May 26, 2025 • 30 mins
Ashy Bines has put a sea-moss brand on blast, warning her fellow influencers not to work with them. The OG fitness influencer alleges the brand run by a former MAFS contestant is yet to pay her for content she produced a year ago.
Jessiika Wilson has been forced to deny she purchased designs off Alibaba in the lead up to her latest product launch. The mummy blogger turned small business owner was set to release her new line of photo albums when a super-sleuth discovered Alibaba was selling the exact same design for a fraction of the cost.
AND it turns out Sammy Guggenheimer is just like us. In a Q&A, she admitted she stalks influencers she doesn’t like.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Sophie Torba and coming up on today's show. As she
binds calls out a brand for ripping her off, Jessica
Wilson is forced to de I she purchased designs off
Ali Barber and Sammy Guggenheimer admits she stalks other influences.
(00:24):
But first, we must have had an influx of new listeners, Kate,
which is nice because we've had quite a few dms
where people have said, look, I'm confused. I didn't realize
that you guys were triplets. Why they're endless pregnancies? Can
you give us a bit of an explainer as to
what's going on. Perhaps we need to reinstate our old intro,
because in it we clearly state that we're identical triplets,
(00:45):
but we don't have identical opinions, so sometimes things can gage, Oh,
that's a blast from the past. We got rid of
it because it was a bit cringe. But maybe we
need to have a new, fast paced intro. But the
reason why it seems like there's endless pregnancies going on
is because Amy, and I so our other co host, Amy,
who hasn't been on the show for a couple of
weeks now. She gave birth six weeks ago, and Amy
(01:06):
and my pregnancies are nine weeks apart. And you are
Sophie and I am Sophie, And this is Kate on
the so co host Yeah. So I have a son
called Jack, who is nearly a year old. And it's
pretty confusing because we all study journalism together. We're all
thirty six years old. We all got married within a
year of each other. So you're probably lucky you weren't
around to hear about the endless wedding talk and endless
(01:28):
Hen's party talk that we had a couple of years ago. Yeah,
but I mean to put a bit of differences out there.
I used to work in news at Channel seven, and
then I went into PR. Amy and I have our
own PR business. Kay, you've worked in sports public relations. Yeah,
so I also studied journalism, but I moved more into
the marketing and PR space. So I worked at the
Adelaide thirty Six's and the Adelaide Thunderbirds and a few
(01:50):
different marketing companies, and then six years ago we decided
to do a podcast together.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It was because we'd actually all moved away from each
other for the first time, because we were all living
in a sharehouse together and then you know, became adults
and had to move out with our partners and such,
and me thought, well, this is a good opportunity for
us to have a joint project together. It was a
bit of a passion project, but it has become your
full time job now, Kate. Yeah, it's still so weird
when people ask me what do you do? Because I
get really awkward, particularly around older people that don't really
(02:18):
get podcasts. I've been filling out so many forms at
the hospital lately and it's like, what is your job title?
But I always just say publicist Because of my BRF firm,
I feel like it's easier to explain that. But if
there's any other questions new listeners have slide into our DMS,
maybe we have to do a bit more of a
get to know us episode. I don't hate anyone? You do?
(02:39):
You do? I don't. It turns out Sammy Guggenheimer is
just like us. In a Q and A, she admitted
she stalks influences she doesn't like. Well, it's a little
bit more than that. Her roommate Lily threw her under
the bars and said that she hates some influences. Maybe
she's a listener of this podcast then, So it all
started when a follower asked Sammy who favorite influencer was.
(03:02):
Let's throw to what she said. I don't really watch
a lot of influences stuff that. My favorite influences are
probably Sofia and Chincia. Who else do I really like?
Alex l Who else do I like? Say?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, you don't like? Don't say that. Who's your favorite influences?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I don't hate anyone? You do you do? I don't.
There's a lot of people I stalk because I know
stuff about them. I don't stalk not I'm a baking art.
I love it that the room mate was dishing all
of the dirt. Oh she was really sticking the knife
in there, and you could tell Sammy was like, shut up.
(03:51):
I mean, there are some obvious ones that we know
she has beef with, like Sofa Dofer and as we
discussed last week, the speculation that her and Easy Armitage
are no longer longer friends, but they did put their
podcast out together again, so they've squashed that there's also
a rumor she doesn't like Kerry Gribble. I was thinking
outside of the square though. Remember last year at Australian
Fashion Week, Sammy was spotted with Olivia Rogers ex Morgan Waterhouse.
(04:15):
Yeah that was quite weird because Sammy and Olivia they
look quite similar. Yeah, they're most beautiful girls, which is
quite ironic because Olivia seems to date guys that look
like her ex husband Justin McGinn's. I mean, both Morgan
and Olivia seem to have a time. I wonder if
she stalks Olivia Rogers because she knows stuff about her
(04:35):
h I mean, I feel like there's probably a few
people on her stalking list. I mean, we all have
a stalking rotation, don't we. And the funniest thing about
stalking rotations when you're stalking normal people is that the
normal people become celebrities to you. Oh and then when
they put their account on private, I feel so robbed.
I'm like, hang on, what am I going to do?
What are they up to? I just think that private
accounts should not be allowed because they mean for children.
(04:58):
But the thing is, we have a finced. I have
had a finster ever since I got into journalism because
in class we were all told in order to get information,
you need to have fake Instagram account. Yeah, do we
think that Samy's got a burner account? Oh, she totally
have a finster. I wonder how much effort she's put
into the finster though, because she is stalking influences. The
likelihood of them actually seeing the finster and saying, who
(05:20):
the fuck is this weirdo that keeps looking at my
stuff is very low. It's more when you are having
a stalk of everyday people that you can't really get
away with having a bit of a question pop up. See.
I think you can always get away with having really
with everyone because it could be anyone. Yeah, but some
people don't get many views on their stories, and then
it's so obvious when there's just some random fucking picture
that like a sunset that keeps popping up. Hey, that
(05:42):
is the profile picture of our finsters, so don't give
it away. I have to go and change it. I
actually haven't had access to our finster for quite some time.
But yeah, it's so funny. The name of it. I
won't say what it is because people will find it,
but it's actually a name that we used to use
when I worked at the Thunderbirds because we had a
finster to try and direct positive commentary. And we found
out later that it's actually the name of one of
our nana's best friends, which I didn't know. Well, I
(06:05):
didn't know that we used to, like back back back
in the day, we used to have a Facebook finster
and that was quite a sophisticated one because in order
to have a Facebook finster you had to have quite
a number of photo I still feel bad about that
because essentially what we did was we found someone in
a different countries Facebook page and just copied all of
their photos across, which is terrible when you think about it.
(06:26):
My friends recently he's had a fake hinge a count
made of him. And it was funny because at this
dinner we were talking about who in their right mind
would ever do that and still someone's photos, And I
was sitting there thinking, oh God, I did that like
fifteen years ago. I know, it's terrible. I feel like
it wasn't the same then, Like I mean also like
I wasn't tricking anyone into dating this. Yeah, I think
it's just to look at other people's pages. I think
if you're cat fishing people. That's scare you anyway. Back then,
(06:49):
Sammy Kuginheimer, it feels like this is Confessions. I'm just
getting to know our deepest dark and secrets this episode. Yeah. Well,
in terms of Sammy, on her public profile, she actually
follows a lot of ogs and influencers, So she's got
Sarah's Day, Shanny Grimman, Tammy Hermbrojade Tunci, Sky Wheatley, Steph
class Smith, and a bunch of others. So who knows,
she may just be looking at these people's accounts on
(07:10):
her own. I hate following them.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Someone had warned me, so I didn't waste my time,
my airtime, I didn't get my audience involved, because it
has been an absolute nightmare.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
As she bids, has issued a warning to her fellow influencers,
don't work with a certain Sea Moss brand. The og
fitness influencer put the brand on blast after they didn't
pay her for the content she created for them. While
as she refrained from naming the company in her TikTok,
it didn't take her audience long cake to guess who
it was. Yeah, one brand's name kept popping up time
(07:42):
and time again, and that was moss x Daily. So
in the video she said that she wasn't going to
name the company in order to protect herself, yet she
allowed people to go ham in the comments. It also
was fairly obvious who she was talking about, because she's
previously created content for them which people could easily find. Well,
she said, people are gonna work it out. I mean
the weird thing is she still has the content up. Yeah,
(08:03):
but it's defamatory if people are gonna identify who it is. Yeah,
there's the truth defense. So the controversial company is owned
by former Maths contestant Brett Vitilio, but we will dive
into that a little bit later. For now, Sophie, what
do you know about ce mos? I see all these
influencers starting their morning routines by essentially taking a spoonful
of something that looks completely inedible and a weird texture
(08:27):
and then basically pulling a face and saying how gross
it tastes, but they feel so much better for doing so. Yeah,
there's been a lot of influencers spooking it recently. It
seems to be the new superfood that we're putting into
our smoothies. I mean, it looks disgusted. Really, I have
just seen people taking spoonfuls and eating it by the
jar like that. Ah Well, in the video ash bindshed
she put it into a smoothie during her promotional video
(08:47):
for this brand. I mean, it just seems to have
popped up out of nowhere to me. As you said,
it doesn't look very nice, but it's supposed to be
very nutritionally. Rich In saying that at this stage, there's
actually not a lot of scientific evidence that's supports the
health benefits that are being spraud No way, no way.
I mean I can see how the partnership aligns with
Ashy Bien. She's all about health and fitness. It's very
(09:09):
on brand for her. Yeah. It was actually back in
July last year though, that she worked with the brand.
So she created an Instagram reel promoting the semos, and
she claims that she went above and beyond. She chucked
in a couple of stories and TikTok shout outs for
free very dinnerous, and the brand was meant to pay
her for her work in August twenty twenty four. However,
she says that she is still waiting to be paid.
(09:31):
It's pretty bad if this is true, Whilst this brand
was messing Ashy around, she said, she started to get
complaints from her followers who said that they hadn't received
their orders, So, she said she followed it up with
the brand, and they claimed that they were struggling to
keep up with the influx of orders that came from
her promotion. Al I've actually added this in like, hey,
future brands who want to work with me, I actually
(09:51):
sell a lot of stuff. To be fair, she said
she got over a hundred complaints about people that had
purchased the product and not received it, and she said
she said to become tired of being the middle person.
It's bad for her brand that she's spooking something which
hasn't arrived. No, it was terrible. Here's more of what she.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Said, trying to keep everyone happy and figure out what
was going on. I didn't want you guys to feel frustrated,
but I felt like part responsible because I had promoted
the brand and sent you guys to buy this product
because I recommended it and I trusted it, And yeah, frustrating.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
It's unclear what Ash based this trust on, because what
became apparent is she did no research into this brand,
and she really didn't help the situation by saying normally
she doesn't have to research the brand of the owner.
I think this is a pretty good lesson for her.
I mean, she's an OG influencer. She's been doing a
lot of brand deals for years now. I'm surprised that
this is the first time this has happened to it. Well,
(10:44):
she just made it sound like she just takes any
deals for money. Really, I mean, it was only when
the brand didn't pay her that she began to do
her research, and that's when she discovered a bunch of
negative reviews on TikTok and Google. Or if she had
done her due diligence earlier, she would have quickly discovered
that this brand was not one that she would want
to align herself with. Because Kay, as you touched on
(11:06):
at the start of the segment, this Semos brand is
owned by a former Maths contestant called Brett Now. He
appeared on the show in twenty twenty two and he
was married to Tamara, and the couple didn't last long.
He was later linked to fellow contestant Ella Ding and
he now dates Australian model and actor Taylor Davies. It
was a real blaster in the past, because I watched
(11:26):
this series and it's clear that Tamara is not happy
with him, because she was jumping in on Ashy Bynes's
comment saying what a bad guy he is. We'll go
into that a little bit later. Yeah, well he started
this Seamos business. After maths and the company states that
they're not just a Seamos company, they're a passionate movement
aimed at revolutionizing the seamoss industry in Australia and beyond.
(11:49):
That term movement should have been a big enough red flag.
Despite the bold claims, Brett has constantly been forced to
address complaints that customers aren't receiving their orders. He often
jumps on his Instagram stories and tells his four hundred
plus thousand followers that they're coming, just you need to
wait for them. Just be patient everyone. I've taken your money.
(12:09):
Your orders are a few months late, but they're on
their way now. Despite his attempts to keep his customers happy,
in March, New South Wales, Fair Trading issued a public
warning about the brand after receiving forty five complaints about
the products since January twenty twenty four, so the concerns
included spoiled products, missing orders, substantial delays and unfilled charity donations. Now,
(12:32):
the brand's also been accused of going off the grid
when consumers raise concerns. In terms of the charity claim,
moss x Daily claims to donate a portion of each
sale to a charity called One Dollar One Dream. But
when you dig a bit deeper, the charity is actually
operated by Brett himself. Yeah, so he claims that the
charity gives back to the community that helps him harvest
(12:54):
the sea moss and team or less. According to New
South Wales Fair Trading, to date it has not been substanted.
Actual added that the funds have been transferred from the
business to the charity. The Daily Telegraph also did some
digging and they discovered the charity also isn't registered with
the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission. I just
can't get my head around the fact that he owns
the charity that his brand is supposedly donating money too. Yeah. Now,
(13:17):
when the publication questioned Brett about the status of the
charity in March, he claimed his charity isn't required to
be registered because it's not an Australian charity or brand,
and that's because he's saying that the charity operates overseas,
so essentially he doesn't have to abide by Australian laws.
And he went on to say that his charity has
supported hundreds of Third World harvesting families. Now New South
(13:39):
Wales fair Trading has urged anyone who has dealt with
moss x Daily and is not satisfied to lodge a
complaint with them. It has had a flow on effect
for the brand, thankfully, because you currently cannot buy from
moss x Daily, so when you visit their website, you're
greeted with a message that says we're sorry. We're currently
sold out and not taking on any new orders until
the thirtieth of May twenty twenty five, So this Friday
(14:02):
until we catch up on our backlog. Sign up below
to be the first to know on our drop date.
I mean, I don't think they're going to have too
many issues with that. Now back to Ashi, she claimed
she went public with the news about moss ex Daily
to warn other content creators not to fall victim like
she did. Are we buying it? Because it seems like
she had no other option, considering so many of her
(14:22):
followers had issues with the brand, even though as she
was fairly naive entering into this partnership, she and her
team are sophisticated enough to know that they need to
distance themselves publicly from this brand, so there's no confusion
over what her role was. Yes, she did a paid
partnership post with them and did a couple of extra freebies.
She and her team want people to know that she
isn'tffiliated with this brand in anyway. I think she realized
(14:45):
if she stayed quiet, the story would negatively flip onto her. However,
by coming out and saying that she's also a victim
of this brand, she's removed any blame or responsibility her
followers could have thrown at her. I think the timing
is pretty interesting because it's it also nearly been a
year since she worked with the brand, so maybe she's
just been waiting to see if she got paid, but
(15:06):
realizes now that there's no chance, particularly after New South
Wales was trading put that warning out. I'd love to
know how much they owed her. I know a couple
of weeks ago we spoke about an episode as she
did where she revealed some secrets and what her pricing
used to be. And she said that she used to
get paid between fifteen to ten thousand dollars for a post.
She's reckoned, she's chasing that sort of money up. Oh yeah,
(15:28):
I reckon you'd be right with that figure. I mean,
this is very damaging for ash Bindes's influencing career because
she's admitted that she took on a brand deal about
a brand that she knew nothing about. She's broken down
the fourth wall now and spoken to her followers about
this failed brand deal, and in turn, she's just damaged
that trust that she had between her and her audience. Yeah,
but do you think that she's trying to save face.
(15:51):
Maybe she did know about this brand, but she just
wanted to take the money and take the risk with it. No,
I think she genuinely didn't know about the brand. I
think she just didn't do any research because she probably thought, oh,
it's a health related brand, C Moss. It kind of
fits in with what I'm all about. Yeah, do you
think influencers have a responsibility to actually research what they're spreaking?
I definitely think so. I mean, this is a multi
(16:11):
million billion dollar industry at the end of the day,
most successful influencers have their own brand managers who essentially
set up these deals for them. It's the brand manager's
job to look into the deal and the brand behind it.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I think there's an onus on the influencer though to
approve it, because a lot of influencers go on about
how I only work with brands that I love, and
they preach all about that, But in terms of actually binds,
it's clear that she's just happy to take on any
brand do and that's why I'm surprised that she's actually
come out and said it. Yeah, but I also think
the responsibility lies with the brand manager as well, because
they're taking cut of the deal as well, and it
(16:48):
wouldn't be hard for them to google or do a
quick TikTok search to make sure that the brand is
actually fulfilling its orders and that there's no complaints about
the brand. Yeah, I mean the fact that they couldn't
even google it. There was actually a really hilarious exchange
between Ashy and one of her followers on TikTok that
cracked me up. So someone wrote, is there any way
you can get lawyers involved? Because it was a contract
(17:08):
This is why I don't just purchase off just because
influencers say it's good. We need to do research. No
offense to you personally, I mean anyone that person gets
paid to say they like the product. And as she replied,
I love influencers recommendations as it's so personal. I don't
follow anyone I don't trust. And then the person replied,
but you've just admitted that you didn't do any research.
I think it's difficult to trust when this stuff happens
(17:30):
a lot, And then Ashi replied, I researched via their website,
but never in my ten years did I feel the
need to do a deep dive into the owner or
Google review my lesson to learn. But the products I
did love and website looked amazing. So but what research
did you do?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Then?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You just looked at the website and saw a bit
of a flashy photo of last night. Yeah, as I
referenced a little bit earlier in this segment, So if
it seems like Brett has left a lasting impression on Tamara,
his math's ex wife. So she also chimed in in
Ashi's comments section, saying, imagine a reality TV show matching
you with this guy. And making you the villain for
(18:05):
seeing him for the fraud he is. And as she
bines replied, I didn't even know he was on there.
That's insane. So she clearly did not know much about
this brand or who owns it. Look, I think whenever
we hear an influencers say I've done my own research,
we've got to take that with a grain of salt.
I need to prep for the launch.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Start.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
We've got one launch. The new albums are going up.
I need to organize the email that's going to go
out at seven to just let people know it's live.
Jessica Wilson has been forced to deny she purchased designs
off Ali Barber in the lead up to her latest
product launch. The mummy blogger turned a small business owner
was set to release her new line of photo albums
when a super sleuth discovered Ali Barber was selling the
(18:44):
exact same design for a fraction of the cost. So,
before we get into it, who is Jessica Wilson. Well,
Jessica has really grown a following by sharing about motherhood
and lifestyle content on Instagram. So she is a mom
to three. Her kids are Levi, Bowie and Goldie. And
they feature heavily in her content now. Before influencing, she
actually worked as an early childhood educator and it was
(19:06):
the birth of her first child that inspired her to
then go on and learn more about photography, and that's
where she started sharing more about her life as a
mum online. I'm trying to avoid using the word mummy
blogger here because I feel like that is a dirty
word in twenty twenty five. Can we say mum influencer?
Is that offensive too? I don't know. I think influencers
seem to hate being called influencers now there's such a
(19:28):
negative connotation on it, so maybe just content creator. Yeah, well,
she now has seventy four thousand followers, so I wouldn't
say she's a huge Aussie influencer. She seems to have
quite a dedicated following, but she also has a lot
of people who seem to dislike her. She has quite
a large tattle threat. Yeah, and I feel like there's
been a couple of instances where someone has posted about
her in our Facebook group and we just get an
(19:49):
influx of followers. Jessica has blocked us on social media
and all of our accounts because I think because of
the threads in our group. Yes, and this is why
it's great that we have a finster, because I could
still access her account for this story now. In twenty
twenty one, Jessica launched a business called bloom Store, which
sells photo albums, baby books, and gifts. And on Thursday,
(20:10):
she was busy getting ready to launch her new line
of peel and stick albums, which I have to say
looked pretty cool. So what does a peel and stick album? Well,
it's like an old school photo album where you peel
back the plastic and you stick your photos down, and
then she's got these cute stickers that you can bring
to life a holiday photo that's now called a peel
and stick album. That's what she's marketing it as. So
(20:32):
that made me think of like a sticker book for kids. Well,
it kind of is like that, because she's selling these
colorful stickers that bring the photos to life. Anyway, it's
a scrapbooking for people that don't have time to put
all of the effort in. It's kind a lazy scrap cat.
I like the idea. So she showed herself on Thursday,
sitting in front of her laptop. She had stacks of
stickers out in front of her, and she conceded that
(20:53):
she was exhausted but ready to launch that night. Now,
in what wasn't the best timing for Jessica, a few
hours before her product were set to launch, a super
sleuth uncovered photo albums bearing the exact same design selling
on Ali Barber for a fraction of the cost. Now.
Ali Barber is, of course a wholesale marketplace which is
(21:13):
known for drop shipping products sourced from China, and it
connects buyers with large networks of manufacturers and suppliers who
offer items at a very competitive price. It is ideal
for buyers looking to purchase large quantities of products at
a lower cost, and over the years, drop shipping and
e commerce brands have become influencers. Bread and butter. Yeah,
it's fair to say that a lot of influencers have
(21:35):
made a name for themselves by selling cheap products, particularly
some of the more low level influencers by just spooking
any old crap on their Instagram. Now, what seems to
have shocked a lot of people was the disparity in
price with Jessica's albums and the ones on Ali Barber.
So on Ali Barber, the albums were sold for just
two to three dollars apiece if you ordered a minimum
(21:57):
of three hundred albums, whereas on jessica website Bloomstore, her
albums were listed as seventy four to ninety five. Now
was a bit awkward because the super sleuth in question
actually uploaded the screenshot to our Facebook community and accused
Jessica of purchasing the designs from Ali Barber and simply
slapping her brand name on top. The anonymous user wrote
(22:19):
thoughts on influencers, alleging they designed something that was purchased
from Ali Barber and then sold for seventy five dollars
a pop. Now, this thread went off in our Facebook
group and it got a lot of people talking about
the twenty twenty champagne flute saga. This is probably one
of my favorite stories we've ever covered on the podcast,
and OG listeners will remember that Olivia White was caught
(22:40):
out selling Ali Barber glasses that she was passing off
as her own design, and she spoke a lot about
how the glasses represented her mum's figure, and then of
course it came out that they were actually created on
Ali Barber with a huge markup it was quite nice
because one listener said they actually discovered our podcasts through
that segment. It is a favorite of mine as well well. Now.
(23:00):
In response to the Super Sleuths screenshots, one listener wrote
will epically fail, just like Olivia White's custom wineglasses, whilst
another said slapping a logo on an Ali Barber special
is not designing. I mean, she is one of the
laziest influences going around, so I'm not surprised. I just
feel bad for people who spend seventy five dollars on
a supposed original design bit hash. I mean, I do
(23:23):
want to point out that there is much more to
this story, because these were merely unfounded allegations, which Jessica
has since come out swinging again. So hours out from
her launch, Jessica was quick to respond to the allegations.
She wrote, it's come to my attention that a photo
of our new Peel and Stick album is circulating alongside
an Ali Barber listing with claims that I've bought pre
(23:44):
made designs and pass them off as my own. I
want to be completely transparent and clear that is not
what happened. She continued, saying that she created the designs
in collaboration with Studio Nu, which is the same creative
team she's been working with for years. She confirmed she
had receipts, date stamped concept drafts, mood boards, and communications
which show the process of bringing the photo album collection
(24:05):
to life. She continued saying the designs were imagined, revised
and finalized with intention, and that she was incredibly proud
of the work they did. She then explained why the
same designs were currently being featured on Ali Barber. She wrote, Unfortunately,
it appears that the manufacturer we work with has used
our designs to promote themselves on Ali Barber. I was
(24:27):
unaware this was happening and will be following up with
them immediately. She admitted that that part was on her
and she should have known to protect the designs, and
she is learning from it. She finished by saying she
wants her followers to know that she pours her heart
into every product that they create and that every phrase
and colourway is carefully considered. She conceded that the timing
(24:47):
was heartbreaking, with the news coming just as she was
preparing to launch. This would be absolutely awful. Jessica did
as promise CHAF Screenshots of her correspondence with her graphic
designer Studio and You for some background, boutique business based
in Townsville and has four designers on the team, which
is quite interesting because sometimes when you hear the influencers
(25:07):
are working with graphic designers, you assume that maybe it's
a company based in another country that's very cheap. This
is clearly a boutique agency that she has a connection
with and a long standing partnership with. Yeah, so, she
uploaded an email showing Studio and You emailed her the
initial draft of the designs in mid November last year.
She then shared a WhatsApp conversation from the fifth of
(25:29):
February where the designer said she had emailed her the
new artwork, as well as subsequent messages showing screenshots of
the designs as they were evolving. Yeah. So, she did
bring all the receipts, and she added at the end,
that's all from me on this. I've shared the facts
and the process. I hope it clears things up. This
brand means the world to me, and I'll always protect
the work we put into it. Now I'm shifting my
(25:51):
energy back into what really matters. Celebrating a launch I'm
incredibly proud of Thank you for being here, for supporting
small business, and for choosing Bloom to help you tell
your stories. I instantly felt really sorry for Jessica because
this is clearly a young mum who has poured her
heart and soul into a small business for three years now,
and it's quite clear that she has a relationship with
(26:12):
a genuine graphic design team that she's been working with
for years, and she didn't just rip these designs off
Ali Barber in saying that, I'm surprised that the design
team didn't tell her to copyright the designs. Yeah, it
is surprising that they didn't do more to copyright these designs.
It does seem like the manufacturer took advantage in this situation.
I don't understand how it's legal for them to do so.
(26:34):
A number of business owners in our group did take
the time to point out that manufacturers on Ali Barber
often use photos of products that they have created to
promote the work that they've done. So sometimes they will
ask the customer if they can use the product image
in their listings, but other times they will just go
ahead and use it unless the customer has explicitly said
(26:55):
so so in this case, it seems like Jessica and
her graphic designer should have said, under no circumstances are
you to use our images. I mean, I can see
how this super sluth jumped to the initial conclusion and
how people ran with it, because influencers really do get
a bad rap for slapping their name on any old
drop shipping company and charging big bucks for it. In
(27:16):
terms of this situation, it's very unfortunate. It does seem
like Jessica was working with a manufacturer that does stuff
for Ali Barbaba. So I think there's a lot of
confusion around Ali Barber as a platform itself, because whenever
you hear the word Ali Barber, it has a very
negative connotation. I think people automatically assume that a business
must not be legit if they do their orders through
(27:37):
Ali Barber, when in reality, it is a legitimate platform
that connects a lot of businesses with manufacturers, and a
lot of the time small businesses work with Ali Barber
because that's all that they can afford. There also seems
to be a lot of confusion around pricing on platforms
like Ali Barber, because you know, you see this post
from the super Sluth and you think, oh wow, like
I could just jump on Ali Barber and get the
(27:59):
same photo opt for two to three dollars. But the
reality is, in order to get it for that price,
you've got to buy three hundred of them. So the
average customer isn't going to be doing that. Yeah, but
I suppose it just demonstrates the markup that people are
able to put on these products. Yeah. But that's also
where there's some confusion because a lot of business owners
have come out and said that there are so many
hidden costs when it comes to all of the importation taxes,
(28:22):
any customizations you need, there's clearance, fees, shippings, there's warehousing,
also all the branding and marketing that goes into promoting
the product. So I don't think it's as clear cut
as saying, oh, this album was cost two dollars to
make feel really bad for Jessica because the timing was
absolutely terrible, and that's why I wanted to clear things
up on the podcast. There was a broader conversation afterwards
(28:43):
in our group as to whether this was all orchestrated
to try and destroy her launch. I mean, it seems
to be a common occurrence these days that as soon
as an influencer launches a brand, people go and do
their research into it. We saw it on the moly
May documentary. I mean there were terrible reviews about the
she was using. People started to pick about where it
was made. I mean, even before she launched, there was
(29:05):
a TikToker who looked into her ABN and all of
the background details just to pick what the business was
actually going to be, because at the time there was
a lot of question marks as to what she was
actually launching. I would be so scared if I was
an influencer launching a brand in twenty twenty five, because
the scrutiny is so intense. Oh, it really is, and
everyone just wants to prove, Oh they're not doing it sustainably,
(29:27):
it's not good enough, there's not enough sizes. I mean,
I don't want to act all innocent in this because
we have had quite a few segments diving into some
complaints about influencer brands, which have all been substantiated.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Though.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Oh, I mean, there's a time and place for it,
but it just seems because of that, there's been some
bad stories every time it influencer launches a brand. We
just think the worst that it mustn't be a good thing. Yeah,
and I think it came from a lot of people
almost wanting to believe the worst in this brand and
the worst in the influencer in question. Well that's where
we're going to leave things today. If you do enjoy
the podcast, we would love it if you can make
(29:58):
sure that you are subscribed on Apple, Spotify and leave
us a five star review. This podcast was recorded on
the traditional land of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains.
We pay respect to elders past and present,
Hello, and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Sophie Torba and coming up on today's show. As she
binds calls out a brand for ripping her off, Jessica
Wilson is forced to de I she purchased designs off
Ali Barber and Sammy Guggenheimer admits she stalks other influences.
(00:24):
But first, we must have had an influx of new listeners, Kate,
which is nice because we've had quite a few dms
where people have said, look, I'm confused. I didn't realize
that you guys were triplets. Why they're endless pregnancies? Can
you give us a bit of an explainer as to
what's going on. Perhaps we need to reinstate our old intro,
because in it we clearly state that we're identical triplets,
(00:45):
but we don't have identical opinions, so sometimes things can gage, Oh,
that's a blast from the past. We got rid of
it because it was a bit cringe. But maybe we
need to have a new, fast paced intro. But the
reason why it seems like there's endless pregnancies going on
is because Amy, and I so our other co host, Amy,
who hasn't been on the show for a couple of
weeks now. She gave birth six weeks ago, and Amy
(01:06):
and my pregnancies are nine weeks apart. And you are
Sophie and I am Sophie, And this is Kate on
the so co host Yeah. So I have a son
called Jack, who is nearly a year old. And it's
pretty confusing because we all study journalism together. We're all
thirty six years old. We all got married within a
year of each other. So you're probably lucky you weren't
around to hear about the endless wedding talk and endless
(01:28):
Hen's party talk that we had a couple of years ago. Yeah,
but I mean to put a bit of differences out there.
I used to work in news at Channel seven, and
then I went into PR. Amy and I have our
own PR business. Kay, you've worked in sports public relations. Yeah,
so I also studied journalism, but I moved more into
the marketing and PR space. So I worked at the
Adelaide thirty Six's and the Adelaide Thunderbirds and a few
(01:50):
different marketing companies, and then six years ago we decided
to do a podcast together.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It was because we'd actually all moved away from each
other for the first time, because we were all living
in a sharehouse together and then you know, became adults
and had to move out with our partners and such,
and me thought, well, this is a good opportunity for
us to have a joint project together. It was a
bit of a passion project, but it has become your
full time job now, Kate. Yeah, it's still so weird
when people ask me what do you do? Because I
get really awkward, particularly around older people that don't really
(02:18):
get podcasts. I've been filling out so many forms at
the hospital lately and it's like, what is your job title?
But I always just say publicist Because of my BRF firm,
I feel like it's easier to explain that. But if
there's any other questions new listeners have slide into our DMS,
maybe we have to do a bit more of a
get to know us episode. I don't hate anyone? You do?
(02:39):
You do? I don't. It turns out Sammy Guggenheimer is
just like us. In a Q and A, she admitted
she stalks influences she doesn't like. Well, it's a little
bit more than that. Her roommate Lily threw her under
the bars and said that she hates some influences. Maybe
she's a listener of this podcast then, So it all
started when a follower asked Sammy who favorite influencer was.
(03:02):
Let's throw to what she said. I don't really watch
a lot of influences stuff that. My favorite influences are
probably Sofia and Chincia. Who else do I really like?
Alex l Who else do I like? Say?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, you don't like? Don't say that. Who's your favorite influences?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I don't hate anyone? You do you do? I don't.
There's a lot of people I stalk because I know
stuff about them. I don't stalk not I'm a baking art.
I love it that the room mate was dishing all
of the dirt. Oh she was really sticking the knife
in there, and you could tell Sammy was like, shut up.
(03:51):
I mean, there are some obvious ones that we know
she has beef with, like Sofa Dofer and as we
discussed last week, the speculation that her and Easy Armitage
are no longer longer friends, but they did put their
podcast out together again, so they've squashed that there's also
a rumor she doesn't like Kerry Gribble. I was thinking
outside of the square though. Remember last year at Australian
Fashion Week, Sammy was spotted with Olivia Rogers ex Morgan Waterhouse.
(04:15):
Yeah that was quite weird because Sammy and Olivia they
look quite similar. Yeah, they're most beautiful girls, which is
quite ironic because Olivia seems to date guys that look
like her ex husband Justin McGinn's. I mean, both Morgan
and Olivia seem to have a time. I wonder if
she stalks Olivia Rogers because she knows stuff about her
(04:35):
h I mean, I feel like there's probably a few
people on her stalking list. I mean, we all have
a stalking rotation, don't we. And the funniest thing about
stalking rotations when you're stalking normal people is that the
normal people become celebrities to you. Oh and then when
they put their account on private, I feel so robbed.
I'm like, hang on, what am I going to do?
What are they up to? I just think that private
accounts should not be allowed because they mean for children.
(04:58):
But the thing is, we have a finced. I have
had a finster ever since I got into journalism because
in class we were all told in order to get information,
you need to have fake Instagram account. Yeah, do we
think that Samy's got a burner account? Oh, she totally
have a finster. I wonder how much effort she's put
into the finster though, because she is stalking influences. The
likelihood of them actually seeing the finster and saying, who
(05:20):
the fuck is this weirdo that keeps looking at my
stuff is very low. It's more when you are having
a stalk of everyday people that you can't really get
away with having a bit of a question pop up. See.
I think you can always get away with having really
with everyone because it could be anyone. Yeah, but some
people don't get many views on their stories, and then
it's so obvious when there's just some random fucking picture
that like a sunset that keeps popping up. Hey, that
(05:42):
is the profile picture of our finsters, so don't give
it away. I have to go and change it. I
actually haven't had access to our finster for quite some time.
But yeah, it's so funny. The name of it. I
won't say what it is because people will find it,
but it's actually a name that we used to use
when I worked at the Thunderbirds because we had a
finster to try and direct positive commentary. And we found
out later that it's actually the name of one of
our nana's best friends, which I didn't know. Well, I
(06:05):
didn't know that we used to, like back back back
in the day, we used to have a Facebook finster
and that was quite a sophisticated one because in order
to have a Facebook finster you had to have quite
a number of photo I still feel bad about that
because essentially what we did was we found someone in
a different countries Facebook page and just copied all of
their photos across, which is terrible when you think about it.
(06:26):
My friends recently he's had a fake hinge a count
made of him. And it was funny because at this
dinner we were talking about who in their right mind
would ever do that and still someone's photos, And I
was sitting there thinking, oh God, I did that like
fifteen years ago. I know, it's terrible. I feel like
it wasn't the same then, Like I mean also like
I wasn't tricking anyone into dating this. Yeah, I think
it's just to look at other people's pages. I think
if you're cat fishing people. That's scare you anyway. Back then,
(06:49):
Sammy Kuginheimer, it feels like this is Confessions. I'm just
getting to know our deepest dark and secrets this episode. Yeah. Well,
in terms of Sammy, on her public profile, she actually
follows a lot of ogs and influencers, So she's got
Sarah's Day, Shanny Grimman, Tammy Hermbrojade Tunci, Sky Wheatley, Steph
class Smith, and a bunch of others. So who knows,
she may just be looking at these people's accounts on
(07:10):
her own. I hate following them.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Someone had warned me, so I didn't waste my time,
my airtime, I didn't get my audience involved, because it
has been an absolute nightmare.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
As she bids, has issued a warning to her fellow influencers,
don't work with a certain Sea Moss brand. The og
fitness influencer put the brand on blast after they didn't
pay her for the content she created for them. While
as she refrained from naming the company in her TikTok,
it didn't take her audience long cake to guess who
it was. Yeah, one brand's name kept popping up time
(07:42):
and time again, and that was moss x Daily. So
in the video she said that she wasn't going to
name the company in order to protect herself, yet she
allowed people to go ham in the comments. It also
was fairly obvious who she was talking about, because she's
previously created content for them which people could easily find. Well,
she said, people are gonna work it out. I mean
the weird thing is she still has the content up. Yeah,
(08:03):
but it's defamatory if people are gonna identify who it is. Yeah,
there's the truth defense. So the controversial company is owned
by former Maths contestant Brett Vitilio, but we will dive
into that a little bit later. For now, Sophie, what
do you know about ce mos? I see all these
influencers starting their morning routines by essentially taking a spoonful
of something that looks completely inedible and a weird texture
(08:27):
and then basically pulling a face and saying how gross
it tastes, but they feel so much better for doing so. Yeah,
there's been a lot of influencers spooking it recently. It
seems to be the new superfood that we're putting into
our smoothies. I mean, it looks disgusted. Really, I have
just seen people taking spoonfuls and eating it by the
jar like that. Ah Well, in the video ash bindshed
she put it into a smoothie during her promotional video
(08:47):
for this brand. I mean, it just seems to have
popped up out of nowhere to me. As you said,
it doesn't look very nice, but it's supposed to be
very nutritionally. Rich In saying that at this stage, there's
actually not a lot of scientific evidence that's supports the
health benefits that are being spraud No way, no way.
I mean I can see how the partnership aligns with
Ashy Bien. She's all about health and fitness. It's very
(09:09):
on brand for her. Yeah. It was actually back in
July last year though, that she worked with the brand.
So she created an Instagram reel promoting the semos, and
she claims that she went above and beyond. She chucked
in a couple of stories and TikTok shout outs for
free very dinnerous, and the brand was meant to pay
her for her work in August twenty twenty four. However,
she says that she is still waiting to be paid.
(09:31):
It's pretty bad if this is true, Whilst this brand
was messing Ashy around, she said, she started to get
complaints from her followers who said that they hadn't received
their orders, So, she said she followed it up with
the brand, and they claimed that they were struggling to
keep up with the influx of orders that came from
her promotion. Al I've actually added this in like, hey,
future brands who want to work with me, I actually
(09:51):
sell a lot of stuff. To be fair, she said
she got over a hundred complaints about people that had
purchased the product and not received it, and she said
she said to become tired of being the middle person.
It's bad for her brand that she's spooking something which
hasn't arrived. No, it was terrible. Here's more of what she.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Said, trying to keep everyone happy and figure out what
was going on. I didn't want you guys to feel frustrated,
but I felt like part responsible because I had promoted
the brand and sent you guys to buy this product
because I recommended it and I trusted it, And yeah, frustrating.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
It's unclear what Ash based this trust on, because what
became apparent is she did no research into this brand,
and she really didn't help the situation by saying normally
she doesn't have to research the brand of the owner.
I think this is a pretty good lesson for her.
I mean, she's an OG influencer. She's been doing a
lot of brand deals for years now. I'm surprised that
this is the first time this has happened to it. Well,
(10:44):
she just made it sound like she just takes any
deals for money. Really, I mean, it was only when
the brand didn't pay her that she began to do
her research, and that's when she discovered a bunch of
negative reviews on TikTok and Google. Or if she had
done her due diligence earlier, she would have quickly discovered
that this brand was not one that she would want
to align herself with. Because Kay, as you touched on
(11:06):
at the start of the segment, this Semos brand is
owned by a former Maths contestant called Brett Now. He
appeared on the show in twenty twenty two and he
was married to Tamara, and the couple didn't last long.
He was later linked to fellow contestant Ella Ding and
he now dates Australian model and actor Taylor Davies. It
was a real blaster in the past, because I watched
(11:26):
this series and it's clear that Tamara is not happy
with him, because she was jumping in on Ashy Bynes's
comment saying what a bad guy he is. We'll go
into that a little bit later. Yeah, well he started
this Seamos business. After maths and the company states that
they're not just a Seamos company, they're a passionate movement
aimed at revolutionizing the seamoss industry in Australia and beyond.
(11:49):
That term movement should have been a big enough red flag.
Despite the bold claims, Brett has constantly been forced to
address complaints that customers aren't receiving their orders. He often
jumps on his Instagram stories and tells his four hundred
plus thousand followers that they're coming, just you need to
wait for them. Just be patient everyone. I've taken your money.
(12:09):
Your orders are a few months late, but they're on
their way now. Despite his attempts to keep his customers happy,
in March, New South Wales, Fair Trading issued a public
warning about the brand after receiving forty five complaints about
the products since January twenty twenty four, so the concerns
included spoiled products, missing orders, substantial delays and unfilled charity donations. Now,
(12:32):
the brand's also been accused of going off the grid
when consumers raise concerns. In terms of the charity claim,
moss x Daily claims to donate a portion of each
sale to a charity called One Dollar One Dream. But
when you dig a bit deeper, the charity is actually
operated by Brett himself. Yeah, so he claims that the
charity gives back to the community that helps him harvest
(12:54):
the sea moss and team or less. According to New
South Wales Fair Trading, to date it has not been substanted.
Actual added that the funds have been transferred from the
business to the charity. The Daily Telegraph also did some
digging and they discovered the charity also isn't registered with
the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission. I just
can't get my head around the fact that he owns
the charity that his brand is supposedly donating money too. Yeah. Now,
(13:17):
when the publication questioned Brett about the status of the
charity in March, he claimed his charity isn't required to
be registered because it's not an Australian charity or brand,
and that's because he's saying that the charity operates overseas,
so essentially he doesn't have to abide by Australian laws.
And he went on to say that his charity has
supported hundreds of Third World harvesting families. Now New South
(13:39):
Wales fair Trading has urged anyone who has dealt with
moss x Daily and is not satisfied to lodge a
complaint with them. It has had a flow on effect
for the brand, thankfully, because you currently cannot buy from
moss x Daily, so when you visit their website, you're
greeted with a message that says we're sorry. We're currently
sold out and not taking on any new orders until
the thirtieth of May twenty twenty five, So this Friday
(14:02):
until we catch up on our backlog. Sign up below
to be the first to know on our drop date.
I mean, I don't think they're going to have too
many issues with that. Now back to Ashi, she claimed
she went public with the news about moss ex Daily
to warn other content creators not to fall victim like
she did. Are we buying it? Because it seems like
she had no other option, considering so many of her
(14:22):
followers had issues with the brand, even though as she
was fairly naive entering into this partnership, she and her
team are sophisticated enough to know that they need to
distance themselves publicly from this brand, so there's no confusion
over what her role was. Yes, she did a paid
partnership post with them and did a couple of extra freebies.
She and her team want people to know that she
isn'tffiliated with this brand in anyway. I think she realized
(14:45):
if she stayed quiet, the story would negatively flip onto her. However,
by coming out and saying that she's also a victim
of this brand, she's removed any blame or responsibility her
followers could have thrown at her. I think the timing
is pretty interesting because it's it also nearly been a
year since she worked with the brand, so maybe she's
just been waiting to see if she got paid, but
(15:06):
realizes now that there's no chance, particularly after New South
Wales was trading put that warning out. I'd love to
know how much they owed her. I know a couple
of weeks ago we spoke about an episode as she
did where she revealed some secrets and what her pricing
used to be. And she said that she used to
get paid between fifteen to ten thousand dollars for a post.
She's reckoned, she's chasing that sort of money up. Oh yeah,
(15:28):
I reckon you'd be right with that figure. I mean,
this is very damaging for ash Bindes's influencing career because
she's admitted that she took on a brand deal about
a brand that she knew nothing about. She's broken down
the fourth wall now and spoken to her followers about
this failed brand deal, and in turn, she's just damaged
that trust that she had between her and her audience. Yeah,
but do you think that she's trying to save face.
(15:51):
Maybe she did know about this brand, but she just
wanted to take the money and take the risk with it. No,
I think she genuinely didn't know about the brand. I
think she just didn't do any research because she probably thought, oh,
it's a health related brand, C Moss. It kind of
fits in with what I'm all about. Yeah, do you
think influencers have a responsibility to actually research what they're spreaking?
I definitely think so. I mean, this is a multi
(16:11):
million billion dollar industry at the end of the day,
most successful influencers have their own brand managers who essentially
set up these deals for them. It's the brand manager's
job to look into the deal and the brand behind it.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I think there's an onus on the influencer though to
approve it, because a lot of influencers go on about
how I only work with brands that I love, and
they preach all about that, But in terms of actually binds,
it's clear that she's just happy to take on any
brand do and that's why I'm surprised that she's actually
come out and said it. Yeah, but I also think
the responsibility lies with the brand manager as well, because
they're taking cut of the deal as well, and it
(16:48):
wouldn't be hard for them to google or do a
quick TikTok search to make sure that the brand is
actually fulfilling its orders and that there's no complaints about
the brand. Yeah, I mean the fact that they couldn't
even google it. There was actually a really hilarious exchange
between Ashy and one of her followers on TikTok that
cracked me up. So someone wrote, is there any way
you can get lawyers involved? Because it was a contract
(17:08):
This is why I don't just purchase off just because
influencers say it's good. We need to do research. No
offense to you personally, I mean anyone that person gets
paid to say they like the product. And as she replied,
I love influencers recommendations as it's so personal. I don't
follow anyone I don't trust. And then the person replied,
but you've just admitted that you didn't do any research.
I think it's difficult to trust when this stuff happens
(17:30):
a lot, And then Ashi replied, I researched via their website,
but never in my ten years did I feel the
need to do a deep dive into the owner or
Google review my lesson to learn. But the products I
did love and website looked amazing. So but what research
did you do?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Then?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You just looked at the website and saw a bit
of a flashy photo of last night. Yeah, as I
referenced a little bit earlier in this segment, So if
it seems like Brett has left a lasting impression on Tamara,
his math's ex wife. So she also chimed in in
Ashi's comments section, saying, imagine a reality TV show matching
you with this guy. And making you the villain for
(18:05):
seeing him for the fraud he is. And as she
bines replied, I didn't even know he was on there.
That's insane. So she clearly did not know much about
this brand or who owns it. Look, I think whenever
we hear an influencers say I've done my own research,
we've got to take that with a grain of salt.
I need to prep for the launch.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Start.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
We've got one launch. The new albums are going up.
I need to organize the email that's going to go
out at seven to just let people know it's live.
Jessica Wilson has been forced to deny she purchased designs
off Ali Barber in the lead up to her latest
product launch. The mummy blogger turned a small business owner
was set to release her new line of photo albums
when a super sleuth discovered Ali Barber was selling the
(18:44):
exact same design for a fraction of the cost. So,
before we get into it, who is Jessica Wilson. Well,
Jessica has really grown a following by sharing about motherhood
and lifestyle content on Instagram. So she is a mom
to three. Her kids are Levi, Bowie and Goldie. And
they feature heavily in her content now. Before influencing, she
actually worked as an early childhood educator and it was
(19:06):
the birth of her first child that inspired her to
then go on and learn more about photography, and that's
where she started sharing more about her life as a
mum online. I'm trying to avoid using the word mummy
blogger here because I feel like that is a dirty
word in twenty twenty five. Can we say mum influencer?
Is that offensive too? I don't know. I think influencers
seem to hate being called influencers now there's such a
(19:28):
negative connotation on it, so maybe just content creator. Yeah, well,
she now has seventy four thousand followers, so I wouldn't
say she's a huge Aussie influencer. She seems to have
quite a dedicated following, but she also has a lot
of people who seem to dislike her. She has quite
a large tattle threat. Yeah, and I feel like there's
been a couple of instances where someone has posted about
her in our Facebook group and we just get an
(19:49):
influx of followers. Jessica has blocked us on social media
and all of our accounts because I think because of
the threads in our group. Yes, and this is why
it's great that we have a finster, because I could
still access her account for this story now. In twenty
twenty one, Jessica launched a business called bloom Store, which
sells photo albums, baby books, and gifts. And on Thursday,
(20:10):
she was busy getting ready to launch her new line
of peel and stick albums, which I have to say
looked pretty cool. So what does a peel and stick album? Well,
it's like an old school photo album where you peel
back the plastic and you stick your photos down, and
then she's got these cute stickers that you can bring
to life a holiday photo that's now called a peel
and stick album. That's what she's marketing it as. So
(20:32):
that made me think of like a sticker book for kids. Well,
it kind of is like that, because she's selling these
colorful stickers that bring the photos to life. Anyway, it's
a scrapbooking for people that don't have time to put
all of the effort in. It's kind a lazy scrap cat.
I like the idea. So she showed herself on Thursday,
sitting in front of her laptop. She had stacks of
stickers out in front of her, and she conceded that
(20:53):
she was exhausted but ready to launch that night. Now,
in what wasn't the best timing for Jessica, a few
hours before her product were set to launch, a super
sleuth uncovered photo albums bearing the exact same design selling
on Ali Barber for a fraction of the cost. Now.
Ali Barber is, of course a wholesale marketplace which is
(21:13):
known for drop shipping products sourced from China, and it
connects buyers with large networks of manufacturers and suppliers who
offer items at a very competitive price. It is ideal
for buyers looking to purchase large quantities of products at
a lower cost, and over the years, drop shipping and
e commerce brands have become influencers. Bread and butter. Yeah,
it's fair to say that a lot of influencers have
(21:35):
made a name for themselves by selling cheap products, particularly
some of the more low level influencers by just spooking
any old crap on their Instagram. Now, what seems to
have shocked a lot of people was the disparity in
price with Jessica's albums and the ones on Ali Barber.
So on Ali Barber, the albums were sold for just
two to three dollars apiece if you ordered a minimum
(21:57):
of three hundred albums, whereas on jessica website Bloomstore, her
albums were listed as seventy four to ninety five. Now
was a bit awkward because the super sleuth in question
actually uploaded the screenshot to our Facebook community and accused
Jessica of purchasing the designs from Ali Barber and simply
slapping her brand name on top. The anonymous user wrote
(22:19):
thoughts on influencers, alleging they designed something that was purchased
from Ali Barber and then sold for seventy five dollars
a pop. Now, this thread went off in our Facebook
group and it got a lot of people talking about
the twenty twenty champagne flute saga. This is probably one
of my favorite stories we've ever covered on the podcast,
and OG listeners will remember that Olivia White was caught
(22:40):
out selling Ali Barber glasses that she was passing off
as her own design, and she spoke a lot about
how the glasses represented her mum's figure, and then of
course it came out that they were actually created on
Ali Barber with a huge markup it was quite nice
because one listener said they actually discovered our podcasts through
that segment. It is a favorite of mine as well well. Now.
(23:00):
In response to the Super Sleuths screenshots, one listener wrote
will epically fail, just like Olivia White's custom wineglasses, whilst
another said slapping a logo on an Ali Barber special
is not designing. I mean, she is one of the
laziest influences going around, so I'm not surprised. I just
feel bad for people who spend seventy five dollars on
a supposed original design bit hash. I mean, I do
(23:23):
want to point out that there is much more to
this story, because these were merely unfounded allegations, which Jessica
has since come out swinging again. So hours out from
her launch, Jessica was quick to respond to the allegations.
She wrote, it's come to my attention that a photo
of our new Peel and Stick album is circulating alongside
an Ali Barber listing with claims that I've bought pre
(23:44):
made designs and pass them off as my own. I
want to be completely transparent and clear that is not
what happened. She continued, saying that she created the designs
in collaboration with Studio Nu, which is the same creative
team she's been working with for years. She confirmed she
had receipts, date stamped concept drafts, mood boards, and communications
which show the process of bringing the photo album collection
(24:05):
to life. She continued saying the designs were imagined, revised
and finalized with intention, and that she was incredibly proud
of the work they did. She then explained why the
same designs were currently being featured on Ali Barber. She wrote, Unfortunately,
it appears that the manufacturer we work with has used
our designs to promote themselves on Ali Barber. I was
(24:27):
unaware this was happening and will be following up with
them immediately. She admitted that that part was on her
and she should have known to protect the designs, and
she is learning from it. She finished by saying she
wants her followers to know that she pours her heart
into every product that they create and that every phrase
and colourway is carefully considered. She conceded that the timing
(24:47):
was heartbreaking, with the news coming just as she was
preparing to launch. This would be absolutely awful. Jessica did
as promise CHAF Screenshots of her correspondence with her graphic
designer Studio and You for some background, boutique business based
in Townsville and has four designers on the team, which
is quite interesting because sometimes when you hear the influencers
(25:07):
are working with graphic designers, you assume that maybe it's
a company based in another country that's very cheap. This
is clearly a boutique agency that she has a connection
with and a long standing partnership with. Yeah, so, she
uploaded an email showing Studio and You emailed her the
initial draft of the designs in mid November last year.
She then shared a WhatsApp conversation from the fifth of
(25:29):
February where the designer said she had emailed her the
new artwork, as well as subsequent messages showing screenshots of
the designs as they were evolving. Yeah. So, she did
bring all the receipts, and she added at the end,
that's all from me on this. I've shared the facts
and the process. I hope it clears things up. This
brand means the world to me, and I'll always protect
the work we put into it. Now I'm shifting my
(25:51):
energy back into what really matters. Celebrating a launch I'm
incredibly proud of Thank you for being here, for supporting
small business, and for choosing Bloom to help you tell
your stories. I instantly felt really sorry for Jessica because
this is clearly a young mum who has poured her
heart and soul into a small business for three years now,
and it's quite clear that she has a relationship with
(26:12):
a genuine graphic design team that she's been working with
for years, and she didn't just rip these designs off
Ali Barber in saying that, I'm surprised that the design
team didn't tell her to copyright the designs. Yeah, it
is surprising that they didn't do more to copyright these designs.
It does seem like the manufacturer took advantage in this situation.
I don't understand how it's legal for them to do so.
(26:34):
A number of business owners in our group did take
the time to point out that manufacturers on Ali Barber
often use photos of products that they have created to
promote the work that they've done. So sometimes they will
ask the customer if they can use the product image
in their listings, but other times they will just go
ahead and use it unless the customer has explicitly said
(26:55):
so so in this case, it seems like Jessica and
her graphic designer should have said, under no circumstances are
you to use our images. I mean, I can see
how this super sluth jumped to the initial conclusion and
how people ran with it, because influencers really do get
a bad rap for slapping their name on any old
drop shipping company and charging big bucks for it. In
(27:16):
terms of this situation, it's very unfortunate. It does seem
like Jessica was working with a manufacturer that does stuff
for Ali Barbaba. So I think there's a lot of
confusion around Ali Barber as a platform itself, because whenever
you hear the word Ali Barber, it has a very
negative connotation. I think people automatically assume that a business
must not be legit if they do their orders through
(27:37):
Ali Barber, when in reality, it is a legitimate platform
that connects a lot of businesses with manufacturers, and a
lot of the time small businesses work with Ali Barber
because that's all that they can afford. There also seems
to be a lot of confusion around pricing on platforms
like Ali Barber, because you know, you see this post
from the super Sluth and you think, oh wow, like
I could just jump on Ali Barber and get the
(27:59):
same photo opt for two to three dollars. But the
reality is, in order to get it for that price,
you've got to buy three hundred of them. So the
average customer isn't going to be doing that. Yeah, but
I suppose it just demonstrates the markup that people are
able to put on these products. Yeah. But that's also
where there's some confusion because a lot of business owners
have come out and said that there are so many
hidden costs when it comes to all of the importation taxes,
(28:22):
any customizations you need, there's clearance, fees, shippings, there's warehousing,
also all the branding and marketing that goes into promoting
the product. So I don't think it's as clear cut
as saying, oh, this album was cost two dollars to
make feel really bad for Jessica because the timing was
absolutely terrible, and that's why I wanted to clear things
up on the podcast. There was a broader conversation afterwards
(28:43):
in our group as to whether this was all orchestrated
to try and destroy her launch. I mean, it seems
to be a common occurrence these days that as soon
as an influencer launches a brand, people go and do
their research into it. We saw it on the moly
May documentary. I mean there were terrible reviews about the
she was using. People started to pick about where it
was made. I mean, even before she launched, there was
(29:05):
a TikToker who looked into her ABN and all of
the background details just to pick what the business was
actually going to be, because at the time there was
a lot of question marks as to what she was
actually launching. I would be so scared if I was
an influencer launching a brand in twenty twenty five, because
the scrutiny is so intense. Oh, it really is, and
everyone just wants to prove, Oh they're not doing it sustainably,
(29:27):
it's not good enough, there's not enough sizes. I mean,
I don't want to act all innocent in this because
we have had quite a few segments diving into some
complaints about influencer brands, which have all been substantiated.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Though.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Oh, I mean, there's a time and place for it,
but it just seems because of that, there's been some
bad stories every time it influencer launches a brand. We
just think the worst that it mustn't be a good thing. Yeah,
and I think it came from a lot of people
almost wanting to believe the worst in this brand and
the worst in the influencer in question. Well that's where
we're going to leave things today. If you do enjoy
the podcast, we would love it if you can make
(29:58):
sure that you are subscribed on Apple, Spotify and leave
us a five star review. This podcast was recorded on
the traditional land of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains.
We pay respect to elders past and present,
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