583: The Branding Expert Behind Dior, L'Oréal & Mercedes | Camille Moore

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0:39Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the founder podcast. Today we're joined by Camille Moore, the creative force behind some of the most iconic brand transformations on the internet right now. She's known as the internet's favorite creative director. She's built a reputation for helping founders go from forgettable to unforgettable with brand strategies that actually move the needle. So in this episode, it's a branding masterclass. She breaks down exactly what makes a good brand versus a great brand, why e-commerce founders are getting social media completely wrong and what you need to be doing, how to make sure your visuals, your message, your customer experience, all work together like a symphony.

1:27And also, you're going to learn why building founder-led brands isn't just smart, it's a non-negotiable right now. So if you've ever struggled to stand out online building your brand, this is the ultimate crash course in branding that actually builds trust, drives conversion, drives sales, and scales your business. All right, let's get into it. Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan. Okay, well, we are here with the internet's favorite creative director. And you've said, if I asked 1000 people, what a brand is, I get 1000 different answers.

2:13So what's the simplest, but most overlooked way to define a brand? The simplest way to define a brand is that it's like a symphony. It's a collection of different pieces and parts that work together as a collective whole. And that's what most business owners miss when it comes to branding is that they focus on the logo or on the website, or they're trying to trace a trend because they want to go viral. And they don't realize that every single aspect of their business, their experience, how their employees show up is all what makes the brand. So I like the example of a symphony, because when you go to see a show, right, if 10 of us went to go see a show, when they do their final applaud and they bow and they leave and we all look at each other, more or less, we're all going to say that was awesome or something was wrong.

3:06right and you can't quite put your finger on it at that level because it's not like you had a rogue cellist or like someone stood up and did like a solo and it was bad it's kind of how all of the pieces work together and that's often what makes or breaks a brand it's not you know that there's a it's such an amazing experience but their socials are off it's more that they don't understand the role of how those pieces work together hearing it as a symphony how can like early stage founders, especially in the e-com space, you know, what does that mean to like build a brand with trust from day one and build something solid?

3:43Obviously it takes time, but from your perspective, how can people start? What are the, what are the things to start with? Well, the best place to start is actually on the foundations, which is really what the, the course that we did together at Founders, why it's so important because people get so excited. They, they start talking, they dropping the buzzwords, right? Like what is the e-com? What is the slider going to look like? What is the UGC that we're going to place? Like they start looking at more of this, like the smaller pieces to it, then what are you trying to achieve? Like, what is the goal?

4:14Who are you trying to speak to? What are their pain points? What is the like, trying to clearly identify who who is your customer? Like, where do they spend? What are their issues? What is your point of view as a brand going into the market? Like, why are you going into the market? and what makes you different. If you are obsessed with answering those questions, your brand starts to make a lot more sense. So a lot of the people that come across my desk, they're like, I want to create a beauty brand. And they're like having developers like mock up their website. And they're trying to like pull images off the site, but they're not asking the hard questions like, who are you wanting to sell to?

4:54And what are like, what are their pain points? What makes you different so if you start there and really identify and spend the time and speaking though then instead of just doing the exciting pretty stuff that's how you start to build the trust and credibility because you're speaking to and you're showing visuals that connect with that person yeah you um you said something really interesting that i want to pull out and it was that what makes you different so we have you know an incredible community at founder and i think that's something people really struggle with but it is so key to getting cut through like when i look at our successful students in our community like they have like it's clear like their products are different and it is clear but but then sometimes that's something that people get caught up with as well because they want to be so different it's actually hard to bring the product the life you know it has to be so unique like how do you find that balance well that's why you have to ask the questions properly right like if you're if you're a founder coming into the space why are you deciding to launch this product this product like what problem or what compelled you to act and if it doesn't have a clear so what and a clear impact statement like the random strangers on the street aren't going to stop what they're doing they're going to stop buying from tide to buy from you unless it's like a it speaks to a core pain point right whether it's price whether it's friction whether it's a gap in the market whether it's consumer insights has changed like maybe you're speaking to more of a clean audience maybe you're speaking to an audience that has young children like what what do they care about and once you have that identified that's how you can figure out what is your like there's a reason why you're doing what you're doing and it's often it can maybe it's it was that you had an allergy or a life moment or something that compelled you or maybe you just didn't feel that there was something in the market that was quite good enough but often those pieces like those friction points those those compelling moments is where the differentiator is sitting yeah i see so you break you break branding like a i get into three tiers there's a brand a good brand and a great brand yeah i'd love to i'd love to talk more about that and really how founders can move up a level and can you give us some examples can you give us some examples so the reason why i came up with the three different levels of a brand was truthfully i was meeting with well-intentioned small business owners but they were delusional and who their competitors were.

7:29And the three levels is actually more helpful than hurtful. Like it's not designed to so the whole the story of how this came to be is I was working with this, this chain, one of the largest franchises in Canada, and they're in a specific food category. And we were basically I was helping them rebrand, they had over 500 locations. And I said, Okay, well, who is your competitor. And they said the proverbial Chipotle, like Chipotle was their competitor that has 30 ,000 locations that's been in business for 30 years, that is owned by McDonald's, that is an absolute behemoth. And even at 500 stores, the reason why they were retaining me is that because they had no brand awareness, nobody knew who they were.

8:13And they, the reason why they had grown to such a large footprint is because their franchising opportunity looked so attractive. And I'd heard so many businesses say, I'm going to be the next Uber of X, when really they weren't prepared, like they really weren't a disruptor, they weren't really coming in to change the industry, there was maybe a technological piece that made them like slightly more advanced, but to call yourself an Uber of X, or that Chipotle is your competitor, it's misaligned to where how you need to be thinking and launching into market. So it's difficult when I get clients that say, oh, road did this or summer Fridays did this.

8:52So therefore, I'm thinking I need to do x. I'm like, well, they're also doing they like$100 million in sales per year, like they can justify doing things at a different rate and spend on earned media value, which you can at this stage. So to go back to it, a good brand, sorry, a brand, the first level of a brand is you exist. So this is like a local coffee shop. This is someone where they there's not really consistency in branding. They have a business, but you're not going to them because of their branding. It's often convenience. So the example that I like to give is here near my office, there's a smoothie shop, the signage makes no sense.

9:34The there's no consistency to the health food shop, they basically sell ice cream milkshakes, and then they claim to be a health food store, they call themselves a clean earth. And I don't go to them because they're the best. I go to them because they're down the street. So that's the first level of a brand. And that's where most brand owners sit. So the next level is a good brand. And this is where the majority of small businesses and medium sized businesses spend their entirety of their branding lives. So a good brand is defined by having a good product. So the product is good on its own. It has a good story.

10:13So it has the reason why you came to market or what you do has a good story to it. You have a good experience. So you focused on the touch points, you focus, you understand Google reviews, like you understand that experience matters. And then the fourth pillar is you're consistent, you have consistency. So it doesn't matter how good your product is, or how good your story is, or how good your experience is. Because if you're not consistent, you lose brand trust. So that's the middle level of a brand, that's a good brand. And that's where a lot of you as founder based businesses, you'll want to aim to be a good brand, because that's a great place to be you're consistent in your visuals, you show up consistently in your message, and you're growing.

10:54The good brand category has a spectrum, right? So from a good brand can be a brand that's just launched to a brand that's been in business for 45 years, but isn't quite as obsessed with those four pillars. So their product isn't great, their story isn't fantastic, their experience isn't through the roof, and they're not absolutely obsessed with consistency, right? So the third pillar, that last option, is a great brand. And this is the Chipoles, this is the Ikea, this is the Four Seasons, this is the like, the mecca of branding. And the fourth variable on top of not being good, but being great is time, because you need the variable of time, you need to be in market for 2030 40 years to perfect your systems to have tried and failed to have understood your customer and every decision you make be obsessed with executing those four pillars in order to get there.

11:50So the examples and the reason why I like for the for the great brand is it doesn't have to be luxury. Like to be great, you don't have to be Four Seasons. You can be an Ikea, you can be a Walmart. But these brands, there's a clear promise and relationship that you get every single time. And that's what makes them great. When I if I was if we were to both close our eyes, and I said, imagine the Nike hotel, you and I would probably picture a very similar hotel. If we said the founder hotel we would picture a probably a similar hotel if if i if you asked yourself to close your eyes and say what would your business's hotel be if it's not a hundred percent clear like a walmart hotel or a lululemon hotel or a nike hotel you're not a great brand yet you're in the good brand or a brand status yeah i love i love the way that you've broken it down and you got me thinking right like when i think about being brands i've only built two companies right built founder and this e-commerce brand healthish and um i i learned i learned from this guy uh his name sean i forget his last name but he he was behind a lot of big e-com brands and he said to me i interviewed him a long long time ago long long time ago and he said to me nathan there's three really key components that I bring to every single brand that I create the first obviously is great product which you talked about the second is great design look and feel and then the last one was ambassadors I need to have ambassadors people behind the brand that we can align with and showcase and I took that like this was early days found like in the first year or two probably close first year i took that and that's always sat with me like i'm always like product product is everything and then i like i'm massive on design i think design is how it looks but it also is how it makes people feel but then lastly is ambassadors i'm curious around ambassadors because that is a key component you spoke about road right like yeah clearly like so where does ambassadors fall into kind of the branding sphere, building trust, getting cut through, especially for new brands?

14:16Oh my gosh. It's, I mean, it's huge. And this is where social media has really become the biggest living extension of your brand, especially for e-com because you, you predominantly don't have brick and mortar. So your brand effectively lives online. So when it comes to like building a community, building a tribe, having evangelists, which is basically three different ways of saying what you just said, you have to understand two things. One is the power and importance of having a founder-led brand. So the big thing is to have evangelists, they have to buy into something. And in the modern age, it's often buying into someone, right?

15:01Like getting behind what someone believes in so the biggest problem is that 30 years ago faceless brands were the thing because the internet of things didn't exist so what these big behemoth businesses would do is they would tap into celebrities into models into what people could only have relationships with at that time at a grand scale so if they hired sydney crawford to to be the model of the brand new red lipstick for cover girl, the enough of that target market masses knew who she was and felt connected in order to buy that product. In today's day, we don't feel connected to celebrities because we never knew them.

15:44And we can now know people on Instagram and TikTok in a much more intimate way than this like PR placement of, you know, JLo showing up on a cover like we never knew these people and they were like highly polished PR kind of dolls that we never really could see into their life but all we could see is what the tabloids would tell us so when it comes to building a tribe and evangelists that's why having a founder let brand is not a buzzword but it's the way to be in today's age because people can't tell that you're different or they can't connect with you if you're not sitting like standing on the roof of your brand and shouting from the rooftops of why you're different and why you're special.

16:24And I had a call this past week with the biggest filter brand, like biggest filter hair and beauty brand. And they were number one in the market. They have the most superior product. They spent all this money doing these tests in these labs. And she's losing to brands that have better packaging when she has a superior product because all of these tests and these studies she's paid for, nobody's reading them if she as the founder is not showing up and it's because like we buy from people we don't buy from flat graphics right so that's that's number one number two is understanding the role in which social media plays so a big thing I talk about is inner circle versus outer circle content so when you're building a brand you need to understand the difference of creating awareness creating a doing things that are more viral more break the news that speak to a larger audience but then you also need to be doing stuff that's more inner circle.

17:22So that's building the community investing in the tribe. So I'm going to give you a quick analogy. So I use this analogy for two different things for how to create content that connects, but how to basically also bring community members into your brand vibe. So imagine you're a bus driver. And you are going down a small town main road, and you as a bus driver, you're going to the big city, you're going to New York. So you need to let people know that are in this town that are on the road on the street that the bus is coming it's the only bus for this week and it's going to New York and if they want to get to New York the time is now in order to get on the bus basically what you want to do is you want to have your message get people to stop what they're doing and to see that the bus is coming that is your first goal your second goal is to get people to decide to come to the bus stop and to get on the bus because that's when they're now moving from they've seen your brand to they're now clicking on your page and clicking on your website they're interested in what where your bus is going they're going to come check it out see how much the fare is see how long the ride is they're interested in coming on but then the third huddle that you have to overcome is you want to keep them on the bus and you want them to be with you on your journey so that's where when it comes to you have to create content and think in your brand in terms of how do I keep people to come on the bus and to go with me where I want to go and the reason why I I liked you have to compel them to want to move and go with you.

18:49So it's not just like you got to build an evangelist, you got to build the tribe, you have to give so much value away, you have to tell them, look, I'm going to take it in New York for free. But you got to get on this bus and you got to stay on for the 14 hour trip. And that's what you've done with founder, right? People love founder, because founder gives away so much value. They come on the bus, they stay on your bus, they are evangelist, they're evangelists for the trip, though, the trip's amazing, you got to come. It's got air conditioning in here. We got flat screen TVs. It's amazing. And that's what builds your brand so that you end up becoming a bigger, a great brand.

19:25Yeah, I see. And so when it comes to you, there's a lot I want to unpack here as well. We talked about personal brand. This is massive. I agree with you. It's all about founder led content before we started shooting. This is something I'm doubling down on. I wish I haven't even told you this so we spoke late last year and i said oh i'm gonna start working my personal brand i'd love to get your your feedback i'm starting now and i'm like i'm kicking myself i didn't do this like seven eight nine ten years ago when i was like early days founder oh my god like found would be a totally different business like but it'd be like like it'd be insane right like if imagine you i wish i had documented everything people can kind of put the pieces i wish i shared more so i want to touch on the personal branding piece um what have founders do though if we know it's important right and we talk about you know ambassadors you have to be your number one ambassador for your brand that's really key these days how can founders start because for many it's so scary pulling out the camera what do you say how do you take people on the journey wanting to make it perfect like that's a big sticking point even for myself like that's what held me back like for a long time i didn't know what to do like it's not that i didn't know what to do i was scared of what other people would think of me totally well i'm gonna i'm gonna challenge first and then I'm going to soften it by bringing in areas to explore that that make it easier.

20:58But the first thing is it it's it is hard. And it is hard. It is hard for everyone. It is hard for people that have scaled multi seven figure businesses. It is hard for me. I went to school for the performing arts. I hated creating content. I felt that going performing on stage performing to a camera. It was the even I even did some like on stage work it was the hardest transition because I wasn't reading a script I had to like talk to the like it was like you were sitting in front of me like it was entirely different it sucks but the reason why it sucks is why it's worth doing because that is the way to get ahead because it sucks for everybody so the sooner you bite the bullet you start doing it the faster you can get ahead and the sooner you are future-proof like we are facing an age of AI avatars, there is going to be an entire swath of fake businesses that are popping up on Instagram with AI avatars that but it's not to scare you, it's to remind you that people buy from people.

21:57But you have to start before there's more because the algorithm is only going to become flooded. And there's a learning period. And that's the reality is that if you're going to suck in the beginning, it's going to be uncomfortable in the beginning. But if you want to do anything great, you have to work through that period of uncomfortability and you have to continue to reinvent and push yourself. Like I had a conversation with a client and she's very to the point. She's probably my favorite client. She says things as they are and she doesn't hold anything back. And she said, Camille, I wouldn't hire you based on your content now.

22:32But I like basically she wouldn't have hired me based on the stuff that I was posting at that current time. and the content really wasn't performing as well my sales had been down she wasn't wrong but it was what I had to hear and it was not convenient to hear as a business owner that was in autopilot that was like it was already work to do it but to hear that I needed to change and to reinvent was like the worst thing to hear but it's what it's what you need to be prepared as a founder is that there's it there this piece of it sucks but it's why being a founder isn't for the faint of heart it's never been easier to open a Shopify account it's never been easier to get AI generated graphics like the piece that you have to bite the bullet on is the personal branding now the second piece to it before I soften it is the other thing is the reason why it's hard is because social media is so easy to consume so we went to school and we learn math and we go to school and we learn science and philosophy and we're tested on it we read the textbooks and we study but we don't study social media like we haven't gone to school for social media so when you're a business owner, social media is your number one vital asset.

23:35And it's often going to the most like underqualified person in the business. And that's where I give the biggest criticism to these huge brands that hire me is these massive companies come to me. They're like, Camille, we're shadow banned. And I look, I take 10 seconds. I'm like, no, you're not shadow banned. Your content sucks. And I'm like, who's doing your content? He's like, we've got these great interns. They just graduated from Cornell. They're 21, 22 and 24. And I'm like, you are a multinational company. You are, you have an over a billion dollar revenue per year and interns are doing your Instagram and your TikTok.

24:13People who are not paid at the company are running your socials and you're paying me money and you're like, something's not working here. And I'm like this, I just feel like it becomes business therapy because we don't like people think that they're too old they think that like they don't get it they don't spend time on socials and they just like hope that like one day it's going to hit them on their head that they're going to like start to understand it the people who get it are the people that study obsess save come back the evolution in where I started creating content to where I am now was not linear it didn't happen overnight it's not because I am 30 it's because I spent an obsessive amount of time saying this is what's going to change my life and I have to study this so the biggest thing I tell people is like study content so one of the things I get people to do I call it the 10 by 10 rule and basically you go and you take and this is a good thing for you two to do Nate so you take 10 people that you respect online people that you see as competitors or just content that you like people's pages you keep coming back to and for all 10 of them I get you to go through each of their posts and study their top 10 performing pieces of content.

25:25So look for the 10 that got the most the most engagement, the most views. Engagement can be a separate than a views. Look for what performed the best and write down the post and save the post. Within each of those posts, I want you to steal like an artist. Take the Austin Cleone approach. Don't copy it. Steal like an artist. What is it about that piece of content that did well? What was the hook? What was the visual hook? What was the audio hook? What was the caption? What happened in the video? How fast was the video? What was the middle point? What was the re-hook, the subject and the value and the call to action?

26:00Once you break all of that down, you are now starting to think about socials like you are in school and it becomes less overwhelming. Now, if camera is not for you, this is also why I want you to do the 10 by 10 analysis because you can find 10 accounts that maybe they do voiceovers. Maybe they do swipe throughs. I've seen you do a lot of swipe throughs for your personal brand. maybe they're doing montages or maybe they're getting somebody else to film it or maybe they're sitting down and they're doing curated 10 interviews or they have employees doing egc and they pop in whatever you find that performs on those 10 accounts is what gives you the permission to try and test things out yeah this is a brilliant strategy and it works it's like it's exactly what what like success leaves clues yeah 100 it's it's what i've always done it's what that's where i got the swipe through is wrong, right?

26:49Like I can see certain carousels, I can see certain hooks, like you just keep testing, testing, testing. The reason I like the carousels is I can train AI to keep getting them better and better and better. I can do it with the videos, but I find videos a bit more work, but we're getting there. We're getting there one step at a time. But yeah, that's gold. So, all right. So that's the personal brand piece ambassadors. Talk me through, i guess you you talk about having the customer as the hero of your brand and this idea of yeah of story brand talk me through that because i remember when we last spoke i thought this was really really powerful well what the biggest thing that that well-intentioned business owners miss is that they're shouting at the customer instead of guiding them on their way so the big the big thing is that everyone is living their own lives they are the number one character in their own life and they're they're navigating through time and space in a way of giving themselves more comfort less friction and less pain so oftentimes your product is a solution to a problem that they have or should be positioned as a solution to the problem that they have and that's effectively what donald miller how to build a story brand does it really is a ted talk it's a super simple concept but sometimes simple is like what kicks you in the butt the most because oftentimes business owners get so in the weeds where they're talking in a way like they're credentializing right like they're just laundry listing these points or like where they went to school or like what they've done and you're just like talking at someone while they're walking by they're not getting on your bus you have to position your bus as I'm going to take you to New York you want to be a singer darling well I'm going to Broadway so if you want to come with me this is the way to the game this is the way to the show and that's how you have to be thinking about your product if you're a if you're selling face cream well what is their pain point their pain point is that they don't want to age and they're sick of being duped they're sick of being scammed and they can't trust the skincare industry well that goes back to the beginning of the our podcast where I was like what is your point of view what is your pain point why are you coming into this what does your customer care about like the best branding isn't complicated it's simple and to go back to the story brand concept it's basically understanding the simple arc of the best stories that have ever existed so what makes harry potter an amazing or every single story amazing there is a character who has a problem who goes on a journey who meets a guide who is faced with basically there's like two options they can become evil or they can become good in some different version of those two paths and the idea is you are a guide that's going to guide them to the best future if they decide to go with you they're going to become the ultimate wizard at hogwarts or they're going to stay as a human and rot under the stairs back in london and they're not going to be able to live this fantastic wizard life like there's basically two options and the goal is that you're showing them that if they don't go on this journey or this guide with you it's going to result in the worse alternative or it's gonna basically end up in the positive end and the reason why that book is so good is that's that's what communicates and works for the customer like when you think of the best products yeti yeti keeps your drinks colder longer hotter like longer it's a it's a product that lasts forever it can't be destroyed and it solves the issue of when you're out in the woods or hunting or camping your stuff is going to stay cold and hot like it's really that simple and the brands that win are the brands that speak to their customers instead of like at them hoping that someone's going to buy them because they're just saying how great they are yeah you make you make a great point around stories like that's something that is never like from a marketing standpoint from a brand building standpoint that's never going to go away right like if you can just continually tell good stories and that's something that uh it's human yeah i've been thinking about that a lot as this past 12 months 24 months and really focusing like i look at my content i'm putting up from a personal standpoint and it's the stories it's the stories that stick it's when we speak to to to students right people in our community we want to hear their stories we want to tell their stories when we speak to founders we want to tell their stories and we want to communicate that i'm curious um you talked about consistency yeah what do you mean by that for for many is it just posting consistently like like what does that mean and how can like because i think it can be so overwhelming for an early stage founder to know they've got to be consistent with their brand totally well consistency means being consistent in literally every facet and that's what makes like that's what makes going from a brand to a good brand to a great brand so exhausting in a lifetime achievement.

31:52Like you don't go from being a brand new business to Trader Joe's or to Four Seasons in a year, right? Like that's why consistency when it comes to like, and when you talk to anyone, whether it's like the biggest founders, or whether it's bodybuilders, or like in any area, it's about showing up every day and doing the same thing towards what you're working towards. So when I talk about consistency, in a simple form, it means ensuring that everything you do is consistent. So what I break down in the course is I talk about brand pillars. So brand pillars are the four P's and it's your purpose, it's your position, it's your personality, and it's your perception.

32:33So your position is very much your, the real estate that you want to own. Like what is that USP? What is your point of view? What is that corner of the internet that you want to be yours? Your purpose is your mission vision. It's your so what. It's why are you doing this? Why are you here? Your personality is how you outwardly want to show up. So it's like how you outwardly present yourself. And your personality is how you're inwardly perceived. So they're very close, but they're slightly different. Like the way that I show up is very intentional for the way that I want to be perceived. but there's a nuance into basically how the two of them meet.

33:11So I make sure that I invest in high quality productions. I make sure that I invest in, I've done Korean color analysis. I went all the way to Korea to learn like what colors I wear. So I only show up on camera and like the only colors that I'm, because I've got, I've got three seconds. So I want whenever people see me to be like, she's polished, she's put together, she's expensive, right? Like I want there to be a perception to the way that I show up, but she's real. She's a, she's, she's a disrupt her but she's knowledgeable she's blunt like I come up intentionally so that you perceive me in the way that I want to be perceived so when it goes back to the the consistency it's you need to be obsessed with when someone designs a graphic it's not like so what whatever let's get it out there it has to match your brand and I talk about in the in the course the one of the biggest brands that I'm so critical of is like these collaborations so the one I always use is like Gucci and North Face.

34:07So Gucci and North Face did this collaboration. And it was like, everyone's like, whoa, like Gucci and North Face, who would have thought this is crazy. And it got buzz. But if you actually were to analyze both brands through the brand pillars, Gucci and North Face's audience, it's not a consistent pairing. Like it doesn't actually make any sense. People that wear Gucci do not wear North Face. People that buy North Face do not buy Gucci. And the reason why Gucci is in such a hole right now is because they've been making it's brand death by 1000 cuts, your brand doesn't die by a proverbial blood light moment, you don't like absolutely tank and people just walk away from the brand, like we're done with you.

34:43It's a it's a slow death by a ton of wrong moves. And if you're building your brand, if you're starting out, and you are posting randomly, there's no consistency, there's no focus on your pain point, your point of view, what you're trying to achieve, what that visual needs to look like, you're not going to be memorable, and you're not building that brand. So you have to be what I when it comes to consistency, it's hard for me to explain because every everyone can have their own issue. But like one, when you talk about posting consistency, like, for sure, like if you're trying to build a brand, you're posting once per week, that's not consistent, you're not showing up and communicating and trying to evangelize to your community in a way that's going to build it to where you want to go.

35:25So consistency in every sense of the word in every area of your business matters, I have to be consistent in how I treat my customers, I have to be consistent in how I show up on video. I have to be consistent in the way that I dress. I have to be consistent in the amount of times that I post because I'm trying to build a community that trusts me and comes fee for information. If it's not convenient for me to post for three weeks because my business is so busy, I'm not building a brand because I am not consistent. Yeah. It makes total sense. And I'm curious when it comes to founders starting out and having that consistent, like even look feel like that's crazy that you went to Korea to work out kind of your styling I think I remember the stories of you doing that that was really cool like what can founders do when it comes to just working that out but and that's where you have to really understand your brand because the internet is the most incredible place like you need to develop so in the course I give you all of the stuff to do your your full brand core so from beginning to end going through all of the pieces for mapping out your brand.

36:30Once you have that, this is where Chagipity is your friend. Based on all of the parameters of my brand core, what are the best businesses for me to look at to study for a 10 by 10 comparison, for me to analyze to develop a marketing and branding strategy, for me to ensure that my visuals are consistent. This is where you can go into the research phase because if you're a startup lemonade stand, it's not good for you to be studying road and what they're doing on socials because they they're at a different place they've got a different budget so i'm not asking for you to proverbially fly to korea to do your korean color analysis but i'm asking for you to do your research so that you have the autonomy to understand what's needed for your brand if you're just hopeless and you're like i don't know what to do with where ai is with where social media is with where youtube is with their founder is you're not going to be able to compete so you need to get into the space because someone that's launching a clean bamboo underwear line needs to do a very different brand analysis than someone that's dropping a viral sour to spicy candy on tiktok right like those are very different strategies one is like super shocking in your face aggressive the other one is very education focused comparing why it's better what makes it more like they're very different strategies and that's probably the best thing for me to underscore simply is that what makes a brand good is that it uniquely and strongly understands itself and branding is an exercise of defining a thing that that is soul like that that owns real estate in somebody's mind but it doesn't tangibly exist and that's why when you said if i was to ask a thousand people what is their brand why I get a thousand different answers is because a brand is it's it's everything and it's nothing all at one time like what is Apple like is Apple my phone or is it the way that it makes me feel and that's like what it makes the branding so complicated is that Apple's branding is so good because it really understands Apple's brand so if you want to do good at branding you have to go through the work to really understand your brand.

38:39And that's why this is like esoteric and vague. It's because we're trying to create a thing that's going to live in society as part of the zeitgeist, but it doesn't actually exist. Yeah. It's how it, how it makes you feel right. That's, that's, that's what really, really, really resonates with me. Like how does that brand make you feel? Does it, what, what emotions does it stimulate and how can you build a relationship with people at scale through your brand like that's what all totally business is right and uh i'm curious around design and visual talk to me around visuals like how important is it the positioning brand visuals logo color type like how much of it matters how much of it doesn't it matters to a point so branding and visuals, branding and visuals, like, let's not get it twisted, like they really matter.

39:38But it's not everything. And I think that's it's it's getting to a point where it's easy to manufacture something that looks good. It's harder to elicit something that makes people feel and I think there's been a really big pivot in the last two to three years with AI, right, like the ability for AI for like places like Creative Market and templates on Squarespace and Shopify that like come out of the gate looking so beautiful and so like so like they're just for what you can get access to now from a UI UX is like it's crazy and so that's the problem is that it I don't want to speak to like it can't be like janky you know like it needs to look professional like it there's like a minimum standard, you know, if you're if you want to be successful, but then the problem is, I see a lot of brands that look good, but have no weight or meaning, right.

40:41And so branding is is substantive, like a good brand, it means more than just the visuals. And that's why it's it's important to think in terms of social media is about building a community and building a community indirectly drives business. So the whole idea of understanding that you're like your visuals and ways of being looks gets you to a point, but then you actually have to keep people engaged. That's why that bus metaphor is so good. Like, your bus has to look like it's not going to kidnap you. And it's taking you to like a back alley. And it's going to like people aren't jumping on that bus, people aren't even going to decide to like look at the bus.