Philip (2:09)

The reason why they're struggling is they need to take that expertise and brand legacy and bring it into the digital world, you know, and it was amazing. He's just like, oh, we can't ship, it's too expensive.

Camille (2:20)

I love Italy. I love probably Italy like the most because of how they execute on all the things. But Paris is better at brands. 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. I am so excited to be back in our recording studio.

Philip (2:43)

It was a long haul. Great to be back in North America where there is space.

Camille (2:48)

I just. I mean, honestly, Europe is. Is amazing, but there's just no place like home.

Philip (2:52)

True. You know, what are we going to talk about today to Thriller listeners?

Camille (2:56)

There's a lot of stuff to cover. There's a ton of headlines that I think are really interesting for the current state of socials. There's been some acquisitions that talk about the direction of experience.

Philip (3:06)

Got a little. A few leadership lessons for business owners buried in here near the end, so it should be a good episode.

Camille (3:12)

I'm excited to break it down, but before we get into all of our exciting headlines, why don't we do a quick Europe trip? Highlights.

Philip (3:19)

Well, what was the highlight of your European trip? Well, first of all, we went to San Francisco, but we did a podcast in San Francisco at the super bowl, and then we went to Italy and France.

Camille (3:28)

We went to Rome from San Francisco. We were there for Bulgari. Hopefully you guys saw that video that was honestly real. Like, I was rehearsing that for weeks. And the part that didn't get into the video that was hilarious is the head of communications and PR for the brand called the. I forget her title, but another woman that's very high up in the company and was like, look, we love Camille, but she's really got to get this name before the presentation because she cannot present to the CEO and not say the name correctly. So, like, that was, like, real clips of us, like, rehearsing the name over weeks.

Philip (3:59)

Well, the CEO and a lot of the kind of fashion powerhouses. Brand powerhouses in the brand. So they're all sitting there waiting for you to make a mistake. But it's hilarious because I've had people call me up and they've actually practiced trying to say it. Right. Like my mom yesterday when we were talking to her.

Camille (4:15)

It's really tough. It's Bulgari. Yeah. Like, that's the name. Like, it's with that, like, pronunciation.

Philip (4:22)

Like, you throw a V in there on. On some of the spellings.

Camille (4:25)

It's just.

Philip (4:26)

It's nonsense. But anyhow, you killed it. You did amazing talk there. It was.

Camille (4:29)

But it's an original Roman brand. That's why it's got a Roman numeral.

Philip (4:32)

The five and the one.

Camille (4:34)

Yeah. Instead of the O, it's a V. And that's why it was a really cool experience because it's a, it's a legacy fashion house. Like it's a, one of the top jewelry brands in the world. And it was a really cool experience to be able to touch on, you know, so we do a lot of speaking and a lot of the talking that I do, it's typically to rooms of a brand. Right. Like, so I talk about brands at three core levels. There's a brand, a good brand and a great brand. And at the A brand level is where most people that are listening to,

Philip (5:06)

I think most people listen to us are at the A brand level or a lot of the, a lot of the consulting we do are at the kind of good brand level. Yeah, right. And you know, obviously you had some great brands in the past, but to go to such an iconic Roman great brand in the eternal city, it just kind of puts some pressure on you.

Camille (5:23)

To me it was more reflective of that. It's, it's interesting that brands even at that level still feel like there's things to learn and still struggle navigating branding and it, it underscores that brand isn't something that you arrive at. It's an ongoing destination. Like it's a continued journey. And at the whatever level you get to, and at Bulgari's level, Boo Gary's level, it's, it really is branding as religion. Like it's a very iconic brand. But even at that their stage, they still, they still struggle with making on brand decisions.

Philip (5:59)

That doesn't surprise me because as the Denning Kruger effect says, you know, the people who know the least about a topic are the most sure about that topic.

Camille (6:07)

Yeah.

Philip (6:07)

And so the better you get at a topic, the more you know, the more you recognize, you don't know. And so that's why the great brands will bring people in to look at them because they know that they still don't know stuff and they need to grow.

Camille (6:19)

Totally. I would say that the thing that is the most interesting about Bulgari as a case study is that they were the original luxury house that created a hotel. So it's now become quite common, especially in Dubai in Asia for these brands to create these like world building extensions. And they're typically licensed, so they license their names name and some developer can add the name like the Margiela apartment building slash hotel that's opening in Dubai. It's not opened by the brand, but what's cool is that Bulgari opened this hotel concept over 20 years ago before it was being Done and the family did it, which it's now sadly been sold to lvmh. But the family, the Bvlgari family is still involved even though it's like multiple hundred year old brand. And what's cool about that is they understood that the experience of engaging with the brand, feeling the brand, understanding the brand was such a fleeting concept that was reserved for so few because they are famous for basically designing these like crazy pieces that like only a handful of people in the world would ever be able to afford, like massive emeralds and like the Elizabeth Taylor like iconic necklace. But they realized before social media that people would want to engulf themselves in a brand 360 in a way that had a different entry point. So that if you, if you owned one of their cheaper products, you could still be a part of that Bulgari universe that in hopes to one day be able to buy one of their higher piece products. And that's what's cool about the brand is that the hotel and resorts company is owned by the Bulgari jewelry brand. So like the two are operated under one house name, which is very unique and very interesting. Which makes the whole concept of brand actually much cooler. Cooler because a hotel, it's harder to maintain that same standard of like when the minimum product to purchase within their Universe is like $11,000 or probably 5,000 for their purses.

Philip (8:19)

I don't think the hotel was designed to bring a cheaper price point to bring in. I think what the family saw was there is a market for our type of luxury in limited cities. They haven't expanded fast. Right. They just have a certain customer base of a certain income level that may want to stay in Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Dubai. And so they're not trying to expand everywhere. And I think the indirect one, they break even or make money on the hotels. But I think what they do is they actually probably double their sales because the people who respect the Bulgaria when they go there, you just get the sense that you see the jewelry on the wall, you get a sense that you should buy more. So you know, it's kind of a comprehensive strategy. But I don't see them expanding into Pittsburgh, you know, ever. You know what I mean? Like no.

Camille (9:04)

And they're not. It is, you're right. That's made the talk so interesting is that everything that they do at the hotel and resorts level has to support the brand with a long term vision. So what was cool about it is Rome is where they're from. Like they are a Roman brand. It took them 20 years to get their Rome location because they will wait, they will wait for the perfect real estate to come up. And they want to ensure that when they, when they decide on a city, it has to perfectly capture the brand. And you make a great point. The whole hotel revolves around their jewelry. So all of the art in the hotel is their jewelry.

Philip (9:42)

All of the celebrities wearing it.

Camille (9:44)

Yes. Like, it's all showcasing the jewelry. And because we had to stay in the hotel for four nights, all I was looking at was the Serpenti watch and the like Serpenti necklace. And I want it, I want it. And I'm at a different price point where, you know, maybe at some point, you know, if we, we get a big exit on a brand that I would decide to treat myself to that product because I had a, I evoked emotion and it was special. But there's a lot more customers to your point that pay the, the seven grand a night ticket price point that could ask for that necklace at Christmas and probably will. Right. Because you're able to like, kind of experience it in a way that's not you just stopping into a store, checking it out and leaving.

Philip (10:26)

What I think the listeners really benefit from on this podcast is the core of what Bulgari wanted you to speak about. Because I thought that was a really interesting conversation and the leadership wanted everybody to understand why they said no to things. And you should share that portion of your talk because I think it's really valuable for people to understand on the journey to becoming a great brand, it's the no's that can matter more than the S's.

Camille (10:51)

Well, that's actually what is the most interesting, because of our love of the art of the brand, is that we obviously do a lot of talking and a lot of consulting on brand and it's not new for us to be doing it like with a luxury house. But what was new is that they paid a lot of money and invested a lot in reinforcing to their global team because they flew everyone from their global locations, from all over the world. To come to this talk as a reinforcement of the no is what makes it great to not get discouraged in their job for trying to bring these ideas that might be novel, that might be ahead of the curve, that might be trending, and to see the no as the gatekeepers of a brand for tomorrow. And I would say in my journey in branding, because I grew up in a lower middle class family and I never was exposed to luxury brands in my journey in doing this, the coolest thing that I've learned from these luxury brand houses is that they're not focused on tomorrow, they're focused on 10 and 20 years from now. So that their products that are priced at 10, 11, 12,000 are whether or not it's, it's right or wrong. With the, you know, kind of the fact that it's all now an oligarchy of like three houses that own everyone, but that it maintains value. So that when you buy this ring, you feel like it's going to be valuable longer than the Wuthering Heights post that we're going to talk about later in this episode. It's not to be fleeting, but just

Philip (12:16)

go back over the fourth parts of the brand you talked about and how everything has to be a yes in order to go forward with her.

Camille (12:23)

So I talk a lot about brand pillars and if you haven't done the social media masterclass and the, the planner that's coming out, it's, it's a, a mindset shift that is invaluable to you as a brand owner. And I talk about brand pillars and I created these as that simple stress test to determine of whether or not a decision you're making in your brand is on brand. Because brands don't die from proverbial Bud Light moments. They, by deciding to do partnerships activations launches on social media that slowly take their brand off course and we call it the brand death by a thousand cuts is that it takes a thousand cuts to kill that brand. And it's not the one off cut where you can notice it. It's that over the, the thousand paper cuts is where that life is lost. And I always use Gucci North Face as a, as a, as an example because Gucci's in a very difficult position right now as a brand. And when you look back to what the brand was doing within the last five years, they started doing these collabs and making brand decisions that weren't in line with their pillars. Because like the North Face was not the Gucci customer and the Gucci customer is not the North Face customer. So although that it was really interesting in the moment, it didn't build for the brand for where they're going.

Philip (13:37)

And just so everybody knows about the social media masterclass, we got customer, lots of customer feedback that says they learn more in that social media masterclass than they did in their whole degree on marketing. So and it's only going to be available at this current price for a short time because we're relaunching it under another name. So if you haven't done It, I do it now because it's going to become quite more expensive.

Camille (13:57)

Agreed. And okay, so the brand, the four pillars, the four P's, it's your purpose. This combines your mission, your vision. So it's like you're, you're so what, why are you doing what you're doing? It's your position, it's the real estate you want to own. What is your perspective? What is your point of view? And what is that kind of like that stake you're trying to claim what is yours. And then you have your personality and you have your perception and they're very close. Your personality is your as, how you outwardly communicate, how you outwardly show up. And then perception is how you're perceived. And they're close, but they are different. And the point for you, your brand, whether it's your personal brand, whether it's your business brand, both is to define your four P's within two to three sentences. And every single decision you make, whether it's a collaboration, deciding to sponsor an event, to do a, how you're going to write that newsletter, if it's not a hundred percent in line with all of those four Ps, it's a no. Because you have to have an emphatic yes on does it support my purpose, does it support my position, does it support my personality? And does it support my perception? And if you can say yes to everything you're doing, you're growing your brand in a meaningful way.

Philip (15:11)

That's where the founder or the CEO who has a vision comes in, because you'll have a staff underneath you who are all trying to please you, get promoted, get a big win on the board, and so they're going to feed up tons of tons of options. And what happens in these big corporations is all of these kind of subordinate people start doing things that they think is right for the brand. And you don't have a unifying version of the brand. And what people, humans are very bad at judging. They overestimate what can be done in the short term and underestimate what can be done in the long term. Right. And what you need to do for your brand is have daily micro wins. So if you have a day where you stay on your brand pillars and don't deviate, that's good. If you have a day when you go off and then you have 200 of those days where you go off a little bit, you end up way off course.

Camille (15:56)

Two points to wrap up this section because it's relevant for the brand owners that are Listening. The reason why we talk about this deviation or the brand death by a thousand cuts is that Gucci, in that collaboration with the North Face, there was so much positive feedback on the Internet because it was something that had never been done before. And it was like they really kind of kicked off that, like, collaboration movement. But the problem is that that becomes a problematic lagging indicator because the team gets so ramped up that they continue to do crazy things. That takes the brand further off course. And it gets to a point where the relationship with your customer is not one where they feel personally insulted. When you go off course slowly, it's not personal. They just start forgetting about you. Like, I just stop looking at Lululemon when I want to buy more activewear because I've gone into the store so many times where I've been like, who are you selling to? I can't find anything. I don't. I mean, we, we do take a hit at Lululemon pretty often, but if not for us having a podcast, it wouldn'. It would just be me. Stop. I would, I would stop supporting them with my wallet. And by the time the brand can notice that that change has been made, it's too far gone. Because now you're in a dire position as a business. You don't have the time and money to get yourself back on track.

Philip (17:18)

Too many people seek applause. And applause is not really an indicator of long term success. Applause just feeds the ego. It's short term. And the applause that a brand might get for doing something, it's usually not from the audience that you really want to speak to. Yeah, so you're responding to applause from people who aren't your customer base. Powerful, successful people in organizations don't seek applause. They just do the right thing every day. And so if you have a business and you want to build your brand, it's harder to live your brand and say no to kind of shortcuts. But a lot of business owners and CEOs and CMOs are like, hey, we got a shortcut to applause. Right? And they deviate off of the brand rather than staying true to the brand. And when I was talking to their leadership team, when they're thinking, well, how do we address what Camille has said about the pillars? I'm like, whenever you have a big decision, identify a red team, which in the military and a blue team and a red team, identify a red team in your organization whose job is to attack this decision, to see if it aligns, if it is an emphatic yes on all of the Pillars and it makes for a much healthier organization.

Camille (18:21)

Yeah, I think that was a fantastic insight that you shared. And the last piece to wrap up on this is the reason why I created the brand pillars is because most brand cores that businesses make become paperweights that sit on your desktop and they're, they're seldom opened. Like once they're done by a marketing team, they become completely useless. However, what most business owners miss is that the brands that are killing it, that do the best online, that do the best activations, the best experiences, you could with a very high degree of certainty, almost guess verbatim what's in their brand core. Because their brand core is their guiding document for doing all things that are on brand and that's what people miss. When I develop brand cores for brands, it should come up in the content, it should come up in the way that you make people feel. And the brand pillars are designed to condense the entire brand core that I develop for brands so that you're not looking at a 32 page document every time you go to, you know, do a collab or work with an influencer. You have that kind of condensed red team concept where people can decide because you're in a fast paced environment, like that's probably socials too is you got to move fast. So you need to have an ability to make an on brand decision in a quick way. But brand cores shouldn't be something that just take up space. You have to look at them like when, if we, if you were to read our brand core you would see that we are focused on disruption being, you know, providing value, focusing on cerebral like yeah, like intelligent conversation, making people feel think. You can't say those words and so many brands do. Unless you're prepared to be disruptive, unless you're prepared to go the extra mile and do additional research and hire employees at a full time salary to help you stay on top of like it. People use words in brand cores that are not authentic to how they run the business. Everybody cares about their customers. If you don't care about your customers, then you shouldn't be in business. So if you're past that baseline, this is how you need to think in order to win. It's that simple.

Philip (20:25)

Simple brands are a leadership issue.

Camille (20:27)

So what I'm thinking is let's get into the headlines and then we can excite for those who are really interested for kind of the branding insights we pulled from all around the world. We'll come back to those at the end. Yeah, and then we'll Just move into the headlines now. So I want to let's kick it off with Aritzia buying Fred Siegel's IP because there's been a lot of headline talk this week on social media and not an analysis of what that signal represents. And I would really like to get into it with you. And plus, it's a Canadian brand.

Philip (20:55)

I just think it's hilarious that they call them the United States of Aritzia when it's a Canadian brand.

Camille (21:00)

The multiples in which the brand has gone, gone to by penetrating the United the US Market. It's like it's, people don't even know it's a Canadian brand because it just becomes so big in the US and the reason why is because it filled a white space there. Aritzia was so popular in Canada because it was a staple place that was cheaper than Club Monaco but more expensive than anywhere else in the mall that provided stylish clothing at a premium price, but that was affordable. And it's a really interesting case study of focusing on brand and experience and how that can scale.

Philip (21:35)

So why is it relevant that they purchase Fred Siegel?

Camille (21:38)

Well, let me, let me break it down because nobody has said this online yet. The headline goes. Brian Hill, the CEO of Aritzia, after a drawn out battle, purchases the IP for Fred Siegel. Why? Because his real estate company owned by, by Brian Hill and the Herschel Group, the two brothers that started Herschel Supply, own a real estate firm that owns the real estate, the iconic Melrose location that Fred Siegel kind of came to be. And for those who don't know, Fred Siegel is the epitome of LA cool. It's where the Beatles were seen shopping. It's where there was, it was, it was the epitome of LA cool. They had a no photo policy. There was, you couldn't like, it was the spot to see celebrities shopping. And what was cool is Fred Siegel was kind of this original concept store where he developed this department store that had these shop in shops. So you would go into the Fred Siegel store and it was built by effectively other brands and it was coming, it was started in 1968 and he had a really iconic logo. He had fantastic real estate and they were amazing buyers. I could find, find brand early and create these echo spheres where you were almost going into a mall on Melrose Avenue.

Philip (22:52)

I think what people with money want from retailers they trust is not. And this is where I kind of think Saks had an issue is that it was populated by brands that are already validated. Whereas if I want to stand out, be elite, you know what I mean? Spend my money. I want to go to a place where I trust the taste and the style of the owner to put in stuff that's going to be popular. So I'm leading the crowd, and I think that's what he did 100%.

Camille (23:20)

And it became a cultural icon because it was stylish, it had taste, and it had an amazing real estate. Like, the location was perfect. But here's what all of these headlines. Ms. Aritzia was modeled off of Fred Siegel. So Brian Hill's family started Aritzia as a department store 70 years before he made it the start of Aritzia, we know today in 1984. So his parents own this department store in Vancouver. It's called Aritzia, and it has an array of collections. It's like Fred Siegel, because Vancouver's on the west coast of Canada. So it's the exact same concept. What Brian Hill does in 1984 is creates his first Aritzia boutique. And the Aritzia boutique is a smaller version of Fred Siegel. It becomes a concept store. In 1984, he launches Babaton. So he brings in Babaton as its own first isolated line. Then he brings in Wilfred, which was an iconic Toronto designer. They bring that into the Aritzia store, and then they start developing more Aritzia lines. So they have TNA that starts blowing up. They have additional line cereals. And then now today, when you go into Aritzia, the brand is built up almost like this concept store where there's, like, brands within a brand. And what's fascinating in where the headlines have been starting this week is that Brian Hill's real estate firm, Aritzia, has been paying rent to it since it started owning it four years ago. But the brand couldn't do anything experiential because all it owned was the real estate. It couldn't use the sign, like, he wants to keep, like, the Fred Siegel sign. He wants to keep like, the colors. He wants to keep, like, the Fred Siegel experience. But the Siegel family was like, no, you bought the real estate. You have no access to the brand. You can't own the brand.

Philip (25:04)

I don't understand how that happens. If you're a competent business person, it was very clear if I'm buying the real estate or if I'm buying the company and the IP that comes along with it, like, that's not. But that seems like a rookie move. So I'm a little.

Camille (25:15)

Well, the stretch. The stretch is that they just wanted to keep up the Sign because they own. They own the real estate in which the sign existed upon. So they wanted to keep the sign because the sign in LA is so iconic, like the blue and the red

Philip (25:27)

coloring I think the family might be a little bitter about, which is why there was a fight, because Aritzia kind of copies Fred Siegel. But then as the marketplace changes, Fred Siegel doesn't adapt, Aritzia does. And then it's kind of like the student becomes the master. And there's a little resentment there.

Camille (25:44)

Well, that's exactly what happened. So Fred Siegel shut down because they. They didn't master E Com. So what happened is people would go into the shop and shops. It was amazing discoverability. It's where you could look at a theory shirt, touch the theory shirt, but then you'd go online and you'd buy it on Mytheresa for 15% cheaper. So you wouldn't buy it in store and buy in. Fred Siegel had such expensive real estate that they just couldn't stay afloat and it was too difficult for them to get ecom.

Philip (26:11)

Probably something that I with Fred Siegel is their buyers actually got lazy because they were, you know, if they were known for finding brands that were going to be spectacular or were hidden. But once you start putting in these other brands that are easily easy to buy somewhere else, you're not leading the front anymore. There's nothing about your service that demands that extra profit margin. If I can go into the store, look at it, and just buy it somewhere else.

Camille (26:35)

Well, there's two pieces to it. One, it's the David Ogilvy of people tell you what they feel, not what they think. And a lot of his loyal customers probably indicated that they would still continue to support the brand. Like online shopping really wasn't for them. But then Covid hit. And the problem is that all of those people in the state of California left to Texas, left to Florida, and they started shopping online. Right? Or. Or they would see things of like. And Fred Siegel wasn't set up online for a world that got shut down and California got pretty shut down.

Philip (27:08)

Let's all take a moment to remember that people got arrested for walking on the beach and surfing. That's how ludicrous thinking was at that time. Never forget that humans who listen to us that we arrested people walking on the beach by themselves or surfing, getting

Camille (27:23)

vitamin D. It's a real Laura news moment. But to circle it back to this headline, the core point of what I'm noticing here, the signal to take away, is that Brian Hill is investing in the best real estate in the center point of, of brands in the United States. To create experiential retail for Aritzia, it's creating that destination, that place where when you go to la, like when you go to Erawan, you want to take your photo, snap the selfie, show that you've physically been there. And he's taking the shop in shop concept that they built Aritzia off of. And exactly to your point, moving into the master's house and owning that space.

Philip (28:00)

I understand the cycle. I don't know if it's going to be successful because Aritzia is now a giant corporation. So if you're going to put make an Aritzia experience in Fred Siegel or if they're like, how does Fred Siegel support the Aritzia brand? If you keep it. Fred Siegel and try to rebuild it, maybe it could be a center point for designs that go into Aritzia, like trials, new things that they're finding from around the world. Like that's what we might do, is kind of say, hey, come in here. This is what Aritzia is exploring, finding, trialing so you could get first. Like, you should only put products in that store that are, that aren't available in other stores.

Camille (28:35)

If I was to guess that, to me is the direction they're going, is that we're investing in experience that's not a replica of what it is digitally, but it creates a clear destination for people to want to travel to as a way for them to. It's the gentle monster approach, right? It's like you go in, you want to experience, you want to shop, you want to take a photo and to your point, probably introduce some brands that won't be available online or like incubate them.

Philip (29:04)

My prediction, if he doesn't get the right people in there who can find products that are new, that it's going to be a cash burn.

Camille (29:10)

Let us track how this, how this, how this works, or if they find

Philip (29:14)

a way to bring creators in there. Because Melrose and what, like, there's celebrities there, but the celebrities aren't quite as impactful as they used to be. So now that more creators are going to Hollywood, you want to create a store that attracts creators to go in and try new stuff.

Camille (29:27)

The only thing that I think is interesting though is how many people I speak to that think of LA as a destination so that they can stop into Erewhon and like take a photo with a smoothie or like go to Earth Cafe. Like, there's all these, these, these idolized Moments that people want to tap into that come still from celebrity culture. Because Hailey Bieber posting that she goes to formal Pilates, like there's enough, there's enough of a consumer base all over the world that follows these people that want to, that want the crumbs of showing that they're living the life, the people that they respect. And while these celebrities and creators, to your point, continue to, to even if they don't live in la, a lot of these celebrities and creators still post when they're in LA as if because those places have cachet like they do well online.

Philip (30:15)

If I was advising the Aritzia CEO, I would take that iconic piece of real estate and try to make some sort of series. It kind of falls along the line of the article we wrote this week about the feed is dead and what we need to do, what brands need to do to be relevant. It's not just have a store where people take pictures that's two dimensional. You need like four dimensional content coming out of this iconic experiential spot that can't be replicated.

Camille (30:38)

I think that they're going to keep Fred Siegel, just revive it. Because nostalgia, which is another topic we're talking about today with the Hannah Montana 20 year anniversary. There's something to nostalgia that's the most relevant to people to be able to re experience it. And there's, there's these like it's all about niche communities. Right. Like you want to bring out niche people that know Fred Siegel is owned by Aritzia, like you and I would check it out and I would post about it like if it was done well. And I do think Brian Hill understands real retail.

Philip (31:10)

We had that conversation with, they had a brand of a top fashion house when we were, who happened just to be in Rome when we were in Rome and when we were talking about nostalgia. I think there's a trend towards nostalgia one because people were way more creative and cerebral in the past than today in terms of brands because things are fast. And I think the consumer, at least the thoughtful consumer realizes that their brains are getting blown out by copycats, by new, by kind of the veneer of something interesting. And nostalgia brings them back, as we've been talking about, to things that you knew took time to build. And then you can sense when you hold something that's really well made that it's amazing. And most of the well made things today were done in the past.

Camille (31:51)

Yeah. Which is one of the things that was actually interesting to look when I learned going back to Europe is that The European understanding of, like, the best retailers, like, who makes clothing the best is. Is those iconic designer names. You know, like, Valentino used to represent one of the best leather makers in Italy. Same thing with. With a Christian Dior, like, one of the best ateliers in Paris. Right. And like, how much, from my North American perspective of, like, growing up in North America, how it's been so commercialized to that it no longer represents this idea that still exists in European mindset.

Philip (32:29)

That's why just to go back to that store, to me, this is a fascinating conversation because learning about how the family names that became the top brands were built on a founder paying attention to detail and doing things exceptional every day. But then once it gets bought by the big corporation, people are now paying double what it costs when it was actually curated, quadruple when it was actually curated and made in the house for stuff that's being made in China in the same factory that's making something that's a quarter of the price. Like, we all have to keep in mind that why branding is so powerful. Like, humans are paying 10 times more than they should for products that don't have the value that the founder created. You know, but so there's this brand journey where if you have your own business, build that brand so you can sell it to somebody else to ruin it.

Camille (33:17)

It's actually that one of the episodes we're going to be launching is with Isabel Durano, and I recorded it in Paris, and she's the founder of Sicily. And, like, that was a core point of that episode is that I asked her in the end, what is a brand to you? And she's like, a brand is the founder. And she's 87. So she knew Chanel, she knew Evie St. Laurent. She knew these names. And I'm like, is it weird to you?

Philip (33:39)

Because she's like, the Kennedys.

Camille (33:41)

The Kennedy. She's like, but when. But I mean, we're like, on the brand side because she's like pine a porter. The idea of Ready to Wear was like a. Was an insane concept because Christian Dior was an atelier. Like, you went to him to get your dress made for the ball, right? Like, these were not houses that just had, you know, $3,000 T shirts for you in a store that were made in China. And, like, the last piece ditched in Italy. Like, the name meant something. The entire family had to work in it. There was restraint. There was discipline. Your entire status in society was based on your ability to create fantastically made products with the best Materials. And I, when I asked her, I'm like, is it weird for you to see, like, YSL exist when he's been dead for. She goes, it's the weirdest thing in the world because the YSL brand was just. Was just Yavi Saint Laurent. Like, it was just Chanel. Like, it wasn't this idea of that this. These names, these ghost people can get. She's like, I don't understand how these. These brands, they just bring in these random designers and they create product. Like, what's the value of it? Like, Chanel isn't there anymore. And it's such a fascinating.

Philip (34:47)

People are still paying money for that legacy.

Camille (34:50)

Well, that actually ties us. We can jump into that. The ASAP Rocky headline where ASAP Rocky has dropped his first collection as the creative director of Ray Ban. And he tapped, you know, his buddy Nos for the campaign. And the. The drop inspires these 90 inspired slim wire and rimless frames. But what's interesting is that this kind of role of creative director in brands, they're trying to revive, like, ownership of taste and how that's extending into. It's really becoming a job that I kind of want to battle on this. Like, more important than the CEO because, like, operational, like scaling a business is obviously super integral. I can't talk about it not being a part of a brand. Cause I say a brand is like a symphony. However, if you're not staying relevant because of taste and how to leverage taste on socials, it doesn't matter how well your. Your business is run on the back end.

Philip (35:48)

More important than a CEO, I think it's more about the life cycle of the business. When raybrand brings in ASAP Rocky, they're giving away brand control. So essentially what they're saying is we don't actually have a brand anymore. We need somebody else to come in to create something interesting for a client base, you know, because if. If Ray Ban had a brand that you can have a creative director who builds a brand for Ray Ban, but if you have to bring somebody else in who already has a very strong personal brand, and now people are buying your product because ASAP Rocky says wire rim glasses are cool when they exist in DID a month ago in another store. What you. You're now on that downward spiral that the only way to stay relevant is to pay people to come in and collab with your brand because your brand's not strong enough to sit by itself.

Camille (36:32)

See, I disagree with that because Ray Ban, all of the styles, the Wayfair, like, all of the. Everything about Ray Ban still exists in Sunglass Hut. Like, you can still get all of those products. This creative director role creates an added layer of relevance that allows us to talk about Ray Ban and to have these select styles that come out that create a cultural moment.

Philip (36:53)

Okay, but it goes back to what Isabel said in your podcast. Right? The brand is the person who drives the company's vision, who says no to all of the. All of the wrong things, who makes the decisions. Like, this is where society's kind of got to this spot where everybody's opinion counts. Amazing leaders are kind of out of style. So what you do, you bring somebody else in and they say, hey, this is cool. Right? And it goes totally contrary to what Isabel said to you, that if you're just going to bring other people in, then what is the brand other than money buying collaborations?

Camille (37:23)

Well, you're not wrong from a purist standpoint of, you know, was Christian Dior better when Christian Dior existed? But what's interesting about the world of fashion, which Ray Ban is actually taking from what the luxury brand houses do, is they bring in these creative directors and the brand remorphs to the vision of that director. So Matthew Blasey Chanel feels very different than Karl Lagerfield Chanel. And it's kind of. It actually makes fashion more of an art form where you can reinterpret the brand and maintain its brand codes through. Through a lens of somebody, another artist coming in.

Philip (37:58)

That's where we disagree. If I bring in a creative director who doesn't have an overwhelming personal brand. Right. A$AP Rocky has a. His own personal brand, and he's creative and stylish asap. Rocky should be building his own stuff. You think because he's. He's his own.

Camille (38:16)

He's an artist. He's. He's a. He's like. He's a rapper and a singer. Like, he's got his own art.

Philip (38:19)

Like, why would I go to Ray Ban to make sunglasses? It's kind of. It's kind of easy. But so if you hire somebody who is an amazing creative director who can understand the history and legacy of the brand and then stay true to the principles in a way that supports the brand, that's fine. When you bring somebody in who's eagle forward because they are the celebrity working with you, you're actually diminishing the Ray Ban brand. You might be profitable because you'll sell more stuff, but in the long run, Ray Ban just doesn't mean anything to me. All that. All people care about is the person who's collaborating with them and they're just now manufacturing sunglasses that other celebrity influencers are suggesting asap.

Camille (38:55)

Rocky has a creative agency slash clothing line brand. If only Third Eye Insights could demand clothing sales. It's called awge. So like he has a brand and like he owns a creative outlet. So to me this makes sense.

Philip (39:11)

How does it make sense? Either you have a brand or you help other brands with their creative. But like I'm not going to bring my competition in and do creative for me when they can do, they can make their own brand that competes with me.

Camille (39:22)

How do you think that Ray Ban can release a new style without some form of like hype or affiliation with someone that's relevant?

Philip (39:31)

I think the same way that Charvet makes great products. Like if you want to take care of your brand long term, you make great products. You communicate to your audience that you are maintaining your brand promise and you don't take shortcuts. But what I can just see a bunch of people in a corporate boardroom who are part of this new generation who thinks everything is cool, everything is fashionable, let's take shortcuts. This sounds like fun. And they just destroy, you know, they end up speeding up the death by a thousand cuts by taking a shortcut. Like why would you bring somebody in if you're a painter? I wouldn't bring in another painter to help me paint something to sell more paintings if I want to build a legacy as a painter.

Camille (40:14)

Charvet is a family owned, 200 year owned brand. Ray Ban is owned by Luxottica, which is the one of two oligarchies. It's not a privately owned label.

Philip (40:27)

Those people are ruining brands. We say that all the time, that as soon as you're owned by a big corporation, they don't make good long term branding strategy decisions, they make short term financial decisions until they can essentially strip all of the brand value out of the company. So it's just like the old companies that would go and buy a corporation and then strip mine it, selling its assets that have been built out over 20 years until they toss it away. Like that's what's happening to Ray Ban by partnering with people that aren't part of the, like, if you're amazing, your brand is about your design. Like so if you can't design your own, like, you know, I'm just saying, like it doesn't make sense to me from a brand perspective. I think it's amazing that it's got a creative design agency. But the question is if your brand wants to get recognition for your design. You know, generally you don't want the person who comes in saying, hey, this is my design, not the brand's design. Because then what are you, other than somebody who hired somebody else to come in and do your design?

Camille (41:25)

But if the data points within a brand is relevant for the strategies that make sense, like Ray Ban has a vast catalog with more than 400 different styles of sunglasses. They were sold to the. From the original brand in 1999 to Luxottica. They're now owned by an oligarchy. And Ray Ban is utilizing, I think, actually a more fashionable angle by only producing a few styles with someone that's fashionably relevant at the highest end to create affordable products for the masses. Like, it's not like it.

Philip (41:57)

To me, I actually think affordable products for the masses.

Camille (42:00)

Yeah. Like, Ray Ban is more like, who

Philip (42:02)

the hell wants to buy sunglasses that are affordable products for the masses? Like, I might as well just get

Camille (42:06)

them out of drugs, the ASAP Rocky fan base, right?

Philip (42:10)

Like they can afford. They buy big chains, they buy expensive shoes. Like, I don't want to buy affordable products from the masses at the drugstore. I want to buy something that I think is curated luxury. I'm not saying it's not going to sell. I'm saying it's ruining the Ray Ban brand. But you have to look at it at a different time horizon.

Camille (42:28)

What made Ray Bans originally iconic is. Is not where the brand is today. Right? Like Ray Ban now is a brand where probably 20 of its SKUs carries 80% of the brand. Right. When you look at those more iconic styles like the Wayfarer or the, the Aviator. But also I think that they have the right to be able to bring in new designs that's like top of funnel in order to make more people think about the Aviators and the Wayfarers.

Philip (42:56)

I applaud you for sticking up for the rights of big corporations to flood the market with products for everybody. But I'm talking about the purity of the brand. And we've talked many times, times about how these big corporations like Luxottica and the others who are in the luxury brand are just strip mining the brands that were built over decades. And yes, they're going to get sales, but if you got like 200 types of glasses, you're probably lost your. You've probably lost the plot.

Camille (43:24)

They kind of have, like, there's an element to the brand that's like a bit, you know, like my dad might have, like Ray Bans, but like not the cool Ones, you know, and like, because he sees it as like a

Philip (43:35)

safe staple brand, it had beautiful placement because it means that it was in Top Gun. Like Tom Cruise in the first Top Gun War Ray Band aviators top. Tom Cruise also wore the other Ray Ban Wayfarers, I think in. I don't know if it's risky business, but a couple other movies.

Camille (43:52)

Oh, yeah, yeah. The Wayfarers are risky business. Yeah. It's even the COVID image of the movie.

Philip (43:56)

Yeah, like they were actually cool back then in that way, but they designed it so then you had faith in it.

Camille (44:01)

Like, but they were cool. But they were also cool that like the average person could have asked for it for Christmas, you know, like it was something that was like an affordable. Like an affordable luxury. Right. Like, you probably had aviators when you were young.

Philip (44:14)

Like, were you saying I was poor when I was young?

Camille (44:16)

No, I'm saying you didn't. Like your family wasn't super loaded.

Philip (44:20)

Look, I don't like being attacked for my history.

Camille (44:22)

Okay? I'm just saying, like it was something that people. I just think this is. This is actually.

Philip (44:25)

Mom and dad worked really hard.

Camille (44:27)

They did work hard. I just thought you're being annoying on this topic because ASAP is.

Philip (44:31)

He does still like to be around.

Camille (44:32)

Wrong. I don't think I'm wrong.

Philip (44:34)

Let us know.

Camille (44:37)

Okay, guys, let us know. Let's move to Wuthering Heights and the movie backlash. So what happened? Emerald Fennell's upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, which I'm sure you see on. You've seen on Socials, the style has been absolutely incredible. Is facing massive backlash. Aside from casting controversies, there's uproar over the studio allegedly paying over 2000 influencers to force organic looking hype. So what happened is that the movie or the movie's agency hired over 2,000 influencers to talk about the movie before its initial launch. So basically creating pre hype saying that the movie was incredible. Whether or not they saw it, we don't know because it was before the official launch of the movie and they paid people to say that it was great. And the initial box office was 35 million in the first weekend. It did fantastic. So clearly there's a correlation between doing all of this hype and driving people into the theater. But the overall question that I want to talk about is one, what do you think of this practice? And two, where does it go?

Philip (45:44)

I think the headline behind it is designed to create controversy. Like the word, the wording, like forced organic Looking hype, like, Jesus Christ, that's all every business is doing. It's just a scale. Like businesses are hiring influencers all over the time to create hype. They're using the word, but I think. So it's a question of scale. And it's often subtle. What is successful and what's not. Just like, what is art, what is garbage is subtle. If you spend too much on influencers before the movie's out and people just instinctively know the movie's not done yet, and you're saying it's amazing, you lose credibility, right? And for these influencers to have effect, they have to have credibility. And I think it's more relevant in the future where for a fraction of the cost, I could create 50,000 AI influencers, you know what I mean? To start pumping social media with accounts of how great it is. And I think people are becoming much more sensitive to inauthentic content on social media. And it makes them turn away from it because they did a great job with their style. But to kind of. Somebody got a little too ambitious with forcing it down. They should have tried to kind of make it quiet luxury, right? Like whisper campaigns. Look how cool this is. Instead, I think they might have gone too far and gotten some backlash.

Camille (46:59)

I think what's relevant about it is I do think that we'll see another pendulum swing like how we did from moving away from celebrities doing the hashtag paid ads to more of that UGC model, which were more of like regular people showcasing testimonials and reviews on videos. But now how that's almost also become saturated look, and trust is dwindling for

Philip (47:20)

a lot of the creators out there. You got to make money, but it's a form of prostitution. You're selling your opinion for money. You're selling your time for money. What consumers want to know is, do you really like the product? If you're just saying you like it because you're paid, it's a form of prostitution. You're just selling your opinion to a corporation and you're going to lose your audience. So people are going to move towards creators and influencers who say what they really feel, not what is a bought opinion.

Camille (47:45)

I am not interested in going and seeing that movie in theater until people that I know in real life tell me that the movie is good.

Philip (47:54)

You know who I love the most from an influencer perspective? The critical drinker. I don't know if you. A Scottish guy. But like, that person has no problem on YouTube saying exactly what he thinks of a movie ripping it apart, loving it. Like, that's where I go to for movie thing. Not some random person with 10,000 views who tells me it's great. Like, I just don't care because I just assume they're bought now, right? But if somebody has their own organic channel that's paid by viewers who trust them, that's where I'm going for information.

Camille (48:22)

The only thing I think is relevant is, like. Is the topic of the movie though, because Wuthering Heights was written by Bronte as. Or was it James Austin? Yeah, it's Bronte.

Philip (48:32)

You're gonna get some heat for staying there.

Camille (48:34)

No, I mean, I had. Well, when I was in English lit, as my literal major in university, I did an honor specialization in English language and literature. And I can say I read a bunch of both. And they both existed as.

Philip (48:45)

All right, good flux there, female.

Camille (48:47)

But my point, it makes. It adds to the point it made. Both of those authors were. They created the genre of, like, female romance novels, right? Like, so it was designed for the masses, for women who were sitting at home to, like, get hot and spicy and, like, have, like, this. This man that, like, was like, dark and couldn't be tamed. And, like, they end up getting into this, like, this love story. Topically, they both existed for the masses. So I do think that the purchasing of influencers is relevant for the average person who's scrolling that wants an excuse to do something with, like, their girlfriends on the weekend. It probably makes sense to have like, that fake hype on social media because there's enough women that just want to go and see that style of movie.

Philip (49:32)

This is where maybe we'll talk about it later. Like, big organizations are inherently inefficient and make dumb decisions. And there's actually a science behind why. But you can create all the hype you want, but it's not an experience. So everybody's not going to watch on the first day, right? Like, people are. And so if all of this hype is created, then there is actual real people who have influence who will watch it when it's released and will say, this is bullshit. So if you kind of make a hype that there's something really controversial there, you build all this. People are like. But then the second it comes out, it's going to come up on their feed. This movie was garbage. You know what I mean? It didn't do it. And then nobody will go and buy it. You spent all this money, so it has to be based in something that's actually true. You can't Kind of hype it into existence.

Camille (50:11)

Yeah, I totally agree but actually that's a really good, a really good sub point is that for brands. Oh thank you so much. I got money deliver to me and money the dog, not money cash. Although I would be happy with both. Okay, so what's actually really funny about that is it was a kind of a, a theme throughout our European travel because we were in Europe for a bunch of the big brands that we work with is that if you are prepared to move quickly, have a clear understanding of your brand spend on digital and and create experiences and activations, you have a disproportionate ability to win during this small window. Because these brands that are established that you look up to are so paralyzed to do anything digital without a clear KPI that you have such a window to crush them. And they have no idea because they're so busy at their, in their marble, their castles to really be analyzing why brands on TikTok shop are crushing it it why? Because it's often a founder in two people who are able to crush like chucking out, getting affiliates, creating ugc, posting content that's interesting. These big brands can't move that fast. So it's never been a better time to lean into brand building over marketing trackable metrics. The point is that you're not going to beat brands on their retail placement. Like you're not going to beat just department store brands for having relationship with department store brand. You're not going to beat legacy brands on getting media buys in vogue or having these relationships with established players. But where you are going to beat them is being aggressive, moving fast and being on brand building a digital community. And that's where there's a such a massive space to win is that they're focusing on trying to find someone over six months to write a substack and they have no consistency in doing it. If you're a founder and you've got something interesting to stay, start now and start doing it every day. Because they can't move digitally quickly.

Philip (52:13)

Yeah, I think there's deeper strategy that can be examined there. Like the military analogy is like don't get into a tank war on the European planes with the US or Russia when they have thousands and thousands of tanks. Right. But you can pick off market share by doing guerrilla operations, by speaking to your audience through authentic content. But too many people are trying to fight the war on the terms of the big players. Whereas if the founders just doubled on on what their specialty is and cut pieces of market out Slowly, they can actually win in the long run. But it's. It takes a long time.

Camille (52:45)

If I could tell you one thing to master this year is digital community. Master that. Master understanding how to create a series. Master how to create a community online. Start putting up polls, start showing behind the scenes, start trying to post every single day. Start trying different formats in a way that's like consistent and community and world building. Because once it starts working and you start generating momentum, you will be ahead to be able to invest in other areas. And it's. I can't, I can't explain how mind blowing it is when you're working, because we work with brands at the highest level. When I go in and I'm like, how do you not know this? Like, for how much money you make, how are you, one, not on top of this and two, not aware of this. And if small brands that were launching knew this, this, they would be like, so much more confident to keep moving into it. But, like, you feel stupid and you feel like they're probably about to launch or they're planning something or you don't know and you aren't rushing that master digital because the rest will come.

Philip (53:49)

Like, we can get into that more. Do you want to move to the next one?

Camille (53:52)

Yeah, we can move to the next one. So I want to talk about two campaigns this past week that caught my attention. The first is Reformation. They partnered with Laura Wasser, who is the most iconic divorce attorney in Hollywood. She doesn't have a big following and she's not going to go viral online. And Givenchy did the exact same thing last week. They partnered with Annie Levievowitz, one of the most iconic photographers of all time. Both of these collabs will not go viral, but both of these collabs signal something very intentional to their community of shared values. And it's a really interesting move of moving away from just paying Sabrina Carpenter to, like, be, you know, the model in Prada beauty, to moving to creating relevant moments to the zeitgeist of your consumer, because your consumer has a very common explore page. And that's what makes actually this whole idea of like, it's like niched monoculture. Like girls who like fashion, who like beauty, probably are, are seeing the same headlines that I'm seeing versus someone that like, like, may like sports or may like cooking. Like, your feeds kind of shape these like, mon monoculture moments. And Reformation partnering with Laura Wasser is so intelligent because in the past year my feed has been filled with divorce rings, divorce parties, these, these moments of where it's the kind of like really kind of cool, hip, like relevant thing is like, like celebrating divorce because so many people are going through it that it's, it's becoming a thing to make it accepted, opposed to, like shameful. So Reformation partnering with Laura Wasser signals a bridge to sell into that mindset that's already existing on social media.

Philip (55:39)

Yeah, it makes sense. Like I think the trend is there's a little anti male trend out there. So like that that's making people feel like they don't need men, which could be true or could not be true. True. But bringing in a celebrity like that I feel can be totally on brand as opposed to the A.S.A.P Rocky we did. Because you have somebody who's, who's a very powerful figure who represents what the brand is trying to showcase, which is independent, powerful women don't have to apologize for not needing to be with a man. Right. And so she is the perfect representation of that. And the additional creative of brilliance behind it is humans love irony and humans love kind of like authentic interest. And so bringing in a divorce attorney that fits perfectly into what the brand is to kind of talk about it, to create a shared community of women who can say, yeah, screw that, I'm now this. Like, it's actually a great use of irony and positioning to support the audience.

Camille (56:36)

It's exactly that. And the reason why it's brilliant is that so many brands that do collabs want to try to protect themselves off of projecting the numbers. So Alex Earle has 22 million followers across all platforms. There is a likelihood that we will get the exposure view count of 421 million by this many posts. And therefore this collaboration is safe. What's really fascinating with what Reformation did is it's more tied to that gentle monster model that they told us us in that they create these crazy collabs. Not that Laura Wasser is, but not necessarily to sell that collab, but to bring people in to create that moment of relevance so that the brand creates a deeper connection with its customer base. And sells more black, black sunglasses.

Philip (57:27)

Like I loved it. Because you could have brought in somebody who had a high profile divorce, you know what I mean? And is like kind of saying, yeah, I'm cool now. But it's, it's, it's more like the granilla, the guerrilla warfare that I'm used to that you actually bring in the lawyer who destroys men, you know, so that women can be free of them. You know what I mean? Like they're actually kind of bringing in the female champion who helps other females. Like it's much, it's much better thinking, of course.

Camille (57:52)

Right. It's like that is. And that's why I love about this. But what I also love about this is almost more simply is that I saw it, I went high and it made me think about Reformation and it improved my understanding of Reformation because now I think there's smart people behind that brand and I'm more likely to buy a flower print summer dress later this summer, you know, like, because that brand is more connecting with me. So it's actually brand pillars in a different way is that at 100% reinforces their brand pillars in a way that moves them more into that right direction of connecting with their shared value customers. Because. Because the reformation customer is an, is an educated woman. And it's an educated woman living in city centers that wants sustainable clothing, better quality products in a way that is like not extremely expensive and stylish. And by tapping into this, it checks all of those boxes to be that emphatic. Yes.

Philip (58:45)

And it's amplifying a real skill set because Laura Wasserman is hilarious to listen to and incredibly smart and says smart things. But she's only heard on the odd TV show talking about out divorce or in court. But by bringing her into your brand world so she can communicate in that hilarious and intelligent way like it will entertain her inner circle.

Camille (59:04)

You added a man. It's just Laura Wasser.

Philip (59:06)

Laura Wasser. Sorry, but sorry. I'm always adding a man to

Camille (59:12)

great. Say, oh my God, that was amazing. Love that point. Let's talk about Cardi B. She launches her hair care line, grow good beauty. And I. It's not the first time that we've said this. I feel inundated by celebrity back brands. But I, I do want to give kudos to Cardi because this one not only feels different, but we have to celebrate when celebrity brands do things right. And I do feel that this is something that felt very in line with the Cardi B universe.

Philip (59:41)

No, it's, it's definitely a better campaign than a sunscreen endorsement by Cardi B. Yeah.

Camille (59:46)

Or just like a random shoe line,

Philip (59:47)

you know, like so get the sunscreen shot. But you know what I mean? Like it really, your brand has to resonate with something about you for it to be effective. And like she's authentic in the, in this product launch. Like it makes perfect sense.

Camille (60:00)

Well, I mean her socials are legitimately iconic. Yeah, she is hilarious. Like honestly, she needs to be the next Judge Judy. Like I would tune in and watch and just like how it's also, she's like made for short form clips. Like she's literally an icon.

Philip (60:15)

When we're in la, we should reach out to her and say, hey look, let's, let's create a judge, you know, a judge Cardi show.

Camille (60:20)

But the thing that I think is actually really interesting is that she's been sharing her DIY hair masks for years. She constantly shows up on social media with like her bonnet on. Like her hair is like marinating and she's like giving shit to the world and because it's become like a repeatable content format for her and a way that she's built trust and credibility with her tribe. It make and it's. And it's been something that she's been doing for literally years. And that's very different than, I know I'm on some NDAs but like there's a really big celebrity that we may or may not have been already talked about in this episode who's launching a skincare brand and all of a sudden she starts posting about her skin. You know, it's been like the last six months.

Philip (61:02)

Yeah.

Camille (61:02)

And once this comes out, you guys will not be shocked.

Philip (61:05)

And all of the pictures of her have always been highly curated. You know what I mean? Like you're not really seeing that many natural pictures, like of the person being known for amazing natural skin.

Camille (61:16)

Well, no, it's the opposite. This person is showing how bad their skin was and then how they like saved their skin. So. But it's like once, you know, if you knew behind the scenes, like how constructed this whole thing was not on the cardi b side, it, it's not like it's what's wrong with, with branding at the current moment. Like when you've got a platform but Cardi B's feels authentic.

Philip (61:36)

But this is where I think our program and people need to find other influencers where you can actually get real information. Because the power of branding, when it's done well with a big budget, can trick the consumer into buying things that don't really, that aren't as authentic. And so you're paying more. So that's why the crate, there's, there's kind of tribes of creators out there. There's the ones for sale and there was the ones that actually inform their audience. What makes her, her such an enjoyable person is that she's not trying to be perfect all the time. Right. Like when she did those contents with, with that hat on and everything, like she's Just being, she's great at what she does, but she's showing her community, her inner circle. This is me, this is what I'm doing. I don't look perfect here, but you know, like there's that element that, that contributes to trusting her in her celebrity brand launch. Right.

Camille (62:25)

I'm glad you brought that up because it, I do believe, and I want to make it clear, I do believe that when you have a platform, you have the right to be able to monetize that because you put a lot of work into building that.

Philip (62:37)

Absolutely.

Camille (62:37)

And especially for artists where so much of your hard work is taken from you, for all of the players that have their hand out, you know, and that by the end of the line where you get it, even though you still make a lot of money, it's so much more enticing to now have this like free market opportunity where you can go directly to them. But taste is such an important variable and there's too many people with platforms that are being advised by the wrong people that are hurting their name because it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and five minutes to kill it. And the productization of these celebrity backed brands is, it's, we, you're, it's too soon to be able to see the trajectory of how it's going to hurt you and how, how important it is to do these moves. Right.

Philip (63:20)

Speaking of taste, it's probably time to talk about the sponsor of this podcast, Bear Protein. It is one of the only bee isolate protein powders out there with 21 grams of protein and zero carbs. It is a no brainer if you want to get your daily protein requirement without all of the fluff because as I always say, if you can't read it, you shouldn't eat it.

Camille (63:40)

So let's talk about eBay acquires Depop from Etsy. And this is, this is quite interesting because they lost $420 million on the sale. So Etsy purchased Depop years ago as part of a, a consortium of brands. So they bought this kind of house of brands which included Depop, ELO7RE and Reverb and all three of them have tanked. So all three of these brands did not work. And what Etsy's plan was is that they wanted. So Depop is a used clothing and things platform that's predominantly owned. That's like Gen Z, it's a big Gen Z platform. And what's interesting about Depop, it's like where you would get like a Carhartt zip up or it's where you get things that are like, there's tons of luxury stuff on it, but it's more for like trending iconic cultural pieces and a way for Gen Zs to like sell clothing when they're done with it. So Etsy purchased depop thinking that Gen Zs would come over to the platform and it didn't work because Etsy didn't have the infrastructure. They're also very different customers. The person who is buying like a handmade woven, you know, purse from Turkey is not looking for that car heart zip up from 2001. Right. Like, it's, it's just. It wasn't actually a smart acquisition.

Philip (64:56)

Sound like they should have had a brand pillar red team before that acquisition

Camille (65:01)

or like a plan, you know, and like the problem is like for how well Etsy is doing the. The. The brand was like tanking its ebitda, so they offloaded it at a huge loss. But what's intelligent of what of why ebay purchased the. It is eBay is purchasing it for plumbing. It's like it. They're basically adding in ebay's infrastructure with what the community and the demand that depop has because ebay has put a ton of money into verification. So they, if you purchase like a designer bag or designer jewelry, they have like entire inspection sites. They have like an entire model of where it's like ebay verified. So it costs more. It takes more of a commission out of the seller that's putting it on there. But there's, there's a trust built into certain products that you can purchase that come with the ebay guarantee. And they like store them in their facilities. And it's, it's allowed ebay to really resurge because it's been in a weird place. It's. It's an older brand, but they're not bringing on new young people. Like, people, younger people aren't thinking about ebay for designer goods. I think about ebay for designer goods, but I'm like a legacy ebay user. Whereas younger people think more of like the stare or real real or whatnot in Depop. So because Depop was a failing asset at Etsy, eBay is seeing this acquisition as a way for the brand to be able to bring an entire new generation into its platform by maintaining that brand but providing the infrastructure that ebay already has.

Philip (66:29)

Yeah, I was just looking up who owns Julia Ring White owns the real real and to me like that. That seems like a great acquisition target for ebay or she should have raised money to buy Depop because the real. You know what I mean? That would have been a great kind of capital acquisition for ebay to do. It's good. Like they're, they're trying to be the Amazon or keep up with Amazon, but I don't know if.

Camille (66:53)

But here's the problem. RealReal is in a difficult position because they own a lot of the inventory. They have to hold on to a lot of the inventory. It's a scaled consignment model. Ebay doesn't own any inventory other than this stuff that's gone through verified sellers

Philip (67:07)

that would have helped the real real by going in.

Camille (67:10)

They don't have money. No, they don't. They don't have money because the business is scaling at a slower rate because of the, the cost that they've had to take on. But then ebay has money. But it's, it hasn't done a good job of, of maintaining bringing younger people. They're not relevant like ebay is not culturally relevant, but has a lot of transaction fees.

Philip (67:28)

EBay doing that is. It's kind of linear. It's like, oh, this will bring young people into our store. The user experience with ebay isn't. It has. It hasn't changed much over the years.

Camille (67:38)

No, you're right.

Philip (67:39)

Right. And so they're going to bring inventory into their selling thing, which is interesting.

Camille (67:44)

In November, RealReal announced its quarterly earnings, another round of profitable growth that still didn't quite lead to profitability. So they're not profitable. So they're growing, but they're not leading to profitability. Gross merchandise value is up 20% year over year. Revenue grew 17% and adjusted EBITDA margin increased ever so slightly to 5.4%. Yet it was all teetering atop a reported 54 million net loss. Building a profitable luxury business, as we've seen time and time again, is not for the faint of heart. And basically it goes on to say that the problem is that it's real. Real is efficient on the surface. But its model of requiring sellers authenticating. They have a consistent constant photographing model. Like the infrastructure in which they maintain a brand standard is very expensive and it's hard for them to grow profitably. Whereas ebay, it's up to you for how you upload the photos like what it looks like, but they're not maintaining a brand consistency other through the verif, like the verifiability. So ebay just has better infrastructure that has more money to acquire a brand like Depop.

Philip (68:42)

If their revenue is going up, they're real. Real. And as somebody who goes on there, they haven't really modernized their. Their online experience or their. Their social media. So the RealReal actually has good bones. They have some brick and mortars. They have a lot of trust of people who use it. And it's the first place a lot of people think to go when they have luxury products. So they have a great foundation to build. It's just. It's harder to be profitable in that model. But when you build up a community who actually trust you implicitly and you have some stores, to me, this move for them would have been a better move on a path to profitability. I don't know if it's it. I think ebay may have picked up a deal here because Etsy wasn't getting anything from it. But yeah, I think we should talk about real real more. I like that. I'd love to advise that owner to help her grow because I really respect that they take the time to make sure things are validated that it's not. They're not. They're not. They're not focused on the quick transaction. Like, I think they're building a brand and they just need some help modernizing it.

Camille (69:40)

I think that you should expand on that because. But to my point, it's a relevant detail that. That ebay purchased it for 1.2 billion in cash.

Philip (69:49)

Like that's it spread out over five years.

Camille (69:51)

Yeah, but still, like, it's. That's still a huge chunk of change. So it's not as simple to be like, it was a strategic move for ebay to do it because the competitors that probably could have benefited from it more couldn't afford it.

Philip (70:04)

It seemed like a better acquisition for RealReal than for an ebay.

Camille (70:09)

Loved that argument. Let me know, guys, what you guys think on the Etsy slash ebay slash. Should Real Real have purchased Depop? That is the question. To wrap up this episode, I want you to. I want to just give a quick highlight each of us because we didn't really give a quick highlight of the brands we fell in love with in Europe. You're wearing your Charvet shirt. We also went to Moulin Rouge. I think those are two great things that we could touch on.

Philip (70:31)

The beauty of Rome is it's the eternal city. So things have lasted, you know. And one of my highlights was when we went to this store where they make lampshades, which actually sounds like a skit on Saturday Night Live. But there's a store in the old part of Rome that has like four generations where they Made lampshades, like, and it was just spectacular going to this little craftsman spot where they would make curated lampshades and to talk to the person who did it. You know, that's the kind of thing that I love about this business, is meeting those people who build things that matter and are struggling to stay alive. But, you know, the reason why they're struggling is they need to take that expertise and brand legacy and bring it into the digital world, you know, and it was amazing. He's just like, oh, we can't ship. It's too expensive. Like, like, I would pay three times the amount for a lampshade that was custom made in his, his studio in Rome that I would for any other designer lampshade.

Camille (71:27)

Yeah. But I think that's actually the core difference is like, I love Italy. I love probably Italy like the most because of how they execute on all the things. But Paris is better at brands. And like I, the, the kind of the. The two that really stuck out to me were Charvet. It was so cool to be able to finally go there. It was the first thing we rushed to when we got off the plane. And if you haven't heard of Charbet, they. It's probably the most famous shirt tailor. They actually created the idea of only creating tailored shirts. It's almost 200 years old and it's at place of Ann Homme, which is one of the best pieces of real estate you could have in the world. It's like the most iconic place. But what's so cool is that Matthew Blazey did a collab with Charvet on the. On his first debut fashion show and he charged $4,000 plus for one of these Charvet shirts. And it increased search results by like 600% because a lot of people hadn't heard of Charvet in the. And it's. Charvet is a perfect example of like, if you know, you know, quiet luxury because it was like.

Philip (72:31)

So then it can't be the most famous.

Camille (72:33)

If you know fashion and you're in that fashion world. Charvet is like an iconic rite of passage because they've been doing it for so long and it's a family owned business and they haven't compromised on their standards. But what's cool is like, so their shirts are €500 each, which is expensive. But you have to understand that everyone that's around them at place of is like Chanel level. So like how Chanel changed the shirt slightly. They like added a chain and they made it $4,000. Is the world in which Charvet has been surrounded by for 200 years and they have not changed. Like their price of their shirt is the same.

Philip (73:12)

Yeah. Like, I feel like we're the Anthony Bourdain and brands kind of seeking out, you know, cool experiences in Rome. But the one thing I wanted to do in Paris was to go to Charvet because I'm a big fan of Winston Churchill, you know, and other iconic leaders.

Camille (73:25)

JFK went there. I mean, everybody went there.

Philip (73:27)

So without fanfare, they would just go there to have their shirts made. And so I'm wearing my Charvet shirt because I wanted to buy a Charvet shirt even though it's expensive, but the price point is less than like a Dior shirt. But the Charvet shirts are made there in France. They can see the fabric in the store. The tailors are there like the people. There are iconic, stylish people who aren't like kind of store but store bought luxury groupies. Right. Like, and it's in the same real estate space and you really feel special. Like the, the thing about when I left with that shirt is I didn't, I'm not like, oh, I got a Dior shirt. It's like, no, I have this shirt that has history. That means well made. Right? It's still expensive for a shirt. But if you're going to spend that amount of money on a shirt shirt, don't buy a brand that's charging, you know, a Tom Ford shirt or whatever it is, you know what I mean? That's made in China in a factory that's, you know, that may be producing other shirts that cost 1/10 of it. Like it was a beautiful experience to see the employees who were protecting the brand in there.

Camille (74:30)

They were so brand protective. The space was so iconic. Like what Philip's talking about. There's a whole floor of just reams and reams of fabrics. Like it's so overwhelming. And they make custom shirts and they embroider your name and it's an entire

Philip (74:46)

like a four month wait, waiting period if you want to get a, a custom shirt made for you.

Camille (74:51)

Because there's just so much demand and they've got their like iconic slippers and they don't they. What's so cool about this brand is it's become so iconic, but they, they don't have that like Ritz Paris, like exit through the gift shop shop, you know, like they're not trying to sell like charvet swag. Like they haven't changed and the people that work there respect the tradition and it's, you know, If. If you were to. If you're looking for, like, a search for meaning in branding, Charvet is kind of one of those last places where, although it is expensive, like, luxury should still exist in the world. Like, you should still pay for, like, handmade tailoring in France. When the products made in France and. And the fabrics are only from Europe, like, that is when. When you want real luxury. That's it. And that's, like, why it was so iconic that Chanel did that collab and that the world searched Charvet, and Charvet didn't do a price hike. And that's even what the people in the store said is they said, yeah, like, Chanel really put us kind of on the map at a different. In a different way, because, you know, they. They've been around almost 200 years. They're definitely on the map, but it expanded because of that. Like, and they almost didn't like it.

Philip (76:02)

Yeah.

Camille (76:03)

Because they are true quiet luxury.

Philip (76:06)

Yeah. And it's beautiful to discover it for the first time. Right. Rather than have it kind of projected to you through advertising. Like, if you're advertising, it's not really as luxurious.

Camille (76:15)

And I just want to really quickly touch on Moulin Rouge, because we went to Moulin Rouge in Paris. I mean, I'm x. You're gonna give me another fricking comment for this too, but performing arts students. Look, I was dying to go see one of the performances that have, like, become one of the most famous in life. And I was worried going into it because of that idea of, like, don't meet your heroes.

Philip (76:38)

You know, like, your heroes were the answers.

Camille (76:41)

No, the idea, though, of, like, when the idea of something doesn't match up to the experience of things. I was worried that it was gonna be gimmicky or like. Like. Or kitschy, and that I was going to be sad because of, like, where it's located and, like, how big the line was to get into it. But to me, it underscored a simple but integral learning in that great things are great and you can't. You can't cut corners on greatness. And I loved how great it was from beginning to end. And I want to touch on that very quickly because I do think that those moments are missing. Especially in North America. You get more medieval times, times experiences, then you get Moulin Rouge when it comes to, like, a dinner and a show.

Philip (77:24)

Vegas is kind of that example. Right. Like, there's a lot of money there, but, like, a great Cirque du Soleil show is a great show. Right. Like, and they've. Cirque du Soleil is building a brand, but I think they're diluting their brand because they're putting it all over the place. And so the quality of the performers isn't. Isn't as good as it used to be. So it doesn't leave the same impact to you. But what Mulan Rouge just reminds me is, is the founder or the leader owns the standards, right? And so if you own a business or run a business, like, you own the standards, and you can choose to compromise them or dilute them. But, you know, what I got from that show is that they were maintaining very high standards of entertainment performance. And they executed beautifully.

Camille (78:05)

And how the dancers looked like they were beautiful, fit. They were the top of the class. They were what you want to see when you go to see a performance. And it's crazy that we need to, like, say, hey, that's something worth celebrating. But they maintain a standard. And that is, like, when you. When you speak about greatness, you have to maintain a standard. I don't want to say that. It's not that it's not for everyone. It's that standards require sacrifice, and that's what they did so well. And another thing I want to talk about is, like, their focus on experience. So one of the things they do that's very cool is, is it's a very big auditorium and, like, kind of performance area, and they do it by batches, so like, 20 people get to go in at a time. So that by the time wherever you are in the line, we happen to be, like, maybe the third or fourth group. This space already had a buzz. Like, it wasn't like a matinee. You know, when you go to, like, a. Like a regular theater show and kind of everyone entrance in at the same time, it's kind of chaotic, and everyone is finding their seats. They were really focused on only bringing in small groups at a time. So there was a buzz in there. There was a vibe in there. They had a live performance before the show, so there was live music and there was a symphony.

Philip (79:17)

And that one guy wasn't the best.

Camille (79:20)

Oh, my God, you're right. That's the only wrinkle in the story, is that the guy sucked at singing.

Philip (79:24)

He was doing the triangle. But then he was like, I think he was trying to get his chance to sing. And it just. It was.

Camille (79:30)

But he looked the part. He really did look the part.

Philip (79:32)

I'd have a different take on bringing people in slowly. It's time can be tied to luxury and experience. So if you can afford to move slowly, it shows that you, you have something worthwhile. And so by bringing in just 20 people at a time, the people who went in there could experience the space without the crazy chaos. Because if everybody was just pouring in, it would be overwhelmed with the noise of people sitting. So by bringing 20 people in, like it gave you two minutes to enter into the space and to settle into your chair. Like it made it a very elevated.

Camille (80:06)

It also made the. You're right. It also made though the course dinner a high end experience because when you go to medieval times, everyone eats the same time. It's literally catering slop. They like hand you the cob of corn. They like hand you the one bread.

Philip (80:19)

People know medieval times are like, there's a corporation that just, you know, buys an arena and they have like horse jousting things. And it sounds amazing and it's, it's, it's a performance, but it's just not executed as well.

Camille (80:31)

But it's Also why Mulan vs has existed for a long time. Time I also loved too. And this is if, if you're still listening, a core point for your brand. Give them a memento. Give a token that's worth keeping. So the first thing they do when they, when you walk in, they hand you in. They hand you like a, A gorgeous cubble tin that's red that has like chocolates inside and it says like Mulan. It's a heart shape. And they hand this to you. So as soon as you're walking in and you hear the live music and you can see the space, you're given a gift. And then as you're walking and you go down, then they have the menu and they ask you what options you want from the menu. Menu. And then they tell you that menu is your gift. And they're creating these moments of like, you don't have to exit through the gift shop. You have a memento that's worth keeping. If you want more, that's on you. And I respect that European of like, we're not pushing you to buy more. We're making the experience great. So that when you leave, you tell everyone you know, that that was a great show and that's why they've existed for a long time.

Philip (81:27)

It was a great show. Great. I was impressed by the quality of the performance. Especially kind of like they had their own Cirque du Soleil element of it. That was really well done. And I could feel that it was rooted in French culture. You know what I mean? It Actually spoke to something about the geography of where I was, something about the culture. And they nailed the space they're in. They knew what they needed to deliver, and they delivered it exceptionally.

Camille (81:51)

Yeah. And I also. We had talked about this too, offline. Like, it wasn't a sex show. It was a show that had. No, No, I mean, laugh all you want. I mean, Mulan Ro.

Philip (82:01)

It wasn't a. It wasn't focused on sex. It was a wicked performance that had a sexual element to it.

Camille (82:07)

Yes.

Philip (82:08)

Right.

Camille (82:08)

No, I. But I. I think that for people who may not have been to Paris or might not have gone to the show, these are all relevant. Like, I want these two items to, like, hype you up so you feel like you've learned something from the show so that you want to travel different. Because the whole point of, like, living life to the best is, like, knowing what brands are going to treat you right and give you a great experience. Because at the end of the day, Charvet and Moulin Rouge were fantastic memories. Right? Like, that's what it's all about, is, like, evoking emotion.

Philip (82:32)

You know, it captured an element of what makes France special is that they're a little bit avant garde. They'll take risks, but they perform at an excellent level. Like, it was very, very entertaining.

Camille (82:42)

It really was. Well, I'm so happy to be back, guys. This is a fantastic opportunity to remind you to please subscribe, like, and share this content to somebody. You know, we do this every week because we love this and we want to give you guys value so that you can scale and grow your business and brand and live your best life. So help us out by sharing this content forward. And we have a lot of really exciting updates of, as we've been talking about on the episode, an event in person. We're finalizing dates. The planner is coming out. There's just so much exciting stuff, and we are so thankful that you're part of this journey with us.

Philip (83:15)

Till next time.

Camille (83:16)

Till next time.