tell you what to think and don't let you have an argument that goes a few questions deep.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Philip]

Because if Patagonia, the, the impersonator was making money off of her content hiking, that's fine. But if Patagonia is doing collabs using the logo, that's Frank fraud. Do you see what I mean? Like, and so you have to.

[Robin]

The actual logo, they're manipulating. She's manipulating the logo. But on top of that, though, it's, you can't. But this is the, the nuance that's interesting. You can't make money based off of Instagram content because you can't get paid. When you analyze this through the lens of using the world building word, that community that loves the content wants to show that they're a part of that community by also buying that merch.

[Philip]

Let me give us some legal strategy, strategic advice.

[Robin]

Okay, let me hear it first.

[Philip]

At one level, if Patty Gonia came to me, this is the advice I would give to her. Go to your municipal registry and change your name to actually Patty Space Gonia, because now it's your name and that's not a trademark infringement. And since you can just change your name whenever you want, identify as whoever you want, she can be protected from the usage of that name. If I was Patagonia and I was advising them, I go, okay, you guys have all Dropped the ball for a long time time. Let's bring Patty Goni in here and hire her and pay her more than what she's making anywhere else and make her your company's ambassador because it goes with the flags on their windows. It speaks to everything they want to do. And just collaborate with her.

[Robin]

Just get it to make it tvpn. Absorb them, open AI bring them in.

[Philip]

That's interesting.

[Robin]

Move.

[Philip]

Make, make, make him or her like your partner and now create a TV show out of it. I'd bring them in collab. I would finance a TV show and let her get you. So many, many just share the profits with it.

[Robin]

You're right. And the reason why I wanted to bring this up is I actually had my own experience this week of how far all this stuff is going and how empathy, like the suicidal empathy is truly killing brands that are trying to do the most. And this won't make the clip, but for the. The warriors that tune in every week and put up with Robin over here, you guys will hear out the full story. Look at the dirty look that I'm getting. Okay, so, so there's, there's clients, but

[Philip]

Robin was the chatty small one. And Batman doesn't say much. He just comes in with any. And I think anybody looking at this knows who's Robin is on his.

[Robin]

It's a modern Batman and Robin. Sure, I know this is an emergency strategy. Call off the Internet woman who owns this big company, owned a big company before. She's like, you gotta ring me. This like we're launching on Friday shit just went wild on the Internet. I have to talk to you.

[Philip]

You.

[Robin]

So I call her and this woman is an artist. She has a fashion line. This woman has been inspired by something that's quite political right now. And she has felt that she hasn't been able to use this motif that has inspired her art for time, especially her big loss brand that she had exited out of. And she wanted to kind of use it again in this capsule campaign for her new brand. And the way that she did it was the entire proceeds of the collection is going to charity as her way of, like, she's not even making money. It's her bringing her art back into her brand. And she had hired all of these, like disabled mixed race or like people of color models that like, represent different areas of like LGBTQness. And like, she literally did everything you could to do it correctly in her.

[Philip]

What was her critical mistake?

[Robin]

Doing it? No, the critical mistake was doing it in the first place. That's It. But it wasn't even a mistake.

[Philip]

It's what she get attacked for.

[Robin]

For doing it.

[Philip]

The flag.

[Robin]

Yeah, yeah. But we were talking in abstracts.

[Philip]

We can talk about the flag.

[Robin]

Oh, we were talking about when did

[Philip]

your national flag become something that's negative?

[Robin]

Well, that's the whole thing.

[Philip]

So she just wanted to be patriotic and support a community, but like, not even patriotic.

[Robin]

Her whole point is that she feels that she's. She's very liberal. She feels that she can't be patriotic. So she's using this flag as an embolism of saying, like, not an embolism.

[Philip]

That's something that gets in your head and kills you. It's an emblem.

[Robin]

Emblem. Emblemism. You can't say emblem.

[Philip]

Embolism is. Yeah, embolism, emblem.

[Robin]

You can. You can totally this. You're wrong on this one for sure.

[Philip]

Well, I'm having an embolism hearing you talk about embolisms.

[Robin]

Nice. You're so kind to me.

[Philip]

Okay, let's go.

[Robin]

Totally. Second chair energy.

[Philip]

Let's go, Spike.

[Robin]

Okay, so.

[Philip]

So Spike is a little dog that would hop around beside the big guy going, hey, Spike.

[Robin]

Okay, go ahead. Love it. So anyways, long and the short is, my point is that she was just in this position where she's like. The whole conversation was basically coming down to, you can't please the mob. You can't please the mob when you're constantly trying to give the mob a voice and aversion to speak. And if you become. If you allow the mob to control yourself, you lose approach to your art and you lose that artistic value.

[Philip]

You, you know, getting into like a bit more deeper thinking. Even in politics, when there is a Twitter mob that wants to cancel you, you have to understand that they're going to be innocent people by the mob's own morality damaged. Because when you look at. When a mob goes down a street, it might start off by hitting one or two stores that they don't like. But by the time the mobs got momentum, they're ripping apart every store. Anybody who's not in the mob gets destroyed.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Philip]

So you can't be a bystander. And I think that's what's happening sometimes in the world that's frustrating people is they're trying to be helpful. But you do one thing wrong. The mob just wants to destroy and the mob loses its conscious. And that's how you kind of get on this path to totalitarianism from the left as well as from the right.

[Robin]

Well, the reason I just thought it was interesting is it shows you as you allow them to kind of build to your point, build and get power. It gets to the point where, where the founder doesn't feel like the founder can make decisions which allowed them to love the brand in the first place. And they lose their creativity because they become so, they, they have so much fear from this group thing. And she was getting to the point where she was like, you know, what about all these models that I hired? And like, they're now being brought into it. And I'm like, dude, you literally hired models that don't have modeling opportunities. Like, they're probably thrilled to have been a part of it. She goes, everybody loves, loved it. She goes, but like, my team, my team is so worried. My team is so afraid. And I'm like, your team is not the founder. The team is not who has gone through all of the creative learnings, who have built the brand in which the, these people love and like. And I'm like, you've now actually broken through. You've done the successful thing. You're allowing people to feel.

[Philip]

But yeah, this is why like the PR teams, the people who, who advise on this, they're giving the wrong advice. What I would give this lady's advice is I would be emotional, go to the camera and tell your audience exactly what I'm saying.

[Robin]

That's what I said. Do a live. Do a live and talk about it. And I was like, I even empowered her. And she's like, what about when I get all these comments? I'm like, respond, respond to the comments. And for the people you still lose, fuck em. Why? Because they were probably never gonna be true customers in the first place. Like, if you're creating art for art's sake and you're creating a brand. And I'm like, especially when all we're criticizing is these sheen, like, like artless monsters that are just coming in and copy pasting. Like we're losing the, the attachment to artists and, and fashion.

[Philip]

One thing I think people could might find interesting, mob mentality isn't just a mob of people. Mob mentality catches on. And then individuals can have mob mentality. So it can be one person in a special interest group applying mob mentality to what you're doing. And even when you're talking about the actors, I all I could think about is the guy by whoever played Tyrone Lannister in Game of Thrones.

[Robin]

The actors were like in wheelchairs and stuff.

[Philip]

No, but when you think of mob mentality, how it can be, you can feel righteous and be so wrong. So Peter Dinklage, I think is his name. He played Tyrone in Game of Thrones. Right. He got a dwarf's role and crushed it.

[Robin]

Is that the right wording?

[Philip]

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

[Robin]

Okay, it does. What's the wording?

[Philip]

Little person.

[Robin]

Little person.

[Philip]

And then in Snow White, he comes out and criticizes Snow White, the new disaster of a movie. Snow White White, because it was going to use little people. And so how many rules are there in the world for little people to get into movies?

[Robin]

Not many.

[Philip]

And the guy who nails it in Game of Thrones then denies it to everybody else because he thinks he's being virtuous, but he's hurting the actual population that he's trying to protect. And I see that all over society, like, avoid mob mentality.

[Robin]

But you bring up such a great point. It's like by. By removing that as being a safe role to have in a movie with people who can authent satisfy that role, you've now removed the opportunity for them to have that role. Because now the, like, the right way to think is to not do it at all. And that's the problem. That's why I wanted to bring this up.

[Philip]

The right way to think, according to that type of thinking is if you remade Princess Bride, a little person would play Andre the Giant's role. You know, if you think about. Because that's the problem, though, because little people shouldn't be denied from playing huge people's person. That's the type of thing, that's the

[Robin]

argument that he's making. But the problem with that, that is it's just not really happening. So it's not going to happen.

[Philip]

But I'm sure, I'm sure the people who did the remake of Snow White are going to ruin Princess Bride.

[Robin]

And because you don't get the rule now, they can't get rules. And that was what I said to this woman is, I'm like, dude, this is. I'm like, you've done, you've. You've done, you've done the thing you've made people feel. And like now at this point, your option is you pull it when it's already gone out, it's gone viral and you allow them to win with no ability to connect, no ability to reach new audiences, no ability to, to explain your art or you go through with it. Use this as an opportunity to respond to comments, to do lives, to showcase everything that you did right in launching this, and then allow yourself to have the opportunity to work through that scar tissue, because that's how brands grow. You need controversy. Like Patrick Ta is probably going to become more successful now. And it's like people are so afraid because they don't want their name to be discussed. But we're so hungry online to showcase our perspective and opinion and POV BE

[Philip]

and your biggest challenges in life or in business are usually going to come down to a few days, a few minutes, a few seconds. Where are you willing to step up. Whether it's in front of the camera, in front of your people. Own it. Be real and move to the next level. But don't let the bastards grind you down.

[Robin]

Love it. P. Till next time. Till next time, everyone. We still have a few planners left, so if you want to get your planner, because we're going to be doing an exclusive zoom zoom with live audits. So if you want your brand to be audited by myself. I'm sure Philip will bring himself in there, too. We'll be doing questions.

[Philip]

Bring myself into it.

[Robin]

Like, I'm.

[Philip]

Like I'm intruding, or am I not part of this thing? I mean, like, are you pretending that all of these ideas of yours.

[Robin]

No.

[Philip]

Okay, good.

[Robin]

I've got my own ideas, though.

[Philip]

I know, but I'm not gonna bring myself into it. Like unwanted visitor.

[Robin]

You come in as, like. Like the cheerleaders that come in at halftime. You're like, oh, the single ladies. Oh, the singular. Okay, you're not going to come in the back. Are you going to. Are you going to host the live audits with me? Are we just upping? Are we upping the value?

[Philip]

I'd like to have a competition. What? You know what I would like to do? I like to have two cameras.

[Robin]

Okay.

[Philip]

And then we get an audit, and we both audit the same company. And then the audience judges who did a better job.

[Robin]

I love that.

[Philip]

How about that? That is a glove. Just drop the glove. Let's see if you can beat me.

[Robin]

A glove drop or a mic drop? Because who's dropping in gloves?

[Philip]

Well, you'd throw the gauntlet down.

[Robin]

Is gauntlet a glove?

[Philip]

It's a metal glove, but it was a way of initiating a duel between two nights. They'd drop the gauntlet to show I was mixing metaphors. Like two birds in the bush.

[Robin]

I love that. All right, see you next week, everybody.