How world building is taking over Hollywood in a different way

Summary

---

The Art of the Brand

Episode: How world building is taking over Hollywood in a different way
Date: January 20, 2026
Hosts: Camille Moore & Phillip Millar

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores the shifting landscape of brand-building, celebrity entrepreneurship, and Hollywood's transformation from film production to immersive world-building and product launches. Camille and Phillip break down how the intersection of branding, luxury, and pop culture is evolving, diving into topics like Saks’ bankruptcy, celebrity beauty brands, the rise of micro-luxuries, influencer fact-checking, the new “Alo bag” strategy, and the ongoing AI wars. The session delivers nuanced takes on why traditional institutions struggle to stay relevant, why authenticity trumps mere fame, and why Hollywood is pivoting from movies to commerce.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

---

1. Celebrity Brands: Authenticity vs. Fame

[00:00 – 01:20]

• Not all celebrities have authentic personal brands. Merely being famous isn't enough for success in venture-backed beauty brands.
• Camille: “Just because you’re famous doesn’t mean you have a personal brand. And that is the biggest thing that celebrity founders need to learn from.” (00:16)
• Actors face unique challenges—audiences know their roles, not their personalities. Building a successful brand requires transparency and letting the public genuinely know you.
• Phillip: “If you’re an actor, nobody really knows who you are because you’re acting… if you’re going to create a celebrity beauty brand based on your acting, you have to commit to allowing people to get to know what you’re really about.” (01:00)

---

2. “Shoulding” on Yourself & The Confidence Lag

[05:59 – 09:46]

• The anxiety of criticism and content creation holds many entrepreneurs and small business owners back.
• Phillip: “Whatever you’re feeling today is a lagging indicator of what you did three to six months ago… So you don’t have confidence to make content today because you didn’t start six months ago.” (08:40)
• Confidence comes from action over time, not from waiting for the right moment or validation.

---

3. Quality of Experience, Not Just Perception

[07:24 – 12:24]

• Luxury and premium brands are struggling because the actual experience often does not match the influencer-fueled perception.
• Many companies invest heavily in aesthetics but cut corners on true quality and experience.
• “It’s never been easier to make your brand look like something it’s not… that’s why brand is so much bigger than visuals or your logo.” (12:24)

---

4. Inflation, Greedflation & “Fake Luxury”

[11:32 – 14:42]

• Some brands are raising prices simply because they can, not because costs are up, which undermines long-term trust.
• Phillip: “There’s been a lot of people in the markets who have just raised prices because they think they can get away with it. You’re actually walking on a thin line...” (11:53)
• The rise of affordable luxury veneers, made possible by globalized access to design and manufacturing talent, floods markets with brands that look better than they are.

---

5. Influencer Fact-Checking & Accountability

[15:58 – 16:38]

• There’s a call for more transparency in influencer marketing. Brands and influencers are often unregulated and sometimes deceptive in their endorsements.
• Phillip: “Somebody should create an account that looked at what influencers are supporting and actually fact checked them.” (15:58)

---

6. Case Study: The Alo Bag Strategy & Receptive Brand Leadership

[16:38 – 24:44]

• After previous critiques, Alo Yoga invited the hosts to discuss their strategy and learn, highlighting brand maturity and a hunger for constructive criticism.
• The mini Alo bags in bold colors (rather than brown/black) are actually driving status and sales, serving a demographic eager to flex with matching athleisure.
• Camille: “There is an entire status around your activewear... the ultimate status symbol is when your outfit has the perfectly matching bag.” (21:05)
• High-ticket luxury brands leverage micro-luxuries as entry points for younger, aspirational buyers.

---

7. Celebrity Beauty Brands: The Need for Real Connection

[32:01 – 35:13 and 37:56 – 39:10]

• Successful celebrity brands (e.g., Victoria Beckham, Hailey Bieber) establish clear, authentic personal brands. Those who rest on fame without revealing themselves falter.
• Camille: “For the long, like, for a very long portion of [Victoria Beckham’s] fame, a part of her fame is that we didn’t know anything about her... and then somewhere within the last few years, someone said... that’s no longer in style. We have to get to know you.” (34:18)
• The ones who survive “this wave of celebrity brands” will be those who invest in ongoing personal connection, not distance.

---

8. Hollywood’s Shift: From Movies to Brand-Driven World Building

[39:19 – 42:14]

• Viewership and cultural relevance of Hollywood staples (like the Golden Globes) is sharply declining.
• Big names in Hollywood pivot to product launches; “LA is now producing brands over movies.”
• Camille: “LA is now producing brands over movies… their status is tied to who has the most successful brands.” (39:19)
• Red carpets are increasingly populated by celebrities pushing their own brands.

---

9. The Decline of Traditional Retail: A Saks Case Study

[63:14 – 77:54]

• Saks’ bankruptcy is the result of a “real estate play” and failure to innovate the retail experience, not just shifting consumer habits.
• The old model—where department stores curated and aggregated luxury discovery—lost its luster due to digital perusal and a lack of innovation.
• Phillip: “He just came in because he recognized it early and said, look, I’m just going to bleed this out slowly, sell off the assets, put debt into the operating companies and make off like a bandit.” (67:06)
• Camille argues that experiential retail (like Aritzia, Gentle Monster) is still viable if you invest in experience and community.

---

10. Role of World-Building in Hollywood TV & Streaming

[47:27 – 54:39]

• TV shows like Stranger Things now emulate brand world-building, turning finales into immersive, revenue-generating events (1.1 million RSVPs for in-person AMC screenings).
• Experiences—shared fandom, branded tie-ins—are overtaking the old movie-centric model.
• Netflix and Amazon are now key players, with franchises using influencer/brand tactics (merchandising, omnichannel events) to lock in audiences.
• Phillip: “Hollywood is understanding that movies have to mimic brands—this is true world building.” (49:51)

---

11. AI Wars: Apple x Google, OpenAI x Pinterest

[56:38 – 63:14]

• The Apple–Google Gemini collaboration portends a new era where data, not hardware, is the real prize.
• Phillip: “Gemini is going to be getting the data from the inputs of all of the [Apple] people that it can then use…” (58:35)
• OpenAI’s rumored bid for Pinterest is about owning trend forecasting and visual inspiration inputs—valuable as AI models exhaust open web data.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Camille: “As long as you do it through the lens of like being a good person... what you fear the most isn’t real.” (18:56)
• Phillip: “If you lose the plot, you lose. The job of Hollywood is to make amazing movies that entertain, not to be political.” (41:47)
• Camille: “These YouTubers have more power than the old producers who would pull these celebrity talent.” (54:47)
• Phillip: “That thing that sounds—your body tenses up about a bad comment—in three hours, nobody cares. In four days, it doesn’t matter.” (10:00)
• Camille: “LA is now producing brands over movies… everywhere you go, they’ve moved production to shorts to launch.” (39:19)
• Phillip: “One plus one equals three if you have two people with different opinions interested in having a discussion.” (20:10)

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-------------|------------------------------------------| | 00:00–01:20 | Celebrity brand authenticity | | 05:59–09:46 | Confidence, “shoulding” yourself | | 11:32–14:42 | Inflation and fake luxury | | 15:58–16:38 | Influencer fact-checking | | 16:38–24:44 | Alo Bag strategy & receptive leadership | | 32:01–35:13 | Investing in real celebrity personas | | 39:19–42:14 | Hollywood, brand-building & relevance | | 47:27–54:39 | World-building in streaming & experiences| | 56:38–63:14 | AI collaborations & data strategies | | 63:14–77:54 | Saks, department stores, and retail death| | 77:54–86:27 | Sephora, future of beauty retail |

---

Final Thoughts

The hosts end with an optimistic invitation for listeners to channel curiosity, embrace constructive dialogue, and recognize the nuances behind retail failures, celebrity brands, and the business of pop culture itself. Camille will be a panelist at Harvard Business School—full circle for her branding career, and, in typical on-brand fashion, she can’t wait to visit the legendary glass flower museum.

---

For listeners:
This episode is a masterclass in understanding disruption, branding, and what it takes to stand out in a noisy, rapidly changing world. If you’re looking for guidance on building authentic brands—or the pitfalls to avoid in a world obsessed with optics—this dialogue is for you.

---

Transcript

[Branding Expert]

You know, makeup by Mario's professional makeup artist is very different than Lady Gaga, who's got a top foundation or like Rihanna. You know, where what they did is they built brands tied to the authenticity of their personal brand. And that is the biggest thing that celebrity founders need to learn from is just because you're famous doesn't mean you have a personal brand. And that is like the biggest.

[Business Strategist]

Or that you need or that you can stop focusing on what your personal brand is.

[Branding Expert]

I, I don't.

[Business Strategist]

Because if you're a celebrity, you probably have a brand, but it might not, you know, like.

[Branding Expert]

No, but this is my argument. Celebrities have a celebrity brand. They're, you know, but. And I talk about this all the time, you know, behind closed doors. Jennifer Aniston with LOLavy. Jennifer Lopez with her brand. Scarlett Johansson with her skincare brand. What do you know about these people? We all know who they are. I don't know what Jennifer Aniston, like, does on the weekend. I don't know what she eats. I don't know how she, like, makes decisions. I don't know JLO works out.

[Business Strategist]

Like, it's even like Leonard Leonardo, Leonardo DiCaprio. Like, Nikki Glasser's joke at the Globes was, I have to keep making these young girl jokes because nobody knows anything else about you. Yeah, right. And this. And what I think what some of these actors, celebrities who are doing this need to know and they need better advisors is if you're an actor, nobody really knows who you are because you're acting.

[Branding Expert]

Yes. Your characters.

[Business Strategist]

So if you're going to create a celebrity beauty brand based on your acting, you're to going, you have to commit to allowing people to get to know what you're really about.

[Branding Expert]

Yes. 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. Welcome back to another episode of Art of the Brand. We are back in our studio, which should be undergoing some changes in the near future. We have hired someone to help us improve the black hole that is our podcast room.

[Business Strategist]

I don't mind the black, but I do think we need to get a new podcast layout. I'm looking forward to it.

[Branding Expert]

You know, it's so funny. We're talking about a bunch of topics today, but one of them that I want to talk about is how hard it, it feels to break the news and to create content when there are people who live to just tell you you're wrong. You know what I mean? Like or like you missed an angle or there's something that it's just, it's such an interesting thing to analyze because I, I had someone go like Lord and Taylor commented on the sax post and they're like, where's, hey, we're still here, we're not dead. And I'm like iconic. And then I googled it and they filed for bankruptcy and like shut down in 2021 and they're like now only online. So it's like you kind of were killed by Richard Baker, you know, and it's like, it's that, it's that kind of messaging where people are like for context.

[Business Strategist]

We put out some content this week on the Saks bankruptcy and some posts that are doing really well. I think we're going to talk about it later.

[Branding Expert]

But I think the big thing that I, that I want to reinforce is the reason why we show up every week and we like retalk about things like Neela Mahuja is because we want to learn. It's so hard to talk about things in a breaking news environment and to be a full time journalist that can get on the phone with sources when you're passionate about this and you're doing it. Not to say that we do do hard work and we do focus on making sure that it's all accurate, but there's areas where you can never be.

[Business Strategist]

Perfect from a context perspective. And I'll be doing a piece on this. Machiavelli has seven levels of thinking. The first one is the sleeper or the automaton who just goes through the world thinking they have original thoughts, but really not realizing that most of their thoughts have been given to them by their environment. Those people aren't that dangerous or problematic. But it's mostly the mimic and the mimic is the parrot who is just parroting what is being said in their own echo chamber. And when they hear something different to it, they attack. There's not any original thought and you guys can all think about it. There's tons of these mimics or parrots who are out there who have been given an opinion or have joined a group that gives them an opinion and they're just regurgitating and being aggressive. They're trapped in dunning Kruger type thinking and they think the appearance of virtue is virtue. The calculator is the more dangerous one. The calculator is somebody who's trying to win and is smart and can use data to win arguments. But they don't really care about creating anything. They just care about moving their yardsticks. Forward. I think where most of our clients and listeners are, are at that operator level, where we're actually focused on trying to create something new, taking some risks, and processing information that we don't know or don't agree with. Because our ultimate goal is to create something new, not just be right.

[Branding Expert]

Totally. Oh, my God. That was. I mean, that's so fascinating on so many levels because I can completely re. See the world through those stages. And before I expand on it, the Dunning Kruger effect is a fascinating psychological phenomenon that is worth you kind as like a tool in your tool chest. And the idea is that the more you know, the less sure you become. Because when you become an expert at something, you can't so passionately and so, like, fervently provide like, a definitive answer. Because the more that you get into the topic, the more that you understand.

[Business Strategist]

Nuance levels, levels, the deepness of information that is not yet discovered.

[Branding Expert]

And that's a big thing for when I talk about brand, is that we get asked binary questions like, should I be on TikTok? Or should I be on YouTube? Or should I be posting three times per day? The more that you know about branding and about the world. And that's why we show up every week to give you guys an hour of an insight that can help expand your knowledge and worldview. You can't answer those questions with binary answers. Right. Like, it's. And that's why this is called the art of the brand. Like, it's not a science. Right. There's, there's, there's things that are repeatable. Like, you know, should you be on TikTok? Sure. But should you be on TikTok? If that's at the expense of not being able to properly invest and killing it on Instagram, you know, or expanding into Facebook.

[Business Strategist]

I went to Anthony Robbins event years ago, and I quite like some of the things he does, but he talks about people should all over themselves.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Business Strategist]

Right?

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

I should be making content. I should be doing this. I should be doing more sales calls. And so you're shooting all over yourself. And we were talking to a wonderful lady yesterday who we supported in her spa.

[Branding Expert]

Mom Papillon Spa.

[Business Strategist]

We love that. She's amazing.

[Branding Expert]

She's amazing.

[Business Strategist]

Fan of the podcast and lovable. But I'm like, make content. She goes, oh, I need more confidence. I'm like, well, where do you think it's gonna come from?

[Branding Expert]

Well, to give context, she's in this, like, plaza and there's literally. And she owns a beautiful nail salon. Non toxic. All the things there are. Literally, there was no restrictive covenant in the lease agreement. And there's two nail salons opening up on either side of it, like right beside her, like, literally, like.

[Business Strategist]

And there was like there was a restrictive covenant with the lease, but then the landlord didn't enforce it because he wanted to get people in there.

[Branding Expert]

Oh my God.

[Business Strategist]

So she got a Vietnamese and an East Indian nail salon beside this luxury nail salon.

[Branding Expert]

But it's a disaster because she put all of her life savings into this business and she can't afford to lose. And every time that we go in there, where's the content? When are you posting? Where is the sign on your window that says this place is the best place?

[Business Strategist]

Like, the context is she's a genuine, humble, amazing human being who's loved but doesn't really like putting herself out there. And what happens is if you're that person, you actually can lose to the idiot. To the, to the people who are.

[Branding Expert]

Well, you are losing if you're not. That's the thing that sucks the most, is that providing great service is sadly no longer enough in a world that's shouting. It's, you know, we, we had this other conversation this week that was so fascinating. It was about a fancy hotel in New York and one of our team members treated themselves for their birthday to go and go to the spa and how disappointed she was because it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. And for how much influencer marketing they're doing and how expensive it was. And I think it's a big problem right now in the world is that that like mid tier premium that is like trying to sell itself as luxury but is kind of fake luxury. How disappointing that is. Like if they had charged. So it was like $500 for the service and it just like wasn't that clean, wasn't that organized. People that worked at the front wasn't. Weren't that nice. But imagine if you, it had been like the 800 or $900, like the 3 to $400 more, which is still a lot more money. But at that point, if it was dis, if it was incredible, opposed to like, okay, how disproportionate the value feels because when you're spending that $500 price point and it, and it doesn't surprise and delight how much you feel like you're being like ripped off for your dollar because it's. You get what I'm saying?

[Business Strategist]

Yeah. I have two points I want to follow up from you there. First of all just to going back to this individual saying, I don't have confidence. Whatever you're feeling today is a lagging indicator of what you did three to six months ago. So people are like, I don't have confidence, thinking they're going to get it in the future. But you're only going to get it in the future if you do something today. So you don't have confidence to make content today because you didn't start six months ago.

[Branding Expert]

True that.

[Business Strategist]

If you started making content today, six months in the future, you'll say, I'm more confident about making content.

[Branding Expert]

True that.

[Business Strategist]

So keep that in mind when you're asking yourself what you're feeling today.

[Branding Expert]

Well, that's the biggest thing. I mean, people stop me and they're like, how do you. Like, you give no Fs? And I'm like, I give no Fs. Do you know why I give no Fs? Because I realized three years ago that when I'd put out content on stuff that would literally keep me up at night and would make my hair go gray when I put it out there. And it didn't do anything crazy. It didn't end my life. I wasn't on the streets. In fact, it was the opposite. It continued to reinforce the growth and where you are today. So you're so right. It's not about. You don't just wake up and you're like, I'm going to be amazing on camera. And there's still so much growth for us to go through too. Like, you're so right. Keep going.

[Business Strategist]

This is a cool point that I'm going to introduce because of what you said. That was cool. Is when you say that, like, you don't have confidence. Sometimes that means you actually have anxiety about being criticized. But the world is moving so fast, nobody pays attention past a day.

[Branding Expert]

No.

[Business Strategist]

So that thing that sounds. Your body kind of tenses up about a bad comment in three hours, nobody cares.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

In four days, it doesn't matter. And it's. It's that I tell people sometimes to imagine if they're canoeing. I used to love canoeing when I was young. When you take that stroke, you get that little swirl. If you stay there, you can watch it all day long. But if you take another stroke, that swirl just goes behind you. And as you take a third and fourth stroke, it just disappears. And that's what you have to kind of treat your anxiety is just keep going forward and those swirls will just disappear behind you.

[Branding Expert]

Totally. I mean, and to build on that we've talked about this a few times, but you can. It's not going to kill you. Right. Like, if someone posts a comment that gives you an opportunity to do a second piece of content, especially if it's going viral, like, do another piece of content that allows you to correct it, keep the momentum going. Or the reality is you're never going to please everybody either. Right. Like, in order to have a headline that broke through, like, that Sax post is like, at a million views and it did so super well. And 90% of the people who consumed it thought it was fantastic. All the retailers that are in Saks thinks it's fantastic. But then you get a handful of people that don't agree. And that's amazing because that's, that's what you want in the world.

[Business Strategist]

And this is the other thing I want you to. If people call you a name or use a label, discount them. They're not functionally thinking. So if somebody says you're a fascist, you're a communist, you're this, you're that, that's not an argument, that's an. That's an identity attack from somebody who doesn't really want to think, who just wants to label and be right. Yeah. Going back to your part on the, on the, the hotel in the middle, it's always not.

[Branding Expert]

Even though it's not the middle, it's.

[Business Strategist]

Always great when our discussions just take off. But what I think happened, and brands should be aware of this, yes, there has been inflation and there has been inflation that has been justified in terms of costs, you know, going up. But there has been a lot of people in the, in the markets who have just raised prices because they think they can get away with it.

[Branding Expert]

Yep.

[Business Strategist]

Right. And this is where you're. You're actually walking on a thin line because you think you can get away with it. It improves your profitability in a couple quarters. But people start saying, this isn't worth it. Like $500 at a spa, which is essentially the same facial, just with fancier music, then another one. People are not going to believe in you and they're not going to trust you. They're not going to go back to you. You really have to give value. So I've seen a lot of businesses, and I'm not saying businesses aren't struggling with inflation, but there's a lot of things where corporations are raising prices and they don't actually have to. They can get away with it and that can ruin the brand.

[Branding Expert]

Well, I think that's what to build on this, what's complicated is from the outside looking in, it's never been easier to make your brand look like something it's not, right? Like, you can hire a talented graphic designer out of Portugal and for $1,000, have a brand that you would have never had access to that looks like a multimillion dollar brand. And you can, you know, paint the walls, you know, the trendy millennial pink. And you can do like a Renault that makes it look luxury. But that's why brand is so much bigger than visuals or your logo, right? Your brand is not those things. And when you talk, when you look at what's happening in the world is, I see both sides in the conversation we had with this woman. There's a spa in Toronto that was, like, around the corner from where I used to live. And it was a spa that, when it launched, was really quite cool. And then when I went back and this is like the last, like, nice spa experience I had, it was like, run down. It was like a little dirty. It was like, you can tell that it was hurting. But what sucks is they still have to pay that crazy rent every month. They still have to pay employees, even if people are not buying as much. And it's such this complicated dance of, like, how do you keep the brand to that standard when things are down? So it's like. So there's kind of. There's multiple angles to it that make it easier than just like, step it up, guys.

[Business Strategist]

You have to constantly be adjusting in order to survive. Or like, the world is moving fast. You can't just say, I want to do it the way. There's a cool term called piercing the corporate veil, which is a legal term where you can kind of go behind a corporate protection thing. But what it made me think of is your clients are going to pierce the veil of this fake luxury that you can make so easily so everybody can make it. And I encountered it on Instagram. I saw a cool ad. It looked like a really cool piece of kit. It was like $69. I thought it was really well done, and I thought it was amazing. But when I got it, it came two weeks later from China. And it looks like it was, like, made for two bucks. But the whole ad made it look like this was established. It was amazing.

[Branding Expert]

People are going, the disproportionate investment is what tricked you. And that's exactly how she felt, too.

[Business Strategist]

And it's cheap now. That disproportionate investment is now very affordable compared to what it was. So now it's flooding the market with these kind of fake veneers of luxury.

[Branding Expert]

Well that's what's so interesting to the hotel we're talking about in New York. I've seen so many influencers post about and talk about it and you can tell that they're just giving so many rooms like en masse. And when I the way that they're doing it too makes it seem like really organic. So influencers aren't doing like hashtag ad right. Like they're just like making it seem like they're booking at this hotel. So to your point, it's like this idea of it isn't living up to the experience because they're investing in the perception of like the, of pre sale then like long tail of keeping the customer. But to your point, like these are, this is where you need strategy in your brand. Because imagine the organization incentivize the people that work there to be like look, you get a commission or you get a bump if that person books again. And there's going to be a reality that in New York City that you've got tourists or whatever. But imagine if you incentivized the experience to be so great as a startup that you would take care of your team if people like came back and how much that would have changed this person's experience because she felt that no one really cared. It was not really that clean, it was not that dirty. But how that would change the mindset if you incentivize. Because the big thing that you talk about all the time is find ways to take care of labor. Because labor right now is the most valuable asset.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah, it's the new force multiplier. So redefine how you see labor. But that free content idea and I'm sure one of our listeners can take this and run with it. To me I picture it as an influencer fact checker. But you could create an account like in the old days we had a thing called Consumer Reports which would actually go into a deep dive into the claims that products made and you get this accuracy report. Today's world has nothing like that. But I think with a lot of these influencers who are paid or given free stuff, it'd be interesting for somebody to create an account that looked at what influencers are supporting and when it actually fact checked them, if they give it a five star like I think you could get some, some but we, we need to get some type of fact checking on, on corporate claims and business claims.

[Branding Expert]

The next thing I want to talk about is actually the Aloe bag strategy.

[Business Strategist]

Hi.

[Branding Expert]

Hi. How you doing? We've got a funny video that's going to be going out.

[Business Strategist]

We walked into aloe headquarters after having taken a few shots at them.

[Branding Expert]

We talked about this last week though. And by the way, last week's episode was not lo fi on purpose. This podcast studio in Beverly Hills did us dirty. So please give us love on the videos that look made in 1970.

[Business Strategist]

I. I went to a high end barber with a very nice older man named Armand, who. I fell asleep and I woke up and I got a bit of a hack job on my hair.

[Branding Expert]

So Louisiana did us dirty.

[Business Strategist]

But he was a wonderful gentleman.

[Branding Expert]

Hello. So when we talked about it last week on the episode, I was like, maybe they will give me the big brown bag. Well, guys, we got the big brown bag. If it was easy for me to.

[Business Strategist]

Like, you got to lift it up and show it because the aloe was a class act.

[Branding Expert]

All right, so here is my big.

[Business Strategist]

Brown bag and the explanation.

[Branding Expert]

Like, okay, so it is truly gorgeous. However, this is 3,000 Canadian.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah.

[Branding Expert]

Like, it's an expensive bag, but here's. I got the. I got the scoop and we got to talk about it.

[Business Strategist]

Can I give a shout out first before you get into details?

[Branding Expert]

Do it.

[Business Strategist]

I think the way. And you guys can tell me if you agree. The way you can tell if you're dealing with an intelligent, mature individual is they actually want constructive criticism.

[Branding Expert]

Oh yeah, I live for it.

[Business Strategist]

And. And they want to address it. Right. And so we actually got invited in there to have a conversation about it. And the CMO was Summer. Summer. Incredibly articulate, curious, thoughtful and impressive.

[Branding Expert]

Extremely. I have to completely echo. That was probably one of the greatest joys of my life. To be treated with so much respect and kindness from a brand that we've been tough on for and with no ask. Like, they didn't. Like, they weren't asking us to.

[Business Strategist]

To change, to showcase it or to.

[Branding Expert]

Show the bag, to post about it. They. They really. They watch the show, they listen to the. They listen to our content. And to Summer's credit, she says everything that you said was right. And I really respect that in brands. And that's why.

[Business Strategist]

Again, but she wanted us to understand the thinking. And the thinking was good.

[Branding Expert]

Yes. And I'm gonna explain that in a second. But to wrap up that point, I wanna make this about you, the listener. When you hear these moments, use that as your fire to get going. Because what you fear the most isn't real. Like, people are so hungry for constructive. As long as it's logical and thoughtful and accurate. The lens of, like, you've done your research. This has been an absolute ride of a lifetime of. Of realizing that what we fear the most is completely unreasonable. As long as you do it through the lens of, like, being a good person, which all of you guys are.

[Business Strategist]

So when people are so hungry for real discussions.

[Branding Expert]

Oh, my God.

[Business Strategist]

Even though the haters will try to label you if you have it, because they are those weasels that I talked about earlier and shut us down.

[Branding Expert]

I mean, we get Tiger. Tons of messages of, like, can we just kick them off? And I'm like, no. Like, this is. This is you.

[Business Strategist]

Me?

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, you.

[Business Strategist]

Surprised. So kick me off the island.

[Branding Expert]

But. But this is what's missing. Like, people don't have good dialogue.

[Business Strategist]

I get tons of messages saying, keep it up, handsome.

[Branding Expert]

From Armand the beard man. No, you're great. But I'm saying that there are people that want to silence, you know, alternative perspectives. And it's. Anyways, we can move on.

[Business Strategist]

One plus one equals three. If you have two people with different opinions interested in having a discussion.

[Branding Expert]

The bag that I'm holding and the black bags are not the ones that are crushing it because. And to summer's point, people who are going to spend in that range probably have ysl, Balenciaga, Chanel, that caliber of, you know, bigger brands in the brown and the black tones. She said, though what has wait lists and they cannot keep in stock are the mini ones that are in the bright color waves that we criticize. Because. And this is actually where my perspective has completely changed. There is an entire status around your activewear. There's a ton of women in the US and in Canada that love to lunch, post Pilates, that love to go to the mall or do some errands in a full aloe set. And the color of it being a bright red or a bright yellow is a status signaler of I can have so much premium workout wear that this is more of an outfit than, like, and then an activewear kind of piece. And that these small bags are making. They're almost like mini Elmas or, like, kind of small, like, bowler bags that are in these bright color waves complement the set. And that is becoming, like, the ultimate status symbol of, like, when your outfit has the perfectly matching bag and that it doesn't have to be a mini goyard backpack or a mini, like, bright red Chanel aloe offering that is now a status signaler. And it also allows women who have money that want to flex in this kind of Branding universe being there. Everything they wear is brands. Their activewear bag, because they're changing two, three times a day, matches their activewear getup.

[Business Strategist]

This is where I think the thinking is solid. First of all, when I heard the product Journey, which I think they could do better, even in your brown bag. I think it's a little bit of a loss leader. It is. Alo wanted to explain that, like, Alo wanted to show that they were doing something premium and they're actually. It's one of their lowest margin products.

[Branding Expert]

It's. No, it is their lowest margin product. They make. They don't make a good margin on it.

[Business Strategist]

So that bag at that price point.

[Branding Expert]

Because it's made by the same factory.

[Business Strategist]

As the Row, is worth more than the other brands. You know, like, you're getting actually better value. It's just, are you comfortable with that name on it? But the bag is actually better.

[Branding Expert]

And I love that because they get it made at the same. They said more than the Row, but the Row is the one that stuck in my mind. They said the Row and other brands that were like, legit luxury. It gets. It's an extremely well made bag. If it didn't say Aloe, you would think it's the Row. That's why, like, I'm so into it. But to your point, it's kind of confusing because, like, am I spending three grand at Aloe? Me personally, no. But to your point, if I was gonna spend seven on the Margot and it's made by the same factory, you're actually getting outside of the design being different, the same caliber of materials for over half the price. So it's an interesting way of looking at it, which they haven't messaged at all.

[Business Strategist]

No, they didn't mess it. It could have been message. Well, but I love learning about the thing. And the other thing, I want to give a shout out to Alo on. And often a lot of the things that make sense in business just require a little bit of a. Of a. Of a dynamic thinking. So rather than just look at the bag industry and say, oh, people want these bags. They looked at their customer and said, okay, their customer is spending more time in their athleisure.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

Clothes.

[Branding Expert]

And they don't have an accessory, and.

[Business Strategist]

They don't have an accessory that actually matches it at the premium price point.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

And that actually is really good thinking that people hadn't done. But again, not message as well. But it's now working.

[Branding Expert]

One of the bags had come out. They were trying to focus on more like Staple styles, like trying to be like an LG speedy or. And that's to me where it didn't make sense, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense for like the reds, the yellows, the light blues, the purples and to match an outfit.

[Business Strategist]

It looks really sharp.

[Branding Expert]

Actually it looks amazing in a cool.

[Business Strategist]

Pilot'S outfit with that bag.

[Branding Expert]

What I also think is cool too is a lot of the summer was saying a lot of the stars are wearing the bags that they're gifting because they've done aggressive gifting without asking them to like actually like wear it to like, like Winnie Harlow wore it to a basketball game. Because even though three grand or I don't know if the smaller bag is that price point, I suspect it's less. Even at 15002 grand, that's a lot of money. But again, the biggest strategy that's worked for luxury is this entry point strategy. Whereas 15002 grand, it's a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money in context to a paycheck. Right? So the average 20 year old or 21 year old that's making 2,500 or three grand a month, but lives at home and has no bills, if they see their start, they can't justify the Chanel bag. So you have to like get on a list. You have to go in like. But there's a younger and younger people are living at home longer, don't have bills and are spending time on social media. And it's a smart way for them to tap into kind of a better version of like how Coach has revived itself or Michael Kors because Alo. And I mean, it's another point that we keep making is really gone to the kids, it was like the number one requested Christmas gift for like 8 to 15 year olds. So when you're like 21, 22 and you're still thinking that that brand is super cool and it's still, don't get me wrong, a lot of money. But if you have a job and you're living at home with no money, you're probably more likely to justify that purchase because you feel like you're buying like a Chanel bag.

[Business Strategist]

You know, it's funny, years ago when I was giving a talk during, I don't know if it's 2008 recession or whenever, like sales of expensive Starbucks drinks go up during recession.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, treats, right.

[Business Strategist]

Because you can give yourself like micro luxuries. But it's almost like these bags in this world where people can't afford to buy a house and they're living at home. They can give themselves these kinds micro luxuries that actually give them some joy because they're not wasting at the theaters anymore. There's a lot of places not spending it well.

[Branding Expert]

That's actually why I think Starbucks is also crushing with that younger consumer. So we were super early for Pilates yesterday and we went to the Starbucks to kill some time and I sat in the car and I watched. There was like two or three minivans that pulled up and it was like the mom that went in and from the outside looking in it looked like she was going in for herself. Because I was there long enough, I saw her come back out, open the back and all the girls are in the back of the car. And it's to your point. It's this micro tree. It's an 11 year old can ask their mom to stop at Starbucks. They can post better on Snapchat. It's close enough that the mom can say yes because it's like $25 for the whole car fancier than for the Canadians. Tim Hortons. Right. But it's that little treat where they feel like they're getting something that has status but it's gone to the kids.

[Business Strategist]

I also think people should read the Psychology of Money and some books on sugar, you know, if you, if you want to live a great lifestyle.

[Branding Expert]

But that's also why I still think that the Starbucks getting into beauty is intelligent because that's their customer. So that was alo. Alright, so moving on. Let's now talk about Makeup by Mario. So we talked about it last week on the, on the podcast. I did this wipe through this week. I did super well and we did, we didn't talk about in the podcast. This week is last week. Why is makeup by Mario in a weird spot? And the reason is that private equity cares about potentiality of its future potential. And Rhode was a really interesting case study because she wasn't in Sephora. So everything that road did was focused on maximizing a community, building a world, selling direct to consumer. What happened upon the sale of the billion dollar exit is ELF was able to negotiate a Sephora contract which provided them the potentiality to get them that $1 billion purchase price and assessment because rode had a Runway. The problem with makeup by Mario is that it has a ceiling and it's been on, it's been trying to be sold for years. It does 250 million-plus in revenue a year at Sephora. It's a super successful brand. It's like top three in every category. It can crushes it. But the question is, where can it go?

[Business Strategist]

Well, Mario needs is second and third order strategic thinking in order to do it. And we're available, we have a few months left if you want to reach out. But when you're in Sephora, like when you're looking at where capital goes or when people do an acquisition, you have to look. When you say potentiality, it's also flexibility. Like, what can you do if you've got tons of sales on your own organic revenue channels, there's lots of places you can go. But if you're in Sephora, you know, it's harder to get out of it. And so the valuation is restricted.

[Branding Expert]

Well, when I was talking to one of my Sephora teams this week, they're like, well, he should go into Ulta. And I'm like, is that the strategy? Like, I don't think the strategy is the potentiality of expansion into their direct competitor that's almost identical to their brand. No, like, and that's kind of to.

[Business Strategist]

Double down on why you love makeup by Mario, get people to become passionate, be buying direct from that corporation on monthly reoccurring revenue streams.

[Branding Expert]

But that's not a sale, that's him involved. Yeah, yeah. Like, what private equity is going to do is not going to make me love the brand more.

[Business Strategist]

No, but you already love the brand because the product is there. So once you get the reoccurring revenue direct to the company rather than through intermediaries, the margins change.

[Branding Expert]

So then pulling it off of Sephora and just going direct. But I don't think you can do that. And you know why? Huda has been under fire for a minute and this has nothing to do with Huda. One of her products years ago became one of my favorites. It's like this yo Glow enzyme. It's like the. It's a yellow facial scrub. I love it because it takes off a significant amount of your skin and I feel young and fabulous when I come out of the shower. They pulled that product off of Sephora a year and a half ago, two years ago. And because my experience started with the Sephora app and like how easy it is for me to go to the app. Like, add to cart, click to buy. Like, everything is pre set up. It's like Amazon. I actually hate the day when that hits to the bottom because it's so much more work for me to go to her website, add it to cart, have to pay for shipping because I'm not interest interested in any of her other products. So I have to like, I'm only buying one product. So the question is like, do I buy two, do I buy three? There's so much more mental friction for me to go direct to her site that it actually messes up the company. When you were on something that was so easy and then you leave it to go somewhere that's harder, that could.

[Business Strategist]

Be an execution error. It could be a good strategy, but an execution error. Because if you're not passing on the savings of coming out of Sephora to your customers to get them used to doing it. So what I would do is come out of Sephora, offer your product at half price for the first three months so that people feel like they're getting a sale because people will go somewhere else to get a sale. Now you get used to buying it off of them thing you can incorporate reoccurring monthly purchases, you can have shipping sales. You know, like there's ways to do it. But if you think I'm just going to come out of Sephora, have my own channel, sell at the same price, what you mentioned is an obstacle. They didn't address that obstacle to get people used to buying from them.

[Branding Expert]

But that's also the problem too is like majority of her products, which I don't actually really know, that could be not true. I just know that they. Sephora still sells a ton of her products. So because it's like half her shits on her website and half her shits in Sephora. You're right. There's, there's, there's a, there's definitely strategy that makeup by Mario can do. But it's interesting from an understanding because it, I think these celebrity beauty brands all get put into one box where it goes back to that kind of idea on Nuance, right? Where because it's a celebrity beauty brand, they're not all equal. He's not just going to get a billion dollar valuation because Hailey Bieber did. Like, what are the variables within that brand context that allows for a multiple and saleability?

[Business Strategist]

I definitely think that Mario has a great celebrity brand that has some challenges. But like how do you see celebrity brands? Because it seems to be like a tsunami of them moving into, into the market now.

[Branding Expert]

It's, yeah, it's, I mean it's like how I categorize like you know, a brand, a good brand and a great brand. Like there's three different categories to celebrity brands and I think that's what makes this complicated is that when you talk about celebrity beauty brands, they're not all weighted equally. Like when you look at Mario being a professional makeup artist to Hailey Bieber, who wasn't, you know, really famous for makeup and skin, like, she's beautiful, but she also was 24 when she launched it. And most 24 year olds have, you know, beautiful skin that can afford, you know, a facial a week from Dr. Dorfman. But what's interesting is the beauty brands that are working all have to have a great product. But the second is authenticity. And it's not authenticity tied to them necessarily being relevant in skin or makeup because, you know, makeup by Mara as a professional makeup artist is very different than Lady Gaga who's got a top foundation or like Rihanna, you know, where what they did is, they built brands tied to the authenticity of their personal brand. And that is the biggest thing that celebrity founders need to learn from is just because you're famous doesn't mean you have a personal brand. And that is like the biggest.

[Business Strategist]

Or that you need or that you can stop focusing on what your personal brand is. Because if you're a celebrity, you probably have a brand, but it might not, you know, like.

[Branding Expert]

No, but this is my argument. Celebrities have a celebrity brand. They're, you know, but. And I talk about this all the time, you know, behind closed doors. Jennifer Aniston with LOLavy. Jennifer Lopez with her brand. Scarlett Johansson with her skincare brand. What do you know about these people? We all know who they are. I don't know what Jennifer Aniston, like, does on the weekend. I don't know what she eats. I don't know how she, like, makes decisions. I don't know how JLo works out.

[Business Strategist]

Like, even like Leonard Leonardo, Leonardo DiCaprio. Like Nikki Glasser's joke at the Globes was, I have to keep making these young girl jokes because nobody knows anything else about you. Yeah, right. And this, and what I think what some of these actors, celebrities who are doing this need to know and they need better advisors is if you're an actor, nobody really knows who you are because you're acting.

[Branding Expert]

Yes. Your characters.

[Business Strategist]

So if you're going to create a celebrity beauty brand based on your acting, you have to commit to allowing people to get to know what you're really about.

[Branding Expert]

Yes. No. And that's that, like they're, they're actually two different worlds and you need someone. That's why Victoria Beckham has crushed it. Because for the long, like, for a very long portion of her fame, a part of her fame is that we didn't know anything about her. She was this like, super fashionable, like non emotional, stylish woman married to David Beckham was always super thin, super well dressed, always with like very stoic faces. And then somewhere within the last few years, someone said to Victoria, that's no longer in style. We have to get to know you. You have to like, smile, you have to laugh, you have to talk. We have to know what happens in your house. We have to know what your relationship with you and David are like. And even her documentary, they've had two documentaries. She even talked about infidelity. And they're really like, that is so off brand for old school Victoria Beckham.

[Business Strategist]

So you could probably compare that to Meghan Markle, who has a fake documentary. But. So there's no but. Did you ever see their ad on that they were doing in the super bowl with David and Victoria Beckham?

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, I did Uber Eats or something. Right?

[Business Strategist]

Yeah. But they're making fun of not knowing what the super bowl is, right? They're like, oh, we have a big coming at the super cup, right? And it's hockey. But you know what I mean? Like, they were taking the British state, taking the piss out of each other. They were open to having the kind of mocking that they didn't know it, but it made you actually like them because they weren't.

[Branding Expert]

But they have. But they now have personal brands outside of their celebrity brand. And it's why her stuff is her. Her face, her makeup brand and her clothing brand. Even though her clothing brand, it, it's doing well. But from a business standpoint, fashion has to spend so much money that it isn't as profitable as beauty, but because of, you know, the costs of the runways and, you know, there's just so much pomp and circumstance that comes with luxury fashion houses. But her reason why her skincare brand and her overall brand has done so well is that she invested in a personal brand. And that is the biggest thing that celebrity brands can learn from is the reason the ones that are successful, what they're doing is they're connecting with their audience and they're building a brand that's authentic with their worldview. So Hailey Bieber, she's not like her brand was authentic to her brand. It was very like, popular girl. It's a certain kind of girl that wears this. You know, she's married to Justin Bieber. She. She lives this ultimate life that everybody wanted to live because everyone between, like, when Justin Bieber was at his prime, he was like the ultimate pop star, right? So the woman that, the one less lonely girl that Marries him. Her brand is that it, girl? And that's why it worked. It was authentic. And it wasn't like Selena Gomez that has a very different brand of like, you know, I'm for the underdog. You know, I'm, you know, everyone is beautiful. I'm here, and. Which is, you know, its own brand. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but because Haley's was more authentic to who she was, it was more of that. You can only sit with me if you dress like this. It worked.

[Business Strategist]

The problem with celebrities, and this is a challenge, why they need better advisors also, is they get used to having a bunch of fart catchers, ass kissers, and apple polishers around them who are just worshiping them. But if you're going to move into a celebrity brand, somebody's got to sit you down and say, you got to start doing this. It's not good enough what you did in the past. And they don't have that. I think a lot of them need those advisors that go, you actually have to start investing in a personal brand now. You know, you just can't, you can't rest on your laurels in the past. You have to open up the kimono, build trust, build relationships. And a lot of the ones that won't do well are the ones that egoically can't deal with that well.

[Branding Expert]

That's what I said to a celebrity beauty founder. I'm like, jennifer Aniston doesn't have a personal brand. We all know who she is. We all love her. Like, because what we love her is Rachel and friends. Like, I don't, I don't know anything about her.

[Business Strategist]

It's true.

[Branding Expert]

And it's, and it doesn't work for a modern beauty brand. That's like crushing it. That feels real. To have someone that I don't know.

[Business Strategist]

Anything real about building a personal brand is the opposite of acting.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, well, that's the hardest part. Especially people that grew up during these. Like, they grew up meaning, like they, you know, their career took off during Hearst. No, the Hearst Conde Nast days. Those days it was show up and be pretty because you're making so much money with your likeness, not who you really are as a person. And that's why it's, it's actually the, the calls that I find the most fascinating are these huge names that we all know that reach out to, to, to consult and to talk. And they struggle the most with this, this move. And that's why the Alex Earls are crushing it. Because for so long They've been brainwashed to think this way because that's how they were groomed in the marketplace that they can't think in terms of. We have to take down all of these walls and we need to show who you are.

[Business Strategist]

It's well said. And you're going to see in this wave of celebrity beauty brands, the ones that survive are the ones that build personal brands.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah. Well, and I think too we had a conversation about this. The reason why we're seeing so many celebrities get into brands, whether it's beauty brands or whatever other products, is because they don't have the relevance that they once did in music and movies. And a big reason why our week in LA was insane is because LA is now producing brands over movies. Right. And everywhere you go, it's there. They've moved production to shorts to launch like the Lemmy creatine or like Courtney doing truffle. Like, it's all moving to Hollywood. Production is now about selling products, not selling movie tickets. And it's a really fascinating change. And it's why all these celebrities are getting into it is now their status and is tied to who has the most successful brands. Because the, the industry isn't enough.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah. To reinforce your point, like the Golden Globes viewership is down to like, I think it was 2 million views the last one. They've lost some relevance in terms of what they're producing in Hollywood. Like their staple product is losing relevance because they're not making good movies anymore. But there's still celebrity there and the celebrity is seeking to attach itself to something. And I think it's, it's, it's brands.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah. I mean, totally. If you look at most people that went down the Runway, like most of them have brands. Right. And, and it's. But it's interesting because like the Golden Globe viewership on one hand, you're not wrong. Like, you know, movies aren't good anymore. They're trying to check too many boxes. Like it, it just, it, they've over complicated the art of film. But I also think it's too hard to watch. Like, I, I don't think they're investing in caring about even when we were putting on like the football game yesterday. Like, I wish that there was an ability to like pay so that we don't have to just waste so much time on stupid commercials. Like, my ability to have my time wasted has completely changed with like, like, I don't like not being in control of like when I sit down to watch something, to watch it on my own. Terms.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah, but just in football there's breaks because. You know what I mean? And sometimes they insert them for commercials, but a lot of the time it's. It's because of the game. So the live experience is important. You can record it. You can record it and fast. And fast forward. But when you think of the Globe and Gloves, what's. What's the most entertaining part of the Golden Globes?

[Branding Expert]

The roast.

[Business Strategist]

It's actually like Ricky Gervais or Nikki Glasier. Yeah, right. Yeah, that really is. And so what is that?

[Branding Expert]

And the red carpet.

[Business Strategist]

And the red carpet.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

Right. But otherwise the movie. Most of the movies are garbage. And. And Hollywood, like I say this with sincerity. If you lose the plot, you lose.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

The job of Hollywood is to make amazing movies that entertain, not to be political. And when it becomes so political and the movies become garbage, you'll lose relevance unless you can reinvent yourself into something that matters.

[Branding Expert]

100. I mean, when. When, like. But the question is, you're talking about two different things. Are you saying that Hollywood has lost their focus because when they give their speeches, they're political? Or are you saying Hollywood has lost its luster because the production houses are forcing DEI initiatives into their films?

[Business Strategist]

You were behind the barbed wire at the Golden Globes. It was amazing.

[Branding Expert]

I was. And you know what? It's cool how experience changes your opinion, because when I was in LA with clients that were at the Globes, you know, getting access to go behind the scenes, like, I can understand the hype. Like, for how much money, like who's. Who's funding the Golden Globes also was like a question that was on my mind. Like, they shut down, like two major arteries. It was a huge build out. It was so cool to be kind of at the center point of that stuff happening that it made you. It gave me a different perspective on award shows as it's easier to judge when you're just like, to your point, viewers in the rest of the world and how much. I think that them feeling like they're at the center of the universe is actually. Is what's kind of messing it up, opposed to making it better. Because social media has corrupted the idea that you really did matter the most. When everyone could just turn on the TV and all that they could watch were these people. But now it's not about those people as much as it is Alix Earle and Campbell Hunt Puckett. And you're like, we've now diversified who matters. And that's why I think that there's so many Celebrity brands is they're trying to maintain this. Like, I matter. Like I'm important. Not only am I a singer and a movie star, but I also have a blush brand. You know, like, it's. It's this idea that they need to keep striving to be at the center point of relevance.

[Business Strategist]

You know, the being in Hollywood, seeing the Golden Globes, it became much more clear to me how they live in a bit of a bubble of relevance, because everything in that town is focused on what they're doing, but they don't.

[Branding Expert]

Doing what?

[Business Strategist]

Yeah, I don't think they're really tracking how irrelevant it's becoming to their consumer base. And so it's kind of running on fumes. It's being funded by old systems that still have some money. But it's. You know, you see, viewership was down to 2 million. You know, some of our posts get more than 2 million views.

[Branding Expert]

The just me everyone got like, 1.5.

[Business Strategist]

Right.

[Branding Expert]

So not knowing about the lives.

[Business Strategist]

So if only 2 million people are viewing it, that's like nothing. Something is going on. Nobody is telling the people in this kind of bubble that award shows used to matter because they really celebrated excellence. Right. Right now it's kind of just recognizing participation in. In a system that's kind of dying because Hollywood's not making amazing movies anymore. I don't think anybody will argue with me, like. No, but the people who are at the face of it are like prequels. The people at the face of it, like those. Whatever that Alice in Wonderland movie is or whatever, like, they all think that it's amazing. They think their products are amazing. That movie might have been good, but Snow White wasn't. Like, a bunch of these things aren't good. They're not making great movies. They're still celebrating themselves and they're looking for relevance. And if you're not. If you've lost the plot about what you're. What. What is the goal of your business if you're in Hollywood? Your business is to entertain, right? Not. Not to please, not to be political, not to do all these other things. And I think that's why your point is fantastic about how they're trying to shift their relevance from movies now to products. They're trying to, like, leverage celebrity into different areas.

[Branding Expert]

The only part, though that's complicated is that when you're. When your world is so visually interesting and so visually different, it actually makes the most sense to have a product to commoditize those moments. Right? And, like, that's where I think it's easy to also criticize. Like, if you've always worked with, like, the best makeup artists and you've gone to all of the best events and you have the ability for your makeup artist to use your products, it does make sense to have something tied into that world because that is unique, that is different. So. So it's on one hand, I think that celebrity beauty brands make sense when they make sense, opposed to them always having to make sense. But your point, because I've heard you make, you're doing a sub sec on it and you've been, you know, you've been brainstorming with me on it, is that more largely and separately, Hollywood has lost the plot because they've stopped focusing on entertaining. Their job is to be an entertainer, not to be political. And because everything, whether it's coming out of Hollywood or whether it's the actors that are in Hollywood, they're politicizing everything to the point where we don't want to touch it, we're done with it. Because it's not interesting. Especially it's not interesting when I'm, when I scroll on my phone. My phone is now filled with people that are not in Hollywood and will never be in Hollywood. And I find them more interesting because I know them.

[Business Strategist]

That's well said. I just, I would say to actors, like, you're told what to say in your job. I don't care what you have to say about the world.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

You know, you're not hired for thinking you're told what to say. You're given lines, but you feel your job is to lecture your audience who you're not connecting with.

[Branding Expert]

You are dead on. Well, let's talk about what Hollywood is doing. Right. Because I do think that this was a brilliant strategy. So Stranger Things had its season five finale, and what it did is it required an RSVP in order to get a ticket to the 3500 Showtime. So they basically coordinated with studios, AMC Studios across America, and they did 3,500 showtimes to just air the finale of season five, the last. The last episode. And they had 1.1 million RSVPs for movie theaters. And what AMC did that was brilliant is that the viewing of the finale was free, but you had to purchase a mandatory concession voucher that was between $11 and $20 instead of tickets. And basically it covered. So with the purchase of the, of the concession ticket, you basically got a seat and then you would whatever food and drinks you could cover with that voucher price point. And it resulted in AMC made $15 million from the concession vouchers. So it's fascinating that this new model is come in person, it's free, but you have to buy the popcorn and the drink. You have to make it an experience. And them only making money off of the food that is sold.

[Business Strategist]

I think it's one of the smarter strategies in a while. I love it because we're seeing a movement towards live experiences, being more luxury. And if you actually. The nice thing about TV shows is that by the time you get to the end, you have to invest a lot of time. By the time you get to the season finale, you want to see what the heck happens. And it's harder and harder to get people out of their houses, away from their phones, to sit in a theater.

[Branding Expert]

Totally.

[Business Strategist]

So I think the new model, if I'm doing TV shows, if you make a great product, that season finale should be a live event in the theaters where you can do live shopping. You can like, you can make money selling swag. Like and then you could. How fun is it to come together with a bunch of people who are addicted to a show and then have them all come to the theater and they don't know what's going to happen. Like there's a real investment in the audience as opposed to just going to a movie where you don't know if it's going to be good or bad. You don't know really what's going to happen. You know, there was that type of joy, you know, at when the Empire Strikes Back came out, like a really, what anticipated sequel. Right. There's some of that. But I think this is going to be a trend that's going to grow.

[Branding Expert]

Well, what it shows you though is that Hollywood is understanding that movies have to mimic brands like this is true world building because they're. They're taking you away from your regular viewer experience to create a cult following. So it's smart on a bunch of different levels because by bringing 1.1 million fans together in a shared space, they're able to meet and see other fans. And then now there's a larger tribe for season six. Right. Where when they now stream the next episode, they're guaranteed a minimum of 1.1 million. Minimum. Right. Because that's at least who showed up.

[Business Strategist]

As long as they don't. As long as they don't Game of Thrones it and just ruin.

[Branding Expert]

I think that Stranger Things has low key done that like from where it started. Like it's on season five. Like it's. But, but the point is Though is that they're taking from brands. And what's interesting is so one of our clients, Molly Sims, who is a, an ex famous model, really cool woman, I'd highly recommend checking her out. Her husband produced Frankenstein, which is like on the docket for the Oscars. And I got to speak with him about why they decided to launch Frankenstein with Netflix, because the other ones that were in his category for the Globes were a hamnet that went in theater and sinners that also went in theater. And his response was effectively like, Netflix has, has like, has all the money, they have all the power. Like the, the shifting from the typical like model of where it used to gone is as, let's say it's left the building. And what's interesting is Stranger Things and Frankenstein were all over the coffee cups in la. So like Stranger Things was, was on every single iced coffee, iced latte, iced matcha. Like they just, I don't know who I think it might have been Alfreds they did the partnership with, but one of the biggest coffee chains. So I kept seeing Stranger Things everywhere when I was in la and Frankenstein on the cups. And it shows you how they're, they're branding the movies in the shows in a way that these production houses never did. Not that the other day, what's actually interesting is the other day, Isadore Sharp, the founder of Four Seasons, he's like 92 and there was a video on socials of him like running in like high fiving all the staff, like, just like showing that he's like, he's nimble and he's youthful. And I was like, the smartest thing the Four Seasons should do right now is invest in a full scale production of a movie of his story while he is still alive so that he can like be at the theater, he can be there for the story and they should invest in this movie being really well, well done. Because that to me, when I think about what makes brands iconic is sharing their story and like in a way that's like relevant, tactical and like connecting.

[Business Strategist]

Well, Four Seasons has been interesting because their, their work with the White Lotus I thought was kind of move them into the media.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, cool territory. Totally.

[Business Strategist]

Right. And so now that they've seen some success in that, they might want to try to raise some capital to fund the production or do it because there's a lot of space to do production right now down in Hollywood from what I've seen.

[Branding Expert]

Well, it's also a great story. Yeah, like, it's a great story. He created a New category, like. And he's still alive.

[Business Strategist]

Oh. And it has some depth to it. But did you hear that White Lotus, the next one is not using Four Seasons.

[Branding Expert]

No, no.

[Business Strategist]

They just announced they're doing it in the French Alps or somewhere. Very cool. Where there wasn't a Four Seasons. But. But something happened behind the scenes. Four Seasons is not featured.

[Branding Expert]

For sure. Something happened.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah. Which sucks. But I think what Four Seasons learned and what other companies should learn is being involved in the media is a bump and then your idea is the next logical step.

[Branding Expert]

Well, that's the biggest thing that I would say my takeaways from coming out of Hollywood is that, is that it's no longer about the movies, it's about the brands. And they're taking everything that they understood about production value and about at creating these worlds that used to be movies and music and moving that into commoditized products because viewership has like. That's the biggest takeaway is that Hollywood is in Hollywood in the same way that it used to be. Like, yes, that's where famous people can live, but it's not where the majority of production happens. It's actually like majority production is in Vancouver and Toronto and these.

[Business Strategist]

Netflix Ireland and England is. England is growing.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah. The Netflix studios are building all over the world and like Amazon entering in. So it's not about Hollywood as a movie production standpoint. It's. It's production. And how is that moving in a way that's monetized and that's why when like, media is king, like, the. The only thing that you should be focusing on is how do you continue to push the dial with media. That's actually a perfect segue into the Mr. Beast segment. Do you want to talk about that?

[Business Strategist]

No. I think it's brilliant what they're doing on Amazon by doing a reality show that's just like Survivor or Hunger Games or anything on steroids.

[Branding Expert]

Well, what's interesting is he's been doing this, like, MrBeast, like competition on his YouTube and it's been super successful. So it's fascinating that it's now becoming like a produced TV show. And it shows you that these YouTubers have more power than the old producers that would put together these shows and would pull these, like, celebrity talent. But what's interesting is, is I'm not shocked that Amazon is doing it because this is how they're going to take eyeballs off of the YouTube platform and onto Amazon. Like, they can monetize it better. And I also, through the experience of higher profile Clients we've worked with. I'm not shocked because YouTube is behind like YouTube is, has a massive potentiality to be competing with Amazon and they haven't done that. They pulled their production studio. So they're not doing the TV series and movies through YouTube anymore, which I think is silly. They're not investing in doing high caliber series, which they should because they've got larger viewership.

[Business Strategist]

They should because they have some control over the distribution channels of the celebrities that emerge on YouTube. Yeah, like Mr. Beast became a celebrity on YouTube and Amazon essentially purchased that distribution channel and moved the viewers over to Amazon. And the name is amazing. Beast Games.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, it is a great name. I actually saw in an interview that his name is Mr. Beast because when he was like a gamer, when he did like Auto Select, Xbox gave him Mr. Beast 6000 and he cut the 6000 and it just became Mr. Beast.

[Business Strategist]

Wow.

[Branding Expert]

And that's how he got the name. It wasn't actually like that good of a story.

[Business Strategist]

It's not like he's a Beast, he's just somebody who understands audiences.

[Branding Expert]

No, it was just the auto selector on Xbox that gave him the name. But let's talk about Apple. Siri with Google Gemini. Crazy collaboration.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah, well, I think it's, it's fundamentally, I don't know how Apple and Gemini got in the same bed together because Google is trying to launch a phone like it's trying to get traction with Google Pixel and its number one advantage was Google Assistant and their AI. Like we've been saying that Apple's Achilles heel is serious. So somehow Apple got Google to kind of share their most valuable thing to fix their most vulnerable thing. And I don't know if Google is giving up on the Pixel or if it's just very profitable from a licensing perspective. But the thing that it tells me is that you're going to have a concentration of power in that phone area and you're probably going to see Elon come up with a phone soon so that X and Tesla and a phone can all be connected. Because Google and Apple too powerful.

[Branding Expert]

Well, what I think is interesting is I think what happened is that Google understands that there's enough people in the world that just don't want to buy an Apple phone. Like there's just a market that exists for being that like secondary or third market. Like it has more of a brand than a Samsung for people who don't want to buy an Apple. And what Apple realized is because Apple's AI still hasn't come out really like the, the way that they kind of initially sold it and Siri is not getting better. So clearly Apple has some kind of a research based bottleneck.

[Business Strategist]

I know why it is now. It's, it's, it's, it's relevant to our other topic which is chatgpt buying Pinterest.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

What, what Gemini is doing and Google is brilliant. Their stock is rocketing and Apple's is not. Google is actually going to benefit more. And this just occurred to me because Apple is in the hands of more humans than any other phone in North America.

[Branding Expert]

It's better data input.

[Business Strategist]

Gemini is going to be getting the data from the inputs of all of the people that it can then use in its.

[Branding Expert]

Totally.

[Business Strategist]

It's a brilliant move using Apple hardware to get better software data for the.

[Branding Expert]

AI growth trajectory and it helps Apple because Apple clearly can't pull whatever that the R and D is for that because they've done two phones without it coming out. So this merger allows Apple to stay more competitive because they're not wrong. We're probably two phones away from them losing their customer. We're on the edge now.

[Business Strategist]

This will work. And what Google said is we can spend X amount to try to win the phone battle with Pixel but the war is won by getting the data that's on the phone.

[Branding Expert]

But truthfully though, even you as a consumer, you probably, if Gemini was integrated into the phone and you got more experience with Gemini, you might consider moving over to a Google phone within a few different versions. Because that is my point is Apple isn't in it. Like we bought the phone and the camera is better but that will not be a reason for the next four years like it. There's, there's going to be a point where they're in hot water and Google is, it's a super smart move. But what I want you to talk about though is the risk of what you think Elon is going to see with another kind of an antitrust issue. It's the same problem with the, with the Twitter in a different way.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah. Like I know he was talking about how it's because he's, he's going up against both of those companies. You know Apple failed. Apple tried to make electric car, spent billions and lost. Their AI isn't working. Their phone platform is still working and some of their accessories, Google is doing very well. So it's really a battle between Google and Elon.

[Branding Expert]

It's not the accessories, it's their subscriptions. Apple's a subscription based business now.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah. And apps. What Elon is concerned about now is that there's. Apple is starting to say that we're not going to allow X onto the phone, right? And because Google doesn't want X on the phone because that's the information that supports Grok. So you have, you actually, we're actually having AI wars right between like silent wars. That's the new frontier. And so what Elon is saying, look, if Gemini gets on iPhone, iPhone may ban X. X is the best source of data for Grok. And if that happens, he said, I'm going to have to put a phone out there so that I can, I can open up the apps to everybody.

[Branding Expert]

Well, that's, that's. Let's now talk about the OpenAI rumor to buy Pinterest, because that's also really interesting too for this ongoing AI conversation.

[Business Strategist]

In the AI world right now, all of the AI models have consumed all of the human information that's available.

[Branding Expert]

They've indexed everything that exists online.

[Business Strategist]

There's some gatekeeping and that's where, that's where that's kind of people are going to be mining for where good information is. But anything that's generating new information from humans is now a resource worth acquiring. So Pinterest now is worth 100x what it was a couple years ago, because OpenAI knows that that's a place they can get new information, new trends, new data, and that's why we're seeing these acquisitions.

[Branding Expert]

Well, Pinterest is, as we talked about a few episodes ago, is actually the best indicator for trend forecasting because it's what brands are using to visualize what's upcoming in their campaigns. So when you see data across the board of surplus of pins in pastels or in chromes or in purples, like that gives you a better indicator of what brands are going to be planning to be doing based on what they're using for inspo for their stuff that's coming. What's also interesting about that too is it also allows OpenAI to own the entire ecosystem because it, the visualization standpoint, like the ideating on the visuals is also where OpenAI could get better because like I don't have a resource right now in an, in an LLM to help me trend, like, to visualizely trend. Like for Pinterest, it's still somewhat of an analog model. Like you type in pantry and you have to go through thousands of images and pin your favorites versus if we had all of that stuff better indexed and it was a plugin, I could provide more data. And as AI gets to know me based on my taste preferences, only show me what works for me.

[Business Strategist]

And you can exclude other AI platforms.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

From being able to access the data. So it gives an advantage to OpenAI's platform.

[Branding Expert]

Brilliant. So let's not talk about. Let's wrap this episode up with talking about Sachs because we both did content on it this week and it went viral because nobody is talking about that. This is exactly Richard Baker's play. Like, this is what he intended to do since the beginning and he's got four other retailers in the grave that he had already done this with. So I want to talk about this four act play that Richard hasn't. That did. Let's talk about it. And then I also want to talk about where it's going and who should be the purchaser for Saks because it, it speaks to what you came up with this week with the perusal principle.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah, the perusal principle is the reason why these retailers can afford such high value real estate is they provided a service to people with money, which is I'll aggregate a bunch of brands that are cool and allow you to come and peruse through them and see them rather than go to 20 different stores. Because it didn't used to be there didn't used to be all of these individual stores from brands.

[Branding Expert]

No, that's actually new. The LVMH invested in individualized storefronts within like the last 10 years. Like this wasn't a thing for us to have like all these different solos because that's what these brands like Saks were. They had the shop in shops like the Chanel shop inside Saks. Like that's where you would go because you could go and see all of the brands at one place.

[Business Strategist]

It was like a luxury market mall.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, it was like a mini mall.

[Business Strategist]

Instead of the mall, but for luxury brands. And the companies that built this acquired real estate that was high value. But what happened in the digital world slowly but surely over 10 years is you could start to peruse these brands on your phone. It was more interesting to see celebrities wearing the brands. You could watch the Runway shows on your phone whenever you want. You could. So you got to know all of the brands so that by the time you're going into the store, you're ready to buy. It's not necessary as much about perusal, so you just slowly saw the value of those locations go down because it was providing less service to the customer.

[Branding Expert]

I don't think that's what happened. I think what happened is department stores used to be awesome when you used to go to them, they would have that discoverability. Like you could go in, peruse and like you wanted to buy things. Because the people who were doing the sampling, the pulling, who would select the brands, like, that's where you found Zimmermann's, that's where you found Aquazzura's. Because they, they didn't used to have stores. So there was an element to finding out what's hot, what's going to be in style because all of the buyers bought it the previous season. What happened is that because Richard Baker was doing this real estate play, his investment was never focused on the success of the business. Like they didn't have focus on the inventory, on the clothing, and they started to cut corners in those areas, which is what hurt the brand. That's why when Zellers came to, when Target came to Canada, it was a redo of Zellers. Like it didn't have good products. So Saks, when you go into a lot of the sack stores, you can't, you. I can't find myself to buy, to pay anything like that was a big thing. When Saks came to Canada, I'm like, where's the good shit? Like, they picked the ugliest stuff from Alexis, which is like the hardest thing to do because I love Alexis. And it'd be like four or five things that were not nice and people weren't buying from the store. And that was what was the whole point of my argument is that the focus on clothing, the, the business model being successful was no longer the focus when he was focused on a real estate play.

[Business Strategist]

I couldn't disagree with you more. I understand why you're saying it, but you're missing it. He just took advantage of the market conditions where the perusal had already switched to the digital. And 30% difference in purchasing power fundamentally changes the principles of real estate holdings. So people weren't buying from those stores as much because they were buying online and they were going direct to re. To direct to the.

[Branding Expert]

You can't buy Chanel online. Really?

[Business Strategist]

You can now. And. And they prefer it.

[Branding Expert]

Oh, you can't.

[Business Strategist]

No, no. But they prefer that you buy direct from them. But they have better. Yes, because they have better margins.

[Branding Expert]

So we saw this Chanel $136 million.

[Business Strategist]

I know. Because Chanel should have stopped selling there. Chanel didn't realize the trend as early as Richard did. Richard knew that that real estate was unsustainable because the customers weren't buying from Sachs anymore. They were buying direct from the retailer or they were Buying online where they can. And he just came in because he recognized it early and said, look, I'm going to come in and buy Sachs. But he did know you're right in that he did. No innovation in the store. But the store, the model is already dead. Like it would have had to be completely done. He just came in and said, look, I'm just going to bleed this out slowly, sell off the assets, put debt into the operating companies and make off like a bandit. And the brands that were still sending their products to Saks are going to take a giant hit. They should not have trusted Saks, but people weren't willing to realize that Saks was dead 10 years ago, five years ago, based on what was going on digitally. There was no reason, like count how many times you've gone to a Saks in the last 10 years.

[Branding Expert]

But the reason why. But that's not.

[Business Strategist]

You think it's not as good because there's a million times more options on your phone. When there was nothing but Sax and you went in there, it seemed like it was amazing. But as soon as there's a better alternative to peruse, to view, to select, to follow.

[Branding Expert]

Okay, but let me jump in. What you're saying is obviously relevant when the in store experience isn't as good as the online experience experience one of them is going to give. But if the in store experience, if they were focused on that business model and innovating it and modernizing it and improving it, I do not think that it would be dead. Maybe at the footprint that it is, maybe at the heavy, clunky bleed that it is. I think they have probably redundant jobs and redundant roles, but there's tons of retail that is thriving. Like even Gentle Monster. They're so invested in experience that it, it creates a reason to go in there.

[Business Strategist]

So it's its own bread.

[Branding Expert]

But when it was. To me. Okay, good point. To me, it's brand death by a thousand cuts. I've gone into Saks enough times, have not liked the clothing selection, and I've decided to leave and because I've decided to leave and I've compounded this idea of boredom, that it's a waste of time, that I'm not interested in doing it. I have left the store. And that is the same thing with Hudson's Bay. Like Hudson's Bay. I loved Hudson's Bay, but every time I went into the Bay store, it was like Zeller's junk and I stopped going. And their website, I would purchase stuff on the website and I would get an email two days later that it was out of stock and they refunded me. And it happened like four times. So I stopped buying things off of the bay. So it's like it's. I get what you're saying that you know, is brick and mortar as relevant as what it was 40 years ago? Obviously not. But there's also a world in which I buy almost everything off of Revolve because I like these multi retailers. I like going to a place and buying all these products.

[Business Strategist]

You don't go into a revolve store.

[Branding Expert]

Well, they just opened a store but.

[Business Strategist]

You don't go into. You don't go.

[Branding Expert]

They don't have. They didn't have stores. I would go in.

[Business Strategist]

But that's my point is that you were buying high end products off of.

[Branding Expert]

Aritzia just did a billion dollars in sales this year.

[Business Strategist]

They have a huge. But that's their own store. Saks is different.

[Branding Expert]

Aritzia sells different brands. They don't sell Aritzia sweater, they just started. But it's Babaton, it's Wilfred, it's tna, it's. It's multi brands.

[Business Strategist]

So what are you saying?

[Branding Expert]

I'm saying that they've done nothing to innovate the in store experience.

[Business Strategist]

Well, what is Aritzia done to innovate the in store experience?

[Branding Expert]

They have, they have employees that are focused on commissions, they have designed stores.

[Business Strategist]

They change the like it looks the same, Aritzia just has more. It's got a target audience.

[Branding Expert]

They shrunk the footprint. Like maybe it's shrinking up the footprint. So they're not like six floor department stores.

[Business Strategist]

They're on short term leases. They understand the leasing thing. But Saks was real estate capital invested. And so what Richard understood is the valuation of this company is actually in the real estate it holds. So it can be used for a higher value rather than aggregating luxury brands in one giant space. The square footage rate of return, the revenue to square footage went down like 70% in relation to where it was in the past. And when you have so many thousand square footage you can't sustain it. He just identified that arbitrage early and pirated the company.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, but he killed like several of them. I just want to think about like I go into whole renfrew quite a bit. Like I actually quite like going into. Whenever I'm in the city, I go into whole run through. What do you give me furrowed eyebrows for? And I drag your ass with me too, by the way.

[Business Strategist]

Like you come in for picking up some jewelry or something.

[Branding Expert]

No, we never, we go in, we do. We look at the jewelry counter, I look at the purses, I look at the sunglasses. I go upstairs, I look at the Chanel store. I like it.

[Business Strategist]

I used to love going to Saks, whatever, the discount one of Nordstrom's in there.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, Saks fifth.

[Business Strategist]

I used to like going in there, but I don't even want to go in there anymore looking for deals cuz I find them online. Like I just don't find. And you're right that the experience hasn't evolved. Like I don't find the people working there that knowledgeable TJ Maxx is crushing it.

[Branding Expert]

No, but TJ Maxx is. Their sales are through the roof. And the reason why TJ Maxx works is because it's not online. So the reason why, like to your point, the Saks off fifth. Why would you go in store when you could also like look at it online? But they haven't, they don't have strategists in. What you're saying is. I'm not saying what, what you're saying is wrong. I'm saying that there's a nuance that at the same time, despite this conversation, because Poosateri is partnered with Saks. So there was a brand that I used to work with years ago and when they, they came, when Saks came to Canada, I met Richard Baker, I went into the sack stores. I was so excited because I love Saks. Saks coming to Canada was a big ass deal for years. The conversation was within like the, the wealthy circles that I was not a part of, but I, you know, got to bend their ear on was that they could not find anything to buy in the store. All of the brands that they brought in, they were not pulling the, the hot pieces for the year. So there was the. One of the reasons why Saks was crushed in Canada is that the people who had money to buy those brands didn't have the products that they could buy. So that there's something to what I'm saying that happens simultaneously.

[Business Strategist]

We're talking about decline, bankruptcy. I know it's got nothing to do with Canada.

[Branding Expert]

I'm giving you context to what the Saks experience had become.

[Business Strategist]

Is that people in the States, it had the brands. That's why you were excited about it.

[Branding Expert]

No, no, it's Saks. These department stores in general, the people who they were hiring on salaries were not the best people to be doing the buying and the pulling. Right? Like they weren't, they weren't, they were such A clunky big company. They weren't attracting hot new talent that was making it cool.

[Business Strategist]

I think the in store brands were not investing as much in them. Like when they had like a Chanel shop in there. Like I think they realized that the movement was for their boutique shops.

[Branding Expert]

Their top creditors are all of the. They're. It's caring. It's Poog, it's Louis lvmh, it's Sicily, La Prairie.

[Business Strategist]

You want in there? Chanel wants to sell their stuff. Right. So if it has an in store location in Saks, it's. It's deciding what to put in its store.

[Branding Expert]

No, no. I'm not saying. No, no, no.

[Business Strategist]

Okay.

[Branding Expert]

We're saying different things and I should clarify because it is confusing for the listener. The Chanel shop and shops were well done. We're not, I'm not bitching about the Chanel shop and shops because that kind of model was. Chanel was in charge of that shop and shop. Right? So the, that was their, like those, those anchor tenants. So when I talk about the reason why I love Holt Renfrew, I don't buy anything when I go into the Chanel store in Holt Renfrew. But the reason why I like going to Holt Renfrew is in one place. I can take a look at Skims, Zimmerman, Brunello, Cucinelli. I can look at the Chanel store. I can look at Aquazura, I can look at the Prada shop. Those, those top tier T were anchor tenants that allowed brands like the Row, Aquazzura, Zimmerman to get more cachet because they were in a space that housed the best brands. So Chanel and La Prairie, all their products cues that they had in the stores were great. It was everything else around it. Because the average person that's. They don't make the majority of their sales. I mean the. They do make the majority. That was a stupid. Okay. They. Although they make the majority of their sales off of the shop in shops because the Chanel has most volume. They bring in people for the, for the range of products because they also can sell them these other brands. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Business Strategist]

The digital world changed the retail landscape. The retailers that held the most high value real estate became less valuable because digital was taking it away. Luxury outlet locations, luxury neighborhoods where you had the individual stores move them away from sacks. And so there was arbitrage in the real estate valuation. Richard understood that. Nobody called him, nobody, nobody named it until like the fourth time.

[Branding Expert]

You know what I must say in something that I Do agree with you on in this point is who I actually blame are the retailers because nobody placed demand to make them change in a world where everything was changing around them. And I think that's the conversation I'm trying to have. More is Richard Baker was allowed, was able to do what he needed to do and this world didn't have to be, didn't have to evolve because they were kind of acting like Blockbuster. Like they just thought that there'd be a space for them to exist as they were forever.

[Business Strategist]

Well, that's what I'm saying. And what these stores became is dressing rooms for my purchases in other places. Like if you wanted to go try some stuff off, I could go try it on and then go buy it on ebay or.

[Branding Expert]

But the piece that's called Complicated though is since like Bernard Arnault, according to the Puck, he's really the reason for why these independent stores really like bloomed and having like their own real estate like at a crazy level. So up until that happened within like let's say the last 10 or 15 years, the core reason for those department stores is that's where you would buy Chanel. That's where you. And then everything else was a bonus because if you were going in there to look at those top brands, everything else got that kind of like that, that kind of group effect that they were in this department store that was anchored because you couldn't otherwise get these brands, especially in the United States, like brands like Goyard and Chanel and Louis Vuitton. They were more often found in the sacks in Seattle than having their own store in like an off market city. So but to our point, they didn't evolve as these brands got stores like they didn't do anything change.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah. Like LVMH undercut Saks. In many ways it makes more sense for them to have their own stores.

[Branding Expert]

I think it makes no sense for Bernard Arnault to buy Bergdorf's. I think so. They owe them so much money and when you look at how much money is owed it, like it actually does them value. For how many brands like it should be. I think Bernard Arnault or Jamie Salter for abg, like the, the two of them should buy them because you need almost some kind of a museum that allows everything.

[Business Strategist]

That's a great idea. Like LVMH should buy them because they have their, their universe of brands.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah, yeah. No, but they can skincare to bags.

[Business Strategist]

They can showcase all of their luxuries.

[Branding Expert]

In one place store and do it and do it. Well, yes.

[Business Strategist]

So that. That's a smart move into that area. But they don't want to buy all of those locations. They just want to buy premium real estate. Premium.

[Branding Expert]

Well, that's why it makes sense for Bernardo. No. To buy Bergdorfs, because it's that. That anchor property on Fifth Avenue. And it's like that, to me is kind of my argument with what you're saying is it's also this, like, larger thing that I'm trying to work through. If, like, in feed content, like, it's almost like a sunk cost to the business that it's not it. You know, it is and it isn't the difference maker. But even if it is the difference maker, you're disproportionately spending money to make it the difference maker. And it's still, at the end of the day, like in feed content, like, there's a disposability to it. But it's the same thing with Bergdorfs. Like, when we're in New York, I go to Bergdorf's. I usually always. I've never bought anything from Bergdorfs other than my wedding dress. Right. Like, so I. I'm not even gonna say, like, I usually don't. I don't buy anything from Bergdorf, but I have this illusion that every time I'm going in, I'm going in as like, an observer, this potential buyer, like, I'm investing in. Oh, Monolo Blahnik is still relevant. Like, that's still worth something to these brand houses. Because when they're selling at the price point that they're selling at, they need the zeitgeist to be like, mono. Mono Blahnik is still cool, even though I'm not buying it. Yes.

[Business Strategist]

Final question. Read the substacks. Because this, it's. It's an. A very interesting art take. We took on it and we've jumped all around. My final question to you, though. Is there a parallel between what Saks is now and where Sephora is in terms of their experience and what they're doing with brands?

[Branding Expert]

No, but that's a really interesting question. The Saks. Okay, so the Saks dilemma is that there was nothing to buy. The Sephora problem is that there's way too many choices, and it's choices that have gone to the kids, so they've lost sight of that. Like Sephora was. It's actually, I highly recommend you guys listen to the interview we did with Peter Thomas Roth son, Ryan Roth, because they were like, the first. First tenant or like, brand in Sephora. When it came over from Paris and it was originally like a duty free brand that was coming in to compete with Saks and Bergdorf. So that's where they parked it like across the street.

[Business Strategist]

Street.

[Branding Expert]

But my point is they lost sight of what their brand is and Sephora is like overselling to a young customer. Saks is pretending like they're selling to the same customer but not giving them what they want.

[Business Strategist]

I just think if you look at the leading and lag lagging indicators, I think Sephora is on the the same path where the experience isn't that good. People can buy the stuff somewhere else. They might come in to sample, to peruse. But the purchase decision. If the beauty brands start investing in their own channels like Liam H. Did, I think you're going to see a movement of market to the individual channels.

[Branding Expert]

You know though, what I think is complicated though about that is I don't agree but I do want to have a quick discussion on that. I think we should take six minutes to talk about this because this is actually a really good conversation.

[Business Strategist]

Okay.

[Branding Expert]

Love me stream of consciousness because that was really interesting. So the reason why I think that they're different is that the Sephora experience for what the cost of the product is and what the category of the product is, is very good for for not their original customer. So someone that is between like, that's why like our niece Vicki loves it so much because when she gets $25 at Christmas she can go in and it's like the Disney store for her. Like she can go in and she can buy something at her price point. So it still attracts, it attracts a customer but it doesn't attract the cool customer. That allows the eight year olds to think it's cool. That's I think the core difference between the two of them. And that second to that to add to it, when we talked about this today, brands like Makeup by Mario, their problem is that they almost can't go direct to consumer because the problem is doing brick and mortar and makeup is very risky because there's very few customers that buy everything from one line anymore. Right. Like I have a few things from Makeup by Mario, a few things from Merit, a few things from Hourglass. I got some Bella Beauty, I got some wise in there. Like what?

[Business Strategist]

Okay, what you're saying is it requires more foot traffic because a Chanel bag has a high margin and a high price point.

[Branding Expert]

Yeah.

[Business Strategist]

Whereas a lip gloss doesn't. Right. So why I think the beauty brands still need brick and mortar but focus more on digital Whereas Chanel is not focusing as much on digital sales. Sales, you can do way more sales digital, but if you have it, you don't necessarily need to be in Sephora as much. Why? I think Sephora may last longer than Saks and it has more legs, it has a better ratio of revenue to square foot. Right. They're not getting giant three floor pieces of expensive real estate. They're compacting everything, they're jamming everything in it. And so their cost for real estate is cheaper. But I think the luster of going into Sephora is wearing off.

[Branding Expert]

Well, I think the two of them are just incomparable. And you know, another article that I had read recently, it was fascinating, you know, how everyone's kind of talking about like Nike is like on the decline, you know, like Nike's in this dark spot. Well, at the end of the day, Nike still makes $48 billion and they're still the number one activewear retailer, like with all of the rest of them combined. And it was a really interesting dialogue of saying what we're feeling isn't wrong. But at the end of the day, this is still how much they're making. And the Sephora conversation is in the same kind of dialogue of they're so busy, they're so obsessed on their growth drivers. When they look at their total sales at the end of the year, they're still seeing growth. So they're happy because the customer is still a customer. What we're noticing as brand brand critics is that the customer is changing. And if they don't change their strategy, they will get into a place in 10 years where they're less relevant with like all of young coming and what's changing in the space.

[Business Strategist]

That's why when I talk about lagging and leading indicators, right, they're still having revenue, younger people are coming in, but you have to pay attention to what are the beauty brands doing. That hasn't manifested yet into the market shift, right, which is investing more into digital, investing more into live shopping, investing more into brick and mortar and that type of stuff. So that's the kind of strategic thing they have to look at.

[Branding Expert]

But the reason why I think those are different is I think Sephora could easily turn it around without losing the children if they focused on being more like from a cool perspective. But the problem is they're not interested in doing that. When I watch they have TV commercials now telling people about their rewards program. Like back in the day, the whole point of the rewards program is you almost found out because you spent A certain amount of money. Like, it was like, oh, by the way, you're now a VIP rouge. You know, it wasn't as much of like the Sephora rewards app, whereas now they're focusing on like, app down. It was no different than the conversation we had with Alo, you know, when we, we saw from their perspective how excited they are. A lot of people that work there have been there for 11, 12 years and they, they, they. What's the word? Promote within. And they're so excited because of the internal promotions, which I don't, I don't think that that's wrong that the world is kind of now wearing aloe, whereas we're seeing it as brand critics of. Sure, that's amazing for you as someone that's worked there for 12 years. But the brand is cool. What are you guys doing to preserve that instead of being excited that you now have market penetration at a high rate?

[Business Strategist]

Interesting.

[Branding Expert]

On that note, are we done for the week?

[Business Strategist]

There's a lot of stuff in there this week.

[Branding Expert]

I am a panelist at Harvard Business School. At the Harvard Business School, which is exciting. There's so many cool brands. Like eight Sleep is speaking. Magic Spoon, Ty Haney of Outdoor Voices. Ryan Reynolds is speaking for his agency. So that's going to be on Wednesday, which is so exciting.

[Business Strategist]

Well, I think it's good for you to go back to Harvard. Like, you, you took some marketing courses there. Now you, it's full circle. A lot of the future leaders in the business world are going to hear your perspectives on what's important about branding.

[Branding Expert]

You know what I'm the most excited about? I haven't told you this yet. There is a, apparently this collective of people from Boston who over a hundred years ago created these extremely realistic glass flowers. So Harvard has this glass flowers museum that I am going to be taking you to.

[Business Strategist]

Geez, I can't wait.

[Branding Expert]

So apparently it's just a once in a lifetime opportunity. I'm not even being facetious. Like, apparently it is like incredible that people were able to do this in like the late 1800s. So I, you know, Ryan Reynolds is cool, but have I told you about the glass flower Museum?

[Business Strategist]

I just know you're going to be channeling Legally Blonde and Reese Witherspoon when we go there.

[Branding Expert]

I am literally so bummed that I get to take a photo with the Harvard Business School sign with a parka.

[Business Strategist]

As opposed to Chanel suit. Reese Witherspoon's another good celebrity brand, but we can talk about that another time.

[Branding Expert]

I love her.

[Business Strategist]

Yeah.

[Branding Expert]

I love her. Okay, well, guys, send good energy, send good vibes, and we'll see you next Sunday.