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- [00:00]
Camille
The problem with branding at present is that people want, they want the outcome without understanding the nuance and the art that gets to that outcome. And that's what makes branding increasingly difficult to be replaced by AI. So world building is the term of the moment and if not like the immediate future, because content is king, but content is overdone.
- [00:28]
Philip
You can almost call it brand patriotism.
- [00:30]
Camille
It is substack, you know, is the new medium. And to your point, it's that the way to win is to understand how to leverage something, not just to do it. Brooklyn Beckham posted a six part Instagram story accusing his parents of prioritizing the Beckham brand over family love, personal time.
- [00:54]
Philip
You don't need to do a six part Instagram story to talk about unless you really want to hurt your parents.
- [00:59]
Camille
Well, there's a crazy stat that there's more YouTube consumed in a household every week than any other platform.
- [01:10]
Philip
YouTube is kind of becoming the new center of where you go for entertainment. You don't go to Universal.
- [01:16]
Camille
The reason why we got into this conversation is we were talking about heated rivalry, which is that, like, show that had no budget, that this show is.
- [01:24]
Philip
Is crazy and killing it. And I love that it's got a kind of piece of Canada in it.
- [01:28]
Camille
Initially, Olive Young came out and said that they were expanding into the US.
- [01:33]
Philip
If Olive Young has the ability to then go and open independent stores afterwards, they're actually speeding up the introduction of Olive Young to its own customers.
- [01:43]
Camille
Huda Kattan, who owns Huda Beauty, one of the largest beauty brands, top three in Sephora, has had to move away from organic social alone. Organic social growth is no longer enough. You have to have a paid strategy to amplify it. So Jacquemou has his first brand ambassador and it is his grandmother.
- [02:05]
Philip
When you bring in a real human who's lived, you know, almost a century, you're bringing back a real esthetic that values wisdom. And when it's actually somebody that's part of the Jacquemou world to bring the grandmother in that is interesting.
- [02:21]
Camille
The product has to be desirable. And when I looked at the liquid def lip balms and the colors they did and how they did the flavors and how they did the packaging as a starter, I don't want the product. So anything else that you do around it is just varying degrees of manufactured noise. Like it just can't be a great song. What a brand, what a brand, what a brand what a mighty good brand say it again now. What a brand, what a brand, brand what A brand. What a mighty good brand.
- [02:52]
Philip
Welcome to episode. I don't know how many hundred of the heart of the brand, but it's one that I think we're quite pumped about because we just got back from Harvard, where you were a rock star, preaching to the top business thinkers in the world, rubbing shoulders with some very phenomenal people. And I can't wait to talk about it.
- [03:08]
Camille
I know it was a really cool milestone and for a bunch of different reasons. I think on one hand, there's always a part of you that I don't want to say necessarily, imposter syndrome. Because I do feel like I've grown out of that mindset. But it is cool to be worthy to answer questions and to not be nervous at kind of that level. Like, I was just so much at peace with how into it we are. And I think the coolest part of.
- [03:32]
Philip
It was what I tell people is it never gets easy because you're always running kind of to your max.
- [03:38]
Camille
Yeah.
- [03:39]
Philip
So the first time you go for a jog, it sucks. You're sucking wind. But when you're a marathoner, you go for your run, you're sucking wind at the end. Right. And so the imposter syndrome thing exists at all Spectrum stuff too. Like, it doesn't matter where you are, you're always going to feel it when you're going into these new rooms. But to go into Harvard Business School with the kind of caliber of the people there and the other people who are speaking, you feel it just like you feel it the first time you make content.
- [04:03]
Camille
The only reason why I want to talk about this is I think it's cool to have some kind of a digital log of what you're experiencing and living as it's happening, opposed to, like, more gatekeeping those feelings and not having them shared with your community. But what's interesting is, like, leading up to it, the kind of average question is, are you nervous? And I had zero nervousness.
- [04:22]
Philip
And that's not imposter syndrome. No, no. It's just like, hey, like, is this real? Should I really be here?
- [04:28]
Camille
Like, after reading that book Winning by Tim Grover, it really changed my mindset of I don't see milestones as destinations. I see them as indicators that you're on the right journey.
- [04:40]
Philip
And I remember when we discussed that book. Cause you were kind of struggling with something. I'm like, read this winning book. And I think more people in our industry should read books like that. Yeah, right. To get them. Because we actually have to overcome daunting obstacles to get to where we want to go. And you don't need kind of Kumbaya festivals. You need inspiration to, like, take. Take challenges on.
- [05:01]
Camille
And overall, what was the most personally inspiring is we met so many intelligent, thoughtful, kind people, people who went out of their way to come over and speak to us, that they're fans of the show, that they listen weekly, that they are using our content. Because the people that are at Harvard Business School, a lot of them have businesses or are using this program as an intentional next step to launch a business, and them kind of really seeing the show as their guide to get them to that destination. But to speak for myself, because I grew up in a poor family, because I. Every destination that I made was such a. Was such a hard stride to get to university, to get to having a job, to feeling like I was on par with these people around me. It was a cool moment to get to that school and just be like, throw it at me. Like, I'm ready to go. Like, whatever question you have to be so confident in that place. And then to also hear the kinds of questions that they're asking that for founders who feel like they don't have Harvard Business School degree or they don't have money, actually has something exciting to say to you. Is that a lot of the questions that we got were focused on more like blueprint outcomes. Like, there was. There was really a missing aspect to, like, creativity and what comes from true entrepreneurship, which is not doing something only because it's been done before within a proven aspect.
- [06:29]
Philip
Yeah. Shout out to Matt Higgins from Shark Tank and very successful person who put on this week for the students, because I can tell you, I haven't gone to Kellogg's executive MBA. I think that the MBAs are a little bit behind even the best ones in terms of the creativity aspect. They're teaching these very. These very good thinkers how to, like, be successful tracking data and do stuff. But what's interesting is the. What I saw from the Harvard Business students is they're taking it upon themselves to find experts outside of the school. And that that was reflected by how many people came up to. To you and I and said, hey, we love that podcast. We love your perspective. And, like, it was a significant portion of the class that actually followed you, which I thought was really impressive. But it shows me that the young, the new students are finding expertise outside of just the academic world in order to help them be successful.
- [07:20]
Camille
Yeah. And it's actually worth explaining to anyone who is listening that you kind of see every year around this time there's brands like Summer Fridays and Kim Kardashian that like post being with the Harvard Business School sign. And the reason why you're seeing that is, to Philip's point, this gentleman named Matt Higgins, he's a shark tank shark. He's a faculty chair at Harvard, but he owns a venture capitalist fund. And he noticed that when. Because these Harvard Business School grads are the ones that either go into the venture capitalist fund, they go into either run the brands or they start the brands is what graduates from this class. And what he realized year and year and year and year and year was that these students nailed the case method, but they had no tangible skills when it came to like Instagram and like what was actually driving these businesses sales in real time. They, they were only getting theoretical knowledge. They weren't getting kind of that like those like life skills of like what's happening in real time. So he developed this week as a way for these students to get access to talk to founders. So the, the entire week are brands like Summer Fridays is year. It was like Magic Spoon and eight Sleep and ten Beauty was one that showed up. And Tyler Haney was supposed to come. And it's like these social media brands that you're seeing and they asked them, they basically get to like pitch the business how they scaled. And we were the only panel throughout the whole week that kind of represented the, like, the, that, that 50,000 foot view of what's happening within the industry to give that pulse. But what I found was the most interesting is that all of the questions were binary, which I'm so used to getting from more of that kind of MBA mindset is like, should I be on TikTok is a yes or no question. It's not based on the, you know, the resources I have, what's been proven in the past, who might cut, like they're not asking questions in a way that's, that's tied to the kind of alchemy of things.
- [09:15]
Philip
Yeah, it's kind of. You know what it reminds me when you say it, it's like you're with the, the top fitness trainer in the world and you go, should I do bicep curls? Right. Like, in terms of you have to understand what you want to achieve. Like there is this whole universe you have to build in. These binary questions that you can get a yes or no to are satisfying, but they don't actually help you get to where you want to go.
- [09:35]
Camille
You're right. And when you even said that, when I thought about fitness My brain went more into like, should I eat sweet potato? You know, and it's like, you know how much, well, what is your metabolic typing? You know, what are, what are your fitness goals? Like, but the thing that's even more complicated. Complicated is fitness is somewhat scientific. Like that's why fitness modeling, like when you get into like the bodybuilding or the fitness modeling, there is a pretty well tested and proven regime from like eating tilapia and asparagus three times a day and like chicken and sweet potato and like doing these workouts, you will get pretty close to this outcome. Branding couldn't be further from that at all. Because when you're, if you only just follow like be on TikTok, use UGC influencers, like you can check all these boxes and it's a part of this. Which was the larger topic of this conversation at HBS was world building. You can't check a box to build a world. Like there's fundamentally something more complicated to world building than to just use the platforms in a checklist format.
- [10:42]
Philip
I don't know if we disagree completely on it but like yes, in fitness there's things you need to do in order to get, you know, past the finish line. But it gets incredibly curated to your body chemistry, to your lifestyle, to what you're doing that day, what happened? You know what I mean? It's not just a binary yes or no answer. It's like having somebody who understands where you want to go and knows how to like you have to like be tuning the dials the whole time to get to the optimum effort. And I think that's the same with the brand. If a brand knows where it wants to go, where you can create a universe just like you can create an amazing body, but it takes 12 months to tons of fine tuning and deep strategy.
- [11:17]
Camille
You're not wrong. The only aspect that I want to get into that was more of the topic of the conversation is if you eat less calories or if you burn less calories than you eat. And if you get into like doing weightlifting and like there's certain things that you can do where you can have success based outcomes. The complication of social media is that especially when I see the questions that more right brain thinkers ask, it's and that's why AI is so complicated. It's. They hear a statement like you should be putting out seven posts per day and then they go on like an AI based platform and they get seven pieces of content made and they put that out. Like in fitness you can follow that In a more black and white way in branding, there's questions that I can't even believe people will ask because they're just. They're trying to put a different world framework on the question. And that's where it's really complicated to articulate it. And why I think that we've got legs to have this show for a long time because you're constantly. It's like this push and pull of like, yes, but. Or look at this, you know, do you know what I'm saying?
- [12:24]
Philip
I get what you're saying. I just think you can have. Just like, you can have AB brand, a good brand and great brand. You can have the same in exercises from a body perspective. If you do certain things, you'll have a good body. But if you want a great body, it's got to be way more nuanced. Way more. But to your point, the. What I liked about the students in the format that Matt had set up is the founder comes in. They even brought their products to demonstrate, and they kind of give you the feedback. They give the rundown of how we started, what our obstacles were, and where we are at now. And when it was opened up to the questions from the students, it just reminds me of so many MBAs that I encounter in the corporate world. They're always asking these kind of linear, you know, binary questions that are designed to allow them to kind of move the yardsticks forward in a way that can be meas. And it was surprising how they're always asking, like, should I do this? Should we do this? There was a couple that were nuanced, and they were really enjoyable, and there were people who followed you. But I found, like, their questions were much more nuanced to the panel. So I just thought that was cool that, you know, that's what they're asking. And I think that's what. Where the panel actually helped them the most, that you kind of taught them that they have to think about things in a different way.
- [13:29]
Camille
The problem with branding at present is that people want. They want the outcome without understanding the nuance and the art that gets to that outcome. And that's what makes branding increasingly difficult to be replaced by AI. All that AI wants to do is replicate and please, based on what has been done. What makes branding an art is that you're creating something new that's different, that works within the world that you're creating. And that's what makes our point of view so interesting and useful. Because when you. When we're going to talk today about like elf, you know, just constantly doing these collabs. At what point is it effective and what parameters do you put on the effectiveness? Because if you're just launching for the sake of launching, like to build a world means to have consistency. So it's kind of this push and pull of like doing more, using the science of the tools that exist, but doing it in a way that's new, but that's building onto the world that you've pre built. And that's the art.
- [14:41]
Philip
Art is actually scary to high functioning minds that like KPIs and deliverables. Right. And so that's why they always kind of go back to what are the numbers? How can I track this? Is this fine art? You have to let go, you have to let somebody go and do something that's not trackable on spreadsheets and in the corporate world. I think that's why a lot of our listeners are frustrated is there's very low risk tolerance to do things that aren't captured on spreadsheets. Right. And that's what I know from bid school, they teach you how do you capture on a spreadsheet, how do you sell this idea as working? Right? How do you sell the idea that we need to create something artistic with that risk element that you're talking about?
- [15:23]
Camille
Well, that's what also makes it complicated because good art and bad art is, is eerily close, you know, like that, that line of separation is small. And that's what makes the complication of when we analyze, you know, and I want to, I want to come back to this kind of theme in today's episode is like, when is it good and when is it bad? And that that space is close, but that space is the Olympic difference.
- [15:49]
Philip
But can you explain the world building just the concept, because maybe people didn't see that video that went viral.
- [15:54]
Camille
So world building is the term of the moment and if not the immediate future, because content is king. But content is overdone. Like there's so many pieces of content. And this idea of world building is evoking emotion. It's making people feel, it's creating your brand in real life in a tactical way that's outside of. Just like the product you sell and creating a tribe and a community and a big port. Part of world building is digitally having a feeling, a moment, a space, space and a place for your fan base. But it's also translating it into the real world. And when I talk about world building, it's. It's these pieces that aren't as measurable but are greatly effective for choosing to buy one product over the other. And that's what makes why I talk about road so frequently, is that when I say that, the entire room, whatever room I'm in, reacts like they get it, and they get it in a way that you don't usually feel towards lip gloss. And when you, when, when an entire group of people can tap into the same emotion that a brand has built, that's effectively this. And you don't feel that, you don't feel like the coolest girl in the world when you use this product. It's because this doesn't have a world. And the idea of the world building is that when you're a citizen of that world, you, you have a patronage you are proud of, you have a passport, you're a part of it. And that's where the brands that are winning right now, like the summer Fridays people are wearing their product with this Gap collaboration, like they're going to Gap to buy a lip gloss brand's sweater so that they could wear it and show other people what, what worlds they're a part of. And it's how you're building identity.
- [17:43]
Philip
It's almost, you can almost call it brand patriotism.
- [17:46]
Camille
It is, right? Like, it's what passports do you have? What stamps do you have on your passport? What worlds have you gone and visited? Who are you a part of, what tribe are you in?
- [17:54]
Philip
And Ashwin, who is on the, the panel really, to meet him in person. Brilliant guy, Love listening to him. But when you guys were talking, because everybody used to say content is king, but you know, he kind of, you guys morphed in the conversation to context is king.
- [18:09]
Camille
It is king.
- [18:09]
Philip
Like when you're mate. So, yes, content is now just the kind of table stakes it has to be done. The new kind of monarch is the context of the content. Is the context creating the magic that will create brand patriotism?
- [18:24]
Camille
It's larger than that.
- [18:25]
Philip
Oh, it's do, do tell.
- [18:27]
Camille
Context is king is understanding that whatever medium is in front of you. You're not asking if the media is the difference. Sorry, you're not asking if the medium is the difference. You're determining how you're positioning the media on that medium to get you a greater outcome. That's why context is king in branding right now.
- [18:50]
Philip
I thought you were going down the Chomsky route. No, no, the, the norm.
- [18:54]
Camille
Yeah, I know.
- [18:55]
Philip
The, the Canadian guy who said the medium is the message.
- [18:58]
Camille
Yeah, I knew. Yeah, yeah. But no, but the reason why, the reason why context is king is because the majority of successful brands are being like scooped up and eaten up by private equity and by venture capitalism. And in order for them to continue building those worlds, they have to get outside of the binary thinking and they have to start understanding contextually because all of these platforms, all of these opportunities are different floating instruments, a part of a potentially larger symphony. And you need context for how to play that instrument and when it's going to come in and what notes it's going to use to build towards that larger brand. And the brands that get that are the brands that are winning. We're on contract right now, now for a big brand and they've asked without rewriting up the contract to just change the scope to provide a different platform strategy for TikTok. Like they understand that the best use of dollars and strategy is to not be trying to get the same content on all of the different platforms. Right. Like they underst. They have context to understand that the way in which they use their resources to build out this secondary platform is more valuable than it is to just have more that can just go out on more platforms. Right. Like they're, they're diversifying it. That's, that's context. That's going to make them more successful.
- [20:21]
Philip
Yeah. Shout out to Marshall McLuhan, Canadian communication theorist and philosopher who came up with medium is the message in the 70s.
- [20:28]
Camille
Yeah.
- [20:28]
Philip
Talking about that the median was more. The medium was more important than the actual content at the time. It keeps coming back to me, something I learned when I was doing some, some good stuff in NATO about like synchronization tables we used to have. Right. It's not just put out more content. It's like getting that kind of deeper strategy to understand what is the desired effect we want to have on our target audience. And then synchronizing content with the right context on the right medium so that you get kind of an aggregated effect. Like it's much more complicated to do things like that.
- [21:03]
Camille
You're totally correct. And sorry, I wasn't trying to cut you off. I just, I wanted to, I wanted to add to that. I think it's a perfect segue into Gary Vee's 2026 prediction that substack, you know, is the new medium. And to your point, it's that the way to win is to understand how to leverage something, not just to do it. And that's the, the core thing to take away week over week is how is what these two people are saying, how can I apply that to my brand in A way that feels on brand. Because the problem is, is I see way too many. Like I've got. Of all the clients we work with, I think in the last two weeks I've had like seven of them be like, don't worry Camille, we've got a sub stack strategy coming. And I'm like, don't worry, guys. Wait for a week when I rip that apart because that's stupid. Because to just do something for the sake of doing something is not the point. Like the point is what is the signal versus the noise. You hear substack, but you don't look at value. You're not realizing people are wanting to move to substack because they're sick of being sold by your company with no value.
- [22:08]
Philip
And now you're just gonna go on substack and try and do the same.
- [22:11]
Camille
And there's no point to it. It's like, if you're gonna use substack, how are you gonna do substack in a way that's meaningful to what the consumer wants? And the reason why people are moving to substack is they're sick of the AI slop. They're sick of these creators who are getting a slight script generated by chat GPT and on second pass they're like floating head. And you watch the video seven times and you think it's a case study, but you don't learn anything. At least with a. With a written document your brain can scan and skim in a much faster format than having to be duped into watching a 3 1/2 minute video where you learn nothing.
- [22:49]
Philip
Like it's, let's just talk about duping for a second. If I can make a little rogue lawyer rant. Because it dawned on me how I was being used by the system. I don't know if you see like a movie clip, it goes, the best movie ever made in the 90s. And it's got a clip of it. And then I watch it, I'm like, okay, this sounds interesting, but the movie must be amazing because there's more than this clip. And I always want to watch amazing movies, but they don't put the title of the movie in the description. So then what I'm doing is I'm staying on their page a long time and they deliberately don't put the name of the movie on the thing so that I stay on there. And the algorithm thinks this is amazing content. And I've done that like five or six times. And then the comments, somebody says what it is, but it's Interesting how they've tricked me to stay on their channel. So their channel grows, but they're not giving me real value. That's my dupe that I'm gonna rant about today. Sorry.
- [23:38]
Camille
That. Sorry. That you're really being taken advantage of by these.
- [23:41]
Philip
Well, I want to find channels because I love great movies. I want to discover good movies. But you know, the. By deliberately not putting the title of the movie and it keeps the viewer on it until the viewer realizes you're getting conned. And now I'll never trust that again. Right. So there's a short time frame to. To kind of To. To selling.
- [23:59]
Camille
Okay, let's get back on.
- [24:01]
Philip
Let's get back on. Sorry.
- [24:02]
Camille
That's the thing that's so complicated when you look at signal versus noise. Right. Like when you look at the signal, people are moving to written content. Sure. But the noise is just brands trying to jump into it for more. Kind of like fake free advertising where they just think that there's surpluses of people that want to read.
- [24:20]
Philip
People aren't going to substack to read AI generated articles. They're going to substack because they actually want to hear real things.
- [24:26]
Camille
Okay. But that's an aside. You know what's actually hilarious about that is there's a ton of creators that are not faceless brands where I read their article and I'm like, this is literally first pass Clyde Slope. But like it has hundreds of comments. So I actually don't fully agree with that. It's. I think people are like just skimming. I think people are just skimming and they're looking for like the essence of a point and they don't. Our bar for it to be really good is change. I want to agree with you because, like, as a writer, I expect a higher standard. But there's the average versus there's that kind of an outlier, but that's separate from a brand. My point is like, who wants to read content from a brand unless you're giving something that is extremely interesting or juicy or entertaining?
- [25:12]
Philip
Yeah. Like I would read content from Chip from Lululemon if he was the head of it or the guy or Jason from Therabody. Like if. If it's a founder led brand telling me something about the brand and the journey of the brand hero and what he's. That would. Or he or she. That would be interesting to me to read. But just to have somebody in the marketing comment writing substack articles for the brand is not effective.
- [25:34]
Camille
But what would be interesting to you from Therabody?
- [25:36]
Philip
No, only if the founder was, was kind of writing about what he's seeing. Because I assume that the person who founded a brand that I think is amazing is at the front edge of learning about what is good and what is useful to me. Right. So because of his, his access to experts, people, what he's doing. So I would be interested in reading about what the leader of a brand that I respect is seeing in the world in their daily activities.
- [26:01]
Camille
Okay. So I think that's an interesting thing for us to unpack. That's still not a brand. Writing it if it's a founder of a brand. And would you actually read it? If now that it's a public company and he can't say anything controversial on the edge, would you still read it?
- [26:18]
Philip
Yeah, that's the question.
- [26:19]
Camille
The answer is no. Right. So, and I think that's an extremely relevant point because business owners see Gary Vee's article and they're like, shit, our company's gotta get on substack. Yeah, but unless you're. And I've had a lot of clients come to me and be like, I have a substack. And I look at it and I'm like, this is an ad in a different format. Nobody is going to your substack to read. You sell your service through a clawed document. Like, you have to think in terms of value. What value are you giving someone that is. That are the eyeballs on your page?
- [26:53]
Philip
Yeah, we see this with a lot of businesses. Like, they see that, they change strategy, they move. But one of the principles of war that was one of the most impactful is concentration of force. Like, you know, you win if you can concentrate your force in the most effective area. And if you're just constantly kind of reading something changing and not putting every, not putting the right effort into it, you're not concentrating your forces at the right place. Like, you don't win your battle.
- [27:15]
Camille
Yeah, you're not wrong. You want to move on to Beckham.
- [27:17]
Philip
Let's talk about Beckham.
- [27:18]
Camille
I don't know how juicy this is going to be, truthfully, so let me set this up. So what happened? Brooklyn Beckham posted a six part Instagram story accusing his parents of prioritizing the Beckham brand over family love, personal time. You know, I guess that's probably how I would describe it is that they're more focused on the brand, the PR of their family than they are of their family structure. And it was a very inflammatory six part story. And, and I've been seeing how it's been unfolding online. And what was the most interesting is when I read it right away I was like, hmm, how is this going to go? Because partially, and I think it actually is the way that it came out in the end. Because partially, I think that we all know that there's an act to the family. Like they are such a PR focused family. Like they're. Everything has been about evolving and staying modern and like maximizing every opportunity that it actually isn't that shocking. So I wanted to see how people responded.
- [28:23]
Philip
I actually think Brooklyn and Neelam had a therapy session where their therapist was telling them about how much more the world owes them. Oh my God. Like to go, oh no, like to go to kind of say that you put the brand above while you do a six part series on digital media to try and build your own brand. Like there's this kind of fake suffering that's kind of, that that's promoted online that's just designed to get eyeballs on you and to, and to elevate Brooklyn in terms of where he was. You don't need to do a six part Instagram story to talk about unless you really want to hurt your parents. Right on their territory. It seemed very self indulgent.
- [28:59]
Camille
Let me break it down from my perspective. On one hand I think he's justified to provide context because the only thing that sucks about it is clearly there's been a rife within the family because they haven't been seen together, they haven't been posted. There's all this speculation, there's all these like stories online about like, are they in a feud, what's going on? And because Brooklyn has this sense whether it's false, whether it's correct that he now, he now has backing because Nicola's family is also very successful. They're, they're kind of manifesting and ruminating in this anger that they want to get out their side because clearly they feel wronged by what the parents have done. There's for sure an aspect of power and control. Like I don't, I don't see Victoria as this, this super easy going, laid back mom that's like not focused on her personal brand and her image.
- [29:54]
Philip
Like I love the British in the way they rip apart people. It seems cool that the British are actually going after the kid rather than.
- [30:00]
Camille
They think he's whiny.
- [30:01]
Philip
They are because he is like you literally are your mom, your mom can sometimes go over the top when you're getting married, but you know she gave birth to you and carried it for nine months. So maybe don't humiliate her on that because she loves you and she went too far. Maybe navigate that discussion in a certain way, and if it kind of ruins your wedding a little bit, you can probably get over it to protect your family reputation. But what this Brooklyn person did said is actually don't care. I'm gonna try to publicly humiliate my mother in order to benefit his own personal brand. And to me, most people are gonna be revolted by that.
- [30:32]
Camille
And so I think it really shows a changing of the guard, you know, where people feel they actually really respect what she and what David has. Has built. They're proud and they're prideful of that. She has sacrifice. She has sacrificed her personal, like, her personhood for this family and for the brand to mean more. It's reasonable to have strict standards around that when that is your focus and as a family, they all benefited from it. And I can understand that it might be frustrated to be born into that circumstance, but it's no different than being born into another circle. Like family dynamics are family dynamics.
- [31:07]
Philip
You know what I think is interesting and popped in my mind, first of all, nobody is perfect. And we want to make. We want celebrities to seem perfect, but it's. This is a really good opportunity for Victoria Beck Beckham to build her personal brand a bit more by being human about it.
- [31:20]
Camille
Yeah.
- [31:21]
Philip
Because if you try to be perfect, you're not going to have an authentic brand. Right. And now you have this woman that's been in. In the celebrity world. She has a son who she clearly loved. And she may have gone too far in terms of what she was doing at the wedding, but it was probably because she really genuinely loved what was going on. And then. And then to be publicly humiliated. It would be a good opportunity for her to. To share what she's feeling, you know, like. And people. I think people would really rally to her in droves if she kind of answered why she might have done some things or not. Because that is what a personal brand is, is responding to human circumstances that people can relate to.
- [31:58]
Camille
The only thing that's complicated about this is there's an error that it's been handed to him and that he hasn't. Like, the way that it came across. Like, the piece that's complicated about this is it takes a very specific and driven personality type to build what she has built and to find flaws in that. It's a. It's a very. It's like what we talk about with the why CEOs at the highest level, they actually have more like disagreeable personality traits. Because what it takes to be at that level and to do what that, what that requires to do, it's almost to ask Victoria to respond to it in a way that's like authentic, human and real. We're actually trying to ask things of her personality type that she does not have.
- [32:47]
Philip
I kind of disagree with you here. She has it. It's just you have to be willing to open up the kimono and be vulnerable. And when you're successful, you don't want to be vulnerable because you, you worked hard to be successful so that you don't have to be vulnerable, you're protected anymore. But if you're building a personal brand, a key to that is, is showing some realness to you. Because almost every human being who's above the age of 30 has had a loved one kind of cast them off or betray them. And if so she, if she, if she addressed that six post betrayal by Brooklyn in a human way, there are millions of people who would really relate to her at a much more. At a stronger level. I think.
- [33:26]
Camille
I just don't think that anyone is really looking at it, expecting her to. I think everyone just wants to laugh to see what the dance was like at the wedding.
- [33:32]
Philip
And. Well, but they don't. But that's. I think that goes into the point. I don't know if you have it in here, but celebrities need a personal brand. Most celebrities current brand is based on acting like adopting the Persona of somebody else. And so one way to develop a personal brand if you're a celebrity building a business is you actually have to share your personal brand.
- [33:52]
Camille
Yeah, but if you're really talking about authentic personal brands, her authentic part personal brand is a cold distance, closed off person that's focused on herself. So that's why nobody is like shocked by this. Because she didn't have this Persona of like she's been someone that's been so focused on building up the Beckham name. So for him to be like, you have to like, basically his whole point is they see the Beckham name as a business. He had to decide if he was going to be a part of the business or if he was going to operate outside of what the Beckham name business is. And that's what they were unhappy about. It's like you have to play the game or you have to get out. Like that's like, it's ultimately why people don't like the Meghan Markle because the, the Brits really love rules and Structure to a family. To a family. Like, play the game, be a part of the structure. It's not about overt emotions. And, like, it's not. Like, it's not. It's not really that Americanized parent of, like, I want to be your best friend. Like Kim, like, how she's saying with north, like, this British idea is like, I've built an empire, understand the rules of engagement.
- [34:52]
Philip
But that context is king because Princess Diana bucked some of the rules, but did it in a way that was much better managed. Right. As opposed to Meghan Markle. And so I think that's it. That context kind of applies here with Victoria Beckham. She's liked. She's trying to be a human, and then she got embarrassed. So I just think sharing that, you know, not ignoring that, I think could help her personal brand. But I don't know where the hell Brooklyn's gonna go for this. I don't know if he's gonna have a Netflix series where.
- [35:19]
Camille
You know what I loved about it, though, the most, though, is, like, I found, like, a lot of. When it first broke and, like, the. The people that I follow, the narrative was very much like, what have you done? You know, like, the narrative is like, what have you done that. Why you're. Like, why. Why you're doing this to your family? Like, why are you. Why have you created a reason for us to be talking about your family negatively when you haven't shown us to do anything of, like, merit or worth? Like, I thought that was really the first time where it really shows you how the Z geist is turned on these Nepo babies. Like, we don't feel bad for you because you're complaining about, like, we all have shitty dynamics in one way or another. Yours is the best of how, like, because you. You get. You get security. Like, you're just asked to show up publicly to your parents birthday. I'm sorry that those are the parents that you have, but you get to sell hot sauce because of it. So it's like we just were not relating in the same way.
- [36:16]
Philip
I think the conversation, if we're going a little deeper too, is the parents can be the architects of their own frustration because they've. When you indulge children, they never become adults. Right? Like, and so when we give kids everything, you just see that in rich families and celebrity families, or kids are fucked up because they're not being pushed, they're being given everything. And then you get upset at them later when they don't follow the rules. Like, you have to allow people struggle in order to grow.
- [36:40]
Camille
The reason why I actually think this makes her cooler is that it shows you what it takes to have an empire. You know, like, almost even as a woman, like, there's a coldness to it, and we don't see that side. We expect this kind of like, almost like a Susie homemaker. And. And you run like, it just. It shows you that there's this other side of it, and it makes her cooler because everything about their relationship has always felt like what makes the two of them cool is it's not necessarily that it's the. Looks like the most loving relationship. It's that they're both bought in as business partners. David and Victoria are the definition of business power couple. Like, they understand pr. They understand how built up their family. They understand how to position themselves. And that comes with a cost. And I think that it's cool that we were able to kind of see that angle of a cost. And for people to be like, we don't want the truth. We want you to shut up and play your role. Because that's what we've bought into as the zeitgeist. And we're not shocked by this, but we don't want to hear it because we like more of what's been constructed than what it actually is.
- [37:48]
Philip
I just think the truth is that there's obligations at that level. I like your take in that. She shouldn't have to apologize for being successful, which means kind of that quote from Pulp Fiction. If I'm being curt with you, it's because time is of the essence. So pretty pleased with sugar on it. Go clean the effing cart. You know what I mean? Like, what she's doing is. Is unapologetically being successful, but still loves her family, but totally.
- [38:12]
Camille
But she's a businesswoman, and she's built an empire.
- [38:14]
Philip
And when you have to apologize for that, if you're a powerful.
- [38:17]
Camille
And when you have five kids and you're. You're being married and I'm paying for your wedding, if this is how I want, I don't have to love it. But you know what? I paid for my own wedding. That's the territory that it comes with. When you don't.
- [38:28]
Philip
Well, then maybe one day in the festival circuit, we can create a suck festival for these nipple babies. They can all get together and talk about how unfair life is that they don't get the private jet they want.
- [38:39]
Camille
And I think in the end, it just shows us that, like, we're really not interested in the kids. You know, like, we care about the people who made it. The rest is collateral.
- [38:47]
Philip
Who should sponsor the Suck Festival? Festival, I wonder.
- [38:49]
Camille
It's a good question. I wonder, like, should we do something like, is it like, funny, you know, is it like Perez Hilton and like, the dirty that sponsors it? Or is it like. Or is it like Jay Shetty and Lewis Howes, where they're trying to change it, you know, like, what direction do we go? Is it like Love Island?
- [39:07]
Philip
Robbins can go there and tell them she loves them and that all they have to do is.
- [39:11]
Camille
Robbins is a lot of good for the world.
- [39:13]
Philip
I think she's kind of BS these days. But let's move on.
- [39:16]
Camille
Let's move on. So I. I want to talk about YouTube because it's seeming to become more of a signal than as noise for what YouTube represents. Where the creator economy is going, what's happening in Hollywood? I feel like this is really interesting intersection from a content standpoint that we need to break down because we didn't do productions for this year ahead. But if we were, I think that we're on the same page in that the creator economy being at the center point for creating better content is probably something that we can both agree on. That's a trend.
- [39:53]
Philip
Creator market is doing their job. They only get paid if they entertain. And so you're kind of seeing this production. You have this production center of excellence that was in Hollywood or wherever, but now you see organically, creators are creating content that's more entertaining than what's on TV, and YouTube is capturing that. So I think YouTube is kind of becoming the new center of where you go for entertainment. You don't go to Universal because Universal isn't making entertaining things. It's far more entertaining. And what YouTube is doing with its algorithm, I don't have to go on a TV guide to see what's on. YouTube is offering me up content that is entertaining to me, that. That they think is. Is. Is useful to me.
- [40:35]
Camille
Well, there's a crazy stat that there's more YouTube consumed in a household every week than any other platform, right? So, like, over tv, over streaming, like, and especially when you realize how young YouTube has gone with, like, YouTube, kids, even, like, even babies, like, they're all consuming YouTube shows. It's crazy when I see, even when I'm at the gym and, like, the parents that drop them off with their iPads and I'm overlooking what they're watching, like, there's a whole industry of content on YouTube only being made for children, and it shows you how this kind of the who is in charge of who makes good content is now dependent on who gets paid off of good content. And that is why this is to me, more of a signal than noise. Is that to your point? Hollywood has forgotten how to entertain, but the creator that lives in Indiana, that has a YouTube channel, their life depends on you. Monetization.
- [41:39]
Philip
Yeah.
- [41:39]
Camille
So they have to entertain. And there's so many indicators of this. Like all of these creators are who are getting Netflix shows, who are getting Amazon shows, who are getting Paramount shows because they need to monetize their viewership onto these platforms, and that these production houses have lost the plot.
- [41:55]
Philip
What successful creators have demonstrated is they can connect to an audience. Right. They have a contract with their audience and they're delivering what their audience wants. And so you're going to see a lot more of specialized segmentation and niches. And YouTube is a perfect place to allow for these segmented niches of content that appeal to different demographics and then. And then feed it to you in the algorithm.
- [42:17]
Camille
It was crazy. I was watching a pod. I was listening to a podcast recently and I can't remember which one, and I know this is bad for me as a host from a prepping standpoint, but they listed like six shows that are now being hosted by YouTube stars. And the problem is that I don't. I'm not a consumer of this content, so the names were foreign to me. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't in kind of the orbit that I usually consume in. And it's, it's so past this being a novel idea, you know, it shows that it's being more of a signal. And what I thought was an interesting add on to that is how many of these creators are developing agencies because. Because they've monetized content, they understand virality from a. For a brand. It's like to use a brand to do the content at a much better level than these kind of outdated agencies that are. That are just posturing, because they don't. It's not, it's not the same.
- [43:14]
Philip
The production of entertaining content is going to be the most important thing. And so I don't think agencies have the creative to do it, many of them these days, but.
- [43:24]
Camille
Well, when I think about even us moving more into content creation, like how much it's changed my brain in a real way. Like, I talk to this when I talk to clients or when I'm in consults. It's one thing to talk about what you did for a client, it's another when your own personal success depends on virality, like how much it changes your obsession and your synaptic connection in your mind, just because your, your POV changes. Now that we are creators, how much better we are to be hired by a brand for creating potential viral content than an agency that doesn't have creators like at their helm. Like it just how much of an edge it gives you.
- [44:06]
Philip
One of the things that I thought was interesting coming out of that discussion was, and I realized it myself, is because there's so much good content on podcasts, video podcasts out there, it's, it's almost impossible to just watch one podcast only every week, the whole episode. What I do is I watch snippets of 10 podcasts that I like and it's very headline dependent in kind of the shorter form versions on YouTube. So I think like the headline on your shorter form pieces of content interests me and then I'll watch it, but then I won't. You know what I mean? Like I won't go and watch the whole podcast if it's two hours. So I think like the algorithm is allowing more people to watch smaller parts of your podcast, which really should be named, you know, your. It's literally a mini TV show now that, that's how you should look at it. But it's consumed in smaller fragments. Yeah, yeah, but you know, the only, and you were talking about the only kind of podcasts that are being listened to religiously are con are comedians because they're, they're better at entertaining it. You can't summarize a comedic podcast and get, and get what you need out of it. Like you can summarize kind of an education piece of content.
- [45:14]
Camille
Yeah, I actually haven't talked about that yet. So one of the other things that's greatly changing YouTube content is that Gemini just introduced this tool and it allows you to summarize. Basically you can do anything. It's Gemini AI right beside the video is a Gemini chat log that allows you to ask whatever question you want. And one of the questions that's prompted is summarize this video. So what's you're seeing on mass is this move to summarization of content so that it allows you to get like the core points so that you can save yourself the hour and a half so there's less loyalty to committing to a longer form piece of content when you can like get the core points and you can leave. And this kind of the, the overall theme and the, the point of what's growing on YouTube, right now is comedy because it's, it's near impossible to use an AI to summarize the comedy and to get the same outcome right. When you listen to like when you want to listen to the news, you'd like the bullets, you'd like the points, but you can't really, you don't really get the, the bullets or the points to a comedy special. The outcome is to laugh. The outcome is to feel. You don't feel because of the summarization.
- [46:24]
Philip
Think of your favorite podcast and ask yourself if you got an AI generated summary that was half a page or a page, would it give you the same value? Right, like in like the Joe Rogan podcast. If you asked it to summarize it, you don't have to like it, but it wouldn't give you the same feel. Because what people like about Joe Rogan is that there's authentic back and forth in the discussion and they feel like they're part or eavesdropping in on a good discussion of something. So that's the value that that podcast brings. But for short form videos, the summary thing is easy because people are looking for kind of quick hits on what works like five best ways to do X. If you do like a 12 minute video of it that'll be summarized and people won't watch it.
- [46:59]
Camille
I think the summarization of content is powerful because I find overwhelmed when I listen to a two hour long podcast and I really liked the podcast but like I can't quite remember the summarization of it. So I do like that component and I. There's a lot of people that are using it and it is impacting growth for more thought leadership, long form content because there's just more people that want to move faster and not invest. But I do think the difference is context. Right? And when you hear someone over an hour and a half, your brain like objectively changes like the synaptic connections, how you think when you're processing their words. Like there's something that happens when you, when you consume information more slowly. Yeah, but what?
- [47:47]
Philip
Because you're allowed to think in between the pauses to, to anticipate what they're.
- [47:50]
Camille
Going to say and where it goes.
- [47:52]
Philip
Sticks in your brain better. Yes, when you're part of it.
- [47:54]
Camille
But. And there's a really relevant but to this, the bar is higher to provide a unique point of view and perspective. It's not enough to just regurgitate a headline, and that is the nuance to this too is to give a headline without nuance or a point of view or perspective. Like to have that difference of taste is the difference.
- [48:14]
Philip
It's interesting because I think of all the fitness brands that have of talk to us about wanting to do a podcast and kind of using the lens we just talked about, what would you need to do for it to be interesting enough that the summary was useful or it was worth listening to for the long time because I find too many times they're like, oh, we should do a podcast. But they just talk about stuff that's not really.
- [48:33]
Camille
Well, they don't understand who, like, what is the value you're giving. That's why at the end of the day, it's about entertainment or, and education. You either have to entertain and, or you have to educate. But regardless of which one of the two you choose, you have to give.
- [48:49]
Philip
Value or educate and. Or entertain. Like it can be a.
- [48:52]
Camille
That's what I'm saying. It can be. You can educate, you can entertain, you can entertain, you can edutain. I don't care what you do. But that it has to be. And the problem is that people think it's entertaining because they're showing up it actually, I think it's what we worked through at dinner with Ashwin, where we're like, we're constantly undercutting the work and the skill and the talent that it takes to create content that's worth listening to. And I think for so long it's been like a just do it. But now what I'm realizing is don't do it until you really understand that you're in the game of providing value. And if your first focus isn't value, then you're literally wasting your time and money. Like, you might as well burn it.
- [49:38]
Philip
Yeah, I could. You would almost say that 80% of. Of corporate digital stuff is a waste of time at the moment.
- [49:44]
Camille
Totally.
- [49:45]
Philip
Right. They're just doing it.
- [49:46]
Camille
Well, it's good, but they're not getting substacks. If you're not giving value, you're wasting your time and money because. And like, nobody cares.
- [49:56]
Philip
And in the old days of Gary Vee, make content because you'll be seen. But now there's, there's, there's so many billions pieces of content that it's actually going to be harder to see unless you're actually doing it with, with, with some context in mind.
- [50:08]
Camille
Totally. And that's why at the end of the day it's, it's actually about having a point of view. It's about having entertainment. Which also leads though too, because you were talking about how if the name of the game is to entertain, like, the only way to captivate an audience is through some version of entertainment, right? Because even if you're educating, you still have to entertain while you're doing it. How much that needs to change. What brands are thinking about when it. When they're going into content, into 2026.
- [50:40]
Philip
Context is the theme of the. The episode. So when you think of enter, you know, entertain or educate, I think brands think, oh, entertain. We'll do something kind of funny. But put it in the context of romance. Like, you actually have to. If you want to be romantic, you actually have to think about it, invest in it, do something. You know what I mean? You can't just say, oh, I'm going to be romantic. There's a card. Do you see what I mean?
- [51:01]
Camille
Like, the birds even think about when you're like, in the early phases and you're like, date texting, you know, like, you gotta, like, make them laugh. Yeah. You're.
- [51:08]
Philip
You're reviewing that message a lot.
- [51:10]
Camille
You're not editing it a crazy amount. It's the best two lines of words that you can construct. You've retyped it 15 times like that. It. You're evoking emotion. You're entertaining someone, every single message. You're baiting them, you're keeping them apprised. That's in a perfect analogy. You're dead on.
- [51:27]
Philip
It's because. Because I know romance.
- [51:29]
Camille
I'm sure you are. You do. It's you.
- [51:31]
Philip
True.
- [51:31]
Camille
You do. We're gonna leave out there, but the reason why we got into this conversation is we were talking about Heated Rivalry, which is that, like, show that had no budget, that this show is.
- [51:41]
Philip
Is crazy and killing it. And I love that it's got a kind of piece of Canada in it, but it's, it's blowing up all expectations.
- [51:48]
Camille
It's blow. So this, I mean, I'm sure you guys have all heard about it at this point. Heated Rivalry is a show that talks about these, like, they're gay hockey players. And it's, it's shocking, right, because it's a theme that like, like the, you know, the hockey culture is this kind of last bastion where it's the only.
- [52:06]
Philip
Sport where you're allowed to get in physical fistfights and play the sport at the same time.
- [52:11]
Camille
Yeah.
- [52:11]
Philip
Like, it's, it's, it's a masculine.
- [52:13]
Camille
It's very. And it's that last bastion of, like, I don't want to say real masculinity, but, like, almost exclusive masculinity. Is probably the way that I would say it of, like, there's such a standard to, like, how you act, how, how you even interview. It's like, it's very much a group think sport.
- [52:30]
Philip
So can I ask an interesting question? Because women's hockey is doing wonderful, like, and it's amazing. But how do you square that circle that in women's hockey you're not allowed to fight, but in men's hockey you are.
- [52:43]
Camille
I'm not qualified to answer this question.
- [52:45]
Philip
Yeah, just, just.
- [52:46]
Camille
I don't, I don't think that they have the same desire to beat the shit out of each other on the ice, which.
- [52:51]
Philip
It's more evolved, obviously. Like, I think that's better, but I just wonder why they're not allowed to.
- [52:55]
Camille
To. Are they not allowed to?
- [52:57]
Philip
Oh, oh, it's different.
- [53:00]
Camille
Well, I mean, I think. I just think it's different. I think that's like a good way of summarizing. It is. It's different.
- [53:07]
Philip
But this theme of this show is amazing because. And this is what creative people can do that non creative people can't. Like, the non creative people will make another marvel. Right. But creative people will say, okay, here is an interesting context of a sport and we'll introduce characters that make it controversial and interesting.
- [53:24]
Camille
Well, it's blown up so much that the stars, Hudson Williams and Connor Story, who are the, the two, the two men in the movie, they are the official torchbearers of the 2026 Winter Olympics, which is interesting because it shows you how HBO is trying to bring younger viewers to the Winter Games. Like, they're kind of. It's a, it's a masterclass in cross promotion because they're using a winter sport that's having a moment to open it up and bringing an entirely new hopeful base of fans to the Olympics when they're on a decline on viewership through the digital channels.
- [53:58]
Philip
Is HBO doing it? Does HBO pay for that? Is the Olympics doing it as a way to try and bring more people to the Olympics? You know what I mean? Like, it's interesting to see who's pushing that.
- [54:09]
Camille
Well, I, I suspect that HBO has viewership rights for the Olympics so that they're able to bring people into the fold. But I also think because it's their Canadian stars, you know, it's, it's, it has, it's like, has the hockey theme, it has the relevance theme. Like every one of these, like, Oscars, Golden Globes, Olympics, they're struggling with this kind of relevancy question because to the Last segment. All of these YouTube creators are. Ventured into the fold. Like, it's way more competitive to compete for eyeballs. Like, there's so many things happening online that these. These seasonal events that were moments. They haven't innovated them to a point where they just get our eyeballs for the sake of it.
- [54:50]
Philip
What I'm taking from this, when I'm thinking about it, and we were talking about White Lotus and the show, and I don't know if it's deliberate or if it's accidental, but I think it's indicative of train White Lotus. Four Seasons did a great job of. Of getting their brand into a very entertaining show that benefited the brand. And in this TV show, the Adidas tracksuits have become, oh, my God, I've blown up, right? And it's because the characters are so interesting and they're stylish in their own way because they're going against the norm. Like, and so people are looking at it, and they're like, that's. That those tracksuits are amazing. I think where that's going is kind of. It's almost Hollywood production studios will be replaced by, like, brand studios. So if you're Adidas, you have enough budget to actually make a TV show and then subtly insert your brand into a character that the audience loves. But it has to be story driven, not. Not selling driven.
- [55:40]
Camille
And that's what we're already seeing signals of that, like, Gucci the tiger, right? Like, Gucci put on a movie production that made Gucci cooler without it really selling Gucci, but it sold Gucci. The only thing that's different, and to give you guys some context, in the heated rivalry show, they wear these Adidas tracksuits. And the Adidas tracksuits are, like, completely sold out because of how popular the show is. And Philip is saying that it would actually be more gorilla for Adidas to have, like, created this show, have its track suits in there so they could, you know, get the bump. The thing, though, that's complicated. That's a question. To, like, the art of the brand that we break down is, to me, the reason why the Adidas tracksuits sell out is because you feel like you were astute enough or you were cool enough as a user to see the product in that moment and think it's cool for your personal brand so that you buy it so that you can signal to the rest of the world that, like, you're cool and you're on trend. Do you think that that changes? Like, when I watched Gucci the tiger, which I loved. And I made me like Gucci more. I didn't feel like I was unique in wanting to buy the Gucci out of that show because I was still being told by Gucci to buy it. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, the difference.
- [56:59]
Philip
One doesn't have to exclude the other, because the. The primary factor is the content has to be good and entertaining.
- [57:08]
Camille
Right.
- [57:09]
Philip
And so what I'm kind of saying is, from a guerrilla perspective, if I have a brand, like a big company comes to us with a big budget, what I would do is say, let's find your ideal target audience. Where can you grow? What. What do. What would really entertain them? Right? Like, the people who could buy more of your product, who would. And then what I would do is bring creatives and say what would really entertain the people who could love my brand and then actually make something that is incredibly. Like, invest your resources rather than on billboards, on. On a production that actually entertains that person and then just have your kind of brand in there as indirect signaling. You'll get way more dollars for way more bang for your buck in the long run. If you can think that strategically, I.
- [57:54]
Camille
Mean, ultimately, I think you're correct. Like, brands need to get into the mindset of producing content that's entertaining and to build their world in a way that just has. Feels more authentic.
- [58:03]
Philip
Not as an excuse to sell.
- [58:04]
Camille
Yeah.
- [58:05]
Philip
But as like a. A foil to kind of put your brand on. But you've just. You've just so committed to your audience that you're entertaining them.
- [58:11]
Camille
And 100. Let's move on. So I want to talk about Olive Young and the Sephora collaboration, because we had talked about this a few weeks ago, and initially Olive Young came out and said that they were expanding into the US and the Internet got really excited because Olive Young is exclusively the Korean version of Sephora, but it's better because it's the Korean version of Sephora. So there's like this exotic kind of angle. There's a whole other, you know, breadth of brands, and it had its moment on the Internet. They were gonna have this big brick and mortar store. And then fast forward a few weeks later, Sephora announces that it's merging with Olive Young globally, and it's gonna have a section in its store that's the kind of Olive Young pick. This tells me that Sephora obviously saw them as a threat and decided to change the narrative so that it Wasn't Olive Young vs. Sephora, but instead Sephora is with Olive Young. What do you think about this?
- [59:11]
Philip
I'd really love to see what went on in the background in the boardrooms, because I think Olive Young, if I had been advising them, I would have said, let's break into the US and work opposite of Sephora. And I don't know what, what, what's behind the money thing. Like for Sephora, it seems smart to, you know, but you're kind of bringing an enemy, a fox, into the hen house, right? Because now if you open up all of Young and Sephora, what happens if most people go to these Korean beauty brands and you have the rest of your store, 80% of your store isn't selling as much like you could actually undermine. And then if all of Young has the ability to then go and open independent stores afterwards, they're actually speeding up the introduction of all of Young to its own customers.
- [59:56]
Camille
I think it's the, the smartest thing that Sephora could have done. I don't think that all of Young should have done it because there's enough people in the US that and North America that, that want a change. Like they want the lift to the Uber. So they want to have like an alternative that feels a bit more premium, that changes your buying habits. Like I'm, as I've said a million times, I don't want to go in Sephora's anymore. It feels too childish, it feels too chaotic. And there are these stores opening up in malls that have like this whole Korean beauty kind of selection. So you can tell that there's a space in the market. It's the smartest thing for Sephora to do because it's now continuing to bring new people into the shop, older people into the shop that wouldn't have been in the shop. You bring up an interesting point. And I think that that's just a reality that Sephora has to deal with.
- [60:48]
Philip
I don't think it's the smartest thing Sephora could do. I think, I think it's, it's something that they're doing, reacting. But I honestly think, like, it is kind of like a Trojan horse. They're bringing into their universe. That. And if all of Young and is as strategic as some of these Korean companies are, I think they're actually pulling a very good move here. If I was Sephora, I would just adjust so that I could deal with what Olive Young is dealing with and they need to fix their business model. But you're just, you're bringing the enemy right into your gates. And I think they may lose a lot, but we'll have to track it because it's a fascinating collab.
- [61:22]
Camille
I don't know if they will though. I know I like, I think they've got a better point on this. And I agree with you. However, for all that I criticize Sephora on, this is a move that brings me back as a consumer because it's.
- [61:36]
Philip
The only place to get all of Young. But you're going and so you may do some sales. So it's a short, short term angle. But if I was to ask you, what stock would you invest in right now? All of younger Sephora. Based on this collab.
- [61:47]
Camille
The only reason why I would invest in Olive Young is I feel matured as a consumer. Like, I feel like I'm not being duped by the pink and purple packaging anymore. Like, I've kind of grown out of that. So because of how much I know about Korean Beauty, because I still have a rat brain, like, I'm still human, There's a part of me that like, likes a new face mask. Like, likes a new product. Like, I can, I can buy something new for less than $65 and it makes me feel good for 15 minutes. When I think about that, it's another podcast. I know it's real, guys. We're keeping it real. When I think about that, it makes, it does make me want to invest in Sephora because Sephora is, is focusing on expansion, which, which I respect. And in a way, though, that still feels on brand. This doesn't feel like a Lululemon move. This feels like a move of what I need Sephora to do because at the end of the day, Sephora is the best app app. And that's what I was saying. Like, with the Huda Beauty, we got a few comments of people being like, girl, are you dumb? Like, isn't it better for you to buy? I'm like, no. Like that. There's like real psychology too. Like, Amazon makes it so easy to buy products. And when you have this super app that, like, is so easy, we are, we are all so inundated with so many things to do and so many options and so many choices that when you remove friction, it's just easier. Like, I don't know what all of Young's Apple app is like, so, like, when I hear Sephora is going to have Olive Young, like, I'm down.
- [63:06]
Philip
Well, we should know. They should have a good apple. They should, like, because we're representing a very cool beauty brand who has amazing formulations. What do you think? To me, if I was a consumer in that because there's a lot of celebrity brand hype.
- [63:21]
Camille
Yeah.
- [63:22]
Philip
But like, when you don't have a lot of money, what do you think is the importance of actual formulations over what the customer is. Thinks that they're buying into in terms of a universe? Because what would be interesting to me and what I think all of Young has done is what I understand from them is their margins are smaller because they're focusing on giving you what you're supposed to get for reasonable profit. And it'd be really interesting to create a table of like, what are the margins from the sale price to what it costs for a beauty brand to see where the value is. Do you know what I'm saying?
- [63:55]
Camille
That's just too big of a question. Like, you. It depends on the. Your shared value of your customer. Right. Like there's tons of products that just. They expand and they become 40 face masks. And like, because they're. They look crazy on Snapchat, it looks like a filter, like that's going to do well. It doesn't have to work. Meaning you don't have to be clinical. And that's the problem with it. It goes back to. It's actually more of a binary question. It's the wrong question. Like, beauty is so big that.
- [64:20]
Philip
What was the binary question question?
- [64:21]
Camille
When you're saying like, should it be tied to how like the quality of the product to the margin of the price point? Like, is that the. Is that the correlation that is the most important.
- [64:31]
Philip
I'm saying if that's where the trend is going. Because what I think has happened is people have been paying so much for stuff based on hype or. But based on celebrity. But what all of Young brings to the market that's dangerous to that trend is that their products seem to be priced kind of like Costco. 15. 15% of Costco.
- [64:48]
Camille
Not at all. Not at all.
- [64:49]
Philip
Why?
- [64:49]
Camille
That's just. It's not anywhere. That's not what K Beauty is at all. It's not at all tied to a margin.
- [64:55]
Philip
No. It's much more affordable and considered more effective.
- [64:59]
Camille
Not at all.
- [65:00]
Philip
Well, Olive Young's not more expensive than Sephora. Olive Young is like everybody in the country can go in there and get skincare products.
- [65:07]
Camille
There's brands in Sephora that's a hundred dollars for a foundation. And there's brands in Sephora that are 15 for a foundation. Sephora is a retailer. All of Young's a retailer.
- [65:15]
Philip
I know they're retailer. But all of Young was less about the flash and more about the Value.
- [65:19]
Camille
No. Olive Young was the only place in Korea that's a chain retailer that you can reliably go in and get product Korea didn't like. Korea had Sephora. We went into it, but Olive Young was the original idea of Sephora because they weren't in those markets all over the world. So what made the only reason of why Olive Young and why K Beauty was attractive was because across the board, the products are clean. So they were more. They were. They were more pure products. They're more efficacious. That was it.
- [65:53]
Philip
Okay, but that's the thing. And it's not the only. The reason why K Beauty became successful is it provided better results for less money.
- [66:01]
Camille
It wasn't about the money, though.
- [66:02]
Philip
Well, how do you. What do you mean?
- [66:04]
Camille
Okay, I get what you're saying. The protocols, the treatments, not the. The face washes, they're all comparably around the same price. Like a face wash is 21 to 32 dollars. That's like the problem with the kind of. The question you're asking is, on one hand, there's a. Margins that are annoying because they have to build worlds and they have to spend money on these things. So you need to have margin for your product. On another hand, it's complicated to undercut the standard of where the. Where the MSRP is set. So the Ordinary, that's why they were sold to Estee Lauder. The Ordinary was a product that came in and sold salicylic acid for $7. And it was like, there was comparable brands at like 1725. So. But the Ordinary had to work through so much messaging as to, like, why was their product so cheap? Because it came across as, like, sketchy. Because you're like, I'm so used to paying $27, why would I pay 7? They had to educate the consumer on where the margin was and, like, when it. Where it was enough.
- [67:00]
Philip
So it isn't that like the razor company kind of. Yeah, right. Where they just leaned into like, stop paying for the nonsense. Pay for the product.
- [67:10]
Camille
Yeah. The thing of reason of why it's complicated to do that is the beauty brands have to have heavy marketing budgets because nobody needs lip gloss. So in order to make someone want lip gloss more. It's easy to criticize a beauty brand for charging $22 for a lip gloss when it costs, you know, a $25. But the problem is you have to do paid ads. You have to have a TikTok team, you have to have an Instagram team, you have to have an agency, you need to do in person activations. You have to buy swag. It's constantly paying for inventory. So the reason of where their products are set is because of the world they have to build. All of Young is not cheaper than Sephora. There might be, there's comparable products one to one, but they're just both retailers. All of Young has 350 Medicube devices. They have a more expensive products, it's more medical grade.
- [67:54]
Philip
But if they're just two retailers, what's the point?
- [67:57]
Camille
It was the brands that exist within them. So like what all of Young, the brands that all of Young had are. And that's the other point to this too. When we even talk about where it's going. I also just think that K Beauty is going to lose its luster because as it becomes Americanized, you're seeing so many brands like Mediheal that look like Korean brands are made in America. Like they're not even Korean brands. So it's like, I just think it's going to be commodified, right? Like it's going into Sephora and it's just going to be these brands that like, they come across as cap. It's like, it's almost like we corrupted what made it special. It was like this bright, shiny new object. And then in beauty, like your summer Fridays just launched a product that said like made in Korea or like a Korean beauty product. Summer Friday is like pure Americana. It's made by two American influencers. Like it's an American brand. And even they're jumping on this like K beauty vibe. It's like, why? It's because it's hot.
- [68:50]
Philip
It's just like advertising where it says no sugar, but it's peanuts.
- [68:54]
Camille
Yeah, like it never had peanuts.
- [68:55]
Philip
Never wouldn't have had sugar anyhow.
- [68:57]
Camille
But what I do want to talk about that's relevant from a kind of marketing and beauty standpoint is this post that went out by Josh Snow that said that basically she's had to pivot to paid and that she's generating over $75 million through her paid strategy. And what's interesting about this is Huda Katam, who owns Huda Beauty, one of the largest beauty brands, top three in Sephora. And she's also been under a lot of scrutiny for her political views, has had to move away from organic social alone. And ultimately what I think that this post breaks down is that organic social growth is no longer enough. You have to have a paid strategy to amplify it.
- [69:41]
Philip
Outrage fuels, you know, distribution, right? So in her case, she outraged some people, got attacked. But to her loyal distribute, like, it worked for her business.
- [69:52]
Camille
Well, being a, like owning a makeup brand and being from the Middle east, her providing pro Middle Eastern views created people who wanted to like, outwardly support her and probably buy way more product because there's a tribe to that.
- [70:06]
Philip
Let's be accurate. Israel's in the Middle east, so it's not just pro middle. It's probably Arab or Muslim views. Yes, right. Because they're in there. But there was outrage. But outrage can fuel distribution if you have the kind of the armor to deal with the haters. So that's all I'm saying.
- [70:23]
Camille
Yeah, well, you mean, like, you bring up an interesting side point is that, you know, con, like all head, you know, all PR is good PR in the sense that I don't agree with what she said. I. I wouldn't have with being a Sephora brand, but she had really no, like, Sephora didn't pull her. So she had really no, like, no serious ramification to it. And she just doubled down with the tribe that she had and she lost people that I obviously she doesn't care about, which is her prerogative. Not, you know, mine to say anything more on. But the core piece of this post that came out is that it talks about basically what her strategy is and how she understands building out this funnel. So the idea is that the top of the funnel, the awareness portion of the funnel, is like, like leading with the payoff. So everything is showing a transformation. Whether it's like showing the glowing skin, showing the transformation of like no eyelash on one side to like a big lash set on the other side, or getting really close up to the face and seeing the payoff or like seeing the difference was the top of the funnel. Then it moved to like just demonstrating everything, not using AI, showing the product. Then it's talking about like stacking the proof. So having this UGC tribe where the testimonial comes into play, making it feel more urgent, like foam. Everybody is using this product. How are you not using it? And then that kind of together is what resulted in an estimated $75 million worth of sales.
- [71:43]
Philip
Yeah. And so what. What you're saying is that organic content isn't the soul can't be the sole strategy anymore. Like.
- [71:50]
Camille
Yeah. So let me give you the. The core takeaway to this, which I think is interesting. So I really battle with organic socials because they are important. There is, there is a role for organic socials. But the amount of anxiety and pressure that's put on organic socials is not reflective to where the outcome is tied to. So the sale is more focused on the paid ad strategy. The organic social is more continuing to nurture your tribe. Right. Like it's more that inner circle versus the outer circle component. What's interesting to this is she built a very successful business based on organic community building. What this shows you is there's a ceiling to when you're selling something to only rely on organic channels. And that's what kind of adds this like extra layer of complication is people feel overly sold to, there's fatigue to like organic in feed selling and that you need to have this party mix of a bunch of different things that are working for you in order to continue to scale and grow.
- [72:57]
Philip
So you have to sell, you have to sell, you have to sell. And there's a strategy for selling and there's a strategy for world building, connecting.
- [73:04]
Camille
Yes. Well, and that's the thing that's actually really relevant is when I look at the like, you know, Jisoo is a big beauty brand and this past week they did like a launch. And when I look at their in feed, what they're in feed is more signaling to me is that they have this legitimacy that people show up for their events. Like their in feed has become their, like their kind of tribal home base. That's where their tribe kind of keeps an audit, see what's going on with the brand. And in a big way because they invest so much in activations, they seem to me so much more legit because constantly in their content they're showing me that people are showing up to their events. Like they have this real community, they have this real tribe. That is such an integral point because that's paid ads can't do that. Right. You need to show that people actually want this product, which is what an activation does. But on another hand, in feet alone is only telling me one message. Paid ads is what creates more of that desire to buy. When I see a bunch of people at this, the Jisoo pop up for honey lip balm or whatever the. I don't even know what she's selling. She just did this whole, she actually did this whole launch this past week. I follow it, I've seen all the content. I know it's honey themed. I actually don't know what it is. And that's, that's this perfect point to articulate paid ads sell in feed reminds you that you exist and that people care. And I was just ogling this week at how much money she spent. And I was like, that looks so good. But at the end of the day, I don't know about the product. And that tells you the difference.
- [74:38]
Philip
Well, I don't think I have much to add to that, Ms. Moore.
- [74:40]
Camille
So the last one to wrap us up here is we're going to talk about Jacquemou. Check my pronunciation. I've grown so much last year. So Jacquemou has his first brand ambassador, and it is his grandmother. So Simon Port. Jacquemou cast his grandmother Lilline as the face of the brand, and she was modeling. She was photographed modeling the spring collection. And why I think this matters is in an age of AI and AI models and just an overabundance of the same, this speaks to the larger trend of heritage, of storytelling, of realness, where there's so much fatigue in the ease of what's been kind of done or can be done. What's the most interesting are the pieces to your story that someone can't replicate.
- [75:34]
Philip
What I think is cool about it. It could be a trend that. Because there's. There's almost. We can already see an anti AI, Right. Where everything is AI. But when you bring in a real human who's lived, you know, almost a century, you're bringing back a real esthetic that values wisdom. And when it's actually somebody that's part of the Jacquemou world, to bring the grandmother in, that is interesting to me or to somebody. Right. An AI slop ad isn't that interesting to me. Right. So it allows you to. To connect with the brand better by bringing in a real human who has something interesting to say.
- [76:10]
Camille
One of the topics that was on our list today that we didn't get to was like, the H and M and Elf collab. And there's so many of these things that are happening every week that are happening for the sake of happening. And it's. To me, it's overwhelmingly unmemorable. And when you look at this campaign with Jacques Mu, it evokes emotion. It makes you feel in a way that you feel connected to the brand. The brand. I like the brand more because they took a risk in looking past that first order of thinking of, she's not a model. She's not. She's not going to look objectively the best in the clothes. She's not objectively going to sell the clothes the best. She's not going to connect with that consumer in the best way. And yet it's so artistic that it Makes me want to love the brand more because they let go of all of that fake corporateness, those fake guardrails that want to just say no to everything. And it. And it shows you because the founder is involved. The difference of when a founder is making decisions.
- [77:16]
Philip
It's so cool. I think another phrase that comes out of the podcast this week is human texture. I think human texture is kind of the answer to AI fakeness. Right. And actually, let me make a prediction. I think wise, cool grandmothers are in. Well, they've always been in. But I think there's like an arbitrage there in terms of leveraging these kind of cool founder story origin stories that go back to the human texture of what built a brand.
- [77:44]
Camille
Yeah. And I think if you're trying to learn something from this, there's a client we work with named Patty and Joanne. You guys should search them up online. And whenever Joanne, who is Patty's mother, she's almost 94 years old, whenever she does a piece of content, it goes very viral. And the reason why it goes very viral is she's a 94 year old woman, but she shows up in head to toe vintage Chanel to a point. That is ridiculous. And what people forget about the algorithm is that the algorithm loves novelty. It loves something different. When you look at the. What Burberry has done with this year, right. With, with its campaign, when you look at what Jacquemou is doing, when you look at what Patty and Joanne do, when you look at even Peter Thomas Roth and Ryan Roth bringing his grandmother into the TikTok and onto Instagram, There's a novelty to something that hasn't been done. And grandmothers right now is that level of novelty. And you need to find what's around you that's different and unique and get ahead of it because it's the only way to win in a world of nothing feels new.
- [78:52]
Philip
Yeah. Bring human texture.
- [78:54]
Camille
Human texture.
- [78:55]
Philip
Bring human texture into your strategy when you're connecting to people. You know, the AI slopped fasting. It can work. And that, that collab between ELF and H M. Sorry, isn't it the death drink?
- [79:09]
Camille
No, they did two collabs last week.
- [79:11]
Philip
So I thought, I thought the one with the.
- [79:13]
Camille
No, they did Elfin. Elfin. Liquid Death.
- [79:16]
Philip
Yeah.
- [79:17]
Camille
Okay, so ELF did two collabs last week. One was with H M and one was with Liquid Death. H M. It's like a perfume collab. And the perfume is designed to smell like their best selling products, which is like plastic chalk face powder. And I'm like what? Like so, so unmemorable. But then the Elf and Liquid Death they tried to make, they tried to like take it to 11 on the on to not be like, to be the. The most memorable. But it is actually to me so unmemorable in its extremity because I just looked at it and the whole time I'm like, how desperate are you to sell? You know what I think is actually worth talking about that as a wrap up point to this. I respect what they're doing because it's like Malbon in that if you're just keep doing these collabs, it's like being at a casino. One of them is going to hit and one of them is going to hit big. It's why you can tell like the Matt Rife one last year they decided to do shit that's controversial and that one might have been the one that like made 20% revenue for the entire year. But if they just keep doing it and there is something to learn from that, like if you just keep doing collabs, one of them will hit. But I think a really relevant, like if I was to create a recipe and what to learn from that, the product has to be desirable. And when I looked at the Liquid Death lip balms and the colors they did and how they did the flavors and how they did the packaging as a starter, I don't want the product. So anything else that you do around it is just varying degrees of manufactured noise. Like it just can't be a great song.
- [80:50]
Philip
But the ad, if we show some of it or if people watch it, it seemed very focused on kids. Like it was entertaining, but it seemed very teenager, you know. So I don't know if you were the audience of it, but I think it would get the attention of teenagers. It seems to be moving towards a market segment of goth, which I'm not sure is huge. But at least there was some creativity in the ad. Like at least the end. But the whole time you're kind of flinching because it seems cringy. But at least there was something entertaining in it.
- [81:16]
Camille
To me, it didn't seem entertaining with clear narrative storytelling until it got to the end. The end part was actually funny about what they added in at the end. But I'm critical of. We just understand that we have to do shocking and crazy things, that we're just going to throw so much shocking and crazy things into something so that it's so shocking and crazy that people talk about it.
- [81:36]
Philip
And I guess they didn't know what the cowbell was. They just threw everything in there.
- [81:39]
Camille
Yeah.
- [81:39]
Philip
Like, they weren't giving more cowbell, they were giving more of everything. Animation. This, this, this. Like, it was cluttered, even though it wasn't that. Aish. It was, like, overdone.
- [81:48]
Camille
But, you know, what's like, also complicated, too, is when, you know, to play devil's advocate, someone listening to this could be like, you're still talking about it. But the downside to it is the only reason why we're talking about it is because we have somebody on our team that spends the week looking at just everything that happened. And if not for her working really hard and doing such a good job at her job, it actually didn't come across my desk. Like, a lot of these campaigns I do see or they are sent to me. And this one wasn't the question for.
- [82:22]
Philip
Me to you is maybe I can understand why ELF did it. Right. But was it the right one for Liquid Death Death? Because they have their own story, and I didn't see, like, that. That being the right collab for what they have achieved so far.
- [82:36]
Camille
I do think it's cool from a Liquid Death standpoint, because Liquid Death is they. What they've done really well is their mass market with taste, which is really hard to find because they're sold at most convenience stores and, like, gas stations in the US So they're mass market, but with, like, a very clear aesthetic, which is hard to find. And what makes the ELF piece interesting is they're further reinforcing to a large net that it's water because the brand is still confusing if you don't know that it's water.
- [83:08]
Philip
Nothing in that ad really taught. Like, there was a little bit.
- [83:11]
Camille
Not in that ad, but Colors didn't. No. But in the other ones, when he was like, like, talking about, like, it just. There's enough touch points that reinforce that it's a water brand. That, that I think that on the Liquid Death side, it made enough sense, but at the end of the day, I don't love this disposability. I think that's the only thing is I want to be a purist in some form is it's hard for businesses to learn from brands that have a ton of money that can just keep throwing money at collabs. And, like, what is. What is the takeaway to learn from it? It's. You have to just keep doing things and keep trying. Like, that's the lesson to learn.
- [83:44]
Philip
I agree with you.
- [83:44]
Camille
All right, awesome. Well, we're, you know, we're not speaking at Yale next week. So we'll see you guys on Sunday with regular programming. We're here and we're dialed in for an entire week.
- [83:53]
Philip
So looking for the end of the podcast. You're a loyal subscriber. Please make sure you follow and share so that our platform can grow.
- [84:01]
Camille
Yeah. And you know what? I also must say too, I'm going to be speaking at Female Founders Collective in March, which is in New York. And a bunch of you guys had reached out. New York City. A bunch of you guys had reached out for the event. We, we had to push it because of the amount of people that reached out. The venue that we had secured was too small.
- [84:22]
Philip
So it's a problem.
- [84:23]
Camille
It was a problem. A good problem, but a problem. So we're looking at doing it probably like June or July. We'll give you guys posted. We're looking at. We actually have a meeting on it later today, so we'll keep you guys.
- [84:38]
Philip
Updated to be spectacular.
- [84:39]
Camille
Oh, my God, it's gonna be spectacular. And also too like for how many clients we have and friends that are big names in the industry, they're excited to be able to contribute to helping you guys be. Just be better at whatever you do. But in the meantime, if you guys do want info, it's Female Founders Collective. It's owned by Rebecca Minkoff and another really successful woman that is escaping me right now. But it's in New York. It's March 5th, and I would love to meet you guys if that's convenient. Our event is going to be in LA in June or July or late May. We'll keep you guys posted, probably on hopefully next week's episode, if not the week after. So keep a note when you guys reach out to me and you message me that you're interested. I'm trying to keep a log of the names, but it. If you want to send me a note again, just keep me a prize so that I can keep. There'll be tons of time to advertise, but I really want to meet you guys. Have a lovely week, everyone.
- [85:26]
Philip
Until soon, next week. Enjoy the business of branding.