Can Liquid Glass Save Apple's Dominance? & Power Ranking Brands' Marketing

0:00Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them, in fact. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and... Did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell.

0:36Today we have a special Friday interview episode coming your way. We're talking with a branding and marketing expert about Apple's liquid glass redesign, SmartList launching a wireless company, and why AI marketing kind of stinks. It's Friday, June 20th. Let's ride.

0:57Raise your hand if you've ever had some thoughts on a company's logo change or redesign. Yeah, Yeah, a lot of you. Everyone has opinions on marketing and branding, but perhaps no one's thought more deeply about the subject than our guest today, Ashwin Krishnaswamy, on a special Summer Friday episode of Morning Brew Daily. Yesterday, Juneteenth, was a company holiday for Morning Brew, so today you get to hear us talk to Ashwin. He's a consumer brand builder extraordinaire, helping launch numerous consumer-facing companies through his own design agency. He's the guy you'd go to to bring your idea for a pickleball shoe company or a non-alcoholic champagne brand to life, advising you on stuff like, what should your logo be?

1:36Who's your ideal customer? Are you even good at pickleball? We asked him about some recent branding debacles like HBO Max changing its name every other week and Jaguar doing whatever that was. Ashman also told us the one thing every AI company is messing up when it comes to their marketing. All in all, it was a super fun conversation where you'll hopefully learn a lot more about all that goes into a company's design language and brand, but also get some hot takes along the way. But first, a word from our sponsor, Amazon Ads. Neil, you know that feeling when you show up to a podcast and realize you prepped for the wrong topic?

2:09What? No, I've never done that before. Honestly, you haven't, but I certainly have and basically just riffed over here. But I hated that feeling and want to avoid it in the future, which is why Amazon streaming TV ads are so helpful as someone who is trying to build a small business. It helps you avoid that feeling of preparing for the wrong thing and helps you meet relevant customers where they are watching. Whether you're a local business, a service provider, or just trying to grow on a budget, Amazon ads help you show up while your audience is watching the shows they actually care about. And you can measure what's working, tweak what isn't, and get help improving every step of the way.

2:43That's how you market like you mean it. Gain the edge with Amazon ads by going to advertising.amazon.com slash start now. That's advertising.amazon.com slash start now. Now, without further ado, here's Ashwin. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

3:24so apple just announced a major design shift their first in a decade to a new language called liquid glass what do you think was the strategy behind liquid glass and what do you expect the reception among users to be when it comes to their phones this fall so it's so interesting to see the difference in commentary on tiktok versus twitter which you've probably you may be seen on twitter especially among design community and more older people, there is a ton of feedback that it looks horrible and you can't see anything. And then you go and look at the commentary on TikTok and people are like, oh, this is so fun.

4:00This is so exciting. It's like customization. I can change it however I want. And I think it's just like it's going to polarize people in a couple of different ways. I mean, I've now had the iPhone since 2009 and I've been so accustomed to a very specific design system. Sure, they've gone skeuomorphic to what it is now, but the liquid glass stuff is a little bit different. And I think we don't like change. Did they invent this out of thin air or were there existing examples that they sort of drew inspiration from? I think there's always existing examples that they draw inspiration from. I don't know what the specific inspiration for this is, but I think Microsoft probably had some similar stuff like from older versions where they they pull this idea of like frosted glass uh it's funny because the screenshots that i see of uh users like complaining about it is they'll pull down like their main screen and it's like when you have glass and just frosted glass you still like picks up the image from behind so you lose a lot of detail in the icons and people like are there any designers like left working at apple who actually like care about design i saw some galaxy brain takes of how they're pushing towards a multi-modular system where it's based off the Vision OS software.

5:16And so they're going to be layering things in real space and time. So they're seeding people into getting used to that. But in the meantime, while we're still having iPhones, it stinks. The readability stinks. So I'm glad that you're seeing some people loving it and some people not liking it. But it kind of brings me to my next question. Do you think Apple is okay right now? Like there's been a lot of reports of its demise and how it's just doing this facelift when they should be getting on the AI train. Where do you think Apple is right now in their evolution as a company? Yeah, I think, I think they're, so number one, I think they're, they're just fine, right?

5:47And it's like, people always talk about like the biggest companies in the world and it's like, they're dying, they're dying. There's this idea in like technology called the Lindy effect, which is like the longer thing has been around, the longer it takes to die. So this was often like brought up when people would be like, Snapchat is the Facebook killer. Well, it's like Facebook's been around for 20 years. And if anything, they're going to die an equally slow death. It's going to be like 20 years. But they've just reinvented themselves a number of times. And so Apple's very aware of the writing on the wall and that they're losing some of the AI kind of war to GPT.

6:20And I think they're going to be investing in it. And it's like they're not a stupid company, right? They're very smart and they know how to design and build products. Speaking of smart, that's actually a very good lead to this next question. The host of the SmartList podcast just announced that they're starting a mobile wireless company. This is kind of a wild departure from the kinds of brands celebrities typically launch. Does this make any sense to you? Well, Ryan Reynolds has his telecom company, right? Mint Mobile that sold for like a billion dollars or something. So maybe they were looking at that and they're like, okay, we're not going to do Jason Bateman and who else?

6:59A few other guys, right? Yeah. Yeah. So like, all right, we're not going to do a beauty brand. We're not going to do like a creator led alcohol brand. Let's do telecom. I'm not sure what the positioning is on this one, but it's interesting. Do you think this speaks to any bigger shift in celebrity entrepreneurship away from, you know, those comforting brands like alcohol and beauty to a more maybe Ryan Reynolds approach where he's like, I'm going to get my hands dirty in like an actual business. I have a buddy who does talent partnerships at, uh, at WME, a big talent agency. And they do a lot of like celebrity brand partnerships.

7:31And I always tell him, I'm like, dude, B2B is the next wave. We got to bring in like celebrity software brands. And I always said it joking. But then recently I saw, I want to say it's Edward Norton. He launched like a pitch deck company, like better software. It's called Boardroom or something, like better like pitch making software. And I think that's the first play. And especially as the barriers to entry of creating software decrease, I think we're going to see this play of, you know, just different celebrities saying like, hey, yeah, beauty and alcohol and some of these like traditional categories, they're a little bit saturated.

8:05They're really, really hard to win in. And you have to be operationally excellent on so many fronts. But hey, if we have this distribution, we have a slightly different audience. Maybe they're a little bit older. There could be some interesting software to make. And that's different than Matthew McConaughey being in a Super Bowl ad for Salesforce. You're talking about someone getting down and dirty with the product. Totally. I mean, I don't know that it's so far-fetched to think of a celebrity who is super fit and loves to run going and creating like a Strava competitor with the right team. What do you think is like the future of influencer marketing kind of on this topic?

8:40Is it evolving in a way that you think is a departure from kind of slap your name on this brand and just let it do the rest? Is it becoming more in the weeds? Yeah, I think we are at a point where the audience is so fatigued by celebrity brands that they can very easily see when it's a cash grab. Like last year, I think Kendall Jenner launched maybe five or six brands and posted about it in a two-month period. And by the fifth one, people are like, what is going on here? Like you're talking beauty. You're talking like an alcohol product. You're talking a jeans product. like in such a short time period.

9:20And people know when there's that cash grab and they're like, you're already rich. It's hard to build kind of resonance, especially if there isn't product market fit already. So that doesn't mean there aren't tremendous opportunities for like creator and celebrity led brands, but this era of like, let's take this category, find this like super narrow white space, put a face on it, and then we're off to the races and it's gonna be successful. Let's shift gears a little bit to AI. Since ChatGPD came out, There's been numerous instances of tech companies stumbling when it comes to their AI marketing.

9:50I'm thinking here of Google's ad during the Olympics where they had a dad using Gemini to help his daughter write a letter to her hero. Also, the massive backlash that Duolingo got when the CEO came out and said, hey, we're an AI-first company now. What are companies getting wrong when it comes to talking about AI to their customers? Everyone makes AI the hero, and no one cares about AI. They care about their problems being solved faster for them. So make AI the secondary thing and talk about how you speed up workflows or experiences or like get people to a desired outcome. And this was so apparent to me.

10:26I was driving on a highway in San Francisco. Every single billboard was like AI, the power of now. I'm like, what does this even mean? Yeah, it's become like you're not even showcasing the benefits anywhere. You're just saying the words and just hoping people say, ah, AI does it all. But also, we just saw Sam Altman and OpenAI shell out a lot of money,$6.5 billion to bring in Johnny Ive, the former Apple developer, to make an AI-first hardware product. We've already seen some stumbles with Humane's AI pin that didn't work out. What do you think this could be? Like, what could be the hardware iteration of AI?

11:03I think it probably starts – so when you look at the existing model that people are familiar with, it's like Alexa and their home. and we talk to this thing. And so I think that's a decent place to start because you have to look at where people's behaviors are because you can't shift behavior that drastically that quickly. So if they use that as the starting point and say, hey, here's this device that's in your home now that you can interface with. And maybe now instead of you having to say, hey, Alexa, answer this for me, maybe it's always ambiently kind of like listening and processing and then gives you this kind of active feedback.

11:38And I think they're probably going to take a lot of insight from how people are talking to ChatGPT. I talk to ChatGPT all the time, like after meetings and I just download notes into it. So I think they're going to use that and then look at some common hardware behaviors that we're already used to and then try to like blend those two. I think our audience is probably very interested in how you're using ChatGPT or AI in your workflow. So you say you talk to it all the time. Like, what are you having it doing? I talk to it all the time, but I'll give you like a kind of tactical example of something that I did super recently.

12:08So I have a brand and we just did a ton of customer interviews. We probably did 50 customer interviews and then we did a survey with another hundred customers. And so this includes both structured and unstructured data. When I say unstructured data, just off the cuff them talking about the product. We wanted to take all this information and then use it to inform our ads, the audience that we go after, as well as how we talk about our product from like a copy and messaging standpoint. Before kind of AI, I would have to parse through all of this, pull out the insights. It'd be an exercise that takes me a couple of weeks to do.

12:43With AI, I feed it all of the data and then have it analyze it and think like a really smart copywriter or market strategist and say, hey, what are the ads or angles we should test? What should our landing page copy look like? Where is our Amazon storefront coming up short? Are you using it for any actual creative outputs? Like, are you asking it to generate images for ads? Are you asking it to generate actual copy that makes it into marketing materials? So I use it because I have some background in design. I use it to generate background assets or supplemental images. I do not use it to generate the entire ad creative that many people do.

13:23It's like we saw Twitter was ablaze when 4.0 came out. People are like, oh, this is, I'm just going to generate hundreds of like sloppy images and run it. It's like, no, you still need to be a decent marketer and think about the angles. And I think it can, you know, what would otherwise have taken me, hey, I gotta get this really specific shot of this mug on this table, and that's just gonna be this blurred background image. Well, now I can just generate that image and then create the rest of my creative. All right, we'll be back with more Ashwin right after this. Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozema St.

13:55John host the highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands. This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best idea win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere Tuesday on NBC.

14:25When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. We need to talk about some marketing flops because that is extremely fun. What can we learn from the HBO Max, HBO Max branding debacle? What I am curious about is what has the leadership or management change looked like at HBO over the past four years?

15:12And how often are people cycling in and out? Because oftentimes when you see brands do these big rebrands thinking that's going to solve their problems, That's just a sign that a new CMO or head of brand has come in and they want to put their thumbprint on things. And that's the easiest kind of place to start, right, is overhaul the visual identity. So I think it's almost comical, right? It's a meme, but it's almost getting them this earned awareness where people are thinking about and talking about HBO and Max more than they ever have been. Do you think they're playing 4D chess? Do you think they're doing that or no?

15:46It's just bad leadership. um having talked to a few of these large streaming services from a content and social standpoint and kind of like modern marketing standpoint there's no way they're playing 40 chess they just don't understand like the internet at that at that level yeah people rarely although the last hbo max rebrand did come with a lot of memes a lot of like leaning into the joke so i do feel like someone in their social department at least figured out like hey guys this is what people are saying about us Let's just get out ahead of it. So there was a little bit of chess going on. I don't know if it was 4D at that point.

16:21Yeah, maybe just like they're just responsive to what's happening. On that note, how much does a company's or brand's name matter? When you look at physical products, right? When I say physical products, anything sold in like a Whole Foods 7-Eleven, any object that you're purchasing, um brand names and brand identities matter a lot for recognition discoverability like word of mouth when you get into services businesses and then you get into streaming businesses especially right when we're talking about hbo versus max versus hbo max uh i think it matters a little bit less because it's like well you have the app you generally recognize it you maybe use three or four different streaming services so it's not like oh man i can't remember that one thing it's like i I just want to watch Game of Thrones.

17:11Like, where is it? I'm going to figure it out anyway. So in some categories, it matters quite a bit. In other categories, I think you're okay kind of making these mistakes. We have seen a couple of major rebrands recently. One minor rebrand was actually Walmart just slightly tweaking its logo. Another big rebrand was Jaguar changing its entire visual identity. Both of them elicited pretty strong reactions from customers. What is it about a rebrand that brings out those strong feelings? Yeah, so the Walmart one is interesting because Walmart changed their logo ever so slightly, right, imperceptibly.

17:46And then the public or like the meme is, oh, this was a rebrand and someone got paid tens of hundreds of millions of dollars to do this thing. And what they see is like the meme that gets shared is like before and after. And people are like, I could do that. I could type out the word Walmart. But then you actually go into the entire design system that was built for Walmart. What I mean by design system is as a brand grows and you have an international brand with so many different touchpoints, right? Physical touchpoints, digital touchpoints, apps, services, you know, all, you know, on the side of trucks, boxes, et cetera.

18:16You need a consistent visual system, right? Everything from illustrations to iconography, to word marks, to type, to colors that can expand on the system. And what often happens as companies grow very quickly is that all of these different departments will make ever so subtle tweaks because they're hiring external agencies. And then you're like, oh, now we have this like Frankenstein design system where we have 73 shades of blue and we should have just had three to maintain this consistency. So a rebrand that like Walmart did is actually just a slight evolution, but it's really a lot of this behind the scenes, like foundational design system work that matters that like a lot of people who aren't designers or have ever operated in those fields, they don't understand the value of that, especially at the scale of Walmart, like creating consistency there is going to save them a lot of time and money.

19:04But it's fascinating to see how emotionally invested regular people are in a company's design decisions for some reason uh it elicits like the most strong reactions of any sort of corporate decision that a company can make well here's the thing it's the easiest thing to have a decision on right and the easier thing is to have a decision on the more input you're going to get we've all designed something right even if the last thing we designed was in like high school like you design a book cover for for some report um so we have We feel like we can have opinions on color and look and feel of things, whereas it's like, hey, should we change our shipping route from this country to this country?

19:44No one can talk about that. No one has the right to have any opinion on it. So that's where I think we see a lot of the public getting very invested in that type of stuff. All right. So we talked about some flops. What are some of the smartest product launches and associated marketing campaigns you've seen this year? You know, one that stands out to me is Jake Paul, like creator-led brand. Well, he's not a creator-led brand, but he launched W, which is a men's body care line. He launched a deodorant and all these other products. And what I found fascinating about his launch is he didn't say, hey, one day I'm just like going to launch this thing.

20:25and it's this one and done thing where I kind of contrast this to Beyonce launched a hair care brand called Sacred. She, I think, maybe posted about it one day. But if you go to her account, like there's no association between her and this brand at all, which can be a strategic and intentional decision on its own merit. But Jake Paul's like, I'm the master of commanding attention. So I am. And this was around the time of the Tyson fight, too. So leading up to it for a week, he was creating all of this content. Him and this brother did this like phenomenal, like, lie detector test video that actually turned out to be an ad halfway through for W.

20:58They rolled out in Walmarts nationwide. And then for probably like three weeks afterwards, W played some role in every one of his videos, his reels, his YouTube videos. He changed all of his like social avatars to W and like driving traffic there. And that's where I think a creator-led brand has a higher likelihood of getting traction and success when there is a creator who knows how to garner attention and then is repeatedly talking about it over a long period of time. Seems like you're talking about commitment. Yes. Yes. It is. I mean, Jake Paul and Logan Paul, obviously they command a lot of attention, not all of it good attention all the time.

21:38Do you delineate between all attention is good attention or does it have to be like the right kind of attention? Because there's people who can make headlines, but not all of them the most positive. Do you think that brands need to be supported by someone with more positive headlines than negative, or does it just not matter? I think it's a question of how negative is negative. You kind of look at Elon Musk and the impact that it's had on Tesla and SpaceX and how kind of polarizing he has been with certain views. And it can be seen as super negative by a large population of people. I don't see a similar thing.

22:15Like Jake Paul and his brother, like they act stupid a number of times. Like the most negative headline was probably like 15 years ago from them. And so I think in that stage, as long as there isn't this like tremendous, like reputational risk when they come out and say something, it's kind of just like additional like eyeballs and attention on them. If you did want to launch a brand in the year 2025, how would you do it? And would it be much different than it was maybe five years ago, 10 years ago? Five or 10 years ago, the play was really, we can find an opportunity. And if there's enough, you don't even need that much gross margin on your product.

22:53We can just play this arbitrage game on Facebook, right? We can acquire a customer for five bucks. We have 20 bucks of gross margin, and then we can scale that really quickly. Those days are completely over. So one of the conversations I was having, someone was saying, hey, where's the arbitrage right now? And I'm like, you know, for the past 12 months, it's probably been TikTok shop. It'll probably be TikTok shop for the next 12 months. So I'd lean, I'd probably start and lean pretty heavily, like reverse engineer the product and brand to work very well on social, right? So what this means is for TikTok shop, it's high repeat purchase.

23:25It is maybe in the beauty or skincare space. There's a clear kind of demonstration or use case of the product. And it probably sits at under a$40 price point. Again, that's if you want to build a product that can kind of like take advantage of some arbitrage that exists from a customer acquisition standpoint. But in terms of like foundational brand building, all of that stuff is really the same. And it's like, you have to build a community. You have to build loyalty. You can't just rely on one channel. You have to build a kind of like omni-channel business. And those tenants mattered 10 years ago.

23:59They mattered 30 years ago. They still matter today. It's just the tooling has changed a little bit. You recently went to a Sephora. What did you learn there? It's my first time. It was my first time actively in a Sephora. looking around. There's so much beauty product and there's so many unique names for them. And I'm like, oh, they rebranded lip gloss into like a collagen lip plumper. Turns out when you do that verbal gymnastics, you can 4X the price of the product. So I think it was an interesting exercise in seeing how the variety of products, all of the ways that they talk about these products.