Loading summary
Transcript198 lines
- [00:00]
A
One of the best skills required for success is to stop caring about what people who don't matter think.
- [00:06]
B
It has to make sense in order for it to work.
- [00:08]
A
Humans are the new luxury.
- [00:10]
B
So many brands are using AI imagery, it's completely undetectable. It's like you've never had more resources to do something. What's missing is taste.
- [00:19]
A
Is it harmful or is it uncomfortable? And if it's uncomfortable and worthwhile, then
- [00:23]
B
just do it true, like cinematic storytelling with humans. And you don't expect that to come with coffee.
- [00:30]
A
Everybody has to wake up on what's really going on here. They're stealing your ip.
- [00:33]
B
They didn't resign from the board until three days before Claude's design was launched.
- [00:40]
A
When you partner with a big player like Facebook or any of these things, they're generally going to eat your lunch. The more the market gets flooded with all of this stuff, the least memorable you are. You have to focus on real, interesting, authentic things that build trust.
- [00:54]
B
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. We're back in our studio. Welcome back.
- [01:06]
A
We're back in our home country.
- [01:07]
B
Happy Canada Day.
- [01:08]
A
Yeah, Happy Canada Day. Happy 4th of July Day.
- [01:11]
B
250 years.
- [01:12]
A
Be proud of the best societies made by the human species.
- [01:16]
B
I'm actually excited to talk today because we're finding through lines with what's trending and happening in the industry. And to me this week, the theme is it has to make sense in order for it to work well.
- [01:29]
A
I think making sense is a bench line and then the, the scaling levels of quality come from, from, from competence.
- [01:37]
B
We're going to talk about AI, we're going to talk about method dressing and why people are pissed off at the Spider man premiere. We're going to talk about Will Ferrell and skims and we're going to talk about a not so Turkish delight, which let's kick it off because we were in Turkey last night.
- [01:51]
A
A little Kevin Spacey Spice to wrap it up.
- [01:53]
B
Oh, yeah, that's going to be our hot take today. Maybe we can stick steam up a little bit of an argument.
- [01:58]
A
But before we get there for our listeners, please like follow and subscribe. We want to expand the podcast and get this in front of more founders because I know we're changing founders lives and professionals lives through our content. We want to keep building, being able
- [02:12]
B
to do it and you know, as a human to human connection, we show up every week to give you great value. And the only value that we can get back from that is by showing that the content is growing through subscriber numbers. So sending this to somebody else subscribers, subscribing yourself and making sure that you are connected with us on the platforms is. Is really what helps us. So it'd be awesome if we could have that reciprocity for what we bring to you every week.
- [02:39]
A
Right on.
- [02:40]
B
All right. So we were in Turkey last week. We actually added on a trip to Turkey from Cannes because although Turkey and Cannes are not close, they are close when you live in Canada. So close enough. So.
- [02:55]
A
So. So you got three guesses why he went to Turkey.
- [02:59]
B
Q. If you're watching the visual, Philip has no hair. He is. He is the eggman. Yes, but with a beard, you're ready for any climate with this.
- [03:10]
A
I'm ready for the ufc.
- [03:11]
B
You actually are. I actually think that no hair makes you look more muscular. Okay, I gotta throw in a compliment before it gets spicy. Okay, so I want to talk about this quickly. So if you aren't subscribed to my weekly newsletter, please do. Every week we are giving a deeper download and a core takeaway for your brand and business. And in this past week, I talked about the not so Turkish Delight. So Philip has been wanting to have a hair transplant. She's been telling me for a bit it was just lighter. I mean, I've had a bunch of people ask me since knowing you got a hair transplant, being like, your hair was fine. I mean, it was fine. It was just really like maintenance. And I think that we need to also support that. Men should get maintenance too.
- [03:55]
A
Yeah. And not be embarrassed by it. Just like. And so one of the things is, I'm showing up on a Sunday with my hair, obviously shaved head, because I want to show people that one of the best skills required for success is to stop caring about what people who don't matter think. And it's amazing how self self aware you can be that you don't want to be seen in anything less than a perfect situation.
- [04:20]
B
Well, we were actually laughing yesterday on our walk because Philip had literally recorded a piece of content this week where, like, his head was like, still red post surgery. Like he got right into the recording studio coming in after his hair transplant. And people are like, this guy is literally recording content days after his Fu Yu transplant.
- [04:42]
A
Like, hilarious. Cuz they're talking about content. The content. They're like, can somebody talk about the hair transplant? Nobody's mentioning.
- [04:47]
B
And they're like, we were actually laughing about how you would have never posted content or like shown up in a public way coming out of hair transplant and how much you've changed since being a content creator. Do you want to talk about that?
- [04:58]
A
Yeah. And you know, I was talking to some people about leadership this week and I was commenting on how you have to reinvent yourself to grow. And it's interesting at this stage of my life, like part of my growing up, I think is not caring about what people think about me. Right. Because I'm. You're moving in a direction. And Nietzsche had said this that you want to put yourself on a path so that the version of you two years ago would be shocked by how you conduct yourself today.
- [05:23]
B
Yeah.
- [05:24]
A
Right. You have to reinvent yourself all the time and have these difficult tasks. And why it was interesting to me is in the past, I would never have let somebody see me in a condition where I don't think I look cool or look 100%.
- [05:34]
B
Yeah.
- [05:35]
A
But building this agency over the last decade or so with you and helping so many founders get comfortable making content, I'd have just gotten to the point where I have to follow what I would I advocate. Right. And also after just making content so many times, like, I really don't care that much. And that's why people have to do the reps to get themselves past that discomfort zone so that you don't really care what people are if they're judging you by things that don't matter.
- [06:00]
B
Even myself. About a month ago, I got my lips done and my body actually didn't take to them very well. And I think that it was because I had recently done some IVF medication. So I think that it had. Had responded a bit differently. And I did like three weeks of episodes where I didn't look like myself. And a so distant version of me would have never posted that. And I'm telling you this, you know, judge me all you want, but like the whole point of I'm in a mindset now where I actually don't care like I. And. And it's so empowering and you can't get there until you realize that it's not going to kill you to when you like create content and it anyone's opinion of you, it. It far outweighs the opportunities that you get and you have to be committed to staying consistent. When I really looked at the piece of content through lens, that wasn't my active business hungry, we're just gonna keep recording every week lens, I was belly laughing because there's a version of me that has been suppressed. That would be like, that's embarrassing. But what's actually embarrassing is to care about yourself so much that you're holding yourself back from connecting with people and being real.
- [07:12]
A
Yeah, it was actually a real moment for us because, like, when we were looking at the content. Cause I just recorded it and then, you know, our guy put it out there. Connor. But then we're looking at it, we're like, oh, my God, it actually doesn't look that good.
- [07:24]
B
No, it really looks embarrassing.
- [07:25]
A
Oh, my God, that's embarrassing.
- [07:26]
B
You know what, though? We don't care. And the best part is we laughed and then we moved on.
- [07:31]
A
For the listeners out there, I want you to draw the distinction between discomfort and harmful. Because the human body has evolved to kind of respond to discomfort like something is harmful. And when it comes to social media, public speaking, putting yourself out there, you feel incredible discomfort, and you resist it because your body treats it like it's harmful. But your brain has to realize, okay, is it harmful or is it uncomfortable? And if it's uncomfortable and worthwhile, then just do it. And that's where we got to work through it with. With everybody that we're working with. Get past the discomfort to make the content. Don't be hard on yourself. And. And over a year or two, you're going to manifest in somebody different.
- [08:10]
B
I want the last word for the women that are listening, because what you have to get over is the fear of needing to be perfect, because creating content and being perfect do not coexist if you want the content to work. And what works is being real. And being real is continuing to show up in whatever state that is, if it's. If you're a little bit more puffy, if you're not feeling fully feeling yourself, if. Because that's the only way you get better. And we. We get outreach every day from the businesses that we consult with at Third Eye, our agency. Tei. And I can tell you that we work with everything from, like, extreme celebrities to average small business owners. And the entire spectrum feels the same way. They feel dumb. And you amplify it because your brain gives you excuses in moments where you really do feel dumb. And until you overco that. That fear in your brain of how we've grown up as women to, like, be perfect and to not put yourselves into areas that allow people to, like, make comments of you and talk behind your back. I feel so empowered now because I actually don't give a fuck. And that is the way that you're able to break through and Create better content because you don't have all these voices in your head that are. That are eating away at your quality and caliber of thinking. Because there's always a reason, like, how often are you at your perfect weight? Or, like, your perf, like, state where you're so rested and you feel perfect and you're ready to grow go. Like, it seldom happens. And if it happens, it's because you've been prepping for three months and it's someone's wedding that you got an invite to the year before. Like, it's not real life, and you need to start creating content for real life. So that is why we show up how we show up. So high five for you if we're doing content with a hair transplant. But let's talk about what happened in Turkey. So Philip actually was offered to get a hair transplant in exchange for content, which works because we were going to do it anyways. And the one that we had aligned with, we had done some additional negotiations just for, like, where we're going to stay and, like, what the deal was going to look like. And pretty much everything that we agreed to was out the window. Like, the moment that the exclusive VIP Mercedes van was supposed to pick us up at the airport and he was nowhere to be found.
- [10:35]
A
And not exclusive vip.
- [10:37]
B
Anyways, the long and the short is the experience was a disaster. And we ended up walking away from the clinic and paying full fare for a clinic that was much better and honestly, a much better decision.
- [10:48]
A
Way better.
- [10:49]
B
And honestly, I would actually say the, like, underlying takeaway from this is I genuinely want to pay for these services because I want them to be the best, and it's really not worth it for our time.
- [10:59]
A
I recognize my own infallibility because I'm used to you being the kind of the person who gets all the free stuff sent to them and all that stuff. And so when I was approached, you know, there was a, you know, an egoic part of me that kind of rushed down this road to go with this clinic because I liked being validated. And I think the human. Human nature is we like getting stuff for free. We like being validated and all this stuff. But in. In the end, it was the wrong decision. And it manifested in an absolute dog's breakfast when we showed up. And it was actually corrupt what these people were doing. And so, yeah, you actually put your foot down, said, no, we made the call there to cancel and not do it. And then we just found another solution. And that's another good point for people is when you Know it's wrong. Don't feel obligated because the other people are telling you to keep doing it. Just make the make the decision and walk away.
- [11:47]
B
But I would say the key takeaway of it is how many points of your business are you scrutinized by the customer? And this is obviously a bad example because they were not well intended business owners. But because we started in the service industry for marketing and branding, I've known this forever, but it's a great reminder for you, tuning in and listening is that the Instagram looked great, the customer service looked fantastic, the showing up to the country felt good. But the moment that something took a left, the entire experience for me was seen through a different lens. And that happens so often to business owners where they could improve that with some thought, right? Whether it's like your Instagram can be banging, you can have a video that goes viral, that creates a surge in demand. But. But if you're not using the right booking software and it takes too many clicks and people feel friction and they leave, it's not personal. But you've lost business. And that's why what I want you to take away from this week's episode is you need to scrutinize every aspect, every moment of your business. Because the best businesses are the ones that obsess on the details and are consistent in how they execute their service experience.
- [13:03]
A
The brand falls apart when there was inconsistency, right? And so it completely, that brand is destroyed from me.
- [13:10]
B
The other piece I want to talk about from an experience lens is the menus. So when we were in Turkey, there was two different menus and we sat down at this restaurant and there's a lot of data that supports this, that images and photos make for a better buying experience because it clearly shows to your brain with less friction the end outcome that you'll be receiving. When we were walking by and choosing between the restaurants outside, they have a laminated massive book with photos of what's on the menu so that we could instantly compare between two restaurants next to each other. We decided to pick one of them and when we went inside, they handed us a menu that just had English text and how much harder it was for me to decide what I wanted to eat because I couldn't see a visual picture like I could when I was assessing between the two restaurants before coming in. And it reminded me of that station that I wish I had it ready for this, but it was like 80% more cocktails were purchased when they had a, a menu that visualized the cocktails that were available at the space because, and I, I will bet you will not guess this because men don't want to order cocktails when they don't know what drinking glass it comes in.
- [14:28]
A
And not just because that, but that's certainly a factor because if you don't know what it's, you know, you want to be able to see what you're manifesting. And that element of the drink, ordering a drink that comes in a tiny little thing is, prevents guys from ordering cocktails. It just goes with a beer because it's a safe signaling. But if you're a restaurant and you don't have visuals of your food, you're negligent. And there's an arrogance to the West, I think, where it's like, look, we have a menu, we write it down. That's the way we've always done it. Whenever somebody says that's the way we've always done it, it's a very bad explanation. The human brain loves to process visuals. So making somebody work to read and just seeing line, line, line, line, it reduces your sales. Having visuals actually makes you hungrier. It'll make you buy more than you need. And because you can imagine it coming to the thing. And these were top end restaurants, these were not like low end restaurants. But they realized that the way to sell is to have a beautiful visual.
- [15:20]
B
Even when we were in Cannes, right Like on the croissant, we went to Baoli Bayouli and it was a super cool like kind of beach club, like bar vibe. And I pulled out my phone and recorded the menu because the images of the cocktails were so beautiful and they were so idyllic. Like they felt like they were ancient and they came from like the spice route and it was so visually beautiful. But the takeaway if you're not a restaurant is you have to create a visual experience because it creates a memory and that. I took out my phone and I recorded the menu and I wanted to post about it. But that forge and a stronger connection in my mind. But when I recall that place or if I re see that space, I have a deeper connection. And that's what we talked about was as one of our core takeaways in Coffee and can, which we uploaded all the audios. I highly recommend that you listen to them. But Mark Ritson and Byron Sharp talking about mental availability versus purchase availability. And when you create more moments that someone experiences your brand in a visual way or in any of the five senses, it creates a deeper mental availability in your mind. So that when your purchase availability, which is the 5% when you're ready to purchase, it often doesn't come from the brand. It comes from something that's happened in your customer's life. But you want to already own mental availability, which is that top of funnel awareness so that when they're ready to purchase, they're more likely to purchase you.
- [16:48]
A
The takeaway for our listeners if you're servicing a company or if you own a company, if you have a menu or if you have services, focus on how you're presenting them to your client in a way that's easier for the brain to like an image. You can, you can adopt tons of data right away. Reading takes time and work. So whether you're a medical spa or any type of company that's delivering services, make it easier for your client to understand visually how you're solving their problem.
- [17:16]
B
Love it. Let's get into the core the core topics of today's episode. Let's talk about reactive marketing. Because it's a trend that tons of people are talking about online but we haven't broken it down and diagnosed it. And it's getting to the point where it's being overdone. So reaction marketing isn't new. And you've talked about during Cannes Lions the Corona Olympic ad.
- [17:40]
A
One of their ads won an award where during a surfing competition at the Olympics, Buddy wiped out. But as he wiped out in the middle of the air above the waves, he puts his finger up, he's perfectly straight and it's a one in a billion dollar photo because Corona sponsored the event the next day. They had it on 200 billboards with their logo there. Was incredibly effective because. But their decision action cycle was so fast that they could take advantage of it while it was really fresh.
- [18:04]
B
Yeah. And it was a huge. It was a huge topic at Cannes this year. Right. Is is this idea of reaction marketing. So reaction marketing can be broken down into two camps. The first is when something happens to the brand and they double down and react on it. So they create a campaign out of something that they didn't expect to happen. So McDonald's is a perfect example of this. So the CEO does this video where he's taking a bite of their new burger and he calls it a product in the ad. And then as he's kind of taking a bite, he says it's huge and it's like an embarrassingly small bite. And because that video went so viral and was mostly negative, that was McDonald's like doubled down and and created. So they well, they created a bunch of ads off of it. They, they leveraged the narrative, they disseminated tons of content around the big archer so that it became like a moment and then other brands jumped onto it.
- [19:01]
A
Which is where this Levi's was amazing at the World Cup.
- [19:03]
B
Yeah.
- [19:04]
A
And it's called reactive. First of all, anybody in marketing knows marketing lives on buzzwords. So you know, it's like move at the pace of culture. Like there's always these words that come in that cause and then everybody uses it. It's very much a vernacular based industry. But Levi's had a stadium in the World cup and the World cup because it's so oppressive in terms of using their likeness for any reason, made them cover up the Levi's. And in the past, companies may have just said, oh, that's not fair. Right. And just dealt with it, but they reacted in a positive way to that, to then amplify the message by doubling down on the kind of irony or the interest in the issue.
- [19:44]
B
Well, so that's another great example. So Levi's, I mean, I'm sure you know the story at this point. 14 out of the 16 stadiums had to completely rename and like change all
- [19:56]
A
of the name or the logo.
- [19:57]
B
And they just became like the locations of where the game was being played. And because Levi's has such massive signage, they had to basically like put a tarp over it. But because you could still see the shape and the shape is just so iconic to the brand, it became a massive moment on social media. And they changed their lo. Their icon on Instagram where it matched the same. And then they, they just, they put
- [20:21]
A
out T shirts with the logo covered in white. Yeah, like it became a viral moment because they reacted to a situation. Well, you can react to, you can have reactive marketing that's reacting poorly, but this is reacting well.
- [20:33]
B
And that's what Heinz did too. So because they had to put black tape over everything at the stadiums, Hines released product with black tape on top of their. At the grocery store. So it was like using it in their face to, to basically like. And that's actually what was really interesting about the this, I would say this past FIFA is that they almost hurt themselves more by telling iconic American brands like, if Heinz could have just been Heinz ketchup, because everyone there knows it's Heinz ketchup. Everyone knows it's, it's like the same three brands of condiments. When you see the shape and the color. By making them blackout their logo and product, they actually gave them a campaign
- [21:12]
A
you know, it's a beautiful scenario of almost a stride's end effect. Like FIFA in the World cup don't want you to make a penny off of them from an advertising perspective, unless you pay them, right? They're like this. And so they come in and they block out the logos. But the corporations that were brilliant like Levi's got probably half a billion dollars of advertising and brand exposure that FIFA got zero from. But because FIFA was trying to mute everything, they actually, the opposite effect happened, which is what the Streisand effect is. So I thought it was beautiful.
- [21:41]
B
Explain the Streisand effect.
- [21:43]
A
Streisand effect is Barbra Streisand. She wanted to be private and in the time of paparazzi's, before all the digital phone, she made like a really big fuss about don't take pictures of my house, I don't want. And she got really angry and upset about it. And then all it did was make everybody want to get a picture of her house to see what she was trying to hide. So you want to be careful sometimes if you want to mute something, you don't mute it by drawing attention to it. You just ignore it or you just let it happen. But when you actually try to over control something, you can bring more attention to that which you want to mute.
- [22:12]
B
Well, so I'll actually give some more stats on that, which is actually quite cool. So this is the Streisand effect. In 2003, Barbra Streisand sued a photographer to remove an aerial photo of her Malibu home from the Internet. The photo went from having six downloads to over 420,000 because the suppression was the trigger. So because she made the headline to remove her house, it created interest in removing her house. And that's. But that's where reaction marketing works. So I want to go back to my definition. So reaction marketing is the idea that something happens and the company is so quick to react that the reaction becomes the marketing lever for this monoculture moment. And it creates this interest and it creates awareness. The other side to reaction marketing is reacting to something that is happening within culture. So that's like what that Nike did with its Knicks commercial where the guy is like running through the streets and it's New Yorker, nowhere is playing and he ends up kind of getting to the like big crowd. The time in which Nike launched that was so fast for the moment that it created such a buzz.
- [23:32]
A
It may be, and they may be just. But it also is, I know with some big companies you work with, they film like they film commercials on specific where you can be like look, if this team wins we need to have something ready. And so sometimes they'll have three different commercials ready just in case one of three options happen.
- [23:49]
B
Well, I suspect they do. But we also saw this with Bella Beauty, right where they're hiring crews to do same day edits like they do on some wedding events. Right where they're bringing in crews. So it was, it was really cool. So you have an editor that's sitting. They already do all the storyboarding of the shots and then they have a cameraman and it's being tethered and it's being auto uploaded into the cloud and you have an editor that's pulling the footage live into an editing field to be able to edit it which like suppresses the uploading time and it allows the edit to be so much faster. So they pro what they probably did is when it was down to the the last to like whatever is going to be that final game. They probably did two commercials on spec.
- [24:34]
A
Yeah.
- [24:34]
B
So that it was like launchable.
- [24:35]
A
But this is where I just want to like call out. It's quality of thinking from your marketing and branding people has to be as good as possible because all the marketing people are like look, Nike's doing reactive marketing because reactive marketing was said recently and it's a trend. But they don't really know how a big company preps for a big event that they sponsor for. So they're just getting some views making it look like they're smart at marketing by using it and they don't really get what reactive marketing is. Reactive marketing is where you don't have anything done and you react to a situation very fast. And to do that you need founders or leaders who are in charge of the messaging. You can't have like 16 layers of approval and committees and put it through all of these diagnostics before you release a piece of content. Right. So I believe that the founders or empowered CMOs can do reactive marketing as things are changing that are unexpected.
- [25:27]
B
I don't agree. I don't think that we need to delineate between pre planned and responded to. And I think that's actually more what's becoming the issue is that when you look at how McDonald's did that horizontal ad in Times Square post Super Bowl. Right. Like pre buying it. I don't think it's wrong for brands to be prepared.
- [25:47]
A
That's not reactive, that's planned marketing.
- [25:50]
B
Sure.
- [25:50]
A
But it's no, because everybody knows the super bowl will be over. But that's what I mean. Like I saw people Talking about the McDonald's ad being on its side for super bowl hangovers as being reactive. And that's not good thinking. That's planned marketing. Right, but that's why you need your advisors to actually be quite intelligent because it's, it just sounds smart when people are saying it because the founders are so busy that they're just deferring to the language being used by the marketing people. Right, but you can plan for marketing.
- [26:18]
B
You're not wrong. I would say for that exact example, like you could call that relevant marketing. But I think the larger issue is that when you look at this past week with the Empire State story, right, where you had the two Russian rooftoppers, Angelica, Nikalu and even Burka, who illegally Clyde the climbed the Empire State building the same day that they illegally climbed to do, which by the way was a fake proposal. They're already married. The father of, of one of them came out and was like, no, this is a full stunt. That's why the message that was on the, the flag like sucked from a proposal standpoint. It was like about like peace and love. But anyways, the point is, is that that proposal went viral and, but on the same day, like we literally every single brand on my feed that Empire State story. And, and that's when to me that's the problem is that that doesn't require strategic thinking. So when I talk about reaction marketing, you have to have a, like, you have to have strategy, you have to have like a story, you have to have a plan.
- [27:21]
A
There are levels to the quality of the marketing strategy. You get having that banner go out there and then just posting something on it that's not really that intelligent or creative. You might get some looks from it, but it has to, it has to make sense, right As a, as a starting point. And it's got to be tied to your brand. But you have these people who are just easily copying things that are working. When I'm talking about reactive marketing, you can't do reactive marketing if you don't run your business. Kind of like a special force unit where you have people who can move very fast. If something happens at 8:00 clock at night, you need to have a team that can come together, mobilize and get some production out overnight so it goes out as soon as possible. If you got nine to five people working from home, you know what I mean, who need approvals and four breaks before the day's over, you can't do it. But the companies that are going to win are the companies that build special forces content media teams that because you're going to get these asymmetric opportunities every year that your brand can really leverage. And if you miss the window, you miss that asymmetric upside. Because growth sometimes is slow. You get an opportunity and you can bump up really fast if you could take advantage of it, but if you don't, you just go slowly. And that's.
- [28:35]
B
I think the difference is storyline. Like, it made me hate the brands that jumped on that moment because of how easy AI is. Like to just use AI to edit that image with like a cheeky tagline to buy your blush is annoying. Like, especially when attention is the currency. Versus there was a co working brand in Newark called Convene and during the night parade they like knocked down the end with how crazy the parade was. And that like knocked n is what became their, like their logo on Instagram. And there's context to that, there's storyline to that. Like, that's reactive. But it's intelligent because it provides a storyline. It's like interesting to the consumer or the user just taking a moment that's big in the headlines that every other brand is jumping on. Because every social media manager, you know, is like bored, wanting to jump on doing content. Like, that's not, not thoughtful. And it's not thoughtful for the attention of the customer that you're trying to buy.
- [29:34]
A
Like, reactive marketing is kind of BS right now. Even though everybody is talking about it. To me, it's you. You need proactive marketing that's responding to real world, real world events. Reacting is just reacting to what's happened. Proactive means, oh my God, that just happened. We can leverage that into something that aligns with our brand. And you proactively use a current event within the relevant time period to make a significant impact. That's what I would be saying above what all of the masses in the marketing world are saying.
- [30:05]
B
And you know what I love about what you're saying is this is for all my pop culture girlies in the room. You're not gonna know who this is, but Kylie Jenner had an ex best friend.
- [30:13]
A
I know who Kylie Jenner is.
- [30:14]
B
Of course you do. That's all I'm talking about. Jordyn woods was her ex best friend. Okay. And there was some drama here. No, that is the wrong sister.
- [30:22]
A
Okay, Sorry.
- [30:25]
B
Help me, ladies. Help me. So Jordan has a clothing line whose name is not memorable and I cannot remember, but she had created this like orange croc purse and she's dating an ex player. She had this like, perfect NYX orange Croc purse. And it's not a tacky purse. Like, if you're someone that can rock orange.
- [30:48]
A
Orange is luxury.
- [30:49]
B
Exactly. But because she had the bag already when they made it, her purse got insane. Earned media value because everyone in New York was buying, like, orange colored, like, accessories and bags so they can show their Knicks pride. Well, she got so many celebrities. She got so many. Like, Mandami was carrying it, which in New York is massive.
- [31:10]
A
Mandami was the socialist.
- [31:12]
B
No, she like handed it to him and he took a photo with it.
- [31:14]
A
All right, interesting.
- [31:16]
B
It's not an expensive bag.
- [31:17]
A
Okay.
- [31:17]
B
It's an affordable bag for the people.
- [31:19]
A
Okay.
- [31:19]
B
And it's. Jordan was this for the people. So my point is, is that she was proactive and she was able to tap into a moment, which is more what I was saying with the McDonald's horizontal thing. To me, it's. It feels reactive. Even though you're correct, that is not accurate language because the customer is the hero. So when you feel hungover and sluggish and gross after Super Bowl Sunday and you see that ad, it feels more reactive to how you're feeling, even though it's proactive in its planning. And what I would say at the crux of it is, is your brand is winning if you're contributing to a storyline that makes sense. And that's what where I'm annoyed with. In this, like, reaction tunnel we're in,
- [31:59]
A
I actually think the reactive marketing should be more focused on you're making your customer react to something. That's what. But you know, as I just, as I've said many times, in the marketing world, buzzwords are the currency. So everybody is like making videos about reactive marketing and they don't really do much thinking.
- [32:17]
B
I'm going to just quickly end this segment with some facts for you for when you're at your next next coffee chat or watering break at your office. So Angela Nicolao, the Russian rooftop climbers, told ABC News that the couple was already m. Was already married and called it a performance. And some outlets noted that the climb doubled as promotion for their 2024 Netflix film Skywalkers A Love Story. So the romantic moment that brands were rushing to celebrate was literally a marketing stunt.
- [32:47]
A
I love that the dad calls him out.
- [32:49]
B
These people are to go to jail. They actually went to jail for like.
- [32:53]
A
But I just, I like that the dad calls him out. But it's interesting because you aligned your brand with it, but it was essentially a publicity stunt. Masquerading as love.
- [33:01]
B
And, you know, I think that's why it was annoying because all these brands were jumping on something that was a stunt. Like there wasn't a storyline to it.
- [33:09]
A
The through line for people is why you need to like, take Camille's social media masterclass or, or work with somebody who understands strategy is you. You saw real time how marketing agencies and people burn businesses money, like chasing things that aren't that effective really. And you need to have a strategy so you can do things that are actually proactive and effective. But you just saw real time hundreds of thousands of pieces of content that actually were not effective.
- [33:40]
B
Love it. All right, next segment here. AI and free content. So AI has been making some big headlines I wanted to quickly talk about, in case you missed it. Apple had an overnight price hike because of effectively how much AI is driving up the price point for energy uses and storage overall. So, Philip, lead us in to the AI, Apple and RAM conversation.
- [34:10]
A
It's not really that complicated, but you're going to see that everybody's probably seeing if you're in the market for a Mac book, that they've gone up 20 to 30%, like literally overnight this past year as AI is growing and growing, AI needs storage. It also needs chips to be able to manage everything. And so the AI, the big AI players that come in and are buying massively the chips, which is creating a shortage of certain chips that are needed for the MacBooks. And you're going to see an increase the price of all of the phones as well, because the demand for the chips is incredible at the moment. So if you want to get an iPhone, like this week is the week because it's going to go up very quickly.
- [34:49]
B
And what I was reading too is that there's actually a shortage of people that produce the chips. Like it's, it's really kind of owned by three companies. So it makes it very complicated for these like, brands like Apple that are buying parts from these, like, from these suppliers for how much demand there is for storage.
- [35:10]
A
I'll just throw in like a rogue lawyer political moment. The reason why one thing people need to do when they're assessing geopolitical strategy is understand that the chips that keep Western society alive and growing are 90% made in Taiwan.
- [35:25]
B
Yeah.
- [35:26]
A
And it takes 10 years to replicate. To build a factory that could do that would take over 10 years to redo them. These semiconductor tiny chips, they're doing things almost at the quantum level and the degree of like science and engineering required to make these chips that are Super. Because people have no idea how powerful that iPhone is. More powerful than any computer that exists existed 10 years ago.
- [35:48]
B
Yeah, it's like crazy, right?
- [35:50]
A
But that's from a geopolitical perspective, when you're looking at what's going on in the world, it's not as simple as I hate Trump or I like Trump. It's the US has to have the capacity to put carrier groups into the Asian Sea to prevent China from taking Taiwan. Because if China takes Taiwan, we lose our ability to get the chips that keep our societies running. And that, that's what's really a number one thing on the world stage. Just so people are aware.
- [36:13]
B
Got it. So I was going to make a joke of let's get back to lip gloss, but that's actually funny. But we're not. We're going to talk about actually what is happening with AI and how to protect your IPs.
- [36:27]
A
The interesting thing that's coming from the AI issue is Alex Karp went on MSNBC News and the mainstream media called it a crash out. And one thing, when the media says something like that, it's probably something you should pay attention to because they labeled it as a crash out because he was criticizing the established AI providers. But what he said was really relevant to almost every business is that anthropic and OpenAI and Gemini, they all help you make your business better. But there's always. The devil is always in the details and the unintended consequences. And what they're doing is by inviting you to open your kimono of your entire business and put everything in there to the LLMs. Right. They're actually. And it's. I don't know if you're going to talk about how it's similar to what Amazon does, but at a high level, they're essentially getting data to know what's working, what's not working, and then they can make a better version of it. And the CEO of Palantir is like, you guys, everybody has to wake up on what's really going on here. It's like they're giving you cocaine so you can get into their business, so they can see everything about how you do. And they're stealing your ip. And companies now have to start, start isolating their IP and not putting it into these big players because they know it's going to get stolen.
- [37:40]
B
Like they're giving you cocaine, they're getting you addicted and then once you're on drugs, they're taking everything from you. Like, and the example of this is Figma. So this is a crazy story. So Anthropic blindsided Figma by launching a competing tool called Claude Design after an Anthropic executive had sat on Figma's board. The thing that that's nuts is that they didn't resign from the board until three days before Claude's Design was launched.
- [38:10]
A
So Figma was working with Anthropic, giving them everything. Open up the kimono so they could scale mass. They bring somebody from Anthropic onto their board, and then Anthropic comes out, a
- [38:25]
B
tool that directly competes and then it tanks Figma stock because now there's an AI version of the product and Figma isn't as useful.
- [38:35]
A
And this is a new ladies and gentlemen. Microsoft was famous for this. The best word processor for a while was WordPerfect. They partnered with the big guy and then Microsoft created word and then WordPerfect disappeared. So if you're a founder, when you partner with a big player like Facebook or any of these things, they're generally gonna eat your lunch and they're gonna offer you some quick money and then take your ip. And we're seeing it now in the LLM businesses. And it's a lot like Amazon, which pisses me off because this is crazy. Founders, like somebody will create a new product that serves an industry and it's excellent. They invest the time, the money, the reps find a manufacturer, bring it to Amazon, it starts selling well. And then what a couple of commentators have said is that Amazon will then suspend the account claiming an issue. And then in order to get it going again, you have to disclose all of the details. Where is it manufactured? You have to prove all of these things to get it back up. And then always three months later, the same manufacturer is now making that product under the Amazon Basics brand name, and they're undercutting that founder and destroying businesses. And it's something that we don't talk about enough. How founders lose their IP in an effort to kind of run towards wealth and get ripped off by the big players.
- [39:53]
B
Well, and the reason why I want to talk about this is a lot of you aren't using AI enough. And this is where this becomes complicated because the level of knowledge that we're consuming at, because we want to keep you informed, a lot of those businesses aren't, you know, aren't in beauty or they aren't in fashion, where their IP is at a different level. However, it's worth thinking about what are you putting into the AI? Because if these brands at higher levels are being basically taken for their IP and duplicated and copied. And you're not investing in a personal brand. You don't have community, you don't have human connection, human texture. The AI can replicate your business, but you also can't resist AI because the level in which things are moving at also needs a level of artificial intelligence.
- [40:44]
A
The takeaway that I, that maybe can bring a few things together is the Figma example you give is relevant to our listeners because a lot of people are into marketing, right? And here is, here is a company that built something over the years that really helped in the marketing and creative world and Anthropic just gets inside and launches something that's going to be cheaper and maybe better. If I was Figma and I wanted to do reactive or proactive marketing, I would double down on. Look, we trusted these guys, you know, we work with them and they, and they created a copycat version of it is. But what, you know, if you work with Figma and they should, they should now get their own AI in figma, that helps. If you work with Figma, your IP stays with you. You, if you work with Claude design, they're going to just take your ideas again, you know what I mean? Like double down into the story to make people have a reason to go to the Figma brand, you know, have a strong brand story that brings creative to there. So they feel, because a lot of people want to feel that their IP or their, their art artistry is protected, but if you put something into Claude, it's going to get copied and delivered to somebody else across the world tomorrow.
- [41:48]
B
Well, it's also, but it also is dependent on the prompt.
- [41:51]
A
Yeah.
- [41:51]
B
So that's the other thing that's complicated is that you can listen to this and decide to resist, which, you know, fine. But if you're not getting better at prompting because like there's an art to the prompt and you need to like be able to in. The only way you get better at prompting is by seeing the product that comes out with a shitty prompt. And then what I want to talk about next is actually these micro dramas, right? And how big micro dramas are becoming within the social media landscape. And a big reason why micro dramas are blowing up is because Claude has such insane APIs. So actually PM Ants talks about it on my episode with her, with, with Heaven Mayhem. She's the founder of Heaven Mayhem and how she goes on these walks with Claude and she's tasking to Claude to create these tasks that basically go into slack and in a sauna and she's tasking her team while she's going on walks with like her meta glasses and she's just like talking out loud. And they become tasked team based prompts because the APIs, which is a connector tool between Pro, it's like a straw. So it connects like one program to another. So your Claude can connect with Google Drive, it can connect with Notion, Instagram everything. Instagram everything. So people who are getting really advanced in Claude are able to be way more productive. And that was another thing I thought was really interesting is that the businesses that are adopting AI sooner are the ones that are growing at a faster rate. They're actually hiring more bodies because they're, they're able to do more, get more productivity done, which is increasing the need for more people. It's just the work that people are doing is more important and it's more taste based.
- [43:32]
A
Don't be naive because, and I'm guilty of it, we're all guilty of it. We want to rush into AI to get ahead, but we also have to have like a period of thoughtfulness to say, look, look, don't give away everything to Claude because it's because you can get a short term advantage because you might lose the very thing that made you unique and then it can be replicated. So use AI and LLMs to help your business move faster. Create safe reservoirs where you can protect something that's proprietary and yours, whether it's your way of thinking, your code, your software, your ingredients.
- [44:05]
B
Cool. All right, so let's move on to the next topic. So next topic is micro dramas are the new big thing. So if in case you've missed it, there is a cheesy episodic format that has creeped into your TikTok and YouTube and they're called microdramas and they're effectively short episodic content that's often made by AI. And kind of the, the biggest one is like these fruit dramas where there's basically different fruits that are look like humans with other fruits, fruits and they're having the wrong fruit, which speaks to the fact that their fruit relationship has had infidelity.
- [44:46]
A
Like what the microdramas are. If you've seen a hippopotamus eating an alligator on an animal reel recently, that's an AI version of a microdrama as well. Essentially what it does is it uses AI to create the most extreme things that happen if you spend, you know, 20 days filming wildlife or the most extreme things that can happen in a relationship or emotionally or situationally. So they condense something that Happens very rarely into a 30 second video of like, I can't believe you just slept with my sister and my brother at the same time. You know what I mean? And they're talking about it. And so it's just recreating things that speak to the human psyche that are crazy. Brain rot and AI can make it happen, you know, Know. So visually it looks real or it looks entertaining and it's just, it's, it's overtaking the Internet.
- [45:36]
B
It's exactly that. Micro dramas tend to have these extreme human moments that you would find in like soap operas or like Love island condensed into 30, 60 or 90 seconds. And what's interesting is that brands are now tapping into it. So traditionally it was more like clipping where these people were using Claude API connectors. They would storyboard in notion and then the storyboard in notion would feed seven or eight different versions or 40 versions and they would storyboard those into Claude. It would create it through Higgs Field and it would post them on Instagram. And the entire workflow was being done through these APIs. So in the fruit example we were shown, it was like two oranges and they had a lemon because the boss of where she worked was like a lemon boss. But that same script could have like zucchinis, it could have grapes and they would slightly change different extreme details and it's like clipping. So basically the videos that perform the best ends up being the ones that get monetized and get paid. What's interesting is that brands are now tapping into these viewerships and it's tends to be brands that have like less cultural cachet. Until recently, Google and Unwell partnered and they created a micro drama that basically sells the Google Pixel. And it shows you how they, this, the new format of what brands are getting into is this paid episodic content concept where there's like an extreme, an extremity to it that's focusing on its features.
- [47:12]
A
Yeah, that one was interesting because it's, it's, it's, it's kind of like breaking the fourth wall in terms of creating something that's crazy. And then the people are like, oh, we're actually part of the story. Like it's an interesting narrative. Like, I don't know if, if it's. Well, like, because most short commercials would be a micro drama, right? Like if you look at the old Sanka having a good coffee in the morning, it's just, it's just how much is being compressed into the piece. Well, they had 14 episodes and how AI can do it so quickly.
- [47:39]
B
Well, what I thought was interesting is that from the Google Unwell version, they did 14 episodes and they actually hired big actors. So they hired actors that were like in Grey's Anatomy. So that this theme there was like cultural connection and cachet to what they were doing. But what's interesting to me is that it's, it's our through line for this whole episode is that storytelling matters because a lot of these micro dramas, they're just getting views because they're extreme. Like they're not, they're not good, right? Like it's not good storytelling. It's not good. It's, it's, it, it lacks substance.
- [48:14]
A
It's easy storytelling. It's like national. Think of the National Enquirer in the old days like that had crazy headlines that appealed to like the craziest things that humans could do and most of them weren't true. Is just using that same type of theme to get people's attention. But now we can do it much better with AI and these videos that you could make.
- [48:34]
B
Well, what do you think brands can learn from this microdrama trend?
- [48:38]
A
I think you need strategy. Like I always go back to it, like everybody is chasing change and you have to be on top of what's new. But if you're chasing change without a strategy that's pulling you in a direction, you're going to be spending a lot of money, you're going to be getting metrics. It's not really going to help. The reason why story matters is because humans relate to humans. And so if you condense a whole thing into a 30 to 60 second segment, you're not going to, you're not going to build anything that's memorable or that builds trust or any loyalty. I think one of the things I was thinking this week is, you know, humans are the new luxury, right? And so with all of these AI and all of these things, like you can do all of this AI, but humans you trust are the new luxury. I think there's going to be robots, I think there's going to be self driving cars. But the luxury, the people who want luxury will have a human driver. You can chase all these trends, use all these videos, make everything quick, sharp, whatever. It just becomes, the more the market gets flooded with all of this stuff, the least memorable you are. Even though you might get numbers that make it look good, you have to focus on real, interesting, authentic things that build trust.
- [49:43]
B
To me it's more taste. It's when I look at micro dramas, there's such an opportunity for brands that want to be proactive in creating better storytelling to leverage taste. And that's what is missing is that when you look at the ability for Google and Unwell to jump on this and to create a 14 episodic series for the Pixel, it's interesting, it's engaging and it could still be better.
- [50:08]
A
This is where I. But I just pushed back a bit. The grape having an affair with the carrot. That's what the micro dramas are being seen as. Google doing a 14 episode short form episode is. Is storytelling. It's just storytelling over 14 micro episodes. Right. Like so.
- [50:25]
B
But they're using the micro drama theme. Like the theme of the micro drama is more of this like Hallmark style show where there's like, even the way they talk about it, we're being filmed like there's a, there's, there's a theme to it.
- [50:38]
A
But what would you say to Brooklyn Coffee House which did a great job of essentially making micro drama episodes where people come for a coffee.
- [50:48]
B
Yeah.
- [50:48]
A
But you could use AI now and produce hundreds of microdramas from the perspective of your coffee. And that's why I was saying the thing about the human that you said you were going to make better. Is that going to work better than having humans actually showcase what's going on? On.
- [51:03]
B
It's how you corrected me that. The McDonald's horizontal concept isn't reactive marketing, it's proactive marketing. So what the Brooklyn Coffee House is doing is they are, they are creating episodic content formats that have plot lines and characters. But this micro drama format has its own clear format. And there's a, a part of the reason why people are watching it is because it's so ridiculous and because it's so cheap. Right. There's something addictive to like the cheapness of how they're creating con like the, the episode. Like it's like it's a car accident. Right. Like you don't want to watch but you don't want to look away. Whereas what Brooklyn Coffee House is doing is like true, like cinematic storytelling with humans. With humans. And you don't expect that to come with coffee. I think that we get some pushback because we talk about topics on a range that for those smaller brands that might not be able to afford the production value, like how Unwell did with Google or how Brooklyn Coffee House does. Even though I do believe there's a risk in, in generating the revenue for the budget. And the reason why I think you should do it is that it always pays itself back like when you do things at a better standard, it takes time, but it separates you. But you don't have to. Right to your point. Like with where the Google AI is for video creation and the. Where you can start, like AI imagery, like so many brands are using AI imagery, it's completely undetectable and it's at such a fraction of a cost. Like, you've never had more resources to do something. What's missing is taste. And that's why I think what Anwell did with Google is interesting, is that it shows you that the brands that are focusing on improving what's trending, because you're getting a lot of content out of emerging economies, especially India, and a lot of the content that's coming out of India, it's not great, but they're just chucking it out at such a massive volume. It's cheap.
- [52:57]
A
No. Like, so you can go to India and get them to make a hundred pieces of content that, that, that on the surface look like they work. Yeah, but it doesn't have the taste or the context or the nuance or that. It's that last 5% that is the difference between gold and fifth place.
- [53:12]
B
Let's move on to skims. So in case you missed it, Skims did a campaign with Will Ferrell, AKA Lonnie the Hawk. So Will Ferrell is coming out with a limited series and he plays this character called Lonnie the Hawk. And Lonnie the Hawk partnered with Skims, where Will Ferrell is effectively trying to bring a more bro y masculine audience into the skims universe. Now, I do want to talk about. Well, but like, that's kind of.
- [53:43]
A
He's Tallagaganites. Yeah, it's kind of. It's kind of Tallagayanites. Shake and Bake.
- [53:47]
B
There's a subculture. Yes.
- [53:49]
A
Shake and Bake, baby.
- [53:50]
B
There's a subculture.
- [53:51]
A
My favorite Jesus, little baby Jesus.
- [53:54]
B
There's a subculture to like a certain kind of dude that like, loves a Will Ferrell movie. So it. And I don't think that that guy is really buying skims right now. So that was kind of. That's really all I can say.
- [54:06]
A
He's famous. He's famous for the. Those old Fruit of the Loom jockey underwear. Like, whenever you see him in underwear, he's wearing those old gross. Really jockey underwear.
- [54:16]
B
Do you have a, like, is there a picture of Will Ferrell that wears underwear in your brain?
- [54:21]
A
Well, there's one in Tony the Hawk promotion and there's one from old school everywhere. He loves to Show.
- [54:26]
B
How do you change?
- [54:26]
A
He loves to show the scar on his. On himself, with his belly.
- [54:29]
B
Have you seen him wear underwear before?
- [54:31]
A
Every. Every movie he's in, he's. He's naked because he's just hilarious to look at.
- [54:35]
B
The loom or jockey.
- [54:36]
A
Yes.
- [54:38]
B
So this is like, a thing. Yeah, this is a thing for a man. That. That was my whole thing is like, did this make sense? I felt like this was just like, I was like, who is this selling skims to? But you feel like this, like, connected to an idea of Will Ferrell that you knew.
- [54:51]
A
Well, I just know that he used to wear shitty, like, ridiculously ugly underwear, and it was like a. It was a shtick on Saturday Night Live or. And in his movies.
- [55:00]
B
Does this make you want to buy skims underwear? Well, it's.
- [55:02]
A
Something about Will Ferrell makes me want to buy underwear.
- [55:04]
B
Do you think it would if you were a younger man?
- [55:07]
A
I, I'm not so sure it does. I, I. And I don't think skims appeals to the wool, feral, older demographic even either. Right. Like, because for me, it's like, it's tight, uncomfortable, like plastic underwear.
- [55:18]
B
Like, I did find it was entertaining that Kim read like she narrated the videos like I did. I do like how she's involved in a way that makes her not the center, like the, the core focal of skims. And I do think that's what skims is doing. Right. Is she's involved in a tasteful way. But what I want to talk about more pressingly is I is in podcast prep for this episode. Our team sent the Skims Lonnie the Hawk content into our podcast group chat, and they thought Lonnie the Hawk was a golfer that happened to look like Will Ferrell because they created an Instagram account for Lonnie the Hawk, and he has over 80, 000 followers. And when you do the two to three point pass, which is English for two to three scans on the Instagram page, it passed the test that it looked like a legit Instagram account. And where this is complicated is it speaks to the problem of do followers still matter psychologically? Because he had followers and because the content looked legit, it put my team in question of whether or not this was, like, a real person.
- [56:33]
A
Yeah. The unfortunate thing is that followers are kind of a resume indicator, you know, and some people have bought them, and people don't look at qualitative versus quantitative. If you see that somebody has half a million followers or 100,000 followers, you treat them differently than if they have A thousand, or if they have 500 or if they have 12,000. But what people don't. So followers do matter. If you want to get credibility quickly because people look at it, you're like, oh, you got that many? You must be something solid. But I think there's room for a qualitative analysis. It'd be nice if some of the social media channels can have a way of allowing people to assess the value of the person online.
- [57:11]
B
No, they did. So a recent Instagram update, you can see how many views on Paige people have on their profile, which really speaks to whether or not their followers are legit. And that's what makes this really interesting, is that because he did the skims campaign, there was a ton of views on Page, so the views on Page outweighed the number of followers that he had. So it made it look really legit. And this is really helpful for brands because people with a lot of followers often don't move the needle. And it's helpful to see that, hey, they might have 300,000 followers, but they've only had 30,000 views on page last month. We probably shouldn't be paying them 10 grand for this collab.
- [57:47]
A
Like, we actually experienced this real time when we. When a brand hired us to say, what's going on with this person that we hired who had a huge follower account, and they thought, wow, this follower account was going to get them lots of business. It was a female. They thought she was followed by females that'd be perfect for the beauty industry.
- [58:02]
B
Huge celebrity, right? Huge celebrity. But her followers weren't relevant.
- [58:07]
A
No, it turns out that there were like 90%. Yeah, 90% of followers were from Malaysia, from Africa or Asia. And. And then when you're trying to sell things and all of a sudden you see the content, but now that that company is in a contract.
- [58:20]
B
I know. And they're a huge seller and they
- [58:21]
A
spent a lot of money. And so you. You need qualitative analysis of followers before you engage in a content. And so if you're a brand that's hiring somebody, don't look at just the numbers.
- [58:31]
B
It's why the theme this week is storyline.
- [58:33]
A
Yeah.
- [58:33]
B
Like the con. Like the product has to match the storyline. Like it followers. And that's why the. I think the skims. Lonnie the hawk situation is interesting because is it impactful if women are driving more of the purchasing decision Are and are who are likely to follow skims if they didn't realize that it was Will Ferrell playing somebody? Because, like, they didn't Break the fourth wall in the Instagram account. Like, how many men was that content served to. In order to bring more guys in? Because that's, that's the thing I think is really fascinating about this is Instagram page almost was too legit looking. And because Will Ferrell's appearance has kind of changed as he's gotten older and maybe he's on some peptides. He's looking quite quite chiseled in his jawline. How many women just was like, oh, they just sponsored a golfer and they moved on?
- [59:27]
A
Yeah, like Lonnie the. Or whatever.
- [59:29]
B
He.
- [59:30]
A
He doesn't. He doesn't appeal to women. Like, it's Tallaga nights. Right. So they have to be trying to sell men's underwear through that campaign or what's the whole point of it?
- [59:39]
B
No, it was only to sell men's under. My point is, like, if the women that are following skims and follow skims campaigns didn't realize that it was Will Ferrell, like, was it an effective campaign? Like, did it sell a lot of men's underwear?
- [59:51]
A
Women are buying men's underwear. They're not going to buy men's underwear because of Lonnie the Hulk. They're going to buy it because that's just a bad campaign. Men might buy it.
- [59:58]
B
Well, that's my question. Is it a good campaign?
- [60:00]
A
Well, I would say no at the moment because it's going to get interest. Is it going to get impact? That'll be the question. I don't think it's going to get impact, but it'll get a lot of interest because Will Ferrell is freaking hilarious and I look forward to watching that show.
- [60:13]
B
So this last segment is. Does every movie need a fashion show? So the Spider man cast did not choose to dress up, which. So for the latest Spider man movie, they're getting some heat. Their fans are annoyed that the red carpet premieres does not have a theme to their dressing. And in the recent past, this kind of method dressing concept has taken over the red carpets. And we talked about it with weathering High Heights. So Weathering Heights, Barbie, Dune. You've had these movies as of recently where the red carpet has become more of this marketing play where they're showing up in these costumes and they're creating this theme for the movie that's generating a lot of hype and buzz. And it's interesting that there was so much. There was so much push for that, and it now seems to be going in the other direction.
- [61:03]
A
Look, you go Back to Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message, right, and the message is right now is that more than ever, production and companies are just trying to sell you as much as possible. And you have this whole flywheel where you create a movie. And really the movie is not the product. It's all of the subsidiary things that you sell afterwards. And so you're trying every. Every new Spider man has a different costume so you can sell more costumes. I think the consumers are waking up to. To this. I think just tell me a great fricking story so that you can make my life good and stop trying to sell me 10 levels of stuff. It might make you profits in the short term, but it's not really what's going to move the needle.
- [61:43]
B
Well, you nailed it. And that, to me is what I think is most interesting, is that it stopped being styling and it became marketing. And that's where people. There was an article in CNN that talked about this where they were calling it, like, promotional drag, right? Where it was just becoming to the point where. Where you were showing up in looks that functioned as, like, goofy in jokes about the movie's theme, like, rather about it actually being like an articulation of fashion, of like, of like, of, of.
- [62:09]
A
Or art like the Rocky Horror Picture show, where people would show up because it was actually something meaningful behind the story or. Or new.
- [62:15]
B
Well, that's why this. This the theme of this week's episode is the storytelling. Because it only works when the costume tells a true story, right? And it collapses when it doesn't. And that's where they got some pushback on Wuthering Heights, because Wuthering Heights opened with the most successful domestic office this year in 2026, and the most successful romantic opening of all time. But everyone that went, a lot of them were going because of this costuming. And it ended up being a total flop of a movie because it got it. It actually brought up more people that didn't respect how they changed the storyline. It wasn't like, historically accurate. So it created a lot of negative buzz because the fashion was so compelling that it brought people out that weren't real fans. So what's interesting is actually Law Roach, who is Zendaya St. Is who is coined to making method dressing more famous. So he didn't create it because he points back to Glenn Close. Glenn Close, who did it for 101 Dalmatians 30 years ago, that there's like. He's kind of like revived this theme, but really when it worked was for movies like Barbie, right? Where. Where dressing into this costume spoke to the world that the brand was, that the movie was building and that's where it breaks or it falls apart is that when the movie doesn't have this clear theme in the storyline connects like it makes sense is when you're starting to use it as promotion. I think it was really honestly like Marty supreme that kind of killed it where he made it so much about Orange. And then people went to the movie and they didn't know what to expect because it was so much about the hype and it wasn't about the storyline and like needing to preserve that.
- [63:49]
A
There's always going to be this ability where when you have a proven formula that works, you can put together the pieces to make a move and that launches a product line, launches a clothing line, launches everything. The story is not what's important, it's that you think you can sell a whole bunch of stuff. And that's where I wanted to finish the episode on probably one of the best actors to have ever lived, Kevin Spacey, who went on Bill Maher's podcast the other day in this really long form discussion that I think people should listen to if you want to kind of understand what's really going on with Hollywood. And because we were talking about storyline, that man represented characters that could tell stories and he was discussing how for 10 years he was banned from any roles in Hollywood because of these accusations that were very historic and the fact that he was cleared of them all, none of them resulted in criminal charges, they were all withdrawn. It didn't really fix his brand or his reputation. And you wanted to talk about that before I finish it?
- [64:48]
B
Well, to me it, it's. You actually like need a trial. Right? Like you need a trial to clear that storyline. And that's what happened with Johnny Depp.
- [64:57]
A
Right.
- [64:57]
B
What a different outcome because he was able to go on trial and the entire like people were able to see the other side of the story. Like we default to when you hear an accusation that anyone that accused like must be correct. But when you can't see the credibility of the person who's making the accusations, it. It's a one sided story. And like as a trial lawyer, I mean like you live that you've lived this right where you. That where if you don' that ability to kind of like allow your narrative to see the light of day, it ends up becoming this headline and it's not convenient for people to want to seek the truth.
- [65:30]
A
Well, the, the arrest is a headline. The. On page one. You know, the. If it's withdrawn because there's no case there. Yeah, it's like on page six, maybe, Right? If there's a trial, it's on page one. So you need to get branding and messaging advice to rehabilitate your brand when these things happen, especially when they're not true. And you need to get back to on back on the horse. But it was interesting to hear Kevin Spacey talking about. He made a movie with Netflix about Gore Vidal that he believed one of the best movies he's ever made. And the accusations came out. And he believes his co host would have won an Oscar if it was released. But Netflix won't release it because they don't feel they can because he was accused of something that never turned into a conviction and everything was withdrawn. It's the art. And you could see the sorrow and sadness in him that an amazing actor was denied an Oscar because of all of these accusations. And all that aside, the advice that I would give him is somewhat along the lines of what I would give to a business in the same situation as Kevin. Don't bemoan the fact that you were dealt a bad deal or a bad hand. Right. You are an exceptional storyteller. And what we've seen recently is that independent storytellers are making films. So don't sit around on your hands waiting for Hollywood douchebags to come back to you and validate you again. You're validated as the best, one of the best actors in the world. Go find those independent storytellers that can film something on an iPhone or on a small camera. Go make art. Don't sit there and say, oh my God, I want to go back to being welcomed, welcomed at Spago or wherever. I don't care. Like, fuck those people. Go make art with people who tell great stories and bring your brand back.
- [67:11]
B
Well, and it's never been a better time, right? When you look at obsession, Iron lung, backroom, like, people who understand story, who are artists, who are creatives, they're making the best movies because the people who are in charge of decision making aren't the people that should be making decisions anymore. And my takeaway for this, for the Kevin Spacey point is I don't suspect that you have an as an extreme situation to, you know, to relate to. But what I can say is stop letting people who are afraid make decisions for your business. And it's so important. And I wanted to talk about it earlier and I forgot, you know, when it comes to, like, you know, what Levi's doing, did you know, being so bold and like, draping the logo, like, initially, like, the news came out and was like, giving cheap shots to Levis, as if, like, them owning a moment was, like, a petty thing to do. But how smart is it when you look at the comparison between Adidas and Nike? Adidas is winning 4 to 1 on Nike for earned media value during the FIFA World Cup. Because Adidas is doing more. They're being more reactive. They're creating these campaigns and these moments that are connecting with the people. And a lot of that comes from boldness. It's being able to act, act, to not have anxiety, not sitting on your hands, like, deciding it doesn't cost anything to, like, replicate the Empire State image on in AI. It costs to, like, do something bold, like the Levi's campaign.
- [68:31]
A
And you have to be doing something that carries the risk of failure.
- [68:36]
B
Yes.
- [68:36]
A
If you're just doing what's safe, your marketing people are just using your dollars to perpetuate their own identity.
- [68:42]
B
Well, there was, like, that video that went viral during Cannes where it was like that. That drunk creative guy that was like, we hate you, big companies, because by the time our great idea that would have changed your business gets to approval stage, it's diluted to the point where it has almost, like, no semblance of the brilliance that made it great. And if you're in a position where you're getting great ideas from people that you respect, like, let them do what they're best at.
- [69:07]
A
One of the models that I've lived by for a long time is fortune favors the brave. Right? And it requires courage to do something that people will pay attention to. So be bold, be brave, be smart, and keep tuning into the art of the brand and helping us be amazing. If you haven't seen any of Camille's products, if you go to Camille-more.com you all of her products are right there. And if you haven't bought anything, there's this. There's a $47 intro course that you can take to learn the basics of her genius. And then from there, you can take the social media masterclass has. But I say this with no reservation as a military person who wouldn't lie to you. The value in those courses is so incredible that you should get them right now because they will change your life and change your business.
- [69:53]
B
Until next week, our friends.