Luxury Brands Are Tracking You Now (LVMH’s New Move)

Summary

The Art of the Brand – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Luxury Brands Are Tracking You Now (LVMH’s New Move)
Hosts: Camille Moore & Philip Millar
Air Date: March 5, 2026

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Overview

This episode of The Art of the Brand explores how luxury conglomerates like LVMH are leveraging technology, especially blockchain and AI, to surveil consumer behavior and control resale markets. The hosts dive into case studies and current trends in branding—from viral positive moments (IKEA’s zoo monkey), to influencer marketing (Medicube, Kim Kardashian’s Update energy drink), to the evolving role of celebrities in product campaigns. The episode challenges listeners to think critically about brand surveillance, asymmetric marketing, and the fast-moving nature of capitalizing on viral culture.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Rise of Brand Surveillance: LVMH & Blockchain

Timestamps: 03:12 – 14:33

• LVMH’s New Move: LVMH and other luxury groups formed the Aura Blockchain Consortium, officially to ensure brand transparency and product traceability.

  • Philip’s Take: Suspects this is masked surveillance to clamp down on the booming resale market and preserve profit margins.
    • “From my perspective, it’s really kind of a psyop or a counter-surveillance op.” (05:14, Philip)
  • Camille’s Pushback: Recognizes strategic room for growth but believes current motivations are also about countering sophisticated counterfeiting (e.g., with Cartier) and protecting long-term brand value, especially for products regarded as investments.
    • “…when as a jewelry house, your whole goal is to create value... so that your brand maintains value over 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years… it becomes a problem... when you can no longer verify that’s a real purchase.” (06:34, Camille)

• Hermès vs. LVMH Comparison:

  • Scarcity & Trust: Hermès’ model is focused on ultra-scarcity, giving exclusive products only to trusted buyers to avoid market saturation and maintain high value—often qualifying customers on relationship rather than pure spend.
    • “Hermes doesn’t want to flood the market with their products because they operate on a scarcity model like Rolex.” (09:08, Camille)
  • LVMH’s Approach: Less about extreme scarcity but moving toward tracking and gentle control over reselling via blockchain and updated terms of service blocking suspected resellers.
    • “They now have this AI agent that... scans the Internet for any listing of their products.“ (10:04, Philip)

• Consumer Perspective:

  • Camille: Sees benefit for secondary market buyers wanting authenticity and verification.
    • “If I want to go and purchase a bag and I go on an ebay or a realreal ... I would love to know that that's a genuinely real.” (11:34, Camille)
  • Philip: Warns of potential overreach and “blocklist” consequences for those not playing by the new rules.
    • "If you interrupt the blockchain, you can be blacklisted. I see them moving down that road." (13:43, Philip)

• Brand Policing & Culture:

  • Insider anecdote shows how Chanel tracked a prominent client to verify her purchases and considered a cease and desist based on how she styled and showcased their vintage items.
    • “…the brand ran their entire purchase history ... to see if you’re a legitimate customer. And that, to me, was just an insight to ... where this is going.” (15:05, Camille)
  • The hosts debate whether it’s appropriate for luxury brands to “act like cartels” and exercise this degree of control.

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2. Low-Tech Nostalgia as a Branding Tool: Camp Snap & Multi-Medium Content

Timestamps: 17:27 – 24:06

• Camp Snap Trend: Vintage-inspired, screen-less cameras (like Camp Snap) are hot among celebrities and youth for their ability to capture moments without losing presence—contrast to phone camera culture.

  • "It allows you to capture the moment but still be present because there’s no screen, there’s just a lens." (18:21, Philip)
  • “I’m seeing more and more brands bring these Camp Snap cameras on set, behind the scenes to events.” (17:27, Camille)

• Marketing Takeaway:

  • Mixed-media visuals (iPhone, vintage camera, camcorder) create richer stories and “taste,” increasingly used by brands on social for authenticity.
  • Phone cameras breed excessive curation and self-consciousness; low-tech methods foster realness and vibe.
    • “You over-obsess over the photo that was taken. Whereas when you live in something... you just got the shot that you got and it was a great photo because it was in the moment.” (22:03–22:25, Camille)

• Product Critique: Despite the viral trend, the Camp Snap camera itself has some flaws (tricky SD slot, rushed tech), but its concept and marketing outweigh product limitations in its current viral context.

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3. Asymmetric Marketing & Influencer Playbooks: Case Medicube

Timestamps: 24:06 – 34:09

• Medicube’s Viral Success:

  • Medicube leveraged massive paid celebrity seeding (Kylie Jenner, friends, Hailey, Tati, etc.) but also secured usage rights to create a "reaction army" of 34k micro-influencers and fans who post their own takes on celebrity content.
    • “What’s intelligent the Medicube did is they allowed their audience or force[d] their audience to be able to create reaction rights off the video so that it looks like they’re secretly finding the device that these people are using.” (24:40, Camille)
  • Traditional brands often over-value a single paid post from a big influencer, underinvesting in the necessary infrastructure (UGC, affiliate amplification) for true viral impact.
    • “What brands miss is that brands want to do these celebrity partnerships, but they don’t really want to do what comes with it… you have to pay the affiliate payouts, you have to have a team that can construct doing the reaction videos…” (27:57, Camille)

• Strategic Insight: True asymmetric impact comes from creative repurposing, multi-layered strategy, and infrastructure—not simply from spending big on singular talent.

  • “This type of... asymmetric... warfare is where you use decidedly less resources to get incredibly more output." (30:05, Philip)

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4. Missing the Viral Moment: IKEA & “Punch the Monkey”

Timestamps: 34:09 – 42:34

• Case Study:

  • A Japanese zoo used an IKEA orangutan plush to comfort an exiled monkey, going viral and instantly selling out the toy.
  • IKEA’s response was slow and limited—they made a basic graphic ad for the product, missing the wider emotional resonance and failing to leverage the viral opportunity.
    • “All they did was post a graphic that the stuffed animal is for sale. And the headline was sometimes family is who we find along the way…” (34:09, Camille)
    • “They didn’t really jump onto it. I would have led with an ad saying... ‘We all need to feel included or loved.’” (35:02, Philip)

• Lessons Learned:

  • Brands must be ready to act instantly on “positive force majeure” viral moments.
  • Delayed, overly sanitized responses lose out on windfall opportunities.
    • “If your team can’t get it ready in time and it’s gone, you should fire them. And what happens to too many corporations is they create these giant teams... Everybody’s scared of making mistakes.” (37:42, Philip)
  • Asymmetric benefit: opportunity cost in not moving fast is enormous.

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5. Kim Kardashian’s “Update” & Retail Distribution

Timestamps: 42:34 – 51:47

• New Playbook:

  • Kim Kardashian becomes co-founder and creative director of Update, an energy drink created by Daniel Solomons with the Hess oil family.
  • The drink uses paraxanthine (a caffeine alternative) and targets “gen pop” through both DTC and launch in 4,000 Walmarts (March 2026).
  • “She gives it a new facelift. She comes in to like direct the creative and to kind of the brand. And what’s fascinating about this is that basically... they’re going into 4,000 Walmarts.” (44:25, Camille)

• Branding Move:

  • Kim leverages her credibility as both celebrity and real user (“I loved the product so much, I became a partner”), echoing the old ‘Hair Club for Men’ slogan.
    • “Not only am I the president of the company, but I’m also a client...I love the product so much that my name is on it.” (45:12, Philip)
  • Entry into Walmart considered on-brand due to mass accessibility—even for high-glam personalities, supermarket distribution is where real money and reach is (“90% of Americans live within 10km of a Walmart”).
    • "Walmart is literally the in-person everything store... that's why it makes it so relevant to me that they're putting it [there]. And it's also where the money is." (51:01, Camille)

• Distribution Insight: Direct to consumer may be trendy, but scale and ease still require brick-and-mortar and mass retailers.

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6. The Social-First Luxury Conglomerate: The Greeds & “Popular Culture”

Timestamps: 51:47 – 55:27

• The Greeds’ Model:

  • Jens and Emma Greed’s Popular Culture is building a new kind of luxury group with a stable of social-first, premium brands (Skims, Good American, Frame, Kai, etc.), often with celebrity co-founders and mid-tier pricing aimed at mass premium consumers.
  • The move to potentially bring in Helsa (Elsa Hosk’s brand) reflects this conglomerate’s ability to absorb cool, social-first names much like LVMH.
    • “They have scaled...like LVMH...for brands that are social-first brands. And what's interesting is like Helsa can kind of be like the Totem or the Veronica Beard for this conglomerate.” (53:01, Camille)

• Celebrity, Social, & Distribution:

  • “Social first” doesn’t always equal “celebrity first”—real success comes from understanding what actual people on their phones want. Celebrity remains a powerful amplifier when paired with infrastructure.
    • “…it's about understanding a social first brand.” (54:41, Camille)

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7. The Evolution of TV to Brand Deals: Ramoa & Beyond

Timestamps: 55:27 – 60:53

• TV Actors as Brand Vehicles:

  • Ramoa tapped Succession’s Nicholas Braun for a campaign playing on his series persona, demonstrating how actors can monetize their iconic roles even years later.
    • “What I thought was relevant about that is how much sell through opportunity there are for actors now in these shows.” (55:42, Camille)

• Trend Analysis:

  • TV’s last “monoculture” hits (Succession, White Lotus, Suits, Heated Rivalry) are pipelines for immediate, relevant brand ambassadorship—a feedback loop where memes become marketing.
    • “It’s that three-dimensional, four-dimensional aspect of communicating creativity. It’s not just a graphic. It is something that’s deeper, that speaks across spectrums and across markets.” (57:27, Philip)

• Futures:

  • The power is shifting from studios to brands; actors may care less about art over time if marketing and brand deals outpace film salaries.
    • “I think brands are going to be the power brokers of screen time in the future... Brand houses, big brands are going to be the ones who are creating the most content.” (59:11, Philip)
  • The risk: actors could become pigeonholed and miss out on diverse roles for more lucrative or recognizable brand partnerships.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You don’t need dogma, you need dialogue.” (02:49, Philip)
• “If you have an opportunity that could disproportionately benefit you, lean into it. Ask for forgiveness, not permission… an 80% plan on time is worth more than a 100% plan too late.” (37:42, Philip)
• “The problem now with the Medicube strategy is unless you have a significant budget to do it right, it’s not going to work because... it’s now being done by a lot of brands that have budget.” (33:52, Camille)
• “What’s also fascinating too is the price point in which they sit in. Right. So skims can be anything from like 60 to $200...They’re trying to own this cool girl and guy on the Internet...This is what the dialed in people are buying.” (54:41, Camille)
• “Brands are going to be the power brokers of screen time in the future... I think brand houses, big brands are going to be the ones who are creating the most content.” (59:11, Philip)

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Episode Flow & Tone

• Engaging, conversational, and occasionally adversarial: the hosts regularly challenge each other’s views and assumptions for deeper insight.
• Strategic, sometimes irreverent, and consistently focused on actionable takeaways for business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs.
• Uses pop culture, personal stories, and real-time case studies to illustrate strategic brand thinking in an evolving digital world.

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Key Takeaways for Listeners

• Brand Surveillance is Real: Blockchain and AI in luxury aren’t just about authenticity or transparency—they’re about control, resale policing, and profits.
• Asymmetric Opportunity Requires Agility: Viral moments and successful influencer campaigns require rapid, thoughtful execution, not endless approval cycles.
• Infrastructure is Everything: Paid celebrity posts are table stakes; holistic infrastructure (UGC, legal, affiliates) multiplies ROI.
• Distribution Still Matters: Glamour and digital cachet mean little without mass access—physical stores and speed to shelf count.
• Celebrity & Social Synergy: The era of “social-first” is about more than famous faces—it’s about cultural fluency, timing, and scalable storytelling.
• Brands vs. Studios: The line between advertising, influencer, and entertainment is blurring; brands increasingly own the culture.

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For business leaders, marketers, and founders, this episode is packed with real-world lessons on staying ahead of branding trends, leveraging technology, and moving at the speed of culture.

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For more brand disasters, industry secrets, and cutting-edge strategies, catch the next Art of the Brand with Camille Moore & Philip Millar.

Transcript

[Philip Millar]

Government and corporations love to control the

[Camille Moore]

brand now is leaning into technology to spy on the customer to effectively and potentially punish them if they're buying products and reselling it on the secondary market. And I'm seeing more and more brands bring these camp snap cameras on set, behind the scenes to events.

[Philip Millar]

It allows you to capture the moment but still be present because there's no screen, there's just a lens. You see what you're capturing.

[Camille Moore]

What's intelligent that Medicube did is they allowed their audience or force their audience to be able to create reaction rights off the video so that it looks like they're secretly finding the device that these people are using. It went crazy viral. The stuffed animal that was 1499 was like instantly sold out at IKEA.

[Philip Millar]

IKEA makes people feel safe. Ikea makes people feel included. Welcome. Beautiful things for a home furnishing company.

[Camille Moore]

Kim Kardashian loves this energy drink organically and starts drinking it in 2023 and is giving the brand solicited feedback. It's a direct to consumer brand and it looks very like gym bro, tech bro. It feels more geared to men. The greeds have scaled. They've created the infrastructure in the same way that LVMH did with like partnerships with branding, with distribution, with reach for brands that are social first brands. And what's interesting is like Helsa can kind of be like the totem or the Veronica Beard for this conglomerate.

[Philip Millar]

That just raises the question of social first. Like, do they have to have celebrities to be successful?

[Camille Moore]

Ramo taps Nicholas Braun in their new campaign starring their backpacks.

[Philip Millar]

It's that three dimensional, four dimensional aspect of communicating creativity. It's not just a graphic. It is, it is something that's deeper, that speaks across spectrums and across markets.

[Camille Moore]

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.

[Philip Millar]

Welcome back to the world's number one branding podcast with Camille Moore and Philip Millar.

[Camille Moore]

Damn straight. I'm so excited to be back for another week. So this is our last Sunday for a while of us recording at our

[Philip Millar]

home studio and in this setup because we are redoing the studio we're going to come back to with a new setup, new colors and maybe even some new branding.

[Camille Moore]

New name, maybe even a new name.

[Philip Millar]

Super excited because the name of the game is good dialogue. We don't have to agree. We have different opinions. We want to hit the business of branding hard so you guys can Learn and grow with us as like a

[Camille Moore]

really quick point on that. We consume a lot of content and there's an abundance of content online of two friends that only agree we're not exposing ourselves to differing opinions any longer. It's just like echo chambers of the same perspective. So that's our goal and how we

[Philip Millar]

want to change it every week in order to learn. You don't need dogma, you need dialogue. And you need dialogue from people who are as smart or smarter than you, who have a different opinion than you. And then you can disagree and test your your conclusions and grow from that. That is the key to useful content. And we will commit to you dialogue that is controversial but speaks to the matter at hand.

[Camille Moore]

True that. Well, let us start off with we've got a crazy headline with LVMH and AI and you actually found it. So let's break it down. Lead us in with it.

[Philip Millar]

Philip As a military individual, I'm always kind of questioning what is really going on. And LVMH created a consortium called with a bunch of others called the Aura Blockchain Consortium. And it was established as a non profit by luxury groups lvmh, otb, Prada Group and Cartier as part of a Richemont. And it was created under the auspices of like, hey, we're going to have brand transparency. We want to have more visibility on what's going on, traceability, brand integrity. When I did a bit of research on it, it looks to me like active surveillance on what people are doing with their products to try to slow down the resale market.

[Camille Moore]

So let's dial it back. So LVMH launches a blockchain based brand

[Philip Millar]

with other luxury houses, with a bunch

[Camille Moore]

of other luxury houses, but that are all under like the Richemont roof. And the idea of the blockchain is that when you make a purchase at a maison, like at a reputable house that sells the product, the product's VIN number, like the license number that's given on the product is protected by a blockchain. So that if you ever need to verify later or if you see the product end up on the RealReal Vestaire, eBay, Depop, whatever, you can see who was the original buyer. And the undercurrent of this is the brand now is leaning into technology to spy on the customer to effectively and potentially punish them if they're buying products and reselling it on the secondary market. Which is fascinating because it's coming at a time where more and more people are buying designer goods, but not from the designer houses buying it second, secondhand, pre loved or vintage pieces off of these secondary sites.

[Philip Millar]

Yeah. And what I often tell people when I'm doing consulting is, especially when you're dealing with big corporations or big government, what they name something a department of efficiency is, it's usually the opposite of what they're telling you it is from a strategy perspective. So when they say this is hey, brand integrity to kind of protect the consumer, from my perspective it's really kind of a psyop or a counter surveillance op where it says we're going to see who is, who is misusing our product to make a profit because they want to make a profit for long term by creating scarcity and they have price threatening. There has been an upsurge in this resale market where people go in, work to buy it at the one price and then can sell it for 20 to 50% more the next day. Right. They don't want to see that margin go away. And so with a blockchain they can now trace who originally bought it. And I anticipate at some point if you want to sell one of their expensive goods, you probably need to register it with the new buyer from you, even if it's a resale. Because what blockchain does is tell you every time possession changes all the way down so you can track where it's going. And you do that with high value assets in other industries. So under the auspices of protecting brand integrity, they're also cutting off the ability or they will be able to cut off the ability of people to buy at the store resale. Because when you come in they'll be able to see that you've sold it and made money off of it.

[Camille Moore]

I don't think that's why Louis Vuitton is doing it. I think this is a really interesting headline. There's space for this to grow into something where it can evolve from where the brand is now. But this isn't the current playbook. And it's interesting when you actually analyze headlines that have come up the last few years, especially Cartier and the love bracelet they've had to stop. Cartier can no longer verify if a Cartier love bracelet is from a Cartier store because the fakes are one for one. It's gold and it's diamonds. If you go to a jeweler and they pour in a mold that you can one for one replicate the product. That's very different than going to Canal street and buying a fake Louis Vuitton bag. The quality of goods in theory are not the same. So from a Cartier standpoint, it's when as a jewelry house, your whole goal is to create value in your products so that your brand maintains value over 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. So that when you're looking at a $12,000 bracelet, you're seeing it as an investment because it's going to be a classic piece in heirloom that you want to pass on for time. It becomes a problem for that discerning customer when they go into a Cartier store. They buy it at a price point that doesn't reflect the raw goods because you're buying from a brand. And six years passes and you can no longer verify that's a real purchase and that's a problem. So this idea of like the blockchain being tied before you jump in because I'm dying for your perspect. So the LVMH universe, a lot of their products are not based on that absolute scarcity model like Hermes is. And what a lot of people get wrong with Hermes is that they think that. So Hermes operates in this model that appears to be similar to top end cars in that they make you purchase so many other things to buy to build up your profile so that you can with hope one day buy a one of the top coveted colors and styles. So a lot of people don't know this. You can't go into an Hermes store and just buy like a black, black Birkin 35. You can't like. So number one, you can't even go into an Hermes store and buy a bag. You have to have a bag appointment. So in order to purchase a bag with Hermes, you have to have a bag appointment. Then what you get within the bag appointment is not the best colors. You might be offered a lime green and a purple and you basically have to purchase all of these things so that one day you were offered, you

[Philip Millar]

know, the proverbial, it's like Ferrar, it's like Ferrari.

[Camille Moore]

Yes.

[Philip Millar]

You can't buy the best Ferrari. You have to buy a bunch of

[Camille Moore]

Ferraris to qualify to get the best one. And but what people get wrong is it's not that they're qualifying on spend because there's a lot of people with money is that they're qualifying on. Can we trust you? Because Hermes doesn't want to flood the market with their products because they operate on a scarcity model like Rolex. They only do so many of each every single year. And that's why Hermes has maintained value more stable than gold, because they there's a constant demand and they limit supply. And the way that they maintain supply is by who they give it to. So the blockchain model is intelligent because Hermes only concern is if I'm selling you a bubblegum pink mini Kelly, you can't turn around and sell that because there's arbitrage on the market. But what's interesting with LVMH is that same level of arbitrage, arbitrage exists, but not at the same level. So I'm wondering if why they're introducing this blockchain is one, to either do that strategy or two, for more of the Cartier example that I gave.

[Philip Millar]

What I noticed when I dug deep, kind of my old lawyer brain is they introduced a new terms of service in August 2025 to explicitly state that they reserve the right to reject any order if they suspect resale activity or non personal use. And that's lvmh. So they put that in the terms of service. And if you guys have any examples of being denied a sale where you used to let us, let us know. But this is where I think getting into that second order, third order thinking they now have this AI agent that works kind of under this Aura consortium that scans the Internet for any listing of their products. And if you want to list it and say it's original, generally you have to put this number on there. And so that allows them to cross reference it, flag it, and then when your customer profile is opened up, it'll say, hey, you've had three of our stuff of our products online or things you have bought of bid online. So to me, I understand that it's not the Hermes model necessarily. These groups are giant corporations. They just care about profit, not long term brand. But if they have a release, they want people to keep it because they want the people who want their products, the LVMH or the catch to buy it from the retailer. And if there's they don't have the same pure scarcity model, but if more people want to buy it from the retailer, they can increase their margin. So what they're trying to do is I believe surreptitiously try to curtail the resale market to force people to buy new stuff at that location. But I agree with you, it's not exactly the Hermes model, but it is a degree of surveillance that is going on now in the luxury market.

[Camille Moore]

I don't hate it. And I think it's relevant to play a little bit of devil's advocate because on one hand you see a surge in Products gain popularity from social media and if I want to go and purchase a bag and I go on an ebay or a realreal or a Bust Air, I would love to know that that's a genuinely real.

[Philip Millar]

Well real isn't that profitable because they go out of their way to verify and have a guarantee that it's real for sure.

[Camille Moore]

And I'm not saying you're not wrong, but I, but even from an ebay or like if I go to a local like consignment store because even when we were in Japan I had people message me and be like watch out. Even though everyone says Japan is number one. You know, a one off example of someone calling their sales associate at Hermes and they read off the number and it wasn't legit. So I mean who knows if that's true or if that's not true. But my point is, is that I don't hate that because if you're someone that's going to purchase a bag at a secondary market, it's nice to know that to your point on the, if you have three bags on the market, I do think discretion is, is relevant because if you're someone that's standing in line to buy the hottest new bag and you're constantly turning around and selling it for arbitrage on a secondary market, it's relevant for a brand house to want to know what kind of customer you are because they're in the business of establishing long term value. We've worked with enough luxury brands to know this.

[Philip Millar]

Doesn't this link back to that lady we were talking to who got banned from buying the road bags?

[Camille Moore]

Oh yeah, Nila Mahuja, right.

[Philip Millar]

Doesn't it show like they're, they're trying to exercise a little bit more control of how their products are used and, and, and showcase.

[Camille Moore]

That's kind of what I was, where I was going with it is like if you're someone who is an influencer, you have a lot of money and you are a fashion influencer in air quotes and you go and buy the hottest new bag, you take your 7 photos with it and then you go and sell it for arbitrage with, for a, whatever profit like this is happening. And the brands, the only thing that they care about is for them to charge 7, 8, 10, 12, whatever thousand dollars for a bag. They have to maintain a relationship within the zeitgeist to maintain that value. So it makes sense for technology to get into this asset class.

[Philip Millar]

Just mark my words, government and corporations love to control. So what I see with this blockchain is that if I buy something that is a high value luxury item, in order for me to stay on the good list of that corporation, that's a good loser, the good list of that corporation, every time I transfer it, I have to enter it into the blockchain. And so somebody else knows who gets it. And then that way you can kind of. It's like a house. Like in some jurisdictions, they're putting a blockchain on house title. So every time it sells, it goes through a blockchain. Blockchain. So you can't fraudulently change title. And so every time it transfers, you can see that that change of ownership. And they're kind of. On one hand, it's good because it elevates it to something so valuable we need to do it. But if you don't, if you interrupt the blockchain, you can be blacklisted. I see them moving down that road.

[Camille Moore]

I've got a little bit of gossip to add it on this section. So one of our clients is pretty famous online for their collection of vintage Chanel. She told me a really interesting story, even though Chanel is not lvmh. So they started posting all this content. And a lot of their content anchored around how big their collection is of vintage pieces, which is also another reason to reinforce with Philip here that you hold on to the things you buy because they have value later. Because Philip's constantly like, be a minimalist. Let it go. And I'm like, no, that pair of jumper jacket might be worth money sometimes.

[Philip Millar]

No.

[Camille Moore]

Well, all my coach bags that I bought when I was like a young gun out of the gate when I was working at McDonald's, they'd be worth money right now if I held on to them. So bite your tongue. Anyways, the point of what I'm trying to get to here is they post a ton of content about their pieces, but the way that one of the two of them style it is not to Chanel's standards. So they do their own styling, and it's crazy. They have, you know, it's. It's maximalism to the max. Like, if maximalism on a sliding scale, it's as max as maximalism gets. And the point is, is that they were. They've gotten a bunch of attitude and issues from Chanel, and apparently I don't want to misquote it, so don't take like. But the gist of what's truthful is that the brand ran their entire purchase history because they wanted to do a seasoned desist assuming that the products were fake. And they didn't. They pulled. They pulled the purchase history, and it goes back, like, 40, 50 years. And they purchased everything from a sales associate. And one of the things that my client said is always buy the product from the store because if they didn't have that purchase record that everything was purchased from the store, they would. They would be in a very different position with the brand. And I thought that was a really interesting insight in that the brand, if you are on the potential bad side, they are pulling your purchase history to see if you're a legitimate customer. And that, to me, was just an insight to. For where this is going is that the brand clearly wants more control over who's their customer. In a social first world that's moving into this Neela Mahuja space of, like, who's right and who's got the voice,

[Philip Millar]

do you think it's okay for brands to start acting like cartels? No, like, and control.

[Camille Moore]

But I also think that they play by their own rules or luxury.

[Philip Millar]

Yeah, It's a push and pull.

[Camille Moore]

Like, it's also what creates it. Like, they're so mean to you that you want to be liked by them. And you know what? That's a strategy.

[Philip Millar]

It doesn't take a lot for people to realize that there's arbitrage. If they buy it on day one, it's launched that they can double.

[Camille Moore]

You know what? I also must say, too, when we were in Paris, all those stores, they were way nicer in Paris. The Hermes store there was like, hello, welcome. They were talking to you. They let us take photos and video. Same with Dior. I cannot say that same. That same thing in North American boutiques. It's like, they're like, we have to try harder because we're not where we're from right now.

[Philip Millar]

Yeah. Anyhow, interesting aside, the French aren't known for their politeness in general.

[Camille Moore]

They were quite nice at the store, I must say. But anyways, okay, so I want to talk next about the Camp Snap camera. So brands. This is an interesting insight because we've been seeing a ton of celebrities use this Camp Snap camera. And it actually got, like, even more recognition at the USA win for hockey. Their win for gold. I will leave that there as a Canadian. So the Tachuk brothers brought the video camera, like, on the ice, and they were recording it, and we've seen a ton of celebrities use it. So Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, among, like, many others. And I'm seeing more and more brands bring these Camp Snap cameras on set behind the scenes to events. And I wanted to talk about the move and why we're seeing these mixed mediums so that brands and founders, you can start deciding whether or not you want to start bringing multiple mediums into your shoots.

[Philip Millar]

I just like it because it allows you to capture a moment without being distracted. Because as soon as you pick up your phone, when there's a big screen, you're going to see notifications, you're taking pictures, you're doing all this stuff and then, and as soon as you've captured your picture, you go and you do your stuff. But by having essentially the old family camcorder is what it looks like. It allows you because technology has come so far. It has longer battery, better capability. It allows you to capture the moment but still be present. Because there's no screen, there's just a lens. You see what you're capturing. I think it's a wonderful moment. It should be on kids phones. It should be at most events. As humans, we need to connect more. And this is an example of great insight in the founders to kind of take advantage of an opportunity that people are secretly hungering for.

[Camille Moore]

Probably about eight months ago I was around some, I forget kind of how it happened. But the gist of what's relevant is these founders were telling me that their daughters don't bring their phones anymore to parties because they want to be present and that they're buying these cameras that have like digital capabilities but are vintage for that exact reason of like they want to be present. They don't want their phones blowing up, but they do want, want to be able to capture content. And these were like university kids, rather not like high school kids. And when I heard that months ago, I'm like, that's an interesting trend that I think is going to move into it. And that's actually how the Camp Snap camera was created. So basically the story goes, a family that's originally from Toronto, they now live in California, they send their kids for, to camp for a month and they're not allowed tech. They can't be sent with cell phones. But these kids were, they were trying to give them the like wind up, but they just like weren't catching on. It doesn' networking. And they wanted to create this hybrid of like easy digital that kids could navigate with it without it having a screen. So that because a lot of these camps are like no screens, like this is where like kids can like escape from screen time. And it ended up really taking off and but what I think is also interesting for that Trend is the way that like Instagram is almost becoming more relevant is like having these mixed mediums. Like I'm traveling with a digital camera, I'm traveling with my iPhone. I even have like a sec. I got a Fujifilm once. We got like a vintage one when we're traveling. And to me I feel like the iPhone was so novel for you to have a, like a really wicked camera with you at all time, all the time. But to really show vibe, to create taste is to have these different mediums. And I'm seeing it with so many brands we work with, like they're going to shoot, they have the behind the scenes iPhone content. They are bringing the, the CS8 video camcorder. They're bringing like a 4K from like 2001 to 2008 kind of video camcorder and then they also like a Canon digital and it's so that they can use this different footage for different mediums and different use types. And it's really working on socials because it creates a vibe.

[Philip Millar]

I just like it because I find phone footage is often shallower. There's something about how you hold it up. There's something about the kind of temporariness of it. You're not really committed to it because it's so easy. You're just pulling it up, you're pulling it up. Whereas when you have this camcorder, you almost feel more like a cameraman man or a camera person. He's capturing something. So there's more focus, there's more presence on what's going on and it gets rid of the selfie addiction. Which is the worst thing about the phone is people looking at themselves all the time and taking these, these pictures where they smile. Like if you get that away from kids. So they're focusing on the outside world rather than taking pictures of themselves all the time. I think it's a very healthy thing for adults and kids.

[Camille Moore]

Well, I'm totally a victim of it too.

[Philip Millar]

Right.

[Camille Moore]

When you have your iPhone and you're taking a photo, you, one, you take way more content than you need. But two, you over obsess over the photo that was taken. Whereas when you live in something. I know, you know, I mean, if only, you know, we could take a little course.

[Philip Millar]

Does he look bad online with all the pictures I take of you? She's always telling me the pictures aren't good enough. I'm like, you're beautiful. It's good enough.

[Camille Moore]

Literally my eyes are closed. Yeah. But my point to this is when you look back at like Your parents, photo albums or like yours, you know, you can relate to the. This you just, you got the shot that you got and like it. It was a great photo because it was in the moment. And that's what I saw when I saw Tachuk, like around the ice with the CSA cameras. Like he's not obsessed with like watching the preview as he's rolling the ice, he's taking it out, he's shooting it, he's turning it off, he's handing it to someone who's present. Like it's a vibe, it's capturing the

[Philip Millar]

reality of the moment.

[Camille Moore]

Agree.

[Philip Millar]

As opposed to the curated. Good on those people for creating that.

[Camille Moore]

I know, I love that story.

[Philip Millar]

I would invest in that company right now. I love them. And send your kids to camp without screens.

[Camille Moore]

I know, I love that. But you know what? That was a really side take because we're promoting this all the way. There's actually a bunch of really negative reviews of it online. One they put the SD card slot, like you have to literally unscrew the bottom and it doesn't come with a little screw. Like unscrew screwdriver, like, like almost like a watch screw. And if you take out off the bottom, like you take off the. The screw. Like if you lose the screw, like you're legit, like screwed. Because haha. Because it. I have to show you the video afterwards. Like how it's constructed and then the other.

[Philip Millar]

So that's a design element that can be improved. Yeah.

[Camille Moore]

Well, the other thing too is that it's not. It's kind of designed to be like the Super 8 camera, but you can tell that they rushed the technology of it. Like it's not quite a Super 8 camera. So my point is brilliant concept, amazing marketing has really caught on. Definitely has space to improve further, but at the price point of how affordable it is a great thing for you to add on for your brand for some social content.

[Philip Millar]

Amazing.

[Camille Moore]

Cool. All right, so I want to talk about Metacube seeding because I did a swipe through on it this week and I was shocked that. So Vogue, Vogue Business did an amazing breakdown of MetaCube and they talked about how effectively like Kylie Jenner posting last year to her 57 million followers on TikTok is one of the reasons why they're in 1400 Ultas. They have 22 million sales on Prime Day alone and they are now valued as a $1.1 billion brand. And it was a very thoughtful and well done article. But they missed the core strategy of why Medicube has become a leading beauty brand. And it's that they won, paid for celebrities. They paid for all of the celebrities. Like they had Kylie, they had all of Kylie's friends, they had Kendall, they had Chloe, they had Haley, they had Tati, they had Alex. Like you could literally. The point is, is that they, they paid big bucks to get celebrities to post the content. But what they did that was intelligent, that furthered their investment, is they got the usage rights to the content so that they could deploy their affiliate army of over 34,000 women and men that are into beauty to create reaction videos. So you have a fleeting moment of Alex using it in her story, right? Like she uses it for three story frames, how much she loves the product, product. And a lot of brands think that that's enough. Oh, my goodness, we're going to get the Alex Earle effect. She posted three stories. Let's buckle up and wait to be sold out. And those three stories cost $600,000. So that's our entire budget. Let's hope it works. What's intelligent the Medicube did is they allowed their audience or forced their audience to be able to create reaction rights off the video so that it looks like they're secretly finding the device that these people are using.

[Philip Millar]

This is brilliant. I'm not sure I didn't research this piece, but it reminds me of our one client who saw their product in the background of a Kardashian, right. And wanted to repost it and pay affiliates to repost it. But legal said you can't do that. They're very litigious. But this is brilliant because what you do is you go to the influencers in order for them to say that they're working with your brand. You make them sign a terms of service that says it's okay for that to happen. And you have just forced, multiply your reach and impact by then putting an army to repurpose all those things. It's actually a really good corporate strategy.

[Camille Moore]

Well, that was the core difference, is that it wasn't someone organically using it and it being accidentally in the shot. It was part of the negotiation for working with that creator. But outside of it being, you know

[Philip Millar]

what I might put on a terms of service. And if you guys have products, if anybody buys from you online, just, anybody buys online, just kind of put in a small print. If ever you feature this product in a social media post, you. You waive the right to claim interest over it. So, you know what I mean? You can kind of put it in Your Terms of Service. If I buy something and I put it on my online portal, it can now be re shared. It'd be an interesting angle.

[Camille Moore]

I don't know though, because you did research on the California laws and I don't know if that's the case because

[Philip Millar]

it wasn't in a contract when you purchase it. So let's say like if I buy something off of Instagram that I really like, that's expensive and then it's in the background of my social media, you know what I would just say when I'm the company that's selling it to me, when I click Terms of service in the agreement, it would say if I post that and it's anywhere in my background, other people can use it to show that I'm using it. So that is a way to get around it. I hadn't thought about it. It'd be interesting.

[Camille Moore]

But that celebrity didn't purchase it. She was, she was seated.

[Philip Millar]

Yeah, I know, but I'm just saying like in order to give you the opportunity, if somebody does buy one of your products who's famous and it's in the background, they post it, they would have clicked I accept the terms. And then you could get around that.

[Camille Moore]

Sure, yeah.

[Philip Millar]

Consult real, consult your own legal advisor. But that could be very good.

[Camille Moore]

But what I think is more relevant about this is two things. One is there is a usefulness for a big celebrity name using and touching your product. But that's not enough. It's such a significant. But it's a piece to a larger, more holistic strategy. And that's what brands are missing is really two things. Things one, this is where the role of UGC user generated content, real trust and credibility comes into play. Because when you have a big name that's using it, it's not the big name that's using it. Really what gave me the tipping point to Medicube was seeing all of these women create these videos showing the pro the real tools that Hailey Bieber, Hailey Bieber are using and explaining what the tool is. So it looked like I was learning her beauty hacks and that level of content, like the celebrity anchored in the piece of content. But what was more valuable to me was someone who's effectively a nobody by my eye, like just on my Explore page showing the tool that Chloe is using, that Haley is using and how powerful that is for me as a consumer to see that secondary order of thinking. And that's the level of strategy that you need to be successful in the digital sphere. Because we don't trust celebrity alone, but celebrity has a role. And the second piece to it is don't be cheap. And this is what a lot of brands miss is that they want to spend the money for the Alex Earl and they hope that that's their Hail Mary for success. They're not thinking about holistically of like what are the three to four levels of ordered thinking we need to do to double down on that investment you're making with someone that's very expensive and potentially powerful. And that's what brands miss is that brands want to do these celebrity partnerships, but they don't really want to do what comes with it. So the partnership with Alex Earl is not 600,000, it's really 850,000 because you have to pay the affiliate payouts. You have to have a team that can construct doing the reaction videos. You have to have the strategy in place to be able to deploy it. Like you have to factor in that amplification method in order to make it work. Does that make sense?

[Philip Millar]

This type of what I call an asymmetric or physical where asymmetric warfare is where you use decidedly less resources to get incredibly more output.

[Camille Moore]

Yeah.

[Philip Millar]

Right. So you can kind of have symmetrical market strategy, symmetrical warfare where you put your resources against their resources and the more the stronger one wins. Asymmetric operations is going into a community influencing decision makers and they undermine the whole mission. And that's really what's going on in a lot of ways with influencers. But you have to think at your level of operations. How do I get get exponential output for the least resources possible. And for that you need creative strategic thinkers.

[Camille Moore]

Oh, you're right. I mean it's all strategy. But I, I actually want to pick at those people that have money because what I struggle with in our day to day from, for when we get hired by these, by these brands that have resources. Because you're right when you're small.

[Philip Millar]

No, no. But if you have money, you still need to wage war intelligently. Right.

[Camille Moore]

But I have sat in the, in meetings where I am paid to be there a lot and they want Alex Earle to post and they, they have arbitrarily decided that they can afford her posting cost but are not prepared to build a larger strategy around it because they only want the clear KPI of this person has this many followers. If we pay this amount of money, the likelihood of selling this many products is high. Like people are not thinking the way that we're thinking naturally of like build like you have to build a larger strategy Digital is no longer like, hey, Kim Kardashian's going to post it. You're just going to sell a million units.

[Philip Millar]

And for our listeners, just so you are, I'm in some of those meetings, but I'm tucked away in the corridor, you know, in a disguise. The if you're a CEO or a founder and your CMO or your executive team is telling you with certainty this will work, generally look up the Dunning Kruger effect because the people who talk with certainty generally don't know as much as they know. And then all of a sudden we come in and we introduce a new way of thinking, something different that creates uncertainty. And all that they do is double down on what they think is, is correct. Right. And then, and then try to push out the consultant who's bringing something new in there. So it's, that's why it's important. I think one of the, the best roles we do is when we were brought into red team, you know, a brand strategy or, or a plan they're trying to launch is because they're in this bubble of people saying this is amazing, it's going to work, let's spend more money. And then all of a sudden bring in some people who can actually attack it at every level and say it's not going to work. That the resources there aren't going to get your best resource, best impact.

[Camille Moore]

And nobody wants to do anything that requires not only risk, but also have to invest in the infrastructure to do it. Like they want an idea and they just want to hit green button. Let's go. But what Medicube built that's worth analyzing is they understood that they have to have a top of funnel person that can amplify their product, but they built the infrastructure in order to which amplify those posts to ensure they get every dollar's worth of the people that they're paying. And that's what's complicated is you need to realize that what makes these strategies work is infrastructure plus output plus budget in order to drive that entire ecosystem. And for a lot of the brands, and that's where, where I even want to pick on a bit of the smaller ones, you gotta punch above your weight. Like if you don't have the dollars to spend, then you have to be doing something that amplifies your voice. Like you have to be doing something that pushes the limits, that has to be new and has to be different. That the problem now with the Medicube strategy is unless you have a significant budget to do it right, it's not going to work because it's been done and it's now being done by a lot of brands that have budget but they were able to roll on. They didn't have to start with the money that they have now because they were the first to market to do it.

[Philip Millar]

That's true. I just don't think you're going to get asymmetric strategy from MBA grads who are taught, you know, the kind of standard way of doing things. And a lot of these brands need to bring in and different types of thinking, creative thinking, strategic thinking, to really get the most money for their dollar aligned.

[Camille Moore]

So the next thing I want to talk about is IKEA and the art of missing a hot moment. So I'm sure you guys saw it this week. There was a crazy headline of the most like, heartwarming story of Punch, the monkey who lives in a Japanese zoo who was abandoned by his mother and brought into the zoo and they gave him a. A IKEA orangutan to be a replacement for the bond he's missing with his mother because he's being exiled by the other monkeys or not accepted. And it went crazy viral. The, the stuffed Animal that was 14.99 was like instantly sold out at Ikea. And basically all they did was post a graphic that the stuffed animal is for sale. And the headline was sometimes family is who we find along the way. Deng Zhu Klorg punches comfort orangutan for

[Philip Millar]

1999 what I think people can take from this monkey IKEA situation is that humans are craving real experience, not manufactured outrage. And online there is so much manufactured outrage that's polarizing everybody. And then all of a sudden, every once in a while now, you look on your feed and you see something that just speaks to you as a human. And it doesn't matter what the politics are, or you just see a baby monkey being left alone. And everybody's heart, regardless of what you think of politically, reaches out to it and then it finds comfort in whatever is there. And that's a beautiful moment for any brand to jump onto, is that our brand gave this sympathetic being comfort, right? And they didn't really jump onto it. I would have led with an ad saying it doesn't matter what your politics are, whatever this monkey's name, right? You can just jump on it. We all need to feel included or we all need to feel loved or, you know, like something like that would have really kind of amplified the visceral, emotional feeling that that clip caught the thing.

[Camille Moore]

That's odd to Me is so one they didn't respond to really anything timely. And then the post that goes out is effectively an ad for a product.

[Philip Millar]

It's got two fake, like it has two stuffed toys. So it kind of took away the authentic realism of an animal being isolated or exiled from its group and then finding something in their product. Like, there's so many deep meanings there that could speak to the humans in a world where everybody is kind of distracted and outraged and upset, that could bring people together and say, hey, look, Ikea makes people feel safe. Ikea makes people feel included. Welcome. Beautiful things for a home furnishing company.

[Camille Moore]

The takeaway that I want to talk about in this segment is that we've seen several brands and our clients this year have these asymmetric opportunities. The randomness, the kind of a positive force majeure that allows their brand to be able to jump on it that they weren't expecting for and they don't. And there's an opportunity cost that you can't measure by not moving fast in a digital age. I actually had the brand that reach out to me that Mr. Beast bought the Birkin from for the super bowl and they hadn't posted about it until last week. And she sent me a message being like, we're actually the boutique. And I'm like, where is it on your social? She's like, oh, our team's getting it ready. It should be out on Friday. I'm like, this super bowl was three weeks ago. Like, you've completely missed that opportunity because you're not posting about it and talking about it. And now all of the Mr. Beast fans don't care because he's off giving a Lamborghini now. Like, it's, it's so, so powerful and you have to jump on it quickly and not be focused on being perfect.

[Philip Millar]

There's a couple things to break apart there. First of all, when you say our team is trying to get it together, what I would tell that person, fire half of your team today. Because if your team can't get it out in a timely manner, it means that they're too big, they have too many permission levels that they have to go through too many boxes to check. You need elite, quick operating people on your team who can maximize these opportunities that come once every two years, once every five years. And if your team can't get it ready in time and it's gone, you should fire them. And what happens to too many corporations is they create these giant teams because the way of corporations and bureaucracies is to Always expand. Get more people underneath them, more levels of authorization. Everybody's scared of making mistake. Adopt the philosophy of asking for forgiveness, not permission when it comes to disproportional benefit to your company because the news cycle is small. If, if you go too far, it'll forget about it in the most time. But if you have a disproportional upside, lean into it. Make sure people work 247 to get it done on time because it can change your business.

[Camille Moore]

Well, even for the, the talk of the Mr. Beast bag, it was a small consignment store in like North Carolina. Like she probably is hiring a local social team that like needed to have proper deadlines and, and like, like how much she could have like lost like we'll never know because that's not measurable.

[Philip Millar]

So that's where you say the founder has to involved in their own brand. It's your store as a founder. Get, get a camera, put it up and get it out there. Don't worry about it being perfect, but waiting for it to be perfect is the perfect example of an 80% plan on time is way more valuable than 100% plan too late.

[Camille Moore]

Well that's the whole thing with Ikea of like to what you're saying and to talk about the last segment in Metacube and that client Ikea had put their heads together and I was like look, they obviously sold out right away so they had no inventory. But maybe we put the product on pre order. For every product that's purchased on pre order a $5 whatever is gonna go

[Philip Millar]

to X Wildlife refuge to protect the habitat of these monkeys. Like yeah, that's a triple win because one, you're not like promoting kind of the caging of animals but you're promoting the light, you know, the well being of the animals in the wild in their natural territory. It's got such a. That's a great idea by you.

[Camille Moore]

But like even that, that angle, there's no potentiality for lawsuit because initially my brain was like, you know, maybe the Tokyo or the, the Japanese zoo that he's a part that punches at may not have agreed and blah blah, blah. So then go a different direction, go what you're saying like to give it to habitat or decide to your point of like if the Japanese, if they launched this right away and the Japanese zoo didn't agree to it, what's the downside? Like what the Japanese zoo is going to sue you because you're going to give them an insane amount of money. Then also this is another piece too. The Internet loves a story, they love a side. Like if it, if the news breaks that someone is suing someone for doing something that's good, or like with good intention, it's really bad press and publicity for them. And then that was to go to that other client you're talking about on the meta cube thing. Like, so the, the downside was so much smaller to the upside for what they could have received, because even when we quantified what the famous Kardashian could have sued on, it was still like peanuts compared to the potentiality of dollars and awareness that is made. And that's the problem, is that when you sit on your hands and you hem and haw and you don't know and you don't lean into taking risk, you lose these insane potential windfalls that could change your business.

[Philip Millar]

That's why, you know, I love to be a student of organizational and human behavior. Whenever you're in a big organization and something has to happen fast that involves risk, everybody in your chain of command is going to be risk adverse because you get fired for making a mistake, right? And if it works, you don't necessarily get promoted. So this is where it comes down to the founder or the leader to have the courage to say, I recognize an opportunity and I'm going to bring my team and punch through that opportunity. But if you wait for all of your management levels to approve it, you're going to miss it. You know, when you were talking about Ikea, which is a brilliant idea, reminds us when we were going to do some work for an oil lobbyist group, and who was just saying, hey, our oil is Canadian oil is clean, Canadian oil is okay. And we came up with the idea that they should take a percentage of it and buy up a portion of the rainforest, put it in a trust, and then from a brand perspective, Canadian oil would be the best on the planet, but they wouldn't do it because it was outside of what they were used to. Lastly, in your marketing teams, you might want to consider having something that we used to call a quick reaction force. So you have kind of your machine that produces annual plans, quarterly plans. You should probably have somebody on your team who is responsible for looking every day at opportunities that could help your company, your brand, and when it's identified, have a protocol in place that says we're going to have something, they can move very quickly to take advantage of it.

[Camille Moore]

Yeah, well, I mean, even when I look at the Ikea posts that went out, they're getting ripped in the comments because People are like, why are you capitalizing off of selling more when you've such an opportunity to, to do more with this? So even to your point, it's like you should be able to move fast and to do things quickly. But even there, not only did they miss an opportunity, but then they like double screwed it up because even with what they put out is tone deaf to how people are feeling, to how emotional that experience is. So I feel like we've, we've covered that. But talking about oil and gas, Kim Kardashian launches an energy drink called Update and she's positioned as the co founder. And it's interesting because no one has really dug into this online in the way that I expected. So let me give the stats and the facts. So Update is an energy drink company that's launched by Daniel Solomons in 2022, in June of 2022 with the Hess family. So he launches it in collaboration with the Hess family, which is a huge American oil and gas family. And Update is basically kind of, it's positioned as like a new energy drink because it's got paraxathine and it's a derivative of caffeine. So the idea is like it's energy without the trade offs. So you don't get that kind of jittery, the crash that you get with the, the caffeine forward energy drinks. Apparently Kim Kardashian loves this energy drink organically and starts drinking it in 2023 and is giving the brand unsolicited feedback. It's a direct to consumer brand and it looks very like gym bro tech bro. It feels more geared to men. And I guess she gives enough unsolicited feedback. She joins the team in 2025 and she basically comes in to like re engineer the brand. She gives it a new facelift. She comes in to like direct the creative and to kind of the brand. And what's fascinating about this is that basically on March 4th they're going into 4,000 Walmarts. So this product will have a direct to consumer angle. You can order it off the website, but it's really being positioned as like a gen pop alternative to energy drinks. And what I think is fascinating about this is one what a smart move for Kim to realize like to love the find these products that she loves, but to be able to leverage her platform to get equity and to repackage it because she's become a branding expert. Right? Like it's, it's what we do all the time. We try things and we're like man, this could be way better if it had better packaging and like how smart it is to lean into that with her distribution channel and with her contacts.

[Philip Millar]

She's an outstanding business person and she's not ruining her, her brand credibility because she genuinely liked the product. Right. But that goes back to an old clip that I that used to be on TV when I was younger about hair loss surgery. It was like not only am I the president of the company, but I'm also a client. You know what I mean? Like it's like I, I love the product so much that my name is on it. My name, I'm not selling my name on something.

[Camille Moore]

That'd be actually the only criticisms I felt her launch didn't tie to that office. Like that authenticity pillar or like that trust pillar of like this was the brand, this is how genius I am. Like that was the thing that's missing is like let's show know what she's doing, why she's coming in, what that looks like. I expected more of kind of like a vlog or a storyline to it. It almost felt like nothing to talk about because it was missing that angle and element. Like if you're using someone like Kim Kardashian and the power of her platform, lean into storytelling so that your customer base trusts you more.

[Philip Millar]

What do you think about its direct to consumer but its main distribution channel is Walmart. How do you think that relates to Kim's brand? Brand?

[Camille Moore]

I actually think it's brilliant because when you look at Walmart based brands, how well they do in sales volume like Sofia Vargara had a jeans line in Walmart. It did something like $65 million sold out instantly. Jlo's perfume in Walmart like crazy multiples like, like, like I don't know for certain but, but like 60 to 80 million in sales. Like it's crazy but for a drink to me it doesn't, it doesn't hurt or touch the skims price point because I'm actually kind of annoyed by these like designer drink price points. Like I don't like going for a can and them being like $8, $11. I want to be able to go somewhere like order on Instacart, a 12 pack or 24 packs. They're stocked in my fridge. And I also when I was analyzing more this week, the other breakout swipe that we did on really the greeds creating this new LVMH conglomerate for social first premium fashion Skims is an affordable premium brand. It's not cheap but it's for that average person to feel special, to have something that really feels to them like their treat. But it's priced within a realm of no matter how much you make, you can afford it with a paycheck. So I, I think she's anchoring properly within the universe in which her customer base exists within. Especially for how aggressively skims is rolling out retail.

[Philip Millar]

Yeah, I just wondered because she's seen as like ultra rich, ultra luxury what it's like to put it into Walmart. But you explain, you explained it well and it makes sense to, to put it into Walmart and make it accessible to the mass audience. You don't have to if it's only an erewhon, you're limited at what you can sell.

[Camille Moore]

But also too, I think, I think it's really relevant for it to be a drink. Right. Like when you think about like Poppy or Georgie or like all of these drink brands, they're more premium based on their price point but they should be accessible because they're a canned drink. Like I order my poppies for the fridges in the house at Costco. Like I don't need to have more complicated ways to get canned drinks. And I think that's really relevant for, for consumerism, especially in food is that a lot of these premium brands that are getting into like these health and wellness products and like biohacking, I don't want to order from your website. I want to be able to like order momentous creatine from Loblaws or from like a US based grocer. Like I find it annoying that I have to go to all these places.

[Philip Millar]

Like the shipping cost to ship heavy cans, you know, is high. Whereas you know, when you have a big distribution channel where they're coming in on pallets, you can buy a case from Walmart and having it delivered through Instacart or something. It's cheaper than the shipping cost cost to do direct to consumer.

[Camille Moore]

Well, we've done quite a bit of branding actually in funny Enough beverages. And what's fascinating is it's very hard to market because the point of decision is in person, usually at a gas station or a grocery store. And especially for energy drinks and gas stations, there's a very small percentage of people, usually smokers that are really going into gas stations. Like think about the last time you really went into a gas station.

[Philip Millar]

If I was advising a gas station to go name I would give $0.01 cheaper gasoline or whatever the proper number is if you pay in store. Remember in the past it was like they wanted you to pay at outside so they save labor costs. But all of their high margin products are in the store. The energy drinks, the chocolate bars and all of that. But people don't go in the store anymore. When you went in to pay, pay for gas, you get gum, you get this, you get that. Now people aren't, I wonder if you gave a discount of a cent, a liter or a gallon. And if you went and paid inside, I bet you their sales would go to the roof.

[Camille Moore]

Well, I think it's also brilliant too because her, the visuals, like the way that she designed the cans, it looks, it looks very different from anything else that's in the gas station. And she really gets branding. Like the packaging, the font, the color, like it is designed for like a car selfie in your center thing with like your croc Birkin on the passenger seat, you know.

[Philip Millar]

Or are you talking about the Walmart people right now?

[Camille Moore]

No, I'm talking about the Instagram photos. Not saying for the Walmart people. What I'm saying is I don't, I

[Philip Millar]

don't, I don't mean to say the wall, I mean the wall Walmart market.

[Camille Moore]

No, I totally get what you're saying. My point is though is the thing that's interesting about Walmart, I've told this stat before, I'm going to tell it again because it's a crazy stat. Did you know that 90% of Americans live within a 10 kilometer radius of a Walmart?

[Philip Millar]

Yeah, it's not accidental. It's h how Sam built out his distribution channel.

[Camille Moore]

So Walmart is, is literally the in person everything store. Like it's, it's not for low socioeconomic class. Like Walmart is just where everybody goes to buy and to shop. That's why it makes it so relevant to me that they're putting it. And it's also where the money is. Do you know Mr. Beast's Feastables does 250 million revenue a year with a 20 million dollar profit? Because it's everywhere. Like you can just, just buy it at the store. When you're like hopping along and you go to the Walmart, you're stalking for the cottage and then you see Kim Kardashian's like energy drink. You're like, I'll buy a case. And because you see it in real life, it's in person discovery.

[Philip Millar]

Also Walmart's online shopping through Instacart and all of that is actually very well done.

[Camille Moore]

It's very well done.

[Philip Millar]

They're competing with Costco, I think in terms of totally.

[Camille Moore]

I want to talk about quickly though, while I brought it up, the case study I did this week on the greeds because I think it's extremely fascinating and nobody has called it out yet. So if you guys don't know, Jen's and Emma Greed, famous married couple who is behind Kai and Skims and Good American and Frame and a bunch of other brands, elder statesman. They have a company called Popular Culture and it's basically a conglomerate of brands. And, and the thing that's fascinating is for a lot of them they were celebrity back brands. So Khloe Kardashian with Good American, Kylie with Kai Kim with Skims, et cetera. And what's interesting about it is that what they've tapped into, what they figured out and basically the headline that came through Lauren Sherman of, of Puck this week is that Helsa who is Elsa Haas line that's tied and launched with Revolve might be shopping coming over to this conglomerate. And what that proves is that the Greeds have scaled, they've created the infrastructure in the same way that LVMH did with like partnerships with branding, with distribution, with reach for brands that are social first brands. So like they're basically, they're, they're this kind of social, social first but premium in market. And what's interesting is like Helsa can kind of be like the Totem or the Veronica Beard for this conglomerate where Helsa's, you know, her job jackets anywhere from 500 to 2 grand, not cheap but not expensive again in relation to average monthly salary. Right. And it's, it's kind of a fascinating model of where fashion is becoming basically these conglomerates.

[Philip Millar]

It just raises the question of social first. Like do they have to have celebrities to be successful?

[Camille Moore]

Well, no, because the brand that they kind of started with in 2012 is Frame, which was run by Jen's Greed. But what's interesting about that is Frame is who did the partnership with the Ritz Paris, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to go to that hotel because that collection sold out in 45 minutes. So it's not that it's about celebrity, it's that it's about social first relevance. Celebrity is obviously a big part of that because it comes with a distribution model. Right? Like if, if Kim gets an a percentage of equity in Skims and gets Michael Jordan style royalties whenever she posts on her page because she gets paid for both. So she owns a part of the company and then whenever she posts about Skims she also gets like her fees for posting it. Has completely amplified the brand to a different degree in a different level. So it's not about celebrity, it's about understanding a social first brand.

[Philip Millar]

To me, it's about understanding kind of like from a boots on the ground perspective, what are the people on their phones actually responding and watching to. Yeah, right. And not what's happening in a corporate boardroom or what they think should be happening, but. But figuring out what is actually interesting to people.

[Camille Moore]

Yeah, totally. But what's also fascinating too is the price point in which they sit in. Right. So skims can be anything from like 60 to $200. Good American is kind of the same. Kai is a bit more mid to like high premium, but. And same with frame. You know, you can get 200 jeans, but they're not cheap. But they're not. They're like doable. You know what I. And like, I think that that's a really interesting takeaway is like they're trying to own this like cool girl and guy on the Internet. Like this is what the. This is what the dialed in people are buying. To me, it just is fascinating that someone conglomerates social first fashion.

[Philip Millar]

That's fascinating. Let's keep track of.

[Camille Moore]

Okay, cool. So I want to talk quickly about this. Ramo taps Nicholas Braun in their new campaign starring their backpack. So do you know who Nicholas Braun is? He is the son in succession. The nephew. I mean, sorry.

[Philip Millar]

Yeah, hilarious.

[Camille Moore]

He was the best. Greg Hirsch. That was his name in the show. Greg. And what was interesting is succession ended in 2023, the end of its four seasons. And what's fascinating is this Ramoa campaign is this like new backpack. It's like a hard shell backpack and he's eating cereal in the backpack as if it's like almost like a makeshift desk. And what's so smart about it is it completely speaks to kind of how he was treated in the show. You know, like hiding in the corner, like needing to eat his like bowl of cereal. Real. But what I thought was relevant about that is how much sell through opportunity there are for actors now in the, in these shows. Because the show ended in 2023 and in 2026, he's getting an ad campaign speaking to that like niche understanding of like his role in that show from a few years back. Same thing this week. Harvey from Suits, they launched Harvey AI, like a legal AI software.

[Philip Millar]

And with his voice, with his face.

[Camille Moore]

But how much of a sell through there is from TV shows. And I feel like the two shows that, that, that really happened with was White Lotus. Almost every character on the last White Lotus from Godaddy and Walter Goggins, Jean GRE for Jacme we had like all of the women. Amy Lou, she was with Burberry. Like everybody got brand deals. So kind of this new idea is the, these relevant TV shows are the closest things we have to monoculture and they end up getting like an insane amount of brand deals to sell products by tying it to an emotion we all experience with the TV show.

[Philip Millar]

It's that three dimensional, four dimensional aspect of communicating creativity. It's not just a graphic, it is, it is something that's deeper, that speaks across spectrums and across markets.

[Camille Moore]

Totally. The question that I have to ask though is like, where is this going? Right? Like, do you think that this is something that's going to work and continue to work or is it because it's being done now so rinse and repeat. Like it's becoming the copy paste strategy? Do you think that it's going to become overdone?

[Philip Millar]

I don't think great art is ever overdone. I think, you know, you just see kind of a movement into a new way of communicating. Like that Ramo ad is just, it just really works.

[Camille Moore]

Yeah.

[Philip Millar]

And as we said before, the difference in great art and blah art is 5%.

[Camille Moore]

It's pretty close.

[Philip Millar]

So you really have to not just kind of on the surface of appearances, mix two together. You actually have to really understand the context of why people like that and how it applies to the context of this. So you need that kind of that really intellectual creativity to make it work. And that's just what artists are, they're higher up.

[Camille Moore]

The thing though that I find is complicated is, is does this hurt actors for when they get these iconic brand roles and they're able to make brand deals off of the role that they played in those shows for their future acting career. Because if that has been like if Nicholas Braun hasn't been in that TV show since 2023 and that ad is clearly tapping into that Greg character, does that one, does that hurt his acting career? And two, does that change his decision making for taking roles that might be more art artistic, but not as powerful from a business standpoint because it could hurt his potential for brand deals?

[Philip Millar]

Well, it's a personal brand question that we would answer for many clients. But you know, I think the old days where actors wanted to show that they were versatile and go in a bunch of different areas was, was the, the best path to profitability as a, as opposed to getting, you know, pigeonholed into one role. But for brand deals it could be more profitable. You can make more money off of a brand deal than a movie for some of these, these people depending on what they're doing Right. So I think brands are going to be the power brokers of screen time in the future. Within the next five years. I think brand houses, big brands are going to be the ones who are creating the most content. It's not going to be the Hollywood production studios.

[Camille Moore]

Well I think that there's almost an incentive for movies to pay actors less because of how much sell through they can get for brand deals. Because when you look at heated rivalry that was a very low budget film film. But what they've secured in brand deals is insane. Like even milk makeup taps the Heated Rivalry star to launch their eye concealer with like they sold. They launched a product launch to a male consumer to sell products to more females because of how many females are watching Heated Rivalry. And it's so. It's brilliant because they understood the Gen Z audience. But those two guys in Heated Rivalry ri Heated Rivalry having like I feel like everybody is giving them brand deals right now and how interesting that that is for like the, the movie made them this much. But they've probably 20xed it, if not more, way more. I don't even know what the number would be. 8,000 exit on brand deals.

[Philip Millar]

That's the power of authentic content.

[Camille Moore]

True.

[Philip Millar]

But you're going to have some actors kind of trying to situate it ahead of the game by trying to make themselves more brand brand available before. You know what I mean. So you're going to see people trying too hard. But you know, the things that work are authentic reflections of what the world is feeling and experiencing and desiring. And so it's, it's a good omen for people who are committed to the art of performance.

[Camille Moore]

Well everybody, it was lovely to have you guys back for another week of Art of the Brand. We are off next week to New York. If anyone is going to be at female Founders Day. I'll be speaking at 11am on Thursday, March, March 5, a Female Founders Day

[Philip Millar]

in Brooklyn, New York teaching at Columbia Business School.

[Camille Moore]

Tuesday we're teaching at Columbia Business School. Among a bunch of other. We got an interview with Stanley Neuesdorf on Wednesday which is exciting of Meadow Lane and we've got some other really exciting stuff next week. So if you're going to be there, send me a note or come up to me. Would love to meet you. And then we'll be seeing you recording from wherever our new home is. Going to be in LA for the next month and a half. So we will see you guys next week.

[Philip Millar]

Till then.

[Camille Moore]

Till then.