Speaker 1: What's up. I'm Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Atlantia. Allen Sylvain from Sylvain, a strategy consultancy,
Speaker 1: is joining us today. Before we get into the interview,
Speaker 1: Laura and I have a little riff. What have you
Speaker 1: been thinking about lately? What have we've been talking about lately? Alexa?
Speaker 1: As you know, I've played sports the majority of my
Speaker 1: life and I'm constantly thinking about ways brand marketers can
Speaker 1: get in and support women's leagues, female athletes. And recently
Speaker 1: I caught an ad from CarMax that features Sue Bird
Speaker 1: and Steph Curry, and an example of where a brand
Speaker 1: not only got in to highlight a narrative and celebrating
Speaker 1: Sue Bird's accolades, you know, juxtaposed against Steph Curry, but
Speaker 1: also want to step further and signed on to be
Speaker 1: an official partner of the w n B. A that
Speaker 1: type of next step action of not only leveraging media
Speaker 1: and marketing, but to actually go to the next level
Speaker 1: and invest in the growth. I think it really brings
Speaker 1: it back to a conversation we've been having, which is
Speaker 1: not just how consumers are shareholders, but us as as
Speaker 1: media buyers can think about approaching the work we do
Speaker 1: through a shareholder lens, and so I think again, this
Speaker 1: CarMax example is one in which, um, I hope to
Speaker 1: see more of you and I are very different. You
Speaker 1: were in sports, I was in the arts. So I
Speaker 1: totally agree in terms of from the marketing advertising side,
Speaker 1: and I love the kind of perspective as an athlete.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're alone. So a lot of females
Speaker 1: out there who are the decision urs on dropping money
Speaker 1: on a car and many other consumer products. So how
Speaker 1: do we have a conversation at a brand inside, at
Speaker 1: the table with a partner to say, yes, okay, I
Speaker 1: want the big volume numbers, but actually, if I go
Speaker 1: left where nobody else's I'm going to have something that
Speaker 1: is so much greater, with so much more fandom potential.
Speaker 1: And I'm doing the right thing. I'm standing up for
Speaker 1: what I believe in, you know, like a building on that.
Speaker 1: I think it's a difference between being a marketer that's
Speaker 1: there to borrow audience to being an active participant who's invested. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's being invested in the growth not just of the sport,
Speaker 1: but of the audience and community that exists within it.
Speaker 1: These are the buyers of your service or product and
Speaker 1: the future buyers. And we were at to E we
Speaker 1: used to talk about this all the time. Who are
Speaker 1: the future buyers and who are the future shareholders of
Speaker 1: this company? Are we even talking to them and not
Speaker 1: talking at them? Are we opening them up to how
Speaker 1: we're creating something that they can either A be a
Speaker 1: part of B invest in right to say, not only
Speaker 1: are we looking for our buyers, were that's how you're
Speaker 1: investing in your buyers in a different way. I would
Speaker 1: actually say that this is really in a girl at
Speaker 1: the top at the CMO level to be thinking about
Speaker 1: this right and the buyers on the agency side should
Speaker 1: be thinking about this on the day to day. Cmos
Speaker 1: should be requiring this type of thinking and so that
Speaker 1: when they're sitting down with a media plan, they are
Speaker 1: not just looking at where they're showing up, they're looking
Speaker 1: at where they're investing. Period. So with that, Allen Sylvain
Speaker 1: from Sylvain, we'll be right back. Welcome back at Landia.
Speaker 1: We are here with a good friend, Ellen Sylvan, founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of Sylvain. Welcome, thanks for having me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's fantastic. I'm happy to be here. I have
Speaker 1: been lucky enough to work with you, and I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you not only your description of Sylvain,
Speaker 1: but what kind of work you've kind of evolved into
Speaker 1: over the years. Yeah, thanks for asking, and you're asking
Speaker 1: a good time too, because yesterday was our eleven year anniversary,
Speaker 1: So yeah, thanks. The answer to that question has changed
Speaker 1: a lot over those eleven years. But basically, UM Sylvain
Speaker 1: is a strategy and design consultancy. UM. Really, what we
Speaker 1: try to do is help companies imagine the future of
Speaker 1: their products and their brands, and we do that through
Speaker 1: innovation consulting, so helping companies like imagine what new needs
Speaker 1: are around product experiences, and also brand strategy, so thinking
Speaker 1: about you know, what is the brand, who is it for,
Speaker 1: where does it fit in the world. It's really all
Speaker 1: designed to to help companies progress and help society and
Speaker 1: large progress, uh, you know, help the needs of people
Speaker 1: progress all that. What's the origin story? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't know when you start these things, UM, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of the dream of entrepreneurialism, which
Speaker 1: was definitely my case, Like I wanted to make something,
Speaker 1: I want to build something, from scratch. But also I
Speaker 1: worked at Mother, which was like a and is at
Speaker 1: the particular time was like a very avant garde and
Speaker 1: UM creatively driven agency UM, And so I wanted to
Speaker 1: I wanted a little bit of that, but I also
Speaker 1: wanted a bit of the management consultancy, buttoned up, rigorous discipline,
Speaker 1: marketing best practice, and so I kind of I worked
Speaker 1: at a similar place to Sylvan and really felt like
Speaker 1: if my boss could could do this, I could probably
Speaker 1: do it the way I want. But I convinced a
Speaker 1: couple of people to join me, and those people are
Speaker 1: still with me, and and yeah, that's that's the that's
Speaker 1: the origin story. You guys are a B corp. You're
Speaker 1: one of the only consultancies that's a B corp? Why
Speaker 1: why was that important to you? It wasn't. It wasn't
Speaker 1: right out the gate. It was maybe four years ago.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I mean, I they struggled with
Speaker 1: the work we do. You know, how do you advocate
Speaker 1: for brands and advocate for consumerism in a world like
Speaker 1: like we live in now? And is there a way
Speaker 1: to make our work will feel a little bit more
Speaker 1: virtuous and feel like it has a soul and has
Speaker 1: a purpose, you know. And um, the b LAB set
Speaker 1: up the certification, which is pretty amazing. You know, companies
Speaker 1: that live up to a certain standard, and there's not
Speaker 1: easy to live up to these standards. You know. We
Speaker 1: we we applied the first year, we didn't get it,
Speaker 1: and and we have it now. And by the way,
Speaker 1: you need a score of eight out of a hundred
Speaker 1: to get it, and we have like an eight point four. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we we barely made it. And that explains your
Speaker 1: other point, which is that it's really hard for consultancies
Speaker 1: and agencies to get the certification. They're very When we
Speaker 1: did it four years ago, there was one other one
Speaker 1: in the entire world out of the twenty and they
Speaker 1: were a consultancy like ours, and they were focused on
Speaker 1: a nonprofit space. You know, we work with some pretty
Speaker 1: serious violators of the environment and some pretty some pretty
Speaker 1: fucked up companies. Can I say that, Yeah, oh yeah
Speaker 1: you can. So, so the b LAB certification really helped reconcile,
Speaker 1: you know, what, who we were as people, the work
Speaker 1: we do, and just make sure we're doing right by
Speaker 1: the consumers, we represent, the employees, clients, all that and
Speaker 1: for anyone who is not familiar with that certification. It entail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they track a number of things. They tracked like your
Speaker 1: environmental footprint, like how do you how much impact do
Speaker 1: you have in the world when it comes to the environment,
Speaker 1: They track you're you know, how much are you engaged
Speaker 1: with the local community? Um, do you volunteer and and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And then also how do you
Speaker 1: treat your employees, like thinking about employee well being and
Speaker 1: policies and so on. So the thing about us is
Speaker 1: that we were treating our employees well, but we didn't
Speaker 1: have policies in place to really hold us accountable to it.
Speaker 1: So the BE certification helps us just really be buttoned
Speaker 1: up in terms of like, you know, what is our
Speaker 1: parental leaves policy? Like we of course we always had
Speaker 1: it down, but why is it among the best in
Speaker 1: the world. Let's put it to let's put it on paper.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that it's among the best of
Speaker 1: the world. I'm just saying. And things like that really
Speaker 1: forced us to just put pen to paper and hold
Speaker 1: ourselves accountable. So so Patagonia is the biggest UM certified
Speaker 1: the corporation and and their famous obviously for their environmental friends.
Speaker 1: So we we we kind of looked to companies like
Speaker 1: that Ben and Jerry's and something, you know, some of
Speaker 1: these other companies that are getting a lot of attention
Speaker 1: these days for making wise choices, and we want to
Speaker 1: be among that group. Getting the bi core certification, you
Speaker 1: talked about holding yourself accountable working with companies or partners
Speaker 1: that we're doing things maybe that are less than ideal,
Speaker 1: right for society, for the environment, etcetera. Has that certification
Speaker 1: cemented even a way of thinking about who you partner with,
Speaker 1: like what clients you do take on did they have
Speaker 1: to adhere to something? So we're working on that. We're
Speaker 1: thinking about whether we need to create some sort of
Speaker 1: policies to make that, you know, some sort of um
Speaker 1: litmus tests for what qualifies as the client in the
Speaker 1: work we do. There is still like an internal sort
Speaker 1: of evaluate evaluation you make um to determine, you know,
Speaker 1: who do you want to work with him? Should you
Speaker 1: work with them? And that that's like, uh, that was
Speaker 1: true all alone and for me, you know, for the
Speaker 1: most part, it's about companies that are responsible when it
Speaker 1: comes to environmental impact and so on, but also does
Speaker 1: it make you feel good, like do you want to
Speaker 1: you want to really be among And it's a hard
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a really hard thing to do. The
Speaker 1: thing I've learned in leading an agency is recognizing it
Speaker 1: as much as what you know you do well, Um,
Speaker 1: it's as important to understand the areas in which you
Speaker 1: should not operate. And I'm curious to know over the
Speaker 1: last eleven years what you've learned distracts from the mission
Speaker 1: or at least the mission for for where we're headed
Speaker 1: in the present sense. Yeah, it's a it's a good question,
Speaker 1: you know. For what we do in election those is
Speaker 1: what we do. We do a lot of upfront strategy work,
Speaker 1: so we help build brands and you know, developed ideas
Speaker 1: that are ready to go to market. And as soon
Speaker 1: as we're done with the project, clients are like, let's
Speaker 1: take it to market, you know, so that immediately they
Speaker 1: want a creative agency or design agency or something like that.
Speaker 1: And if I'm honest, we really were a strategy driven company.
Speaker 1: We do strategy better and I'm among the best in
Speaker 1: the world, right, that's what we aspire almost. I'm a strategist,
Speaker 1: the founder and CEOs of Strategist. Over the years, we've
Speaker 1: developed a pretty solid design capability, and Alex and I
Speaker 1: have talked about this too, you know, I wanted to
Speaker 1: get better and we're still bringing on people. We have
Speaker 1: about five or six designers UM. So sometimes we it's
Speaker 1: only natural for us to take the brand work to design,
Speaker 1: but it's always a weird sort of things, like we're
Speaker 1: building our design capability, um. But we've we've worked on
Speaker 1: some pretty amazing design challenges. So that's just designed. The
Speaker 1: next step though, like the creative communication side of things,
Speaker 1: or even potentially even the experiential side of things, like
Speaker 1: we don't know how to do. So what we often
Speaker 1: do is will clients want us to take that Clients
Speaker 1: want us to own at work because they feel like
Speaker 1: it's got some strategic foundation and some strategic rigor. So
Speaker 1: we'll do is we'll bring in fronts um. You know,
Speaker 1: if if an agency like Giants Mool that we like,
Speaker 1: or if it's like a people that we've worked with
Speaker 1: in the past, will cobble together something and we'll play
Speaker 1: the collective collective tissues. So over the eleven years, we've
Speaker 1: done that. A few times. We did we had we
Speaker 1: did like a huge campaign launch for Amazon last year
Speaker 1: for their luxury stores. Um, it was, it was. It
Speaker 1: was not what I was expecting to do. Who wants
Speaker 1: to talk about luxury stores like campaign work? Like campaign work?
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, we have like our directors and
Speaker 1: we had freelancers and all that. So to answer your question,
Speaker 1: or like, we don't do campaign development stuff, but we're
Speaker 1: kind of thinking about it as as a natural extension
Speaker 1: of where we can play, whether that's bolstering our design
Speaker 1: capability or even going all in on agency work. What
Speaker 1: are the watch outs, um for agency leaders, particularly independent
Speaker 1: as they're thinking about navigating and where you're saying, I
Speaker 1: can get up until this point, Could I take it on?
Speaker 1: Should I? Maybe? But if I clicked it in this
Speaker 1: capacity with another partner, one plus one equals three. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about that experience? Sure? You know it's definitely
Speaker 1: something I think a lot about. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a big trap in this work that we're doing.
Speaker 1: You know, we're trying to launch something and let it
Speaker 1: grow fast and be better than anybody else. We're stressed
Speaker 1: about cash flow, so it's very easy to be you know,
Speaker 1: a new opportunity presents itself. We've been trained to say
Speaker 1: we can do everything Like that's kind of our jam, right,
Speaker 1: like you need that. Yeah, we can figure out a
Speaker 1: way to do it. But the real lesson the trap
Speaker 1: is is hubris and arrogance and really believing you could
Speaker 1: do everything. And I follow in that trap anytimes. And
Speaker 1: it's it's important to stop and realize when you can't
Speaker 1: do something. But meanwhile, you also have to be clever
Speaker 1: about how you grow. And if I can just tell
Speaker 1: you one quick story, and I think I may have
Speaker 1: even shared this story, we want to be before um
Speaker 1: we we work on this huge project for a strategy
Speaker 1: project for a financial services company, and I had this idea.
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, you guys need to do this event.
Speaker 1: I have an idea for an experiential concept. Put it
Speaker 1: on the part of Davos and the aspin is to
Speaker 1: like something crazy. It's gonna bring people together from all
Speaker 1: over the world's really interesting about profit and purpose. And
Speaker 1: this is like five years ago before people were talking
Speaker 1: about profit and purpose, okay, And and the clients were like,
Speaker 1: and I came up with a name, I came up
Speaker 1: with a sketch, I came up with a whole concept, right.
Speaker 1: I I pitched it to the clients and then they
Speaker 1: that was the project come up with ideas and they
Speaker 1: loved it. They were and this is a big multinational
Speaker 1: and financial organization and they were like, let's go. And
Speaker 1: they looked at me and they said, go, we will
Speaker 1: give this projects. You go build this event for us.
Speaker 1: And I was like what. I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know the first thing about events, like putting
Speaker 1: together an event. I don't know the first thing how
Speaker 1: to pull that off. And so I had to go
Speaker 1: back and say we can't do it, um. And that
Speaker 1: I think was a huge lesson for me. It's like,
Speaker 1: and a very smart lesson is you know no when
Speaker 1: to say you can't do something. The clients and then
Speaker 1: asked me to be the play the client on the
Speaker 1: on the project and hire an experiential company. So we
Speaker 1: went out and hired an experiential company and I got
Speaker 1: that invoice and I was like, I need to be
Speaker 1: in that business. Um. But but yeah, that's that's the
Speaker 1: trap I thing when I've worked with agencies that don't
Speaker 1: have a certain capability or skill set. In fact, Laura
Speaker 1: and I when we work together when I was at GE,
Speaker 1: we used to we used to think about publishers and
Speaker 1: media companies like this. We would go to them and
Speaker 1: we'd be like, this is what you're really good at.
Speaker 1: These are your best assets, these are the assets we
Speaker 1: want to work with, and this is how we want
Speaker 1: to do it. And I think that clients actually need
Speaker 1: to do that more. They need to do the work
Speaker 1: on the agency and say, this is why I want
Speaker 1: to partner with you. This is your special this is
Speaker 1: and nol En, you and I have talked about this,
Speaker 1: right like, this is your special, this is what you
Speaker 1: crush at. I need you to keep crushing there. And
Speaker 1: if you can be a partner to me in other
Speaker 1: areas and help me get to an agency or someone
Speaker 1: who can do that other thing really well. I trust
Speaker 1: you because I trust your tape East, I trust your compass.
Speaker 1: I think that more clients actually need to need to
Speaker 1: think about that because I think it's also really easy
Speaker 1: to go to a big, big network and hand them everything.
Speaker 1: Talk about both of you, actually, Laura and Ellen right
Speaker 1: are with independent shops. There are not a lot of
Speaker 1: independent shops around, especially post COVID. Do you talk about
Speaker 1: the decision to stay independent post the last year of COVID.
Speaker 1: You know, independence is a virtue is who we are
Speaker 1: and it allows us to do a lot of really
Speaker 1: exceptional things. And I have no quants, Like I'm very
Speaker 1: clear about the places I would want to work in
Speaker 1: my life, and they're very very few. Um and also
Speaker 1: in places I want the people I work with to
Speaker 1: work for, and so it makes it very easy. They're
Speaker 1: very very very few places where I would feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: um working knowing that we're certified the corporation. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a black amer again, Like you know, minority owned
Speaker 1: is important part of how I view the world and
Speaker 1: who we represent. And if we were to get acquired
Speaker 1: that that ethos would need to carry forward. And so
Speaker 1: it's it's not something I think about, like let's stay independent,
Speaker 1: let's say independent. With that said, um, you know, we
Speaker 1: we sometimes have conversations and it's interesting and you know,
Speaker 1: which gets to your other question about COVID. We're out
Speaker 1: here hustling, like we're just trying to survive out here.
Speaker 1: I think the key thing I would I would say though,
Speaker 1: to answer your question Alexa, is like we quickly pivoted,
Speaker 1: you know, we we were really instead of waiting and
Speaker 1: to see what would happen, like what clients are gonna emerge,
Speaker 1: like what's what new questions are we going to ask?
Speaker 1: We immediately started to do stuff and you'll remember this,
Speaker 1: like we we created like a digital learning school, like
Speaker 1: a school on how to how to deal with prices.
Speaker 1: We we just started making stuff like crazy. We created
Speaker 1: a podcast, like we just started making tons of tons
Speaker 1: of I started speaking like crazy and went, you know,
Speaker 1: conferences and stuff like that. We ended up doing well well,
Speaker 1: not nearly where we wanted to be, but probably, but
Speaker 1: it was it was just a good way to stay
Speaker 1: busy when you're talking about hustling right and and thinking
Speaker 1: about finding ways to pivot, how do you get further
Speaker 1: upstream in this moment and not necessarily focused so much
Speaker 1: on the output, but finding ways to be a strategic
Speaker 1: partner that's helping organizations, brands, businesses transform their overall footprint.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean that that's it's really to me
Speaker 1: been about business transformation UM, and that transformation doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to be ripping up an entire playbook and starting
Speaker 1: from the beginning, but finding ways and and new moments
Speaker 1: to provide value UM that isn't solely rooted in the execution.
Speaker 1: We've got to rewrite some of the rules upstream in
Speaker 1: order to be effective downstream. Yeah, it's a great thing
Speaker 1: to bring up. I mean, we we are privileged in
Speaker 1: this way, if I'm being honest, because we're strategy consults.
Speaker 1: So strategy was already what we were doing, and so
Speaker 1: we were well positioned in this regard. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it was easy because even the most you know, the
Speaker 1: savdiest clients had no idea what was going on and
Speaker 1: what to do. I talked to some clients who really
Speaker 1: felt like this was going to be a short term thing.
Speaker 1: Other clients thought it was gonna be a long term thing.
Speaker 1: Your clients talking about L shaped processions, V shape processions,
Speaker 1: K shaped recessions, Like, I was like, how many shape processions?
Speaker 1: But being upstream and already being in a place where
Speaker 1: we're talking to clients about their vision and they're already
Speaker 1: in the midst of transformation, it made it easy to
Speaker 1: to to to be relevant um and for them to
Speaker 1: continue to ask us to do stuff. That's not true
Speaker 1: for all clients. And if you look at if you
Speaker 1: look at our client lists, we had a few that
Speaker 1: we were doing a lot of work within the hospitality
Speaker 1: space for example, UM and so, and it was chilling
Speaker 1: to send emails to those clients on March their teeth
Speaker 1: and for something to get bounced back. That's like those
Speaker 1: same clients we worked with are no longer at the company.
Speaker 1: Was like a sobering thing. On the flip side, we
Speaker 1: were working with digital services companies that were killing you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, the unicorns, you all know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. We're working with a lot of those, and
Speaker 1: they they just continue to to to do work and
Speaker 1: look for insight and it was almost like a luxury
Speaker 1: for them to have to think critically upstream. But if
Speaker 1: i'm I do think there's a there's an inherent challenge
Speaker 1: in strategy companies for being upstream and that you are
Speaker 1: not relevant for the entire cycle, in the same way
Speaker 1: as a challenge for companies that are downstream who fight
Speaker 1: to be taken seriously when it comes to upstream strategic decisions.
Speaker 1: You know, I talked to so many production companies or
Speaker 1: experiential agencies or creative agencies that are like, you know,
Speaker 1: we wish we could shape the product or the brand
Speaker 1: that we're working on right now. We just have to
Speaker 1: We're just given a brief and we have to execute,
Speaker 1: and that's not where we believe we can add the
Speaker 1: most value. There is this inherent tension between brand and product.
Speaker 1: Do you ever sit down with the chief product officer
Speaker 1: and you've sat with the chief marketing officer and you're
Speaker 1: seeing kind of a tale of two cities? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: all the time. I guess the question is is like,
Speaker 1: how do you reconcile that? How does how do you
Speaker 1: reconcile that? And I think that we're in a really
Speaker 1: I personally feel like we're in a really interesting place
Speaker 1: right now where brand is incredibly important, probably more important
Speaker 1: than it ever has been. Yet there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people sitting in boardrooms and leadership positions saying we
Speaker 1: don't need it. How do you reconcile those things? And
Speaker 1: has the conversation changed in the last year. I don't
Speaker 1: think the conversations changing the last last year. I think
Speaker 1: the rub has always existed, going back when I was,
Speaker 1: you know, in the nineties, you know, like it's always
Speaker 1: been a thing. It's probably well before that, right But
Speaker 1: what I think is interesting is that I think the
Speaker 1: way to answer that question is not through the eyes
Speaker 1: of the company or even through the eyes of Sylvan
Speaker 1: is through the eyes of the consumer. And the reason
Speaker 1: you you can unopause ethically say what you just said,
Speaker 1: which is that brand is everything that you do is because,
Speaker 1: as you know, consumers consume things on that basis. But
Speaker 1: in some categories and among some consumers, they believe there's
Speaker 1: a serious distinction between brand and products. They don't believe
Speaker 1: that they're they don't believe in brands. I think brands
Speaker 1: are confusing and a distraction. They believe like, I just
Speaker 1: want something that works, and why are you charging me
Speaker 1: so much? If it's if it's like I just want
Speaker 1: something that works, And I think that's actually where the
Speaker 1: distinction lies. It's not so much on the company side.
Speaker 1: I think it is on the company side, and I
Speaker 1: think you know, the best marketers are people that get
Speaker 1: that sometimes they need to reconcile and sometimes consumers view
Speaker 1: things differently. UM. It's really on the consumer side where
Speaker 1: I think there's act not a disconnect, but there's like
Speaker 1: people are different, people are complex, they're human. I think
Speaker 1: looking at a number of UM campaign messages that were
Speaker 1: out in market over the last year, brand as permission
Speaker 1: is something that I've been thinking about based on action
Speaker 1: you take over time that give you permission or don't
Speaker 1: um to engage in conversation, to show up, you know,
Speaker 1: uniquely in people's lives and what that means. What are
Speaker 1: the best you're making ine, What are the things you're
Speaker 1: hearing from clients and other executives in the industry that
Speaker 1: are inspiring or shaping how you're approaching the immediate future
Speaker 1: thinking about like what you know, some of the conversations
Speaker 1: we're having now, some of the things we're being asked
Speaker 1: about now, And it's it's pretty clear in my mind,
Speaker 1: you know, we we we're in the middle of a
Speaker 1: huge project right now with Nike UM and I usually
Speaker 1: don't talk about our clients and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get into the specifics, but we're working on a huge
Speaker 1: project with Nike that's really about the transition from being
Speaker 1: a wholesale brand to be to being or a retail
Speaker 1: driven bad to be something else. And that's something else
Speaker 1: is really about being directed consumer UM. We are getting
Speaker 1: tons and tons of briefs about how to maximum as
Speaker 1: the one on one to one relationship with consumers. So
Speaker 1: DTC is everything, subscription is everything, membership is everything, premium
Speaker 1: services everything, and we're doing that for every client. You
Speaker 1: look at our client lists, every single client of ours
Speaker 1: is talking to us about, well, how can now that
Speaker 1: we don't need retail as much, or now that people
Speaker 1: are online more, or now that we as you said,
Speaker 1: which I think is a great point, like the permission,
Speaker 1: Now that we have permission to play a greater role
Speaker 1: in the lives of consumers, what does that mean for us?
Speaker 1: So we're developing models like DTC models, and all you
Speaker 1: gotta do is look around like you know, Airbnb, Ubert Pro,
Speaker 1: Spotify Premium, you know, trip Advisor plus. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just and we're doing that every single cdit. We're doing
Speaker 1: that in luxury where we work with clients like Chanelle
Speaker 1: and Gucci, and and we're doing that in mass retail
Speaker 1: we're working with Nike and Amazon. We're doing it in
Speaker 1: finance with you know, American Express and and you just
Speaker 1: I'm not This is literally every This is like the
Speaker 1: foundational change that's happening with co it where people expect
Speaker 1: more from brands. They have captive at home. They're willing
Speaker 1: to spend money in the in the right way brand
Speaker 1: as products, so they're looking for experiences that are rich,
Speaker 1: you know, they want in a month, you know, so
Speaker 1: and so of the month club, Like that's that has
Speaker 1: a new significance and value now than you know, more
Speaker 1: than it did two years ago. So I think I
Speaker 1: think that's a big one, Laura. Like the the idea
Speaker 1: of these like one to one relationships we're getting asked
Speaker 1: a lot about and I don't know that there's an
Speaker 1: answer yet, you know. It's so interesting down to like
Speaker 1: this very tactical example, and I have been thinking about
Speaker 1: it for months now. I am waiting for the direct
Speaker 1: mail campaign of the year. The canvas has changed the
Speaker 1: level of intimacy that you can create, and unlocking these
Speaker 1: things is down to the one to one level, you know,
Speaker 1: to your point, and then the ability to do that
Speaker 1: at scale through data and on all of the other
Speaker 1: resources and tools we have available to us. I am
Speaker 1: all in an alogue one. Like I was reading something
Speaker 1: today about you know, the Amazon box being the new
Speaker 1: out of home interesting, you know, like like thinking of
Speaker 1: that as a billboard in your house, like that that canvas,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I'm just really interested in how
Speaker 1: those things can come to life a new and meaningful
Speaker 1: ways at an individual level, which I don't know in
Speaker 1: modern media. Have we ever had the opportunity, um that
Speaker 1: we do now to really leverage that in a meaningful way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean people are listening. You know that they're waiting
Speaker 1: for the first time. Right, we're in a marketplace. Marketing
Speaker 1: is all about interruption before and now it's it's a
Speaker 1: completely different situation where people their ears are perked up.
Speaker 1: They know there's some value to come in the mailbox,
Speaker 1: you know, not only the analog mailbox. But you know,
Speaker 1: I've never heard people talk so much about email newsletters
Speaker 1: in the past year. People are hyped about email news Like,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite email newsletters? Did you get you know
Speaker 1: about this newsletter? What is your favorite? The Progress Report
Speaker 1: by Sylvain? It's a weekly. I don't know it's it's
Speaker 1: of course we have a news letter. Of course we
Speaker 1: have we have a podcast too, Like but you get
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like there's a there's a new climate
Speaker 1: where not only are people paying attention a little bit more,
Speaker 1: I think people are also more aware of what marketing is.
Speaker 1: And I'm curiously here what you both think about this,
Speaker 1: because there's no mystery anymore. There's no mystery there. There
Speaker 1: isn't like a Super Bowl spot that's gonna come out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. It's come blows away, and it's got aspirational
Speaker 1: It takes us on a journey, in an emotional journey.
Speaker 1: Things people get how these things work. They have access
Speaker 1: to these brands directly, they have access to celebrities directly.
Speaker 1: They themselves are brands actually, you know, you know, they
Speaker 1: present themselves as brands. They have their own logos and
Speaker 1: they have their own shopify and whatever. Like huge people
Speaker 1: are brands. So what's the what is the role of
Speaker 1: like big brand promises these days? And I think because
Speaker 1: of all that, people are much more open and sober
Speaker 1: about like brand messages and how to assess them. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's tons of research around Jen's rights, and people
Speaker 1: were talking about gen Z, how the they're gonna rip
Speaker 1: it up and they're different and they're political and we
Speaker 1: can go to Parkland, we can go to Greta, like
Speaker 1: there's so many great examples about gen Z's just truly
Speaker 1: impacting the world. And the funny thing, a lot of
Speaker 1: people think they have like an eight eight second attention span,
Speaker 1: you know that they're just you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: what my kid, I have a fourteen year old kid
Speaker 1: who's like tunes out really quickly. But I saw I
Speaker 1: read this thing the other day where the author said
Speaker 1: something about it's not an eight second um, it's not
Speaker 1: an eight second attention span, it's an eight second bullshit
Speaker 1: meter that they can evaluate stuff super fathom. It's not
Speaker 1: it's good. Hold on. I would love to ask this
Speaker 1: question is is you think a lot about purpose? Um,
Speaker 1: how do we know we're effective or created an experience
Speaker 1: that is going to have a lasting impact on the
Speaker 1: consumers and people that we're engaging with through the work
Speaker 1: that we do. Yeah, yeah, we So there are a
Speaker 1: number of ways I would I would answer that. I
Speaker 1: think first just on purpose for a second, Like the
Speaker 1: the A lot of people think of purpose just means
Speaker 1: doing something socially good or politically motivated or good for
Speaker 1: the community, when actually the term purpose and the idea
Speaker 1: of a purpose is just that you have a reason
Speaker 1: to exist and you're really you have an agenda, you're
Speaker 1: doing something, You're up to something. So that the point
Speaker 1: is businesses need to have a purpose that's bigger than themselves. Um,
Speaker 1: And that's that's a very generic and big thing and
Speaker 1: hard to quantify. But when it comes to like how
Speaker 1: do you how do brands really know that they're impacting
Speaker 1: people's lives? And this age where purpose and attention and
Speaker 1: all that is so limited. I think I've seen clients
Speaker 1: engaging in to really prove out and make an argument,
Speaker 1: rational argument for how they're changing. But this is not
Speaker 1: rational them. And and the reason I say that is
Speaker 1: we're talking about companies as organized humans selling things to humans,
Speaker 1: and that's a very emotional, qualitatively driven thing. And I
Speaker 1: think the interesting question to me would be like, how
Speaker 1: do you measure it qualitatively? How do you measure that
Speaker 1: you're really impacting people qualitivity? Like how does that does
Speaker 1: that work for an investor? I think the answer is
Speaker 1: increasingly yes. I think the role of companies is much
Speaker 1: from more and more civic and much more of like
Speaker 1: community driven and political. And as a result, I think
Speaker 1: the expectations of investors is changing, as evidence by game
Speaker 1: Stop like in the nature of the investor's mindset is
Speaker 1: changing where it's going beyond rationally. It's still there, of course,
Speaker 1: because that's how you get your checkouts, how you get
Speaker 1: your dividends, but it's getting to this other place where
Speaker 1: you're thinking that you're capturing your understand the nuance of
Speaker 1: brands and the emotionality of brands, and like how it
Speaker 1: takes time, you know, sales overnight or brand over time,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think I think people are increasingly
Speaker 1: getting them. It leads me to a question a lot
Speaker 1: for you brand and brand strategy. How do you think
Speaker 1: the makeup of a brand now versus a year ago?
Speaker 1: For me? You know, we always talked about brands needed
Speaker 1: to have purpose. We always talked about that, But today
Speaker 1: I think brands are in fact political entities, that they
Speaker 1: are active political voices in this climate. So they not
Speaker 1: it's not about Republican and Democrat, but they are. They
Speaker 1: are animals of this political beast. They need to have
Speaker 1: a point of view and they need to represent something.
Speaker 1: And in a way, when you buy something, you're voting
Speaker 1: for something. And these brands are um part of the
Speaker 1: democratic process and they represent their consumers and they need
Speaker 1: to advocate for their consumers. So that's different than where
Speaker 1: we were before, where Marlboro Man showed some chest hair
Speaker 1: and people got hyped and they were like I need
Speaker 1: I want to smoke and look like the Marble Man.
Speaker 1: Now it's like companies are taking a stand and organizing
Speaker 1: movements and driving traffic where it needs to be an advocate,
Speaker 1: truly advocating for causes. So I think that is something
Speaker 1: that wasn't on the brand pyramid a year or two ago,
Speaker 1: like and it wasn't just about purpose. Again it's not
Speaker 1: about purpose, but like, what truly are you contributing to
Speaker 1: the political climate today when it comes to health, when
Speaker 1: it comes to race, when it comes to gender equality,
Speaker 1: when you know and so on? Where though, does bravery
Speaker 1: come in? Are we in a time that requires a
Speaker 1: different level of creative and business bravery from leaders and brands?
Speaker 1: What a great question, because I think, yeah, bravery is
Speaker 1: an interesting way to put it, because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of clients believe it takes bravery and as results,
Speaker 1: they are paralyzed and you're afraid of being canceled and
Speaker 1: all this other stuff. Bravery, I think might not be
Speaker 1: the right way to think about it. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's responsibility, you know, you know, bravery, it's just a
Speaker 1: it's just a reason not to do it. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell your investors I'm going to be
Speaker 1: brave if and I'm going to take some risk on
Speaker 1: your behalf. It's like, well, no, it's easy. I I
Speaker 1: think it's less. It's less about bravery. It's more about responsibility.
Speaker 1: Like if if you are in um you know, thousands
Speaker 1: of doors or whatever, or if you have you know,
Speaker 1: a database of millions of consumers, or if you have
Speaker 1: the ear of a political candidate, you have responsibility to
Speaker 1: advocate for what your consumers care about. And that could
Speaker 1: be UM something truly political, like a political agenda, like
Speaker 1: the environment, but it also could be um from high
Speaker 1: quality experiences and high quality products and and so I
Speaker 1: I think bravery might be a trap because it's it, yes,
Speaker 1: of course, but it's also not everything. And again I
Speaker 1: mentioned I have a fourteen year old kid, so you
Speaker 1: imagine a lot of it. I'm talking a lot about
Speaker 1: responsibility versus bravery, you know. And you imagine my fourteen
Speaker 1: year old kid on the playground, he sees a fight
Speaker 1: in the playground, if it would be brave to break
Speaker 1: up that fight and to tell him. We could it
Speaker 1: in the context like be brave and stand up for
Speaker 1: what's right and bring up that fight, or we can
Speaker 1: put in the context of like you are a citizen
Speaker 1: of the world and you have to be responsible for
Speaker 1: for justice and you just have to do it. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of how I view the role of brands.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not about brave, it's about being responsible
Speaker 1: to a code that you committed to, whether that's through
Speaker 1: your consumers, or that's in your charter or that's your board,
Speaker 1: and that's what you're really meant to help yourself up
Speaker 1: to before you go. Um. We play a game at
Speaker 1: the end of every episode Alan if you could get
Speaker 1: rid of anything in the world, what would it be?
Speaker 1: Oh man, can we be abstractors have to be like physical? Nope, nope,
Speaker 1: abstract anything I think. I think bias. I can put
Speaker 1: it that way. I mean, and it's not revolutionary, but
Speaker 1: we all carry so much bias from that we inherit
Speaker 1: and that we are socialized. Um. I experienced it every day,
Speaker 1: not only as a victim, but also as a practitioner
Speaker 1: keep someone with bias, UM, And I often wonder what
Speaker 1: would the world look like if it was just, you know,
Speaker 1: people were less inclined to favor of the things that
Speaker 1: they're used they've been told to favor. I think my
Speaker 1: life would be different. Um. You know, not only again
Speaker 1: as evictive, but also as a practitioner of it. What
Speaker 1: would you buy If I could buy anything, I'd buy
Speaker 1: the ability not to buy anything. I'd truly buy a
Speaker 1: sense of freedom so that I never had to buy
Speaker 1: anything again or buy you know, time, and by time,
Speaker 1: I would buy time. And what would you do yourself? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Good question. UM. I mean, if I was a better person,
Speaker 1: I would truly kind of sacrifice my own which is
Speaker 1: and agendas that put those of others above mine, and
Speaker 1: I would actually work on behalf of other people. Thank
Speaker 1: you for making the time, Thank you for coming on
Speaker 1: when I first saw Sylvain, And the more I've talked
Speaker 1: to people, You're kind of one of those consultancies and
Speaker 1: partners that if you know, you know, and UM, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that all lot more people discover you and they
Speaker 1: get to know if people want to talk all things Sylvain,
Speaker 1: product brand or anything in between. How can our listeners
Speaker 1: get in touch with you? Yeah, thanks for asking and
Speaker 1: thanks for that, Alex. It's awesome, um Sylvain dot com
Speaker 1: where you can find us, UM and yeah on the internets.
Speaker 1: So great to get a chance to talk to you,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much. UM. I hope you'll come
Speaker 1: back and visit us again. Soon. Yeah, and I hope
Speaker 1: to see you in person, both of you said Laura,
Speaker 1: I could have gone on with the land for a while.
Speaker 1: I actually do believe that there is a structure of
Speaker 1: a brand that is changing fundamentally. But the thing that
Speaker 1: I think not a lot of folks are talking about
Speaker 1: is aligning your brand if you're on the client side
Speaker 1: with an agency that has purpose, with an agency that
Speaker 1: is actually potentially making you better, not just in your creativity,
Speaker 1: not just in your strategy, not just for you, but
Speaker 1: also making you better because they are choosing to be better.
Speaker 1: And I think what Allen has done with you know,
Speaker 1: the more tangible example of becoming a be corp. I'm
Speaker 1: pushing himself there when a lot of agencies weren't. But
Speaker 1: also the way he works in terms of really acknowledging clients.
Speaker 1: What I am going to be doing in the future
Speaker 1: is really looking at where can I help my clients
Speaker 1: become more conscious and better and more thoughtful by doing
Speaker 1: business with me? You are better by doing business with
Speaker 1: me exactly. So on that note, here's to being shareholders
Speaker 1: in doing better business at Landia. Laura hit it with
Speaker 1: a list of all of our friends and family. I
Speaker 1: heart who have been so good at us and helped
Speaker 1: us get back on Eric. Thank you to Bob Donald Carter, Andy, Eric,
Speaker 1: Gayle Val, Michael Jen We appreciate you. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for this opportunity. We'll see in two weeks.