B (1:59)

Specifically Beverly Hills podcast studio, in our fancy Colombian jackets. Colombian attire, just after the Golden Globes. Lots to talk about.

A (2:08)

Yeah, Yesterday with the Golden Globes, it was cool. I got to be behind the barricade of the red carpet for our client, Molly Sims, which was cool to kind of see the. The commotion in action. Getting. Seeing all the people getting ready.

B (2:24)

You know what's been my least favorite thing about being in LA and Beverly Hills with you this week is the amount of people coming up to me and saying, hey, are you on that podcast with Camille Moore? And they don't know my name. So just, you know, take the time to get to know my name. I have feelings, too. I know it's easy to hate me. I know it's easy.

A (2:38)

I don't think people that listen to the long form every week don't know who you are.

B (2:43)

It's probably they see the short forms.

A (2:45)

And they see you as the villain, the villain in the clips. But I actually have a different approach to. I want to talk about the award shows because we've been ripping on the award shows for them, needing to become more relevant. And I actually have a different take now that I've kind of been here live for it and seen the behind the scenes. I think who's really dropping the ball is the networks, because we wanted to watch it last night and it was like, near impossible to get some kind of a stream or a way to activate. And for the majority of people, they're just seeing the clips now on social media. Like, there isn't kind of an evolution of how to make the award shows, like, hyper relevant so that you can tune in.

B (3:28)

I think CBS had a. A collab with YouTube TV and that was them trying to move into it. We were just having issues because our accounts are rooted in Canada and so they wouldn't let us do it.

A (3:38)

But still, like, why?

B (3:41)

That's just regulatory nonsense that exists between countries in terms of how they regulate, which means that's so modern, the old airways and licensing. The same reason why you don't get the same commercials in different countries.

A (3:51)

No, but I, I understand that. But if you're moving into being on YouTube, that's actually. It's a.

B (3:55)

Would you ra somebody watch it than not watch it?

A (3:57)

Yes.

B (3:57)

You know what I mean? That's what seems odd.

A (3:59)

Like, you're just getting all this earned media value for, like, views on outfits. But, like, I, I didn't know who won. I had to, like, search again this morning. Like, I didn't get to see the full, like, speech.

B (4:09)

Like, there's a lag because we ordered. Because we rented a house, like an Airbnb. There's kind of a lag that. The TVs, you can kind of log into it, but they don't have cable now anymore, so you can't just turn on a TV and watch it. So you kind of got to log in through your own channels, but if you're traveling, you can't log in. Like, there's a gap between getting people the views when they need it.

A (4:29)

It makes no sense that they can't figure it out if we're in it or they're not taking the time to figure it out when we're in a social first world.

B (4:37)

Yeah, it was. It was amazing to be kind of behind the scenes, seeing the Golden Globe stuff going on. Like, you know, I was looking at it through the lens of what is the personal branding statement all of these people are trying to make. Yeah, their outfits, their hair, where they're.

A (4:50)

Going, it's how serious it is.

B (4:53)

And are they communicating the message they want or are they just trying to seem popular? Like, I saw a surprising lack of strategy and some people who were doing.

A (5:01)

Things very well, I thought was cool as I had the. So Molly Sims, one of our clients, she owns a cool beauty brand called Wise Yse, and her husband is the producer of Frankenstein, which was one of the movies that was on the docket last night for an awards they didn't win, sadly. But I was chatting with them in the. In their room where they were getting ready at the Waldorf, and I asked him. I asked him two questions. One of them was, do you have any idea, like, do you know, going into this, like, based on where you're placed or where you're sitting, like, if you're going to win, is there, like, any indication? He says, no. Basically, the way that the seating is set up is the front of the room is like the movie stars, because they want the cameras to pick up the, like, big names, big faces. Then the kind of second portion of the room are the TV stars, which always pisses them off because in many ways, they're as relevant if they're on, like, big TV shows right now, but they're pushed kind of back, and then behind them are the spouses and partners of the people who are at the front of the room and influencers. So apparently the room is so packed now, like, people don't even get plus ones because they're trying to bring so many influencers into the Golden Globe so that they can make it obviously more relevant because of, like, the dying of the eyeballs and who has more relevancy. But to me, it's just so interesting that they're taking such a focus to get more eyeballs on the event, but they're not getting the event more eyeballs.

B (6:31)

The live event element, like, there's Probably a lot of utility in getting multiple views over the next three to four days while it's live. So it gives them time to curate, to produce ugc, to talk about what they saw. So it kind of extends the lifespan of the coverage of the Golden Globes by having that there, I think.

A (6:50)

Yeah, totally. And moving on. So we actually also, I'm sure you guys all saw, we shot some podcasts this week at alohq. What movie is it from? Where, like, I've got some explaining to do.

B (7:03)

Oh, no, it's from I Love Lucy.

A (7:04)

Yeah. Yeah, you've got some explaining, Lucy. You've got some explaining to do. That's how I felt when we were there. But it was funny. One of our good friends who's high up in pr made it happen. And it's funny today is I. Actually, the only thing that aloe requested is that I sit down and I hear their strategy on the aloe bags. So I will report back if I have a change in opinion on the.

B (7:28)

Aloe bag strategy, which is interesting for context. We kind of did a piece on the aloe bag and discussed whether or not we thought was a hit or a miss. And I think we. We labeled it a bit of a miss. And we've taken some. Some constructive feedback attempts with Alo. So walking in there, we felt like, you know, we were going to get judged. But what's interesting is that they. They want to explain it to you so you can understand it. And. And the kind of. What I take from that is, well, if. If you really have to explain it in person. Right. You're probably not messaging it. Well.

A (7:58)

Yeah, but I actually, I. What I think is more cool is that the content that we're creating, brands want to at least provide. Like, they're not writing it. They're not writing it off. Right. They want to take the opportunity to, like, sit down.

B (8:11)

They care about your opinion.

A (8:12)

Yeah.

B (8:12)

Which.

A (8:13)

Which I thought was hilarious. I also thought too, though, that, okay, so two things. One, they have, like, their bags in glass cases, like, near the elevator. One of the bags is actually pretty nice. Like, if they gifted it to me, I wouldn't be mad. It was like a big bag for laptops. Would my opinion change if I got the large suede bag? Maybe. No, I'm kidding. But the thing that I actually thought was the most interesting was seeing the Alohq in person because they've used Alohq as such a strong marketing strategy to like, to kind of catapult the brand to have cool brand status. Because, like, the day after we were there, Hailey Bieber was doing a yoga class there. Like these, they bring in these big names because they have these high end facilities that they don't charge for. And I thought it was interesting from a world building perspective. It made perfect sense why aloe was cool because in the lobby it's all dogs. Everyone brings their dogs to work. Everyone's literally in aloe pajamas all day. They had like IVs that were in the lobby. There was very much a brand to the HQ that was consistent with like the models and the feel that the brand puts out, which I thought was interesting.

B (9:20)

What I thought was a bit of a miss is that brand is the first time I've seen that type of that feeling from Alo. Like I don't get it in their store. I find their store is like cluttered with too much stuff. Like kind of almost trying to compete skew for skew with Lululemon or something else. So I don't get that feeling when I go into an outlaw store.

A (9:38)

You're not wrong and you're also not there.

B (9:40)

Should capture that because I like this.

A (9:42)

They should have made it more like Aritzia stores where there was this like coolness feel to the stores. Not these like massive. We have way too many SKUs. But I also think too the problem with it is the retail strategy of how they rolled out in Canada. Like what the locations they picked because they took over really big footprints for the locations that are in Toronto and the ones that we've gone through in the malls. Because the one in Aspen is pretty cool.

B (10:09)

I went in the one in. In Rodeo and I just.

A (10:11)

Oh, you went on that one too.

B (10:13)

Feel like the headquarters.

A (10:15)

Yeah, yeah.

B (10:16)

Right. And so there's a disconnect in kind of the brand messaging. They're spending money to make their headquarters feel like Google.

A (10:22)

Yeah.

B (10:23)

You know what I mean? It's. But it's not at the kind of on the ground where the consumers are. I'm not getting that feeling. So it's usually that disconnect can be a problem.

A (10:31)

Well, the disconnect is a problem.

B (10:32)

Yeah.

A (10:32)

And I think that that's what it like it. Has my opinion changed on Alo the way that we've talked about it. No. But do I see the potentiality for Aloe to be not only what it was but to continue in that vein? Absolutely. Because it. There is a consistency at the hq. Like the people that worked there were super fit, were good looking. They were living this kind of health and wellness. Like the HQ was Very much a Google HQ to health and wellness fitness. That parallel existed. But I agree with you, it's changing in how it's rolling out, which is gonna hurt the brand because if the coolness that exists doesn't exist at the in store level, then it will be a scaling problem.

B (11:18)

Very true.

A (11:18)

Okay, we're gonna get into our topics, but we also shot a lot of really good episodes this week. High level. What's your favorite episode? So that our listeners can get excited for tuning into those, because those will be guest episodes.

B (11:31)

Well, I just had a personal bond with Jason, the founder of theragun.

A (11:35)

Oh my God, I love that episode.

B (11:37)

Human being, you know, a founder who needs to tell the story a bit more because he has so much depth of experience and so much to share with the world. And I hadn't really been exposed to him that much prior to. Prior to the podcast. And to me it just seems like a giant resource not being used to. The brand is doing very well, but it did. I think it's done very well because of how much he invested in the 10 years.

A (11:59)

And his wife.

B (12:00)

Yeah, that was wife too.

A (12:01)

We went for dinner with them afterwards. And his wife, Amanda Henry also was so involved in the building of the brand and they haven't leveraged her at all whatsoever. I really loved that episode. I loved him. I think it's awesome when you experience a brand and it's as good or better than what you figured. Right. Like, it. It really had all of those elements of a. Of a good brand.

B (12:25)

To me, it kind of spoke to the founder's journey. Like you care about something, you invest your life into making it at great sacrifice. It doesn't happen in six months. You know, it happens in. I think he called it his nine years.

A (12:37)

Yeah, it was nine.

B (12:37)

You invest so much on this journey and then it pays off, you know, and then you build something. It's an amazing. But then all of a sudden, these kind of. The founder's journey then always encounters this friction with kind of business people coming.

A (12:51)

Yeah.

B (12:51)

Right now. Bean counters who don't care about, you know, the passion. You know, I'm not saying this happening there, but I'm just saying there's a. There's always a founder's journey. You make it. You hit the success and then you're kind of like, now the corporation has its own energy going in a direction. And what does a founder do and when they care so much about helping humans. Fascinating podcast.

A (13:11)

Oh, my God, it was. And we also shot Chris McMillan who was like the Godfather of hair.

B (13:16)

Did your hair.

A (13:17)

He shot. He shot. He did my hair. I got the Rachel. We also shot.

B (13:21)

My haircut was done by Giuseppe. He's an amazing barber.

A (13:24)

Not Chris on Rodeo. Yeah, we shot Molly Sims, who. That was a great episode. Super, like, all the feels, all the emotions. We shot Sir John, which was a great story. Super famous makeup artist. And then after this episode, we got Symbiotica and Ryan Roth, who is the son of Peter Thomas Ross. We got a lot of really good episodes this week. Look out for those. Let us kick it off. So let's start with. We're in Hollywood, and Lemmy launches a campaign with Kris Jenner. And it was interesting because when it first dropped, we saw it right away. And my initial reaction was, hmm, that's interesting. But I wasn't as sold as you were right away. And I do think that that's worth reinforcing because Philip actually really has, like. Like, he really is an admin. Like, he sees things early. So you really actually got it right away. And I want you to break down why you liked it. And then I've got some points to add to it.

B (14:28)

I think for context, it depends on your. You have campaigns sometimes that you want to hit instantaneously. But like good wines, good movies, good brands, good campaigns take a while to digest. There's layers, you know, like an onion. Shrek would say, like, you kind of feel some more things. And so I really enjoy when you can look at something and there's kind of the obvious message, but you can see some stacking. That's a new term everywhere now, but I kind of call it brand stacking and contenting.

A (14:55)

Content stacking, yeah.

B (14:56)

But the aesthetics of that ad just was interesting to me when I first watched it, because I could see they had a bunch of things they were doing there. They were speaking back to kind of the decathlon days of Bruce Jenner. Yeah, right. So there's a little tongue in cheek. There's some interesting stuff there. The fashion vibe was kind of aviator nationish, so it was kind of picking 70 years. And then she just seemed interesting. Like, I was paying attention to what she said, so I thought it was empire building.

A (15:22)

There was also the element of, we have the Olympics, but there's also, like, the Patriot Games, which is, like, another big headline. So there was a lot of different themes. And to your point, what's interesting is I had done a deep dive after that creative, and I went on Lemmy's page, and I realized that they've actually been investing in these, like, Storyline creatives. There's a few others and the one right before is Kim and she's a lawyer and they're in the court and they're in Lemmy court and they're fighting as if they're on the reality TV show. And what's good about what they're doing is they're tying a creative concept to the authenticity of the brand. Right. Like it's authentic for them to have Chris tied to being an Olympic decathlon athlete. Talking about building an empire. Like when there's those layers to makes it more than just like throwing money at a creative concept, it speaks to the underlying storyline of what people are looking for when they're buying that product. Like you don't see Lemmy and you don't say that's Kourtney Kardashian's brand. So tying to that authenticity is what allows it to break through on the Internet so that it's not just another high end creative because ultimately they have a lot of money to spend. And I think it becomes complicated for brand owners to navigate. What can I learn from this? If they have so much money, but what they're doing. That's right. Is well done storytelling.

B (16:49)

That particular ad focusing on creatine. I think creatine for the plus 40 crowd is a huge market.

A (16:56)

No. Even for young people.

B (16:57)

Even for young people. But I just mean for the plus 40 crowd. Like it's a huge market but you're now seeing people talk more about it. So I think it didn't quite do enough on the kind of educate or focus on creatine. But definitely they're onto something. And I think people over a certain age would have watched that ad for the full of it because she just looked. She looked vibrant, healthy and entertaining, surrounded by an interesting background, but talking about something really relevant to her market.

A (17:28)

I think you brought up a great point and in that it's absolutely not relevant for their brand. Like their brand is not focused on. It's not like a Peter AA brand. It's not like it's not founded by someone that's at the forefront of thought, leadership and education. Their brand focusing on entertaining and them killing it on TikTok shop strategy and to me makes sense. I think it would actually not make sense if they were trying to educate on creatine value because that's not its brand.

B (17:57)

They could sell on a live TikTok shop by speaking to a certain audience. Like, you know, you can do some really interesting things there.

A (18:03)

There's space for her to do more. I would say that the. The criticism I have is I fear there is a market cap to the way they're doing it because it lacks education and awareness. But I don't believe that that would come from a creative like this. The question is, does Courtney follow Khloe and have a podcast where she interviews these kind of adjacent expert people so that she has that as a pillar that adds to her brand? But the point that I'm trying to underscore is brand strategy is what's the most relevant when it comes to creative ideation. Because we're also going to talk about David's Protein later here and this. And when there's so much noise on the Internet, you have to figure out what creative strategy and what storyline makes sense for your brand. So would that creative storyline make sense for a brand like David's protein? No, because the founders of it don't have an authentic story to tie to like that. So it's. It's understanding the parameters where your brand exists within and figuring out what makes sense. But to your point, and you saw it early, that's actually a smart. The line, the. The direction they're going down. Like making Kim a lawyer in another creative and showing her in a court setting and then fighting like they do on the show. It is brilliant for tapping into the equity they already have once.

B (19:18)

I'll say it again, brand is strategy, and most people do not understand how to build a strategy. Cool.

A (19:24)

Let's move on to the next one. So the rise and fall of AI in creative industries. So we're going to take two different approaches with this. For me, Molly, who's a model, and Katya, who works for us, is also a model. And they were talking about how. What's happening in the modeling industry right now and whether can you resist these AI twins where they're making an AI version of you. Do you sign the contract where they allow you to make this version of you that they can utilize so that they don't have to fly you all over the world and do these creatives. Or do you resist it and it. It poses an interesting conversation for, like, there's even criticism or. Or maybe not the right word, speculation that even refi. Like a big beauty campaign just used AI models in creative ads and kind of, where is this going? Is it good for small brands? Is it a problem? And I think you also, being a lawyer, it allows for an interesting dialogue.

B (20:22)

The legality of that is complex. Like, you need good lawyers to protect your image, your own ip, you know, that's an issue. But what's more interesting to me is AI has become a shortcut, you know, and so as people rush into something, it's kind of, there's a lagging indicator. So I think in the future, what people are, is not going to be what people are doing now. Like, like just creating AI, like the content that I see, everybody who's doing content right now, everyone I know who's doing content, everybody who reads content, it's almost like the exact same AI.

A (20:54)

Yeah. It's not this, it's not this, it's that.

B (20:56)

And it's. At some point you have to be like, look, am I really, am I really reflecting my personal brand brand by just chucking out stuff that seems more complicated that's done by AI? Because I think there's an AI fatigue going on right now.

A (21:10)

Oh my God, Major.

B (21:11)

And it's taking away from the creativity. And what we're always telling people is your personal brand, your brand of your company, it has to come from the creativity of you. You can't delegate the actual creative juices to an AI bot or else you're just going to spend money and fall behind.

A (21:29)

Yeah, yeah, it's complicated because when I look at even what I'm receiving from clients, like there's signal versus there's noise. Everybody wants to stop paying UGC creators to maximize UGC Creative from a, from an AI generation machine. Everybody loves the idea that they don't have to spend $65,000 doing a short campaign clip and they can outsource the entire thing to AI. And I think the last few weeks of our episode I've had some version of like AI creatives where to me it's not interesting when the barrier is so low that anyone can do a campaign that feels off brand to like get a headline. And it's when. But what's complicated about that is there's this small area where it might have made a ton of sales off of that AI model that they used to shoot and to run ads with that nobody knows is an AI model because they're not publicly talking about it. And that might work. And sure, they might have made a few hundred thousand dollars and like, that's something and that's awesome. But is that where this is going? Probably not. Because if you analyze what works for the UGC community is that the idea was that the consumer had trust because it was a real person that wasn't famous, that wasn't payable. Like when I look at the ads that our clients are running, UGC Creative is becoming Less and less impactful because of the exact reason that you can go on programs like Billo and you can buy a hundred pack of credits and you can just have people that have never used your product talk about it and it look authentic.

B (23:02)

That's a differentiator with a different. Because you can see everywhere. UGC is dead. Well, it's not dead because consumers don't want to connect with a brand at a personal level. It's dead because UGC is being corrupted.

A (23:15)

Yes.

B (23:15)

By overuse, by AI, by undermining the trust relationship. So UGC is not dead. You know, as some of these influencers on TikTok or whatever are saying, you know, scripted, curated, unauthentic. UGC is not ugc.

A (23:32)

Yes. Well, that's exactly what I want to get into as well. When you look at like Lemmy's strategy. Cause we just talked about them, they're doing over 13 million a month through an affiliate network on TikTok. It's brilliant. But the reason why it's working is because it's real girls with real followers that are creating content to people that look like them, that buy like them, that have shared values like them. So they're authentically selling product to real people. And that's a critical difference that brands are missing. Is this, this fake UGC creator has no community. It like nobody knows their face, nobody follows. So to what point does that continue to work?

B (24:10)

This is, this is where we see a lot of frustration in kind of founders and CEOs, is that there's always agencies that will come to you. And there's a fickleness now. We see people bumping between agency and agency or whatever.

A (24:21)

Yeah.

B (24:21)

But there's a fickleness where somebody goes, hey, this is a new thing. Let's take a shortcut to take advantage of it. And if, if you're, if you're in the first 10% of a trend, you can get a bump for it, but generally by the time you're hearing it, you're past that 10%. Now you're investing money following a trend. It'd be way better to invest in your own creative and then have people who are telling you things that are working. But there's just all of this kind of flashy bells and whistles that people are following with. And it's. You gotta, you gotta stick to the basics, which is authentic ugc.

A (24:50)

Yeah. And I mean, you brought up another point too, about the writing of the captions. There's actually an article that was in the cut this past week and it was saying basically like how shitty it is to have an employee that like everything they do is chatgpt and you have to like rewrite it all and like the kind of this chachi BT like, like, like mess of just this content that like there's so much there but it doesn't say anything. And how that's like such a different issue of it. Like there, there has to be an accountability when you own a brand to genuinely want to invest in the eyeballs and the intention of like your, of your community. Like you can't use the word community and then just cut corners on all areas of like your community is reading the caption, they're reading the script, they're like looking video. Like if you're just completely outsourcing all of it so you can end your day at 3 o' clock to get to happy hour and have a Mai Tai. Like it's not, it's not going to work.

B (25:44)

Like the analogy is, imagine a Christmas card that's like printed off as opposed to one that's handwritten, right? Like if you know, it's the worst thing though, the worst thing is a card that's printed off but it's made to look like handwriting. Like to me it's actually more offensive that now you get these cards that's fake handwriting. So it's like, look at me being authentic. It actually corrupts the idea of what's going on. And I think that's a trusting that's being broken here. I want to do a quick piece on AI and leadership and how AI reveals something that everybody should know about leadership. There's four types of leaders. When I was studying leadership that one of the best militaries in the world identified years ago. There's the lazy, unintelligent leader who this military thought was harmless. They would just put them as ceremonial, right? And think of this from your own context in your business. The leaders you've seen, so you've got lazy and unintelligent. They generally, they don't create much work, so they don't do much harm. And so they're seen as rather harmless. There's the workaholic intelligent person. They were deemed to be the ops people, the COOs, the people who get stuff done. But often they're not the leaders because they're much more useful just working their butts off. The leaders of this military that had the best leaders they saw were intelligent people who were a little bit lazy. They would sit back and look at the 30,000 square foot picture and they could make good decisions and have a vision. But where this is relevant to our AI discussion is unintelligent humans who are very ambitious and workaholics, they deem to be the most dangerous type of leader and so you have to remove them. And you can see this with AI now. You see more and more people who aren't that and they're not that intelligent, but they're using AI to generate tons of stuff. They're working all day long and it's creating work for everybody and everybody's got to go through these long documents and something to keep in mind in your organ. And I bet you everybody right now can imagine that kind of dumb workaholic who makes everybody's life miserable by starting projects, by doing all this stuff. So put that in the frame of reference of AI when you're using AI. It's not an excuse for hard work and you need intelligence and AI. But stupidity in AI can triple the workload of your good people and cause frustration.

A (28:04)

I mean, I feel like that could be like literally the theme of the whole episode because it's so real. Like you can see people that can just produce an insane amount of work product, but it's completely useless. But it actually makes me want to go into the separate segment, which is because we've been talking so much with brands this week while we've been here in LA about kind of. And while we've been here, OpenAI launched this like ChatGPT health kind of concept and it's this dev dedicated GPT that is kind of like your health companion. And what's interesting is we've been having so many conversations with these health and wellness brands and they all seem to be having some launching something that has to do with AI so that you can get more out of their product or their protocols or within the world that they're trying to tap into with this kind of AI adjacent app or product. I wanted to talk about, is it a problem for brands to be doing this? Should they be like, should they have to be connecting with AI or the opposite, which is what I just said should. Is it a problem that they should be avoiding AI in the context of this kind of this a companion that's like an AI chat bot or something that they can communicate to that like dials in based on their own data? Or is this unnecessary for brands to build a further community?

B (29:28)

Humans aren't going to be replaced by AI. They're going to be replaced by humans who know how to leverage AI intelligently in the medical community. Specifically, I'm thrilled to see ChatGPT coming out with health because often the organizations, associations and institutions get in the way of progress and accessibility of the public. It's been proven that AI diagnosis is more effective than doctors at getting the right. It's, it's absolutely proven. Yeah, but you're not seeing it being used. It's proven that autopilot on airplanes are better than pilots. But the pilots don't want to like lose a seat in the, in the cockpit to AI because they're protecting it. Doctors don't want to lose their ability to bill. Lawyers don't want to lose their ability to control things. You can use an AI and come up with contracts. Right. So all of these professions and institutions and experts are trying to protect their ability to build. Right. But ChatGPT Health is where it's going. Like if you're looking at getting into med school, I don't know if there's going to be family doctors in the same way there used to be. In the future I think we're going to need healers who can understand humans at a tactile level, touch palpitate and see something. And you don't need an encyclopedia. Brain, brain. The AI has that for you. You need to be able to read a human being. So I think there's going to be a giant shift in, in the healthcare space. And if you're a doctor, a healer or you have a business, your personal brand has to be built now because AI will replace it if you don't have that connection with the community.

A (30:53)

You're so right. But the, the, and that was very important to say that. But the kind of conversation or the different angle to, to consider it, does it make sense for like let's say hypothetically, I don't know if this exists. Oura Ring is launching an AI assistant that you can talk to to ask questions based on the data that you're seeing. We're criticizing the use of AI in brands. Is that something that is like a necessary that brands should be getting ahead of? Just like leveraging AI to better build a community relationship with their, with their customers? Or is that something that is passe, overdone or they should avoid?

B (31:33)

You should use the resour the best way they can be used and AI to process information and data with millions of calculations a second. That's a good use of AI, but your forward facing interface with your client should be as human as possible.

A (31:46)

The only thing that's complicated to it is there's obviously a bunch of reasons of why? It's intelligent data capturing, like allowing the ability to have deeper conversations with customers that allows you to like upsell products later. My only question is how do you keep it non. Like if every brand is launching some form of like an AI coach or AI companion that ties with their product or services, it's gonna be like how everyone launched an app. Like I don't want my phone to have 300 apps of like a McDonald's app and a Tim Hortons app and a like it. That's kind of I guess like my question of how do you, how do you make it novel or who. I guess even we can leave this as it is and we can track them as they continue to come out. But it was just an interesting thing I thought about this week with this headline.

B (32:29)

Yeah, when it comes to health, trust is the most important thing. And generally people build trust with a human interface. So their challenge is going to be to build trust with their client because health is. And staying current. Because if I can establish a trust relationship with some sort of health product and it works for me, I'll stick with it because it's too much to change.

A (32:47)

Yeah.

B (32:48)

So they got to invest on getting trust early.

A (32:50)

Yeah. It's interesting. Even when I was thinking about like for the, like the office, like these AI I had, I've had to call some service providers recently and they have like these AI calls call like call services where you're not even talking to someone. And on one hand I'm like, it's actually kind of brilliant to get ahead of because I think the standard is going to change for people. Like I don't care if you're, if your business closes at 6:30, like if I'm calling at 8:45 I would, it'd be convenient for me to be able to, or at least my AI agent to be able to like get something booked in, start figuring out some pricing. Like it's kind of an interesting. There's two sides to it where I think the world is going to evolve to more AI. Oh, interesting. Katja just said that the restaurants in Toronto are using AI as a hostess. But like that makes sense to me.

B (33:34)

On the phone, on the phone they don't have to answer the answer the phone. It takes away the ability for the hostess to kind of fit in like better people, you know, because they always have their reserve receipts.

A (33:45)

Right.

B (33:45)

So there's always going to be an element for good humans. But you have to, you have to amplify yourself with intelligent use of AI.

A (33:52)

Right. Next topic, Starbucks Enters the beauty space. So Starbucks is reportedly preparing to launch a beauty line. They. We got this from a LinkedIn. Someone has become the, like, head of beauty at, at Starbucks. So we're, we're forecasting a line to becoming. What are your thoughts? I've got mine.

B (34:13)

Okay. I'm gonna try not to have too many haters there, but when I think of Starbucks, I do not think of beauty. Like, in the past, baristas used to be cool people. Like when it first came out, they were cool. Now when I see baristas, I just see balls of anxiety. Starbucks should be getting into the nose ring hair dyeing buying market maybe, right? Because that's, that's.

A (34:32)

Here we go again.

B (34:33)

But from a beauty perspective, there's nothing about Starbucks that, that speaks to beauty. Right? Like, I like, get my name written on a cup. I don't know how Starbucks is going to become my morning routine in terms of a beauty perspective, but I'm interested to see what you say.

A (34:46)

I think that it is super intelligent and I will tell you why.

B (34:52)

All right. And I will destroy you after.

A (34:53)

Please destroy me after. Okay, so number one, this is, is totally the Sephora model where they're gonna have a gondola that's like, as people are waiting in line, they're gonna have lip glosses. It's gonna be like a lineage, like sleeping mask. That's like peppermint mocha or pumpkin spice flavored. It's allowing them to tap into these cultural moments in a way that isn't as fleeting. Like, it's, it's going to increase their average order value. And it's brilliant because when I look at the Americanization of Tim Hortons, so Tim Hortons was purchased by an American company. When you go into Tim Hortons now, there are like, it's a very small kiosk of like, pens. They do like stockings at Christmas. They have like accessories that are at the front while you're waiting in line to buy products and food. Because Starbucks has gone to the kids, it makes perfect sense for them to have like lip glosses and tchotchkes that even could be bag charms. That allows Sephora to be more culturally relevant. And that's what they're foreseeing because Starbucks wants to sell more and be more relevant and to the people that they're selling to. They've already proven this with mug sales and with cup sales, they want to be able to sell something else because there's a cap to how many cups and mugs you could have in your house.

B (36:04)

Look, mugs make sense on the brand messaging. Like I let. Especially when we used to love Starbucks and you would travel like, you love having that mug. It gives you that sense that you feel warm and welcome. Like most Starbucks now they've taken out tables so you can't sit there. You don't feel warm and welcome there.

A (36:19)

True.

B (36:19)

Right. So what is the. The brand's now just trying to commoditize more sales.

A (36:23)

Yeah.

B (36:23)

You know, if they had travelers things for beauty. But I think, I think it is a divergence. It's a desperate attempt to get more revenue. And I do not want to be sitting in a lineup like at those stores where I have to like go buy everything.

A (36:36)

But you're not the customer. Like, think about how many people buy those, like their pink sparkly cups or like the bear cup that went super viral at Christmas. They can have the ability now to have. There's like this whole market of like water bottle charms. So, like charms you put on your water bottle. Why doesn't it make sense if that's already trending and already big for a. Like the brand's lost its cachet. Like, we're. We're not.

B (37:02)

No. You know, it. Maybe we'll advise Sephora to start put a little coffee counter inside their stores.

A (37:09)

It'd be smart.

B (37:10)

I don't think so.

A (37:10)

I think it'd be really smart. And so Aritzia put a. No, they put a. What do you mean? What brands are getting into is Dior, Louis Vuitton. They've all got into experiential activations, which is putting a cafe.

B (37:21)

If you can't do well, you don't do it.

A (37:23)

Who's to say that Starbucks isn't going to do well?

B (37:25)

I'm going to say they haven't done anything well for the last 10 years.

A (37:28)

Well, but you're not the customer.

B (37:29)

I am a Starbucks customer. What are you talking about? I guess Starbucks anytime I can.

A (37:33)

Oh, I'm not saying you're not the Starbucks customer. I'm saying you're not the customer for these products. There's a huge base of people that are going to buy these products that aren't for the two of us. We go to Starbucks because we have to go to Starbucks. Starbucks has like. I don't think Starbucks is going to be able to get back to being super cool with the, with the retail footprint that they have. Like, they have to make. Make do with the problem that they have. And I think this makes the most sense.

B (37:58)

If I was Starbucks, I would collab with Somebody, so they had some freedom of action so they could kind of put things in there that were responding to what's trending. But for Starbucks to come up with their own beauty brands, I think it's going to be a giant, A giant fail in the end. They're going to waste a lot of money on that.

A (38:14)

Well, considering how, how close we're sitting together, I think this was a very positive disagreement. So we'll have to see what people, what people think on that front. Okay, so, so, so we have two different headlines. The first one here is the global president of Makeup by Mario has officially stepped down from her role. So she's been with the company since it started in 2020. The story goes that she is looking to effectively retire and be with her family in Miami. So they've, they've really padded this story so that there's nothing dramatic happening to the company. Before I bring in a very different headline, what are your thoughts on the Makeup By Mario story?

B (38:50)

I don't know. I'd be interested to know what Mario is doing in this, in this relationship. Like, generally, you see these types of moves when, when a company is looking to be acquired or to go public. Yeah. Teach people leadership. Like, first of all, in business, think about, where do you learn leadership? Right. MBAs don't really teach leadership or business schools. They teach a leadership course. But where do you learn leadership? And it's a struggle for most founders because they don't, they don't get training in it. But at every level that a company grows, you need different skill sets of leadership. It's one thing to lead 10 people, it's another to lead 100. It's another to lead 5,000 different skill sets. So often you'll see CEOs replaced because one leader or CEO or founder can kind of do the zero to one. But then you need a new skill set to get from 1 to 10.

A (39:34)

Yeah.

B (39:34)

This is generally what you. You see there. But it's also kind of the end of the brand when you're, when you get to this point, the brand is now just going to be cannibalized for corporate profits.

A (39:46)

Yeah.

B (39:46)

You know what I'm saying?

A (39:47)

It's complicated because the makeup by Mario, to me is probably one of the, like, best executed celebrity makeup artist makeup brands in that he obviously hired a team where the artist wasn't the operational bottleneck, which can't be said. The same for Pat McGrath.

B (40:07)

Right.

A (40:07)

Where the artist ends up being the reason the business can't scale. I think the biggest problem, though, with the with this not makeup by Mario. But what with this industry is that these founders are creating brands to sell them. Like they're not designed for longevity. They're not looking to get into building a brand that's going to exist for a hundred years. Like that mentality has changed. It's how can I leverage my name equity to generate a few hundred million dollars or like the Hailey Bieber and road get that $1 billion kind of acquisition. So I don't think that they're looking to ipo. I know that they've been on the market market to be sold previously among other brands. And the thing that kind of sucks is if that's everyone's plan to go to market for this reason, how does everyone benefit from the same outcome if.

B (41:01)

Everybody like everybody we talk to oh, my goal is to start a business and be acquired in three to five years. Right. But who are these acquiring machines like you? We assume there's sexual oh it is going to be popped by one giant conglomerate. Yeah. So at some point people have to focus on building great things that last. Not not. But there is a plan to have an exit strategy where you can get much higher multiples if you have a proper brand, if you have a proper digital footprint. So you can get double the price or triple the price if you build your brand properly prior to an acquisition.

A (41:37)

The only thing that's complicated is I just I don't know how you how does makeup. But what makes makeup by Mario great is that he was Kim Kardashian's makeup artist and he used her as a model when he would do these master classes. And she developed makeup that felt like what was what she used for these kind of iconic looks. Where does that go if you sell the company? Like the only reason why I buy his he's got this great powder and I I. It's the probably the only product in my entire makeup bin that I use to the pan and I replace it like it's a daily product for me. And I can't say that with many products. What happens when he exits the building.

B (42:21)

That used to the pan is an interesting angle for a makeup brand. You know what I mean? Like something that like I've got a.

A (42:27)

Lot of products I really like that I don't use to the pan.

B (42:29)

No. But that would be a great creative element. You know make it by Mario. It gets used to the pan totally. Right. Like did does she is skim sell.

A (42:37)

Any makeup she that's so she brought on Amy, the founder of Amy Colette and she will be. She had a company called Skin, as she said, a bunch. She had makeup by kkw, which, not gonna lie, totally bought. Then she had a makeup by Skin, which is like skkn, which I didn't buy but respected the packaging. And then that was purchased back from Cody. And now it looks like she's launching it again through skims. And that's the whole model is because they looked at Victoria's Secret. Victoria's Secret prov it. Their kiosks at the exit of like, their body sprays and their makeups and their lip glosses generated so much revenue for Victoria's Secret. And it's a model that so many clothing brands use to increase average order value. Because when someone is going to buy a $200 pair of leggings, that's a lot of money for the average person. It doesn't. It's. It's hard to justify adding in another pair of leggings or another like piece of clothing. But to add on a body spray on the way out, even if it's $20, it just, it's a. It almost like hits a different part.

B (43:42)

Of the behavioral science. Yeah, you've already decided you're paying for it. At that point, your brain just goes, well, I'm paying this. What's another nine bucks? What's another.

A (43:49)

It literally is like bright shiny object syndrome. Like, I remember going into those stores when I was younger and I would just be like, oh, lip gloss, let me touch, let me look. I don't even know if I. I don't. I've never bought any lip gloss at Victoria's Secret, but it makes you want to look at it and touch it. Like there's so. And you know what, though? I also saw this in Colombia. We laughed before, but when I first went down the line, nobody spoke English when I was looking to interview until the mini lip glosses came out. And when we had free mini lip glosses in exchange for an interview, everyone was bilingual. It was hilarious. But watching women just completely change their state when there was mini lip glosses is. It really needs to be studied more. Like this female obsession with. With lip gloss and in mini size, there's something to it that I can have 3000 mini lip glosses and still not feel like I have enough.

B (44:46)

Interesting. Well, we can look at that. I think there's a self soothing element to lip gloss where like there's. There's a self soothing. There's a lot of anxiety these days. And so being able to buy something and then Be able to self soo with it and as it makes you look better is probably why it's very attractive.

A (45:01)

Is also so easy to lose. You know, like you can just have one in every purse and it just, it like it feels like a part of like the. It's like I'm like ready to go. I'm like Bob the Builder. I've got like my mini lip gloss. Let's go take on the world.

B (45:12)

I always wondered because we were doing so much in the clean space like with our protein powder that we're launching and some of the clothing companies working with, what is in these lip glosses?

A (45:21)

Microplastics.

B (45:21)

They're horrible.

A (45:22)

They're Coco polymers. It's so bad for you.

B (45:25)

Lips are absorbent. Like it's a type of skin that has a thinner barrier. Like it's a thinner barrier to your blood than here. So.

A (45:33)

But that's so different from the other headline which is Estee Lauder is selling off smash box Dr. Jart and too Faced, which is too faced.

B (45:44)

Hilarious.

A (45:44)

The idea that so makeup by Mario is kind of this like new age of the. Let's call them the 2020 brands where these like founders launch beauty lines. But prior to that, the Smashbox, the too faced, the Dr. Jart was kind of these brands that started that like influencer Instagram era. And it's so interesting because of how fast the beauty layer landscape moves. When I look at those brands I'm like, yeah, like how have these not been sold off before? Like who's buying Smashbox anymore?

B (46:13)

I don't know. But it is a, it's, it's worth watching what these big legacy players are doing because they seem to be, you know, there was that trend of acquiring the cool kids.

A (46:23)

Yeah, Right.

B (46:24)

But I think what businesses are finding, especially with the ones that I'm working with is that there's. They're high maintenance brands that require constant viral reality. And it's just, it doesn't actually turn out to be profitable. So you can get a bump. But Estee Lauder gets way more profitability from longevity type brands where people trust the skincare line and they last forever.

A (46:46)

Right.

B (46:46)

As opposed to boxes.

A (46:47)

Ltv.

B (46:47)

Right.

A (46:48)

Like the people will spend like thousands and thousands of dollars and constantly. That's like an interesting point is like when you're only ever focusing on trend focused brands, it's exhausting and very expensive. And what does it say about loyalty?

B (47:00)

What does it say about your brand if. If it only continues to exist? If you get viral moments, you have to constantly Search for viral moments, right? Like there's. Whereas when you have a good longevity brand like a Chanel or whatever, people will stay with you for a long time. So I wonder if there's a move away from this constant need for vi. Virality in brands. And you see from a business level people are, are, are moving away from that.

A (47:24)

It's complicated because there really actually should be this like beauty graveyard. You know, like we should like have this like visual of like the. Because you makeup and that's the problem is like a lot for the average person not for you know the 15 year old that's doing the full face of makeup every day for high school you. It takes a long time to get to the bottom of the bottle or like the bottom of the.

B (47:47)

Of the.

A (47:47)

But they need to main can continue to create demand so that you keep buying new product. So they, they, they kind of can't coexist together. Because when I look at especially with like all these clients that come in for us to do shoots with them and they bring their makeup and I look at it, a lot of their stuff they've like their brands like haven't seen in like 11 years, 12 years. Like people don't go through product that on mass. I'm not like there's obviously like there's. And that's why one of the headlines of Drunk Elephant just came out with an article today of wanting to complete. They. They were. They went all the way to the children. So they were like super famous for infamous rather for first being for like adults and having this fun kind of like approachable packaging. Kids got obsessed with it of the YouTube era with, with kids and beauty. And then these children were using like retinol and like clinically tested like skin care products. It completely tanked the brand because I am not buying a retinol product that a seven year old is using. Like it, it. It took away that coolness factor and then Drunk Elephant got into this horrible place with like tons of controversy and they just came out with this campaign of like we're not for the kids, like we're for the adults and like all the models are older again and but they didn't rebrand the branding.

B (49:08)

It's a disaster branding Dog's Breakfast.

A (49:10)

Literally.

B (49:11)

I just think like there's kind of high maintenance brands that you can buy for a bump but at some point they become a liability if you have to constantly try to get people to be excited about it because they're not excited about the product in itself. You know what I Mean and then there's like lower maintenance brands that take longer to build but have more brand value in them and so you get better. Ltv.

A (49:32)

Well, that's something that's complicated with the, the. Our last headline of talking about like Saks going under because we've, we, we're on contract right now with a few heritage brands that have had products in market for over 50 years that have like a loyal base that are super successful because people really trust the brand and they just keep going back and buying the face cream. But the problem is that model was built off of having a sales associate at your local department store that could wine and dine you, you in, could bring you to VIP events, you know, like could gift you product, could like sit down with you for an hour and a half and talk about your skincare routine. Like what happens when the world is now is just focused on like that retail experience is dying. So how do you build that longevity and product off of like fleeting social moments?

B (50:25)

Well, like I love the idea of the lagging indicator and I always use it really estate. So as soon as you see six cranes in a city building skyscrapers, it's time to sell real estate because it's glutted. And as we were saying here, we can't swing a dead cat without hitting a celebrity beauty brand in la right out in hilarious. So right now there's a glut, right. And I think there's an absence of strategy and so everybody is reacting to this glut of there's money here, let's do this. But in the absence of strategy, I think you're going to see the structure strong survive in the end and that's where you really need to focus on because I don't. It may be dying that in person experience but it, it probably will come back because at some point we don't have. People don't have money to just keep buying stuff online because somebody said to buy it. They want to have a tactile experience. They want to ex. They want to connect to somebody who can inform them in person. Because we're losing trust with.

A (51:17)

Well, we want to try it. No. And that's that to me is this kind of this element to go full circle on this episode is when we talk about it in the beginning is UGC dead are these. But they all work. Like you need this in real life activation. You need a community, but it's a symphony and you need these people that are also using your product. Like when I'm thinking about these heritage brands It's a problem that they're over reliant on in person experiences because there's a whole segment of people that are not connecting or learning about the brand. But then on another hand, if the retail is dying then it's going to become way too frothy to only expect on social media to be communicating the value point. Because how do you get someone to sit down and care about your clinical research, your white papers, how the product sits on your skin, why you developed it, how you developed it, how many people are tuning into an hour long podcast if you're not Hailey Bieber? It's hard.

B (52:17)

That's why that symphony, that strategy is so important because people are still going to need to interact with the human, I think to get them on board. But now maybe it's not just in one brick and mortar location that people have to walk to in a mall or on a street street. Bring your, your in person interactive to events where your target audience is like people are still going to want to interact with it, but you can make it more mobile totally. Than just static.

A (52:41)

I then that brings me to another beauty headline that Elf. The team launches a substack. Okay. So they called it Zero Distance. And it's interesting because I think that the substack for brands is going to become overdone because it when they don't have a personal brand, they lack community for people to care. Like what makes Substack interesting is you can speak, you can say controversial things. Yeah, yeah. And you can like, like link other products. Like Elf is going to be focused on doing Elf. But what's interesting about it is that the angle for the first one they launched from the Elf CEO is this kind of idea that's trending of like building in public in that the, the trend to get ahead of is engaging with your community on product development, showing the good, the bad and the ugly, like looking at your platform and as a TV show that people can tune in and see what's happening, why it's happening and what's going on. And then calling it zero distance kind of speaks to this idea of there's no longer distance between this huge conglomerate and you as a consumer. And we're going to break down those walls so you know what's happening, what we're working on and what's going on.

B (53:52)

Look, it could work, but if the brand promises is zero distance, it should be coming from the CEO or from somebody up top. But you know, they're kind of saying hey, this is going to attract marketers because they want to talk. I don't care what most marketers say, you know what I mean? Because they can't say anything. They're terrified. They have to answer to people. I care what the founder or the person in charge of the brand is saying. So we'll see if they actually deliver that they're saying interesting, controversial things or if it's just a curated way to try to appear intelligent, but you're not really saying anything.

A (54:19)

I agree. I don't think that this one's going to be like the case study of the case studies, but I think it speaks to a trend in the industry that founders need to be ahead of. Especially when you are a small business and you're a startup, the power you have is the story you can tell, and that's what a lot of founders are missing, is that you're. What's happening behind the scenes for you, launching the product. I mean, yesterday we met with a good friend of ours that's launching a tennis comp, a tennis brand, and we were howling at what's happening, you know, behind the scenes. And that's so much equity that she's losing. Like, she's unable to form a relationship with her customer because have this, this fear of she's not ready to launch.

B (54:59)

Like, the industry is infected as society is, by a fear of saying things that are meaningful. Everybody is kind of putting a finger up saying, can I say this? Is this right? And in your own business or your own brand, honestly, be authentic, say things that matter to you and don't worry about it. Like, everybody we've met here, the amount of people have come up and go, oh, my God, you're the only person talking, talking like this. Thank you for saying this. Like, we shouldn't be the only people saying real things about what's going on in this industry. And it applies to your own business. So don't be scared to say something interesting so you can be known for something rather than being known for fitting in the crowd.

A (55:35)

Yeah, yeah. I, I just, I. What we're doing is different, though, than building in public, right? Like, we're, we're providing comp. We have, we've proven that by being real and being authentic and not worrying about being perfect. Build a tribe right? Like that is. That is the proof of what we're doing. To take that further, if you're a business owner that is lacking resources, that is not Hailey Bieber, you're not married to Justin Bieber, you know, and, you know, it's actually crazy too, that all the Episodes we did this week of celebrity, whatever, beauty, brand, founder, hairstylist. It's not that easy when you know, when you know all these famous people. It's actually, it's. It's kind of like a false indicator of success because you think like, hey, I'm best friends with Oprah and she's for sure gonna post it. They have so many people around them and they're trying to make money off of their likeness that it becomes very awkward and very finicky of who is your real friend when you launch a product. And it's the through line on the celebrity side. So the grass isn't always greener. And I think that people. People, if they're like, I have no budget, how can I do this? Like, X. Well, that aside, you actually have a lot of power in showing what they're not going to show, which is the reality of what it looks like to launch a business. Like yesterday, we were talking with another friend of ours. She's like, is it normal to go through 40 iterations of getting your product to be ready for market? I'm like, you'd be shocked. Like, it usually is the standard. Because when you really care about your product, you're going through multiple iterations, generations. You should be showing that because you're obsessive on making it perfect for the customer. Like, you're not white. Labeling a product and selling junk to your community base, like, that's a. That's a differentiator. It's not a weakness, it's a strength.

B (57:22)

It's a standard thing. We're telling people all the time. Yeah. Sub stack. We'll see how it goes.

A (57:26)

Yeah, I mean, we'll see how it goes. Well, I think that. So you just had the CEO of Symbiotica walk in. She's excited for the episode. I think we should keep our other content for next week. Is there anything else that is you're dying to talk about?

B (57:38)

Lots of good stuff on the. On the horizon from our perspective in terms of guests. Please, if you're here, like, follow, share.

A (57:46)

Yes.

B (57:46)

For the podcast, spread the word and.

A (57:48)

We will see you. We'll be recording again this coming Sunday, so we'll be back in the saddle for getting content. And next week. Well, we'll talk about this next week, but next week is Harvard. We're speaking at Harvard next week.

B (58:00)

You're teaching at Harvard? Yes. Legally Blonde moment.

A (58:03)

Have a great week, guys. Goodbye.