The Rise and Fall of Fenty. And the New Rules of Relevance

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Art of the Brand

Episode: The Rise and Fall of Fenty. And the New Rules of Relevance

Hosts: Camille Moore & Phillip Millar
Date: November 26, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into recent shifts and scandals in the branding landscape, focusing on the fall of Fenty Beauty, challenges in the beauty industry, celebrity-led marketing, the evolving influencer economy, and what makes contemporary brands both rise and falter. Through lively dialogue, the hosts analyze headline-grabbing case studies — from Rihanna’s shifting focus, to upstart brands like Meadow Lane, and cultural trends reflecting the new rules of relevance for brands.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Fall of Fenty: LVMH’s Retreat and Rihanna’s Shifting Priorities

• Context: LVMH is divesting 50% of its stake in Fenty Beauty amid declining performance ([00:00], [02:19]).
• Public Reaction: Camille’s case study on Fenty drew online backlash — both race-related and “mommy-shaming” critiques.
  • Notable Quote: “How dare you say that someone who's had children can't focus on their careers while having kids. But... something's gotta give.” — Camille ([05:31]).
• Core Insight: The discussion underscores the reality that founders stepping back, especially high-profile ones like Rihanna, directly impacts brand performance and cultural relevance.
• Industry Lesson: Personal brand-led companies rely heavily on continued founder visibility and engagement.
• Phillip’s Perspective: The necessity of honest business exit strategies. “Sometimes the exit is as important as the entrance... you have to know when to get out or you’ll get burnt out...” ([08:02]).
• Takeaway: Challenging mainstream narratives and engaging critics is essential for genuine growth.
  • Notable Quote: “When somebody says, ‘how dare you?’ just say ‘I dare.’ Because that's the path to greatness.” — Phillip ([10:27])

2. Celebrity as Brand Architect: Timothée Chalamet & Marketing Evolution

• Case Study: Chalamet’s hands-on approach in the marketing campaign for his movie “Marty Supreme” ([11:19]-[14:41]).
• Trend: A-listers increasingly take producer and marketing roles, blurring boundaries between product and personality, much like founder-led business brands.
  • Notable Quote: “Being involved is the difference.” — Camille ([13:37])
• Critical Lens: Is this authentic or unhinged? Will stunt marketing work if the core product flops? ([12:16]-[13:19])
• Reflection: The Kardashian media machine is strategic; celebrity brand relevance is engineered, often leading to “junk food” branding that is surface-level but effective for headlines ([14:42]-[19:06]).
  • Notable Quote: “Media is... all for sale. Yeah, it's all surface level. There's no depth to it and it's all just a machine.” — Phillip ([19:06])

3. Building Hype: Meadow Lane’s Masterclass in Documentary-Style Brand Storytelling

• Example: Gourmet grocer Meadow Lane in Tribeca launches with overwhelming success, attributed to years of transparent, reality-TV-style content documenting highs, lows, and real decision-making ([25:40]-[32:51]).
  • Notable Quote: “People want the reality TV show storyline... to feel like they're a part of the journey and it resulted in success.” — Camille ([26:46])
• Insight: The success lay in consistent, strategic, behind-the-scenes content that built a loyal tribe before launch.
• Lesson for Brands: Don’t wait until after launch to build community; make the process part of the story.
• Practical Takeaway: “You need to think about it in terms of you're creating a TV show... there have to be highs, lows, characters, a plot line...” — Camille ([30:59])

4. Case Study: The Row and Its Disenchanted Influencer Evangelists

• Story: Influencer Neelam Ahuja, long an ardent advocate of The Row, pens a public breakup, sparking brand loyalty and integrity debates ([35:27]-[41:18]).
• Debate: Brands benefit from “evangelists” but sometimes cut ties for maintaining aura (especially in the “quiet luxury” space).
  • Notable Quote: “If your price point is elite, you have to act elitist. If you act like everybody should have it, you’re not elitist.” — Phillip ([42:27])
• Broader Theme: The complex symbiosis and tension between brand strategy and user-generated buzz.

5. Beauty Retail Wars: Olive Young vs. Sephora & the Knockoff Epidemic

• Headline: Leading Korean beauty retailer Olive Young plans major U.S. flagship stores, signaling trouble for Sephora ([42:51]-[45:40]).
  • Notable Quote: “I would be buying shorts on Sephora stock with Olive Young coming in.” — Phillip ([43:19])
• Analysis: Sephora is losing ground by focusing on younger demographics, while Olive Young emphasizes ingredient quality and adult consumers.
• Adjacent Trend: Emco pop-up in NYC mimics Sephora down to packaging and store design, triggering questions about authenticity vs. affordability ([46:50]-[50:41]).
  • Hosts differ on consumer motives: One sees it as accessibility and status mimicry (Camille), the other as parody of superficial branding (Phillip).

6. Influencer Economy Matures: From Endorsers to Executives

• Example: Vivian Tu (“Your Rich BFF”) becomes Chief of Financial Empowerment at SoFi, merging influencer clout with executive function ([51:02]-[53:51]).
• Shift: Transactional influencer marketing is being replaced by equity, partnership, and more integral involvement in business ([51:35]-[55:33]).
  • Notable Quote: “You just can't pay someone to post and it's just going to work... you're needing to be looking for more partnership relationships with people who've amassed massive platforms.” — Camille ([55:33])
• Practical Application: For brands, rethinking how influencers are integrated — not as occasional promoters, but as strategic partners or employees — is the way forward.

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Memorable Quotes & Key Timestamps

• “How dare you say that someone who's had children can't focus on their careers while having kids. But... something's gotta give.”
  — Camille ([05:31])

• “Sometimes the exit is as important as the entrance... you have to know when to get out or else you're just going to get burnt out.”
  — Phillip ([08:02])

• “When somebody says, 'how dare you?' just say, 'I dare.' Because that’s the path to greatness.”
  — Phillip ([10:27])

• “Being involved is the difference.”
  — Camille ([13:37])

• “Media is... all for sale. Yeah, it's all surface level. There's no depth to it and it's all just a machine.”
  — Phillip ([19:06])

• “People want the reality TV show storyline... to feel like they're a part of the journey and it resulted in success.”
  — Camille ([26:46])

• “There have to be highs, there has to be lows, there has to be characters, there has to be a plot line.”
  — Camille ([30:59])

• “If your price point is elite, you have to act elitist... if you act like everybody should have it, you’re not elitist.”
  — Phillip ([42:27])

• “You just can't pay someone to post and it's just going to work... you're needing to be looking for more partnership relationships with people who've amassed massive platforms.”
  — Camille ([55:33])

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Key Segment Timestamps

• Fenty & Rihanna Analysis: [02:19] – [10:55]
• Celebrity/Founder-Led Brands & Chalamet: [11:19] – [20:46]
• Media, Hype & Kardashians: [14:42] – [21:01]
• Meadow Lane Case Study (Community Building): [25:40] – [32:51]
• The Row & Influencer Dynamics: [35:27] – [42:51]
• Olive Young vs. Sephora / Beauty Retail: [42:51] – [46:50]
• Influencer Knockoffs & Emco: [46:50] – [50:41]
• Influencers as Executives (Vivian Tu & SoFi): [51:02] – [57:29]

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Final Takeaways & Tone

Language & Tone:
Conversational, candid, often contrarian. The hosts challenge industry orthodoxy, encourage bold opinions, and urge business owners to dare, adapt, and break out of echo chambers.

Actionable Insights:

• Don’t shy away from case studies or criticism — controversial discussions promote growth and learning.
• Novelty and authenticity in content win attention; status and relevance are key psychological triggers for consumers.
• Strategic, reality-based documentation of the brand journey (not just the polished result) is increasingly vital.
• Personal brand-led ventures require constant presence; if the founder leaves, so does much of the brand's magic.
• Influencer marketing is evolving; seek deeper partnerships, not just fleeting promos.

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For more branded wisdom, subscribe to the hosts’ Substack and follow for daily brand-building case studies and tips.

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Transcript

[A]

LVMH is selling 50% of its interest in the company because the numbers are down. And I got some hate on the post.

[B]

People feel so comfortable criticizing people online.

[A]

That kind of, that like potentiality of people calling you a racist holds people back from creating content and doing case studies in areas that they might think are sticky. Timothy Chamberlay is at a point where he's almost like the rock status. Like how many movies he's chucking out a year is is crazy. Sammy Neusdorf, who has come from a wealthy family, has been on this quest for the last few years to launch a erajon type grocer in Tribeca and it absolutely blew up. I respect the brand, but 80% of their SKUs makes zero sense to me from a price point from I got you can't often tell unless like you're really in deep that like it's a row T shirt or it's a row sweater. Like the whole point point of this brand is that it's like uber quiet luxury.

[B]

And then this person probably associates Ro success to her own success. But really it was a parasitic relationship. She benefited from it. Ro didn't necessarily. Maybe it did, but she wants to believe that Ro benefited now owes her something.

[A]

Olive Young is officially opening in the United States with its first store coming in 2026. At its core, there's so many questions right now of like, is Sephora on the decline and is it going to have to change its face with a rising competitor with K Beauty? I don't know how this company can exist when they're literally ripping off every single product.

[B]

They seem to be mocking them, but they're not saying that they're them. They're, they're putting another name on and using the colors.

[A]

And it's almost an identical packaging though. 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 week of Art of the Brand. Much to break down today on the beauty during talk about Timothy Chamolay. We're going to talk about the row but I want to kick off with we are in the season of airing of the grievances. So recently I did a case study on Fenty Beauty. Basically it was a breakdown on how and why LVMH is selling 50% of its interest in the company because the numbers are down and I got some hate on the post.

[B]

Love it.

[A]

And the two areas were race specific and mommy shaming specific. And I wanted to break those down. So the first was just blanketed that. How dare I do a case study breakdown on a black woman? Because most people don't do case studies on black women. So it looks like I'm only shaming black women for having a problem in beauty brands.

[B]

Yeah. You do a case study every day.

[A]

I know, and I. Kevi covered Selena.

[B]

Gomez regardless of race. Yes.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Okay, good. And that was frustrating. But. But I don't want to just. I don't want to just bypass it because it's obviously stupid. I want to talk about it because a lot of people are paralyzed to do any kind of content because of those kinds of comments, and it doesn't allow for dialogue across the board because she's like a top five beauty brand in Sephora or was kind of before what I'm gonna call her priority shifting. And that kind of. That, like, potentiality of people calling you a racist holds people back from creating content and doing case studies in areas that they might think are sticky.

[B]

The online trolling is something that you. You come to expect in today's world. Like, I was. I experienced this to take a little bit of a step out, and we'll come back into it. People feel so comfortable criticizing people online.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, Right. Whereas when you get in a room with people, they act completely different.

[A]

So true. The Twitter fingers.

[B]

Yeah. And like, when I. When I was in Japan with bci, you could see these people. Like, some of the people there didn't like what I represented. But in person, we had wonderful conversations. People need to have real conversations, person to person. But, you know, the Outrage Olympics has gone wild, where people are just looking for something to complain about it, and they get validated criticizing somebody online. So, you know, it shouldn't discourage anybody from saying anything interesting, reasonable, you know, like the fact that you're getting attacked in that area.

[A]

Your point is exactly. Exactly. That, like, I do case studies on everyone. On every. On every race and every category. So it's not race specific. But that was one area where I wanted to say that, to your point, you have to lean into doing things that break the news, that contribute to conversation, because that means that you're creating a piece of content that's going far and that's bringing different opinions into the fold, but it was a stupid opinion to make. And. Okay, so the second one is I chronicle in the case study, and I say a big change that's happened in Rihanna's life is she had a second child. She's an extremely successful pop star. One of the most famous period if and especially within the last 20 years. And two, she launched a skincare and makeup brand, a clothing and lingerie brand, and on top of that was a touring pop star and has made an insane amount of money, money that she will never be able to spend in her lifetime. And you can see that her assets are starting to be, are, are petering off like Fenty Beauty. And Fenty Makeup does not have the focus and attention from Rihanna that it once did. Same thing with Fenty Savage. The entire website right now is on clearance for 75% off. So what's hilarious is that women want to take what they want to take. And shame you, woman, shame you to say you. How dare you say that someone who's had children can't focus on their careers while having kids. But there is, there is an alternative perspective to that exact statement in that something's gotta give. You can't run a makeup and beauty company, a lingerie and a clothing company, have a world touring pop star career and raise two kids and be present. Like something does have to give. You only have so many hours in the day.

[B]

It's funny how people live to say how dare you? And they think that's a form of intellectual discussion. Whereas when you look at what you're saying is one, you need, we need to speak truth to reality. Like we don't need to pretend that you can be everything. And what Rihanna seemed to be doing, and what I loved about your case study is it was just showing that there's an evolution of where you go with a brand, where you go with a business. And what she seems to be doing is stepping out of the matrix so that she can enjoy her life like she's made money and now she's going to focus on being a mom without pretending that you can be everything. And there's these, there's these people who live to criticize, to say, no, no, we have to pretend you can be everything without saying that there's a set off. If you focus on one thing, you don't do as well as another. And if you really want to be a parent, well then you can't live the life of the one percenter.

[A]

It's also the experience that I've been living and breathing as a business owner that's becoming a content creator that's launching separate products. We're working every night until 9 or 10. When I have kids, I can't do that. So there's something within that ecosystem that has to give in order for me to, to do all the things that I want to do and I've had to like, this is what people don't talk about is you can have anything that you want, but you can't have everything that you want. And in order to be successful at anything, there has to be a sacrifice in something else. And the reason why that was really relevant to the case study that I was making is that all things considered, Fenty Beauty was very successful. It was a very successful company. She was very involved. She completely changed the beauty game by introducing shades and foundations and ranges and numbers of SKUs that we'd never seen in beauty. She launched body products and hair care products that brought everybody together under one beauty roof. It was an exceptional brand. But if LVMH is wanting to sell its 50% stake and the company is on the market to be sold and it's lost its top tier position in Sephora, it's probably because the founder has checked out.

[B]

Yeah. And what people forget is sometimes the exit is as important as the entrance. Right. Like the, you have to know when to get out or else you're just going to get burnt out, you're going to get, become addicted, you're going to be depressed, something's going to happen. So it sounds like she's taking control of her life and is moving towards an exit. And she hasn't spent all of her money on cocaine and stupid shit. So she can now focus on what's really important in life, which is probably family.

[A]

But this is also an alternative. This is LVMH selling its 50% stake in the company. So it's the company that's, that's bought in to make money, doesn't see the potential to make any more money in order to just kind of like exit out of the equation when you're analyzing things and when you're prepared to speak on it. Which is the best way for anyone listening to this to show your expertise is to create content that forms an educated opinion on something that you're good at.

[B]

Relevant to your customer, relevant to your.

[A]

Customer and their pain points. Is that the core thing to analyze in this case study is not what she did on formulation, it's not what she's done on marketing. It's. It's only contributed to lack of constantly showing up and being a part and living the brand, which isn't there anymore. And it's. And a few beauty brands that we're working with right now. It's really interesting for they just had a huge push in getting into really big brick and mortar Retailers, they're seeing that when the founder is not posting as much or when they don't have as big influencers commenting and speaking on the product sales are not being supported in an in store environment. So people start to forget about you when you're constantly not showing up and reminding people to buy the brand.

[B]

It's kind of the downside of the personal brand led brands in that it requires constant attention because the world is so distracted with so many people trying to do the same thing that if you, if you go on vacation, you lose relevance.

[A]

Totally. But I think even to wrap this up from a starting piece of this podcast, I didn't lose sleep over those comments. I love getting those comments, but I want you to love trying to get those comments as well because they're opinions that I don't agree with. They allowed us to have a really good conversation. But you only are winning when you're getting those levels of conversation entering into the fold. You don't want to only speak to an echo chamber of a very small percentage of people. It's not going to help you grow. If you're having a growth conversation and you want to focus on growing, you have to bring in opinions from all sides and angles.

[B]

Let me offer a piece of advice that you may or may or may not take depending on your personal situation. But I worked with some special forces units and most of their mottos were who dares, wins or we dare. It usually involves the word dare. So when somebody says to you, how dare you just say I dare. Because that's the path to greatness. That's the path to elite performance. The only people who matter are the people who dare. So when somebody says, how dare you say my friend? I dare.

[A]

I dare all the time. Okay, so next up is the curious case of Marty Supreme. And if you've missed it, this week, Timothy Chamilay and A24, his marketing branding agency, launched this zoom video of him articulating the direction of where he wants the movie to go.

[B]

And does he own a 24?

[A]

No, it's a separate agency. It's a pretty big agency. But I think my larger question is, does he own Marty Supreme? Because why is he taking the call on marketing direction for the movie? Right. Like if not for him being.

[B]

Well, it kind of follows back to what we were saying on the beauty brands.

[A]

Like being involved is the difference.

[B]

Being involved is the difference. Right. As opposed to just allowing some kind of posters. This is a much more hands on approach to marketing a movie.

[A]

The core promise of this segment Is like, is this brilliant or is this unhinged? But because there's been so many opinions on the Internet this week of breaking this down as like the most genius viral marketing approach, because every single idea that he apparently came up with, the agency has launched and there's been a surplus of Marty Supreme Orange throughout New York City. Clearly you're buying into it. What do you think? Genius or lost the plot?

[B]

Well, I haven't seen the movie, right.

[A]

It's not until December.

[B]

So it's creating hype, obviously. So you gotta kind of. It's a fine line between genius and the ridiculous, right? And it's usually rooted in the context and the actual content. So what he's done now is, is he's got conversation going. It'll be seen as a complete failure if the movie sucks and it didn't work. You know, I think there's, there's too many people who are too quick to jump on, oh, this is new. So it must be brilliant. As opposed to seeing it if actually hits it in the final act, right? And the final act is, is what he's doing right now with his marketing agency going to resonate with the ultimate product so that it, it amplifies the product or is it just noise before a crappy movie? You know that that's what I, I would reserve my judgment on it. Like right now it's generating buzz. So more people will probably see the movie because of this, because it's doing something different than the other movies. But like right now in Hollywood, 99% of movies are garbage. So doing a bunch of hype if the ultimate product sucks might not be effective. But I want to see the ultimate product before I pronounce judgment.

[A]

I think what's interesting is it shows an evolution in having the talent be a part of the marketing in a way that is mirroring more of this like founder led product based brands. You've never really seen the celebrity of the movie directing the marketing in a way outside of doing, you know, the, the, the typical press interviews, right. Like kind of around the world, which.

[B]

Are boring to most people now, which are boring.

[A]

Not different, not unique. Timothy Chamolay is at a point where he's almost like the rock status. Like how many movies he's chucking out a year is, is crazy.

[B]

I wonder if he's producing it or if he owns it because it seems like he's got more of a stakeholdership in it. And just because we were talking earlier about the haters, because I, I, I dared to question Justin Bieber There was a lot of hate that was thrown my way because there was gray in my beard. But just so you know, he, he just, he grew up down the road for where our headquarters is. So I know a little bit about the Biebs and I have no problem criticizing him if it's necessary.

[A]

It says here that he's. Timothy Chamberlain is heavily involved in Marty supreme, starting as a lead actor and serving as a producer. So he is a producer and he's been training for the role for years, starting ping pong lessons in 2018. So he's really like been invested in a long time. And it's also deeply involved in the film's marketing, including attending events and designing merchandise, which is interesting. So he is the co producer of the film. So that is why he and the role that involves creative input beyond just acting.

[B]

So he's got more stakeholder.

[A]

But what's interesting is these lead stars having producing roles in the movie is not new, but taking this forward facing marketing role is new. What's interesting actually is the timing because Kim Kardashian, Timothee Shamalay is dating Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian also just came out with the TV show All's Fair and it was a PR machine. Like every single video, every single podcast, every single TV show, any media, everything was covering All's Fair and its top cast. And the show had a like 6% rotten tomatoes rating, the worst rating in TV show history. And there was a clip on the Internet that said the network did not care about how good it was because of the names that it stacked. They would get views regardless. So when you talk about like whether or not it's gonna be good, I'm thinking because of their family association is the new angle. If you just generate eyeballs, you win. In the streaming war, it's not new.

[B]

Where studios and organizations can have huge flops by putting too like I was just looking up. Dustin Hoffman had this movie called Ishtar. It was the biggest spend in Hollywood and it was a complete flop. And Hollywood just thought we had the names in it. Like that model's not going to last forever. Like if people don't go to the movie, it doesn't matter how much hype you do on it. But I just think in the personal branding and entertainment world versus the personal branding and beauty world in the entertainment world, you're acting right? So like, is it authentic? That's the question that I have. Like, you know, is Chalamet being authentic in what he's doing here? Is it building credibility with him or is he taking what he believes Marty was and he's trying to make it look like he's him for this, for this period of his life. That. That's kind of the interesting.

[A]

That's really interesting. Yeah, like Heath Ledger esque, you know, like, is he becoming this, this character.

[B]

Before the movie launches and he's just kind of taking it? That would be an interesting promotional element of it, if it's authentic and if it hits.

[A]

Well, that was my first assessment when I watched the video. I'm like, this is unhinged.

[B]

Like, is he good or is he really losing it?

[A]

Is he really losing it? Yeah, well, that's just what I'm saying. Like, is he good? Meaning, is he losing it? But I think what's interesting though is the more that I'm studying the kind of breaking news on a day to day standpoint, the more that I realized how much the Kardashian's hand is in a PR pocket when I'm spending studying how chamile is evolving. It's interesting with him being connected to the family because now it's seeming like he's leaning into becoming the kind of the man for like, men's luxury wear. So, like, he's only being seen in like Chanel bags, in Hermes bags. He's leading the male accessory market, which is booming. We're seeing everything from like MLB to basketball players to rappers wearing like Van Cleef necklaces and Chanel bags when they're doing their walk into the game.

[B]

Barf.

[A]

And it's fascinating for how much PR he's leaning into. And even like Kendall Jenner was seen wearing like the Marty supreme jacket. So it seems to me like it's Criss coded of how she does PR for the family.

[B]

It works. I just wonder if there's ever going to be a move towards influencers who are calling out how the consumers are being sold by the shit.

[A]

Well, that's kind of the narrative I want to start taking with them. Because when I'm like, on when I'm doing research for the case studies and the articles that I write every day, I keep when I go on Vogue or when I go on the cut or when I go on these, it's always like, Khloe Kardashian is re is restate claiming what it means to be in perfume. And I'm like, why is Vogue writing about Khloe Kardashian launching a perfume? Like, she's not vogue. She's not interesting. Like, this is how Is this happening?

[B]

And it's not like fashion used to be something you had to kind of earn into. Like you're just not. She's become like the McDonald's of influence. Like it's, it's junk food, it's just purchasing power.

[A]

And that's when you're saying of like calling it out for what it is. We like the King Kylie cosmetic drop. Nothing about that was interesting and it was on every media outlet and like every media piece. And it just, I, I think the narrative has to change in turn.

[B]

It also just shows you that the media is, is bad.

[A]

It's purchasable.

[B]

It's bad in covering politics, it's bad in covering issues, it's bad in covering fashion, it's bad. And covering brands. Like it's all for sale. Yeah, it's all surface level. There's no depth to it and it's all just a machine that's regurgitating pablum for the masses. And I think the role you're playing and some other people are playing is trying to educate people on how to, how to win where they are. Because that at that level you can't copy that. It's not going to work for your business if you're.

[A]

Well, the only thing that's really interesting about it is PR has always been for purchase. Like that's not new. And you know, I've been doing this for a while and the angle always was with the media is like it had to be a story, right? Like it had to be a real story. And what I find fascinating is when I analyze the Kylie, the Chloe, they're not stories for that audience and network. But what that tells me is that Chris feeds them gossip and inside scoop for headlines that are relevant in favor of the headlines that aren't. Because for the most part when you're seeing brands get pr, that's why Vogue exists. Like Vogue gets paid by these brands that do their. They're called native pieces so they seem native to the platform. But it is a paid piece. You don't want to sell out your audience by just like putting junk on. But it's always been paid. That's not a new thing.

[B]

There's some investigative and real journalism in there, but there's always that overlap.

[A]

Totally. And I just feel like I'm. It's interesting with, with this whole Chamalay headline. No one's really tying how strategic this like founder led approach is to what we just saw in All's Fair and his now connection. He's been dating Kylie Jenner for at least a year, if not longer.

[B]

I always want to tie it back to our listeners and their businesses rather than just, you know, find interesting ways to promote your product. You know, that's what I get from this, is that you always have to be finding interesting ways to talk about what you're offering to your client.

[A]

I'm glad you brought that up because the reason why I wanted to cover this is like, what can you learn from it? And it's hard because especially we're talking Expo Meadow Lane. Like, one of your first questions to me when I was telling you this, the pitch for the story was like, is this person famous? And it's a part of the Timothee Chameleon Marty supreme piece is that it's kind of like a car accident. Like, you can't look away from the video because of, like, how unhinged it is. But it's hard to learn from that unless you have the ability for people being interested in you having an unhinged moment. Because if you're not super famous and you're unhinged, that actually hurts your personal brand. He can recover from it and the world can have its 15 minutes of forgetting. So it's actually complicated to study this. Cause a lot of the marketing experts that we really respect were saying how this was like guerrilla and super genius. There's an intelligent aspect to it for the shifting of how the actor is being involved. But from like how it's rolled out, it's complicated to learn from unless you're a producer launching movie with Brad Pitt in six months.

[B]

Is it called the Warhol effect? Like, you know when you can do something that seems ridiculous, but how do you pull it off? Like, it has to be good, you know what I mean? But if you just do the kind of try to be like the Warhol effect and it sucks, like it's gonna flop.

[A]

Well, that's like a big piece I talk about in the book, right? Like, and that I'm working hard to write and to tell you guys when it's gonna be done.

[B]

Is that, like, when is it going to be done?

[A]

Let's put it on the end of the year for us having the second, like the manuscript done and then we're.

[B]

On our third version of it.

[A]

I mean, it's like, honestly was an exercise in self loathing, if anyone's ever written. I feel like you, you, like, you can understand where I'm coming from. Hated myself the entire time. But moving on, what I talk about in the book is you have to understand what makes sense based on where you're at. So if you're at the biggest level and you're launching these, these movie productions and you need to get eyeballs on your movie, this is probably a good strategy for you to consider. If you're up and coming and you're budget limited, does it make sense to make your make a lead product or your hero product look unhinged? Probably not. So it's, it's about understanding which of the three levels of a brand are you within and what strategies make sense for the parameters that surround your brand.

[B]

What I thought was genius, potentially genius about it, is just capturing the reality of how people have lived on zoom for the last four or five years. Right. Like that's kind of interesting is that a lot of people are spending a disproportionate amount of time on zoom. And so it's allowing people to kind of see an overlap of the movie into a zoom environment where you've got different faces kind of going, what the hell is this guy? You know, like that was kind of. It was.

[A]

You're so right. It was a great creative of capturing the zoom experience. And that also signals to me probably was a bit set up because to get the buy in for all of those members of a branding agency like to be okay with this and they're all acting. Yeah, like that was the. You're right because that really was a new form of creative. So that's actually probably the best thing that you can learn from this is that newness by way of how you show up is actually the best thing for you to be focused on is like, how can you do something different than new that breaks the algorithm? Like how can you create a different format? That's really interesting because we stayed until the end of the full video because people, different people were popping up. But like the edit was super engaging and it wasn't a medium that we've seen before.

[B]

The fact that you're saying newness. I had a great dialogue with my best friend Rob Barrett, who's author, Dr. Brilliant Guy, where we were talking about what's the most important thing to a human. And he said status is the most. And I said novelty. And it was an interesting discussion because it applies in different areas. But humans love to have status. And so everything about themselves and what they buy and what they is status oriented. How do they lower, how do they raise their status? But when it comes to consumers, people remember new. They remember who did it first. Nobody remembers the second person to launch something. Everything is about novelty and newness. So that overlap is really interesting in branding.

[A]

Yeah, that's really interesting. Well, that's actually a great segue to Meadow Lane. So in case you missed it this week, I did do a sub stack on this and a swipe through if you're not subscribed to this sub stack. Would love if you would. I write those every single day. It is. I went to school for writing, so I actually really love to write. And it's.

[B]

Let's support people who are giving real info by following, subscribing and promoting Camille Moore.

[A]

Yeah. And not being Chachi bt, you know, like, it's really like, well written stuff. I work hard on that, so. But the core premise.

[B]

And you do say so yourself.

[A]

Well, you know what? I'm gonna give it to me because writing is hard. Right. Like, it sucks to do it. So anyways, we did a piece this week on Meadow Lane, and if you've missed this, this is a gourmet grocer in Tribeca and Sammy Neusdorf, who has come from a wealthy family, has been on this quest for the last few years to launch a Aragon type grocer in Tribeca. And it absolutely blew up. They were completely sold out by 3pm they had lines around the block. People flew in to do this for this launch, and it's a masterclass in developing a community and a tribe and what that does for you upon launch. Because what most brands do is they focus on building the tribe and community after the launch because they want everything to be this, like, grand surprise and they want everything to be perfect and they don't want to show the, like, highs and lows of what it took to roll out the brand. But what Sammy Neudorff showed you with Meadow Lane is that people want the reality TV show storyline. Like, they want to buy in to feel like they're a part of the journey and it resulted in success.

[B]

I don't understand why, like, it's. It's often hard. Like, when you go back to Gladwell's the Tipping Point, like, you know, it's kind of. It's an alchemy chemistry to try and figure out what makes something go viral, what makes it work. Because there's a survivorship bias too. Right. You don't know how many thousands of other businesses have tried the same thing and it didn't hit. Like, do you know what, what, what worked about this that made it viral? That's what I'm interested in.

[A]

What worked about this is that Sammy Neusdorf understood What's interesting. So the biggest criticism I have is that there's a boatload of business owners and founders who understand it's important to create content, but they're not obsessed enough with studying what's genuinely interesting for the consumer. Like they don't think about the reality that the customer is the hero and you are the guide. So what Sammy Neusdorf set up perfectly the Brokeback Contessa as his handle on TikTok is that he understood exactly what aspect to show and to what to bring people into so that they were a part of the decision making process. So it wasn't like stupid videos of him talking about like how much money he's spending or like what's going on in his personal life or like drama. It was a very well constructed minute and a half video of like showing how bad the logo is on the first round of the bags and like comparing two options and asking people to leave a comment on what their preferred was. Like it was bite sized information that brought people along the way.

[B]

I've talked about doing that for a long time. Like people want to see what really goes on behind the scenes and being authentic about it is some people want to protect and make it look like everything is perfect and they want to curate and only let something out when it's perfect. But letting people see what really goes on in the crafting of a masterpiece or something is quite interesting to the human eyeball.

[A]

The mastery is an understanding exactly what to post and how to post it. And, and it's simple. Like, and that's what most people miss is that like I've sent like three clients to go and study like every single one of his videos. Like, and he has content pillars. Right. Not every single pillar is like a pan of the construction of an update. Right. The next video is a reaction video of Bethany Frankel eating the chicken salad. Then the video after is a showcase of a design meeting going wrong and then the meeting after is him responding to like he was consistent and he had range in the kind of content that he put out which made it a TV show.

[B]

Are you doing the same thing for your book?

[A]

The Planner?

[B]

The Planner.

[A]

Well, it's not as easy, right, Because I've been like writing it and then I. So I posted about it when it, the first version of it showed up and I'll post about it when the second version. But it's not like opening a store. Like it's not as easy to show the step by step.

[B]

But I'm just talking about it because the Reason I'm bringing it up is it's easy to say it's harder to do because most people don't want to show the kind of the, the difficult parts of it, the freakouts, you know what I mean? Like the breakdowns and all of that. But that's what's really interesting to people in the end.

[A]

Yeah, I know. And that's exactly what business owners are missing, is that they, they don't want to show they. There's so much anxiety over. I don't want people to know that these bags came from China and the logo was ugly and it didn't look absolutely perfect because I'm trying to be launching a gourmet grocery store. Or like he did 47 rounds of perfecting the chicken salad. Like people who own these luxury businesses are like, it's not luxury to showcase how many iterations you had to go through for the recipe.

[B]

But it makes me think that the chicken salad is great.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Because they went through 47 iterations. That's the counterintuitive.

[A]

The other piece too, to this is also. There is going to become also an over saturation. So when you brought up the planner that we're launching, it's harder for me to make it as interesting when there are not as many. There's as many external details. Right. So for me just to capture me typing on my laptop and then sending a PDF file to the printer and like that, there's less of a storyline there. And the core takeaway of this is.

[B]

You have to think about videoing everybody sitting down arguing over points and that. Like, that's what people want.

[A]

Yeah, but we haven't done that. So I don't have that content to create. And that's the point is that when you, when you're thinking about the strategy of what you're trying to create, you need to think about it in terms of you're creating a TV show. Like, you have to have a reality TV show and there has to be highs, there has to be lows, there has to be characters, there has to be a plot line. There has to be something that continues to have people that want to keep showing up every single day and contributing to the storyline.

[B]

How did the lines come? Like, how did they get lines?

[A]

Because he announced the launch date.

[B]

Did he have like how many followers? You know, I mean, did he build a big followers before that?

[A]

Like, or he's been, he's been documenting the launch for years. It's been like a. From beginning to end. And like, it, it. It got a Ramp up. Like, it wasn't huge right away. It's that he was consistent every single day. And he, like, follower by follower built and a loyal tribe so that by the time it opened, they felt so bought into the experience, they had to be there.

[B]

To me, it's an. It's a very intelligent exercise in concurrent activity because it's going to take two years to launch your business anyhow, and it takes two years to get the momentum to build a brand. You know, why not start right at the start so that you're not trying to build a social media influence after your launch. So you. You know what I mean? Like, essentially concurrently was building the brand while he was building the business.

[A]

No. And that's, like, why it's the smartest strategy, is that it. So many people don't want to keep doing something when there's not. When there's no one there to validate them. There's no status to it, which is what you talked about. So it's like when you do the first hundred videos and it's like your mom, your two best friends from college, and, you know, your three other employees that you're bootstrapping with, you don't feel motivated to keep doing it. But what Sammy Neusdorf gained is that by the time he launched his store and he kept up with it for years, he had a loyal tribe of people that are dying to get into the front door.

[B]

Like, even when I HEAR it took 42 times with the chicken salad, like, I want to taste the chicken salad.

[A]

Even as chicken tenders. I know. And all the sauces, like, it makes me want to touch the bag. It makes me want to, like, see the store. Makes me want to give my own judgment and opinion. And it's the same thing as gentle monster, right? Like, you want to go in and you want to take a photo. It's a status thing to be in that store, but you have to do the work to build that status.

[B]

I wanted to, like, ask, interest me how you create scarcity so that people line up for things. Like, that's. It's interesting. The one thing about Korea that, That I was. That I noticed is, like, there were lines everywhere we walked down the streets. Like, they seem to have mastered the art of making people want to line up for something new. Like, how. How is this happening all over the place?

[A]

Well, I don't think it's. It's as easy as what you're saying. Like, I studied a lot of the places that had long lines in Japan and Korea when I Had the ability to walk around in Tokyo. And there's kind of two pieces to it. The first is the places that had lines. They really understood the brand, right. Like their logo was fantastic. The visual experience was. Was amazing. It seemed to be consistent throughout. And it created a world that it was worth people standing in line in order to buy. And the product was obviously exceptional. But the other piece to this too is it's also how many. The numbers of people they have in the city. Right. So if you have the best. If you have three locations of the best donut shops and you're in Shibuya, which is the most condensed part of the city, you're probably at any given time gonna have 30 people that are gonna line up for a donut. So especially when you can only serve two people at a time. So a lot of it too is that they built the demand by having a great brand, but they couldn't service even a small number of demand at any given time throughout the day. So it created a vision of there being a longer line. And you're also seeing luxury brands do this too. Like, even at the airport in Korea, they have every designer brand known to name known man. And they all have waiting cues because they want even the Chanel at the airport to seem like there's a lineup and it's dust.

[B]

Unintentionally, I was singing this song. You might be too young to know it. There's a song called Signs. But I would have been like, lines, lines, everywhere there's lines break. Busting up the scenery and breaking my mind. Like, it's like the airport, like, lines, lines, everywhere there was lines. But, you know, at some point, the consumer's gotta wake up to the fact that you're being manipulated by these fake lines.

[A]

I know. I love when people say, you might be too young. And then I can school them on the lyrics. I'm a, I'm a. I've got a great music repertoire.

[B]

Yeah. Happens to me all the time. People say I'm too young to know that. So let's move on.

[A]

Moving on. Okay, next. I'm actually really excited to talk about this. So the Roe scandal. So really, really interesting story. So Neelam Ahuja, a Toronto influencer, has been, literally, you would think, a hired influencer by the row. Like, her page is so row coded. She's done a 10 minute long YouTube video on the handles of the Margaux bag. Just breaking down how well constructed, how intentional this brand is. And she's been obsessed with the brand for over five Years and does this article on Substack saying that she's breaking up with the row. And it's created a really interesting conversation online and it also connects back to like a theme that we talk about a lot on the podcast and in the book of, in order to be successful in the current age is to have evangelists and to have a tribe. But they've also kind of are killing these people that are, that are helping the brand help have more relevance in a social media sphere. What do you think?

[B]

I, I think there's some deep stuff to get in here because I, I think there's kind of some psychological issues at play. There's brand integrity issues at play. Right. Like when I, when I read that, that letter to the brand, like it sounded like a, you know, an ex writing a bad breakup letter. Right. Like, so it seems, it seemed emotional.

[A]

It was very emotional.

[B]

Right. And there's also a strength, like if a brand says, hey, I don't want you to do this anymore, you're saying we don't need you anymore. Like, if I'm a brand, I don't owe you something. If you just decided to attach your cart to my horse, you know, it may have worked, but it also worked for you. Like it wasn't just a one way channel. Like she got notoriety, she became well known for it. Right. There was no contractual obligation, but it's like a kind of a suck fest article. Like, I did all this for you, I did this and you don't love me anymore. And it just. Nobody wants to be around somebody who's sucky and sappy. Like, go find another brand. Go build something else. But this, this letter that's designed to kind of generate sympathy from all of the online, you know, appeasers out there. To me it makes me feel icky.

[A]

I hear your point.

[B]

I'm glad we're across from each other.

[A]

And I, I see both sides. I want to work through it because my initial reaction to this was the row is in a sticky territory because I respect the brand, but 80% of their SKUs makes zero sense to me from a price point from I got. You can't often tell unless like you're really in deep that like it's a row T shirt or it's a row sweater. Like the whole point of this brand is that it's like uber quiet luxury and the brand like doesn't really show up and it's, and it's in this tough position because the ROE sample sales, what the news flash calls the riff raff of the row has become this, like, huge thing online where people are, like thousands and thousands of people are lining up for their sample sales to get the Row at the discount so that they can become a part of this, like, brand that these cool influencers have created for the row. And the row is at its kind of cultural tipping point, its highest peak and influence. But it's because of these people that communicate on behalf of the Row but aren't associated with the Row. So, like, they've made the Row quite cool because without it, I think a lot of the fashion industry would have looked down at Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen getting into fashion. Like, there was something about it that didn't make sense until these influencers really showcased, like, the art and the craft and the simplicity that's put into their products.

[B]

You know, you describing it to me is, I think this is like the second order. Thinking that should come in is this brand wanted to be uber quiet luxury.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Kind of moving against the logo thing. So what happens then is parasites come out and excuse me if this is offending anybody who want to make their own reputation by exposing what you're trying to hide. Do you see what I mean? And so they come in, they're like, look, I love Ro. I'm doing Ro. Ro, why aren't you being nice to me? Ro, I'm showing you Row, Row, Ro. But they don't want that. That's not what their brand is about. And then this person probably associates Ro's success to her own success, but really it was a parasitic relationship. She benefited from it. Ro didn't necessarily. Maybe it did, but she wants to believe that Ro benefited, now owes her something. So it's like a lamprey attaching itself to, you know, a shark or a whale or like, they didn't ask you to go there. And now you're upset that they're saying, don't talk about us anymore.

[A]

What you're saying is you're dead on. Theoretically, where I'm struggling with it is that fashion, the brand and the business go hand in hand. Like, you live and you die by the zeitgeist of relevance. And Versace is trying as hard as it can to be relevant, but the people of the court are saying it's tacky, we don't like it, we don't buy it, and it's you. You have to have this exchange and relationship of people who support, who represent, who communicate on behalf of the brand. When you're in the business of needing to push and sell inventory, you guys.

[B]

Can Kind of make your own judgments. But every once in a while, businesses do things that I think are really intelligently strategic because most of the chatter out there is like, oh, is this dumb that Ro is doing this? How dare you do this to your loyal supporter? It's like, from a strategic perspective, if I want to double down on the fact that I want a quiet luxury brand, then I have to be prepared to kind of fire or cut off the people who are kind of, you know, sapping energy from my brain. So this could be a very strong strategic move that says, look, I don't want you, you know, kind of circus people who are just showing my brand all the time. Like, I'm willing to cut you off even if you have a million followers, because what we stand for is more than that. So I think it could be an actually good strategic move. I don't know for sure, but that's my instinct.

[A]

Everything that you're saying is very intelligent. And what's interesting about all of this drama, it hasn't made me like the brand less so, which is an interesting move. The question that I face is, like, you know, I wonder where it goes. Like, it's on one hand. It's interesting when you're kind of on the high and you have the leverage and the power. Power to be able to make these brand decisions, which completely. You're right. Change the perception and, like, reinforce the perception of the brand. Because the row doesn't even allow cell phones on their. At their fashion shows. Like, they are a very strict brand. So in that way, I completely agree with you. The question that I just face is what the brand cares the most about. In all of the videos that I've. That I've seen is the highest level celebrity credibility. So, like, the celebrities that wear their brands is kind of their. Like, their master stroke to reinforce that the brand is cool. My question is, like, where does that go when we. When we live in this, like, extremely empathetic society where Rosie Huntington Whiteley follows Neela Mahuja? Does she start to feel that she would. She would be showing an elitist signaling if she's not wearing the product? Like, that's just the question I asked.

[B]

But the reality that the world needs to know is that if you're elitist, you're elitist. Right. If your price point is elite, you know what I mean? Like, you have to act elitist. If you act like everybody should have it, you're not elitist. And how do you get a price point? Yeah, like, the world is a hard place. Sometimes you gotta fire your friends, sometimes you gotta fire your supporters. Sometimes you gotta break up with a bad ex.

[A]

Honestly, great points, Philip, all around. I'm just gonna let that there, let that marinate with the team. Okay, so next article is Olive Young is officially opening in the United States with its first store coming in 2026. Which is interesting and I think at its core there's so many questions right now of like, is Sephora on the decline and is it going to have to change its face with a rising competitor with K Beauty?

[B]

I am not a licensed, licensed financial advisor and I'm not allowed to give legal or financial advice, but I would be buying shorts on Sephora stock with Olive Young coming in. I'm happy to discuss that later, but I think Sephora is on the down and it's going to change the whole beauty market.

[A]

I mean, I would never go to Sephora, but all of Young is open here.

[B]

Well, what all of Young represents is, is great products. Less focus on crazy branding, more focus on utility and affordability ingredients, it's more clean. And Sephora is a circus festival of lights. It's like going through the slot machines in a casino. Distraction, distraction, distraction, buy. We'll take your money, you'll feel special and you leave. You don't know what the hell happened. Right. Whereas Olive Young, as you go in and you get stuff that works less, you know, it's crowded.

[A]

But I think the big thing that people aren't talking about is Sephora has gone to the kids and I, to me, Sephora is just way too childish. Like I don't feel that I'm being served as a customer. And with department stores dying, I'm turning to really like a. I feel like I'm forced to buy from Sephora versus I want to buy from Sephora. And when I look at like yesterday I was with my niece who's 10 years old and she was opening up her makeup bag and it was makeup by Mario Summer Friday Kosas. Like every single piece of brand was Sephora brands. And I'm looking at it, I'm like, this is why Shay Mitchell came out with that clean baby brand, Renny. Because 8 to 12 year olds are consuming so much YouTube beauty content that Sephora is just looking to cater who will ever, who will ever spend money. Like it's not focused on that target market Persona anymore of having the best discoverability for a working woman.

[B]

Yeah, Olive Young doesn't cater to the children the same way. It's just if anybody hasn't been there it is a very good store at providing products that work at a price point that's affordable. And so you're not paying 10x100x the cost because there's been a hype around it. The hype is does it work or doesn't it work?

[A]

The only question that I ask is Korea has societal standards that the ingredients have to be great because it's like, it's just everything comes down to the standard of how proud you make your family. You can't just be putting cocoa polymers into all of your product, which are microplastics. It has to be quality ingredients.

[B]

I wonder how the tariffs will hit them too.

[A]

But I also, I'm just wondering like, does all of Young come to America and it's just like American brands with K beauty branding or does it maintain the same standard?

[B]

Well, the manufacturing doesn't happen in America for the most part anyhow.

[A]

But does that change? Right? Like, does that change for the beauty brands? Because Olive Young, what was crazy about being in Korea and Japan, Like, I am too dark for the foundation shades. So like all of Young light. No, I'm too dark too dark because they, they use like all whitening products. So for me having a, like, like a little bit of tan and some red in my skin, plus my mom is darker so I've got a bit of more tan skin. You like, the foundation colors are not suitable for me. So that. So Olive Young can't come here with a beauty line unless they.

[B]

Oh, but it's their mask, it's all of their skincare products.

[A]

Well, the store that they're opening is going to be huge. It's going to be like a two to three floor massive flagship. So really interesting.

[B]

Yeah, it'd be interesting to know who's doing the launch and all of that because I think Sephora is ready to be knocked off its pedestal.

[A]

Okay, so that's a perfect segue into the next segment, which is this company called Emco that's getting all of these headlines on the Internet for. I can't believe that this exists in the United States of America. So really fascinating. This brand called Emco did this pop up in New York and it's legitimately a one for one Sephora knockoff. Like a black market, not black market black mirror episode of like having in the, like the epicenter of commercialism in the United States. A one to one ripoff in terms.

[B]

Of what it looks like or everything.

[A]

Like they, all of the products are rip offs of Charlotte Tilbury makeup by Mario. Like every and Even they did the bags to look just like the Sephora bags. Even at the front where they have the Sephora rewards like products you can get for the points. They had that there like it was. I don't know how this company can exist when they're literally ripping off every single product.

[B]

Yeah, they seem to be mocking them but they're not saying that they're them. They're putting another name on and using the colors.

[A]

And it's almost an identical packaging though.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But what's interesting is that the company is scaled to 600. 600 million in revenue. So the question is, do people care about the brand or the people to care about the product? Because like the product formulation, they can't have the exact same product formulation for all of the SKUs.

[B]

It's a different, it's kind of a different version of Muji, you know what I mean?

[A]

In that it's, it's Sheen or Teemu, not Muji.

[B]

But. No, but it's making, it's almost kind of moving away from the brand. Like by mocking and copying all the brands they're kind of showing how similar everything is regardless of the packaging. Like to me what they're saying is all of this stuff you're seeing in Sapporo is all just smoke and mirrors. And so we're just gonna make fun of it all and give you products that are affordable and do the same thing. You know, that's what they're doing is attacking the inauthenticity of all of the brands that you get faced with when you go into Sephora.

[A]

I just, I don't think that it's that I think it's the opposite. I think what this company is trying to do is you want the brand so bad and you can't afford it. So therefore we're going to go to the extreme of ripping off the brand so that it looks like you have Chanel lipstick and Charlotte Tilbury foundation in your makeup bag. Because when you go to Muji the Muji, it's all unlabeled quality products.

[B]

But I don't think people think they're buying rip offs. I think people are going there kind of making fun of the current market and just getting stuff that's cheaper that work. Like to me it seems almost like a tongue in cheek fun way to get people to buy product that's pretty simple formulations.

[A]

I think the opposite. I think that this is a store for people who want to laugh at the brand but want to have it. So they want to say to themselves it was like when I was a kid growing up, Giant Tiger sold Abercrombie sweaters and like Hollister sweaters, which I found out from the founder of Giant Tiger, which was like a huge strategy. They like pulled these things fake in from China and they sold them. This is before Canada had Abercrombie and Hollister. And we went in like, we cleared that place out like my whole grade six class. We all have the fake Abercrombie and Hollister sweaters, but we wanted to buy them because they looked just like the Abercrombie and Hollister. And we felt like we were on top of the world because we got a Hollister sweater for 38.50 when the real Hollister sweaters back then were like $120. So it was like people who wanted to buy the brand and couldn't afford it or couldn't access it, like purchasing it and feeling good about it, but still showcasing as if it was the brand.

[B]

Yeah, I don't understand why it opened in New York City then, like if that was the case. Right. But this is. The people in New York City generally want to go and experience the actual brand. So like, I, I don't. It doesn't seem like a dollar store kind of discount store. It seems like it's making fun of the store. But let us know your thoughts.

[A]

Okay, cool. Let's move on to the next one. I want to talk about influencers as employees, which I think is a really interesting new move. Vivian Tu, very famous financial literacy influencer whose handle is like your rich BFF, has been pointed chief of financial empowerment for SoFi as like a full time employee.

[B]

What's SoFi?

[A]

It's a financial literacy literacy platform. So it's like a bank. You can borrow money and you can invest. It's like, well, simple. So they've plugged in this influencer to become an employee at this millennial and gen Z tech based or fintech platform. And it's an interesting move because it shows that influencers are no longer are moving out of only transactional relationships like a collab or a partnership. Or influencers move for having followers to just be like launching, you know, their own product or company.

[B]

I have the whole issue with the word influencer. Like she was influential and that she built her whole channel if it was successful. Like you generally don't go into employee relationship, an employment relationship if you're doing really well, you know, unless you're getting, unless she's getting some ownership in that company. And, and if that company Is that progressive like that they would offer her equity to do that move, then that's good for her because now she's, she can. It seems like it could be an amplification of both platforms. So that seems to be a good strategic move. I don't know all the details of it, but I don't think it's in the cards for most quote, influencers. Right. So I don't know if it's something about that affects the whole influencer market or if it's just, you know, a unique situation where there was a good fit.

[A]

I disagree. I think that this is a really interesting consideration for brands that are listening to this to consider that just transactional relationships might have a shelf life. Especially when there's so many influencers like the, the collab kind of plugging in a celebrity to just. Or influencer to talk about your product is being overdone. And I'm seeing this in real time behind the scenes with a ton of influencers and creators asking for equity partnership, performance bonus, et cetera because there's no shortages of brands that will pay their six figure fees.

[B]

So what do you disagree with when.

[A]

You'Re saying that you don't think that there's much for brands to learn from this? Like she's obviously taking a substantial salary and an equity position in bringing her 10 million followers to the this platform. If not for that, it wouldn't make sense.

[B]

Yeah, we don't know like what I would tell somebody like that is to build their own platform. You know what I mean? Like the, the integration that I would do with them is have her buy one of those platforms and build it out. But I don't know what the details of, of the deal is.

[A]

Well, you can't like easily get into banking if you're an influencer. Like there's so much like regulation, there's so much like you can't easily get into investing and trading if you're an investment influencer. Influencer. Like that's a, there's a barrier to entry to that.

[B]

So it was described as like she was hired. Right. As opposed to she collaborated or merged or you know what I mean? Or did something that was so, I don't know what the details are. It makes sense.

[A]

She's hired in the sense that she's claiming to be the, the chief officer of that category for the company.

[B]

Financial literacy.

[A]

Yeah, the company. So there's a, it's a title within the company.

[B]

There's a, there's a chief of Paperclips now in Every corporation. So it's good. Like it makes sense for that company. I don't know how it affects influencers because the market's changing so fast. Influencers come and go. You know, bringing somebody in full time, you know, I think you just have to look at it as a case by case basis. Like I think from a brand ambassador perspective, I don't know what they could have paid her to be a brand ambassador as opposed to being an employee. But the details, I think matter on that.

[A]

Well, the details matter. We're not going to see into the contract that she's put into. But this to me is the move that you should be taking. Like, even when I look at it for our time, like the kind of, the kind of collaborations that I'm looking for from a sake of time perspective is not to be a brand ambassador. Like that's not worth my time. Right. And if I'm going to be someone that is providing influence for the company, I should be involved at a decision making standpoint. Like there's more involvement that needs to be there than just like, here's the brief. Sell the pop. Right. Like it, that's, that's what's changing is that if you have a platform of 10 million people that are focused on financial literacy, she needs to be involved in how the company is communicating. If she's bringing people to the platform because they're tied to her brand approach and her brand message.

[B]

I know, but that's my point. If she's characterized as an employee, she doesn't have control. If she's chief of financial literacy, that's interesting. Right? But her 10 million person audience, is she in charge of the brand as an employee? Like she's chief of financial literacy, not, not the CEO. Like that's, that's the kind of interesting thing that I'm just thinking about, but definitely it's dynamic and it's an interesting move.

[A]

I think that this is a great takeaway for brands to be considering more dynamic ways to be working with people because it's getting to the point where you just can't pay someone to post and it's just going to work. You're needing to be looking for more partnership relationships with people who've amassed massive platforms that have a lot of power. She's got the potential to bring to 10 million people plus over to this platform. So the role in which she's involved, like has to be different, right? Like it has to take a different shape because the company in theory needs her more than she needs it based on what you said from a. From the status standpoint. So it shows you that the way that it's moving is. And it's also, I think that there's a big thing too for these creators. I don't want to call her an influencer because she's built this herself as being a, like an expert in this space. It's. You've. She's put a lot of time and effort into building this platform when it comes to. You don't want to just like, be selling to your audience like a promo code to download an app. Like, it has to seem like something that's more dialed into your personal brand. So you want to make sure that when you're working with a. That's the difference between a creator and an influencer. Like, a creator is someone that creates content based on like, a specific niche and typically has expertise. An influencer is someone who's selling influence like they're. They're for sale. Like, they have. They're a lifestyle platform and they can sell you a lot of mommy goods. But like, they're different. Like, she, she's not going to sell a ton of diapers at 10 million followers for financial literacy.

[B]

Okay, thank you, Captain Obvious. The. But I would like to me, I would generally see somebody like that go. You would see them move on to the board of directors, right? Rather than like, you know, a C suite executive. Like, if I had that platform, I'd say, okay, go on the board of directors and influence the overall brand, the entire company, as opposed to be putting kind of pigeonhole into a box in a big corporation where she should get more. But there's definitely a trend in that direction.

[A]

I think it's worth highlighting. So I think that this is the kind of things that people should be considering for their businesses. Well, that wraps up this week's episode of Art of the Brand.

[B]

Another packed episode. Please make sure you follow. Subscribe, Share Support the program we are the now the number one branding podcast in the world. Numbers are up. Things are going fabulous. Stay tuned for a debrief on our trip to Bogota, Colombia.

[A]

Literally could not be two completely different places, but the through line for both is that we're in search of a great beauty brand. If you guys haven't heard of them. Bella, I think we talked about it last week on the episode B E L A H is the brand that we're going to do a super cool launch with.

[B]

Can't talk about everything that.

[A]

Can't talk about everything that we're doing.

[B]

But fabulous.

[A]

Very cool brand. Worth looking at and studying and hopefully we're friends on Instagram. You can see the all of the clips through my Instagram. But we will not be in Kansas anymore because Bogota is very different than Japan and Korea.

[B]

Watch for me. Snuffle up gifts on those videos. The Hidden Friend we'll see you next week.

[A]

Have a good week guys. See you soon.