April 22, 2021 • 37 mins
This week we have another independent agency feature with Founder and CEO, Alain Sylvain, of Sylvain - a strategy consultancy focusing on brand and product. Alain walks us through becoming a B-corp, the evolution of brand purpose to brand responsibility, not getting caught in becoming the everything agency and much more. We also get nerdy on media formats and evaluating agency partners beyond their work by considering the practices and actions they uphold against their beliefs.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
What's up. I'm Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome
back to Atlantia. Allen Sylvain from Sylvain, a strategy consultancy,
is joining us today. Before we get into the interview,
Laura and I have a little riff. What have you
been thinking about lately? What have we've been talking about lately? Alexa?
As you know, I've played sports the majority of my
(00:25):
life and I'm constantly thinking about ways brand marketers can
get in and support women's leagues, female athletes. And recently
I caught an ad from CarMax that features Sue Bird
and Steph Curry, and an example of where a brand
not only got in to highlight a narrative and celebrating
(00:47):
Sue Bird's accolades, you know, juxtaposed against Steph Curry, but
also want to step further and signed on to be
an official partner of the w n B. A that
type of next step action of not only leveraging media
and marketing, but to actually go to the next level
and invest in the growth. I think it really brings
(01:09):
it back to a conversation we've been having, which is
not just how consumers are shareholders, but us as as
media buyers can think about approaching the work we do
through a shareholder lens, and so I think again, this
CarMax example is one in which, um, I hope to
see more of you and I are very different. You
(01:30):
were in sports, I was in the arts. So I
totally agree in terms of from the marketing advertising side,
and I love the kind of perspective as an athlete.
I don't think you're alone. So a lot of females
out there who are the decision urs on dropping money
on a car and many other consumer products. So how
(01:51):
do we have a conversation at a brand inside, at
the table with a partner to say, yes, okay, I
want the big volume numbers, but actually, if I go
left where nobody else's I'm going to have something that
is so much greater, with so much more fandom potential.
(02:11):
And I'm doing the right thing. I'm standing up for
what I believe in, you know, like a building on that.
I think it's a difference between being a marketer that's
there to borrow audience to being an active participant who's invested. Yes,
it's being invested in the growth not just of the sport,
(02:33):
but of the audience and community that exists within it.
These are the buyers of your service or product and
the future buyers. And we were at to E we
used to talk about this all the time. Who are
the future buyers and who are the future shareholders of
this company? Are we even talking to them and not
(02:53):
talking at them? Are we opening them up to how
we're creating something that they can either A be a
part of B invest in right to say, not only
are we looking for our buyers, were that's how you're
investing in your buyers in a different way. I would
actually say that this is really in a girl at
(03:13):
the top at the CMO level to be thinking about
this right and the buyers on the agency side should
be thinking about this on the day to day. Cmos
should be requiring this type of thinking and so that
when they're sitting down with a media plan, they are
not just looking at where they're showing up, they're looking
at where they're investing. Period. So with that, Allen Sylvain
(03:39):
from Sylvain, we'll be right back. Welcome back at Landia.
We are here with a good friend, Ellen Sylvan, founder
(03:59):
and CEO of Sylvain. Welcome, thanks for having me. Yeah,
that's that's fantastic. I'm happy to be here. I have
been lucky enough to work with you, and I'd love
to hear from you not only your description of Sylvain,
but what kind of work you've kind of evolved into
over the years. Yeah, thanks for asking, and you're asking
a good time too, because yesterday was our eleven year anniversary,
(04:22):
So yeah, thanks. The answer to that question has changed
a lot over those eleven years. But basically, UM Sylvain
is a strategy and design consultancy. UM. Really, what we
try to do is help companies imagine the future of
their products and their brands, and we do that through
innovation consulting, so helping companies like imagine what new needs
(04:43):
are around product experiences, and also brand strategy, so thinking
about you know, what is the brand, who is it for,
where does it fit in the world. It's really all
designed to to help companies progress and help society and
large progress, uh, you know, help the needs of people
progress all that. What's the origin story? Yeah, I mean
I don't know when you start these things, UM, sometimes
(05:06):
it's a little bit of the dream of entrepreneurialism, which
was definitely my case, Like I wanted to make something,
I want to build something, from scratch. But also I
worked at Mother, which was like a and is at
the particular time was like a very avant garde and
UM creatively driven agency UM, And so I wanted to
I wanted a little bit of that, but I also
wanted a bit of the management consultancy, buttoned up, rigorous discipline,
(05:29):
marketing best practice, and so I kind of I worked
at a similar place to Sylvan and really felt like
if my boss could could do this, I could probably
do it the way I want. But I convinced a
couple of people to join me, and those people are
still with me, and and yeah, that's that's the that's
the origin story. You guys are a B corp. You're
one of the only consultancies that's a B corp? Why
(05:54):
why was that important to you? It wasn't. It wasn't
right out the gate. It was maybe four years ago.
But I don't know, I mean, I they struggled with
the work we do. You know, how do you advocate
for brands and advocate for consumerism in a world like
like we live in now? And is there a way
to make our work will feel a little bit more
virtuous and feel like it has a soul and has
a purpose, you know. And um, the b LAB set
(06:17):
up the certification, which is pretty amazing. You know, companies
that live up to a certain standard, and there's not
easy to live up to these standards. You know. We
we we applied the first year, we didn't get it,
and and we have it now. And by the way,
you need a score of eight out of a hundred
to get it, and we have like an eight point four. Okay,
so we we barely made it. And that explains your
other point, which is that it's really hard for consultancies
(06:38):
and agencies to get the certification. They're very When we
did it four years ago, there was one other one
in the entire world out of the twenty and they
were a consultancy like ours, and they were focused on
a nonprofit space. You know, we work with some pretty
serious violators of the environment and some pretty some pretty
fucked up companies. Can I say that, Yeah, oh yeah
(06:58):
you can. So, so the b LAB certification really helped reconcile,
you know, what, who we were as people, the work
we do, and just make sure we're doing right by
the consumers, we represent, the employees, clients, all that and
for anyone who is not familiar with that certification. It entail. Yeah,
(07:20):
they track a number of things. They tracked like your
environmental footprint, like how do you how much impact do
you have in the world when it comes to the environment,
They track you're you know, how much are you engaged
with the local community? Um, do you volunteer and and
that sort of thing. And then also how do you
treat your employees, like thinking about employee well being and
(07:40):
policies and so on. So the thing about us is
that we were treating our employees well, but we didn't
have policies in place to really hold us accountable to it.
So the BE certification helps us just really be buttoned
up in terms of like, you know, what is our
parental leaves policy? Like we of course we always had
it down, but why is it among the best in
the world. Let's put it to let's put it on paper.
(08:01):
I don't know if that it's among the best of
the world. I'm just saying. And things like that really
forced us to just put pen to paper and hold
ourselves accountable. So so Patagonia is the biggest UM certified
the corporation and and their famous obviously for their environmental friends.
So we we we kind of looked to companies like
that Ben and Jerry's and something, you know, some of
(08:22):
these other companies that are getting a lot of attention
these days for making wise choices, and we want to
be among that group. Getting the bi core certification, you
talked about holding yourself accountable working with companies or partners
that we're doing things maybe that are less than ideal,
(08:43):
right for society, for the environment, etcetera. Has that certification
cemented even a way of thinking about who you partner with,
like what clients you do take on did they have
to adhere to something? So we're working on that. We're
thinking about whether we need to create some sort of
policies to make that, you know, some sort of um
(09:03):
litmus tests for what qualifies as the client in the
work we do. There is still like an internal sort
of evaluate evaluation you make um to determine, you know,
who do you want to work with him? Should you
work with them? And that that's like, uh, that was
true all alone and for me, you know, for the
most part, it's about companies that are responsible when it
(09:24):
comes to environmental impact and so on, but also does
it make you feel good, like do you want to
you want to really be among And it's a hard
it's it's it's a really hard thing to do. The
thing I've learned in leading an agency is recognizing it
as much as what you know you do well, Um,
it's as important to understand the areas in which you
should not operate. And I'm curious to know over the
(09:44):
last eleven years what you've learned distracts from the mission
or at least the mission for for where we're headed
in the present sense. Yeah, it's a it's a good question,
you know. For what we do in election those is
what we do. We do a lot of upfront strategy work,
so we help build brands and you know, developed ideas
that are ready to go to market. And as soon
as we're done with the project, clients are like, let's
(10:05):
take it to market, you know, so that immediately they
want a creative agency or design agency or something like that.
And if I'm honest, we really were a strategy driven company.
We do strategy better and I'm among the best in
the world, right, that's what we aspire almost. I'm a strategist,
the founder and CEOs of Strategist. Over the years, we've
developed a pretty solid design capability, and Alex and I
(10:26):
have talked about this too, you know, I wanted to
get better and we're still bringing on people. We have
about five or six designers UM. So sometimes we it's
only natural for us to take the brand work to design,
but it's always a weird sort of things, like we're
building our design capability, um. But we've we've worked on
some pretty amazing design challenges. So that's just designed. The
(10:48):
next step though, like the creative communication side of things,
or even potentially even the experiential side of things, like
we don't know how to do. So what we often
do is will clients want us to take that Clients
want us to own at work because they feel like
it's got some strategic foundation and some strategic rigor. So
we'll do is we'll bring in fronts um. You know,
if if an agency like Giants Mool that we like,
(11:09):
or if it's like a people that we've worked with
in the past, will cobble together something and we'll play
the collective collective tissues. So over the eleven years, we've
done that. A few times. We did we had we
did like a huge campaign launch for Amazon last year
for their luxury stores. Um, it was, it was. It
was not what I was expecting to do. Who wants
to talk about luxury stores like campaign work? Like campaign work?
(11:30):
All of a sudden, we have like our directors and
we had freelancers and all that. So to answer your question,
or like, we don't do campaign development stuff, but we're
kind of thinking about it as as a natural extension
of where we can play, whether that's bolstering our design
capability or even going all in on agency work. What
are the watch outs, um for agency leaders, particularly independent
(11:52):
as they're thinking about navigating and where you're saying, I
can get up until this point, Could I take it on?
Should I? Maybe? But if I clicked it in this
capacity with another partner, one plus one equals three. Can
you talk about that experience? Sure? You know it's definitely
something I think a lot about. You know, there's a
there's a big trap in this work that we're doing.
You know, we're trying to launch something and let it
(12:13):
grow fast and be better than anybody else. We're stressed
about cash flow, so it's very easy to be you know,
a new opportunity presents itself. We've been trained to say
we can do everything Like that's kind of our jam, right,
like you need that. Yeah, we can figure out a
way to do it. But the real lesson the trap
is is hubris and arrogance and really believing you could
do everything. And I follow in that trap anytimes. And
(12:35):
it's it's important to stop and realize when you can't
do something. But meanwhile, you also have to be clever
about how you grow. And if I can just tell
you one quick story, and I think I may have
even shared this story, we want to be before um
we we work on this huge project for a strategy
project for a financial services company, and I had this idea.
I was like, Yo, you guys need to do this event.
(12:57):
I have an idea for an experiential concept. Put it
on the part of Davos and the aspin is to
like something crazy. It's gonna bring people together from all
over the world's really interesting about profit and purpose. And
this is like five years ago before people were talking
about profit and purpose, okay, And and the clients were like,
and I came up with a name, I came up
with a sketch, I came up with a whole concept, right.
I I pitched it to the clients and then they
(13:17):
that was the project come up with ideas and they
loved it. They were and this is a big multinational
and financial organization and they were like, let's go. And
they looked at me and they said, go, we will
give this projects. You go build this event for us.
And I was like what. I was like, I don't
I don't know the first thing about events, like putting
together an event. I don't know the first thing how
(13:39):
to pull that off. And so I had to go
back and say we can't do it, um. And that
I think was a huge lesson for me. It's like,
and a very smart lesson is you know no when
to say you can't do something. The clients and then
asked me to be the play the client on the
on the project and hire an experiential company. So we
went out and hired an experiential company and I got
(14:01):
that invoice and I was like, I need to be
in that business. Um. But but yeah, that's that's the
trap I thing when I've worked with agencies that don't
have a certain capability or skill set. In fact, Laura
and I when we work together when I was at GE,
we used to we used to think about publishers and
media companies like this. We would go to them and
(14:22):
we'd be like, this is what you're really good at.
These are your best assets, these are the assets we
want to work with, and this is how we want
to do it. And I think that clients actually need
to do that more. They need to do the work
on the agency and say, this is why I want
to partner with you. This is your special this is
and nol En, you and I have talked about this,
(14:42):
right like, this is your special, this is what you
crush at. I need you to keep crushing there. And
if you can be a partner to me in other
areas and help me get to an agency or someone
who can do that other thing really well. I trust
you because I trust your tape East, I trust your compass.
I think that more clients actually need to need to
(15:06):
think about that because I think it's also really easy
to go to a big, big network and hand them everything.
Talk about both of you, actually, Laura and Ellen right
are with independent shops. There are not a lot of
independent shops around, especially post COVID. Do you talk about
(15:26):
the decision to stay independent post the last year of COVID.
You know, independence is a virtue is who we are
and it allows us to do a lot of really
exceptional things. And I have no quants, Like I'm very
clear about the places I would want to work in
my life, and they're very very few. Um and also
(15:47):
in places I want the people I work with to
work for, and so it makes it very easy. They're
very very very few places where I would feel comfortable,
um working knowing that we're certified the corporation. You know,
I'm a black amer again, Like you know, minority owned
is important part of how I view the world and
who we represent. And if we were to get acquired
(16:07):
that that ethos would need to carry forward. And so
it's it's not something I think about, like let's stay independent,
let's say independent. With that said, um, you know, we
we sometimes have conversations and it's interesting and you know,
which gets to your other question about COVID. We're out
here hustling, like we're just trying to survive out here.
(16:28):
I think the key thing I would I would say though,
to answer your question Alexa, is like we quickly pivoted,
you know, we we were really instead of waiting and
to see what would happen, like what clients are gonna emerge,
like what's what new questions are we going to ask?
We immediately started to do stuff and you'll remember this,
like we we created like a digital learning school, like
(16:48):
a school on how to how to deal with prices.
We we just started making stuff like crazy. We created
a podcast, like we just started making tons of tons
of I started speaking like crazy and went, you know,
conferences and stuff like that. We ended up doing well well,
not nearly where we wanted to be, but probably, but
it was it was just a good way to stay
(17:09):
busy when you're talking about hustling right and and thinking
about finding ways to pivot, how do you get further
upstream in this moment and not necessarily focused so much
on the output, but finding ways to be a strategic
partner that's helping organizations, brands, businesses transform their overall footprint.
(17:32):
You know. I mean that that's it's really to me
been about business transformation UM, and that transformation doesn't necessarily
have to be ripping up an entire playbook and starting
from the beginning, but finding ways and and new moments
to provide value UM that isn't solely rooted in the execution.
We've got to rewrite some of the rules upstream in
order to be effective downstream. Yeah, it's a great thing
(17:55):
to bring up. I mean, we we are privileged in
this way, if I'm being honest, because we're strategy consults.
So strategy was already what we were doing, and so
we were well positioned in this regard. It doesn't mean
it was easy because even the most you know, the
savdiest clients had no idea what was going on and
what to do. I talked to some clients who really
felt like this was going to be a short term thing.
(18:16):
Other clients thought it was gonna be a long term thing.
Your clients talking about L shaped processions, V shape processions,
K shaped recessions, Like, I was like, how many shape processions?
But being upstream and already being in a place where
we're talking to clients about their vision and they're already
in the midst of transformation, it made it easy to
to to to be relevant um and for them to
(18:37):
continue to ask us to do stuff. That's not true
for all clients. And if you look at if you
look at our client lists, we had a few that
we were doing a lot of work within the hospitality
space for example, UM and so, and it was chilling
to send emails to those clients on March their teeth
and for something to get bounced back. That's like those
same clients we worked with are no longer at the company.
(18:59):
Was like a sobering thing. On the flip side, we
were working with digital services companies that were killing you know,
like you know, the unicorns, you all know what I'm
talking about. We're working with a lot of those, and
they they just continue to to to do work and
look for insight and it was almost like a luxury
for them to have to think critically upstream. But if
(19:22):
i'm I do think there's a there's an inherent challenge
in strategy companies for being upstream and that you are
not relevant for the entire cycle, in the same way
as a challenge for companies that are downstream who fight
to be taken seriously when it comes to upstream strategic decisions.
You know, I talked to so many production companies or
experiential agencies or creative agencies that are like, you know,
(19:44):
we wish we could shape the product or the brand
that we're working on right now. We just have to
We're just given a brief and we have to execute,
and that's not where we believe we can add the
most value. There is this inherent tension between brand and product.
Do you ever sit down with the chief product officer
and you've sat with the chief marketing officer and you're
(20:06):
seeing kind of a tale of two cities? Oh yeah,
all the time. I guess the question is is like,
how do you reconcile that? How does how do you
reconcile that? And I think that we're in a really
I personally feel like we're in a really interesting place
right now where brand is incredibly important, probably more important
than it ever has been. Yet there are a lot
(20:27):
of people sitting in boardrooms and leadership positions saying we
don't need it. How do you reconcile those things? And
has the conversation changed in the last year. I don't
think the conversations changing the last last year. I think
the rub has always existed, going back when I was,
you know, in the nineties, you know, like it's always
been a thing. It's probably well before that, right But
(20:48):
what I think is interesting is that I think the
way to answer that question is not through the eyes
of the company or even through the eyes of Sylvan
is through the eyes of the consumer. And the reason
you you can unopause ethically say what you just said,
which is that brand is everything that you do is because,
as you know, consumers consume things on that basis. But
in some categories and among some consumers, they believe there's
(21:12):
a serious distinction between brand and products. They don't believe
that they're they don't believe in brands. I think brands
are confusing and a distraction. They believe like, I just
want something that works, and why are you charging me
so much? If it's if it's like I just want
something that works, And I think that's actually where the
distinction lies. It's not so much on the company side.
I think it is on the company side, and I
(21:32):
think you know, the best marketers are people that get
that sometimes they need to reconcile and sometimes consumers view
things differently. UM. It's really on the consumer side where
I think there's act not a disconnect, but there's like
people are different, people are complex, they're human. I think
looking at a number of UM campaign messages that were
(21:53):
out in market over the last year, brand as permission
is something that I've been thinking about based on action
you take over time that give you permission or don't
um to engage in conversation, to show up, you know,
uniquely in people's lives and what that means. What are
the best you're making ine, What are the things you're
(22:15):
hearing from clients and other executives in the industry that
are inspiring or shaping how you're approaching the immediate future
thinking about like what you know, some of the conversations
we're having now, some of the things we're being asked
about now, And it's it's pretty clear in my mind,
you know, we we we're in the middle of a
huge project right now with Nike UM and I usually
(22:36):
don't talk about our clients and I'm not going to
get into the specifics, but we're working on a huge
project with Nike that's really about the transition from being
a wholesale brand to be to being or a retail
driven bad to be something else. And that's something else
is really about being directed consumer UM. We are getting
(22:57):
tons and tons of briefs about how to maximum as
the one on one to one relationship with consumers. So
DTC is everything, subscription is everything, membership is everything, premium
services everything, and we're doing that for every client. You
look at our client lists, every single client of ours
is talking to us about, well, how can now that
we don't need retail as much, or now that people
are online more, or now that we as you said,
(23:18):
which I think is a great point, like the permission,
Now that we have permission to play a greater role
in the lives of consumers, what does that mean for us?
So we're developing models like DTC models, and all you
gotta do is look around like you know, Airbnb, Ubert Pro,
Spotify Premium, you know, trip Advisor plus. You know, it's
just and we're doing that every single cdit. We're doing
(23:40):
that in luxury where we work with clients like Chanelle
and Gucci, and and we're doing that in mass retail
we're working with Nike and Amazon. We're doing it in
finance with you know, American Express and and you just
I'm not This is literally every This is like the
foundational change that's happening with co it where people expect
(24:02):
more from brands. They have captive at home. They're willing
to spend money in the in the right way brand
as products, so they're looking for experiences that are rich,
you know, they want in a month, you know, so
and so of the month club, Like that's that has
a new significance and value now than you know, more
than it did two years ago. So I think I
think that's a big one, Laura. Like the the idea
(24:24):
of these like one to one relationships we're getting asked
a lot about and I don't know that there's an
answer yet, you know. It's so interesting down to like
this very tactical example, and I have been thinking about
it for months now. I am waiting for the direct
mail campaign of the year. The canvas has changed the
(24:46):
level of intimacy that you can create, and unlocking these
things is down to the one to one level, you know,
to your point, and then the ability to do that
at scale through data and on all of the other
resources and tools we have available to us. I am
all in an alogue one. Like I was reading something
today about you know, the Amazon box being the new
(25:06):
out of home interesting, you know, like like thinking of
that as a billboard in your house, like that that canvas,
you know, And so I'm just really interested in how
those things can come to life a new and meaningful
ways at an individual level, which I don't know in
modern media. Have we ever had the opportunity, um that
we do now to really leverage that in a meaningful way. Yeah,
(25:29):
I mean people are listening. You know that they're waiting
for the first time. Right, we're in a marketplace. Marketing
is all about interruption before and now it's it's a
completely different situation where people their ears are perked up.
They know there's some value to come in the mailbox,
you know, not only the analog mailbox. But you know,
I've never heard people talk so much about email newsletters
in the past year. People are hyped about email news Like,
(25:51):
what's your favorite email newsletters? Did you get you know
about this newsletter? What is your favorite? The Progress Report
by Sylvain? It's a weekly. I don't know it's it's
of course we have a news letter. Of course we
have we have a podcast too, Like but you get
what I mean, Like there's a there's a new climate
where not only are people paying attention a little bit more,
(26:12):
I think people are also more aware of what marketing is.
And I'm curiously here what you both think about this,
because there's no mystery anymore. There's no mystery there. There
isn't like a Super Bowl spot that's gonna come out
of nowhere. It's come blows away, and it's got aspirational
It takes us on a journey, in an emotional journey.
Things people get how these things work. They have access
to these brands directly, they have access to celebrities directly.
(26:35):
They themselves are brands actually, you know, you know, they
present themselves as brands. They have their own logos and
they have their own shopify and whatever. Like huge people
are brands. So what's the what is the role of
like big brand promises these days? And I think because
of all that, people are much more open and sober
about like brand messages and how to assess them. You know,
(26:58):
there's there's tons of research around Jen's rights, and people
were talking about gen Z, how the they're gonna rip
it up and they're different and they're political and we
can go to Parkland, we can go to Greta, like
there's so many great examples about gen Z's just truly
impacting the world. And the funny thing, a lot of
people think they have like an eight eight second attention span,
you know that they're just you know, I don't know
(27:19):
what my kid, I have a fourteen year old kid
who's like tunes out really quickly. But I saw I
read this thing the other day where the author said
something about it's not an eight second um, it's not
an eight second attention span, it's an eight second bullshit
meter that they can evaluate stuff super fathom. It's not
it's good. Hold on. I would love to ask this
question is is you think a lot about purpose? Um,
(27:40):
how do we know we're effective or created an experience
that is going to have a lasting impact on the
consumers and people that we're engaging with through the work
that we do. Yeah, yeah, we So there are a
number of ways I would I would answer that. I
think first just on purpose for a second, Like the
(28:00):
the A lot of people think of purpose just means
doing something socially good or politically motivated or good for
the community, when actually the term purpose and the idea
of a purpose is just that you have a reason
to exist and you're really you have an agenda, you're
doing something, You're up to something. So that the point
is businesses need to have a purpose that's bigger than themselves. Um,
(28:23):
And that's that's a very generic and big thing and
hard to quantify. But when it comes to like how
do you how do brands really know that they're impacting
people's lives? And this age where purpose and attention and
all that is so limited. I think I've seen clients
engaging in to really prove out and make an argument,
rational argument for how they're changing. But this is not
(28:46):
rational them. And and the reason I say that is
we're talking about companies as organized humans selling things to humans,
and that's a very emotional, qualitatively driven thing. And I
think the interesting question to me would be like, how
do you measure it qualitatively? How do you measure that
you're really impacting people qualitivity? Like how does that does
(29:08):
that work for an investor? I think the answer is
increasingly yes. I think the role of companies is much
from more and more civic and much more of like
community driven and political. And as a result, I think
the expectations of investors is changing, as evidence by game
Stop like in the nature of the investor's mindset is
(29:29):
changing where it's going beyond rationally. It's still there, of course,
because that's how you get your checkouts, how you get
your dividends, but it's getting to this other place where
you're thinking that you're capturing your understand the nuance of
brands and the emotionality of brands, and like how it
takes time, you know, sales overnight or brand over time,
you know, and I think I think people are increasingly
(29:49):
getting them. It leads me to a question a lot
for you brand and brand strategy. How do you think
the makeup of a brand now versus a year ago?
For me? You know, we always talked about brands needed
to have purpose. We always talked about that, But today
(30:10):
I think brands are in fact political entities, that they
are active political voices in this climate. So they not
it's not about Republican and Democrat, but they are. They
are animals of this political beast. They need to have
a point of view and they need to represent something.
And in a way, when you buy something, you're voting
for something. And these brands are um part of the
(30:32):
democratic process and they represent their consumers and they need
to advocate for their consumers. So that's different than where
we were before, where Marlboro Man showed some chest hair
and people got hyped and they were like I need
I want to smoke and look like the Marble Man.
Now it's like companies are taking a stand and organizing
movements and driving traffic where it needs to be an advocate,
(30:56):
truly advocating for causes. So I think that is something
that wasn't on the brand pyramid a year or two ago,
like and it wasn't just about purpose. Again it's not
about purpose, but like, what truly are you contributing to
the political climate today when it comes to health, when
it comes to race, when it comes to gender equality,
when you know and so on? Where though, does bravery
(31:19):
come in? Are we in a time that requires a
different level of creative and business bravery from leaders and brands?
What a great question, because I think, yeah, bravery is
an interesting way to put it, because I think a
lot of clients believe it takes bravery and as results,
(31:40):
they are paralyzed and you're afraid of being canceled and
all this other stuff. Bravery, I think might not be
the right way to think about it. I think it's
it's responsibility, you know, you know, bravery, it's just a
it's just a reason not to do it. And you know,
it's hard to tell your investors I'm going to be
brave if and I'm going to take some risk on
(32:02):
your behalf. It's like, well, no, it's easy. I I
think it's less. It's less about bravery. It's more about responsibility.
Like if if you are in um you know, thousands
of doors or whatever, or if you have you know,
a database of millions of consumers, or if you have
the ear of a political candidate, you have responsibility to
(32:22):
advocate for what your consumers care about. And that could
be UM something truly political, like a political agenda, like
the environment, but it also could be um from high
quality experiences and high quality products and and so I
I think bravery might be a trap because it's it, yes,
of course, but it's also not everything. And again I
(32:45):
mentioned I have a fourteen year old kid, so you
imagine a lot of it. I'm talking a lot about
responsibility versus bravery, you know. And you imagine my fourteen
year old kid on the playground, he sees a fight
in the playground, if it would be brave to break
up that fight and to tell him. We could it
in the context like be brave and stand up for
what's right and bring up that fight, or we can
(33:05):
put in the context of like you are a citizen
of the world and you have to be responsible for
for justice and you just have to do it. And
that's kind of how I view the role of brands.
It's like, it's not about brave, it's about being responsible
to a code that you committed to, whether that's through
your consumers, or that's in your charter or that's your board,
and that's what you're really meant to help yourself up
to before you go. Um. We play a game at
(33:28):
the end of every episode Alan if you could get
rid of anything in the world, what would it be?
Oh man, can we be abstractors have to be like physical? Nope, nope,
abstract anything I think. I think bias. I can put
it that way. I mean, and it's not revolutionary, but
we all carry so much bias from that we inherit
(33:50):
and that we are socialized. Um. I experienced it every day,
not only as a victim, but also as a practitioner
keep someone with bias, UM, And I often wonder what
would the world look like if it was just, you know,
people were less inclined to favor of the things that
they're used they've been told to favor. I think my
life would be different. Um. You know, not only again
(34:12):
as evictive, but also as a practitioner of it. What
would you buy If I could buy anything, I'd buy
the ability not to buy anything. I'd truly buy a
sense of freedom so that I never had to buy
anything again or buy you know, time, and by time,
I would buy time. And what would you do yourself? Yeah?
Good question. UM. I mean, if I was a better person,
(34:35):
I would truly kind of sacrifice my own which is
and agendas that put those of others above mine, and
I would actually work on behalf of other people. Thank
you for making the time, Thank you for coming on
when I first saw Sylvain, And the more I've talked
to people, You're kind of one of those consultancies and
partners that if you know, you know, and UM, I'm
(34:59):
hoping that all lot more people discover you and they
get to know if people want to talk all things Sylvain,
product brand or anything in between. How can our listeners
get in touch with you? Yeah, thanks for asking and
thanks for that, Alex. It's awesome, um Sylvain dot com
where you can find us, UM and yeah on the internets.
(35:21):
So great to get a chance to talk to you,
and thank you so much. UM. I hope you'll come
back and visit us again. Soon. Yeah, and I hope
to see you in person, both of you said Laura,
I could have gone on with the land for a while.
I actually do believe that there is a structure of
a brand that is changing fundamentally. But the thing that
(35:45):
I think not a lot of folks are talking about
is aligning your brand if you're on the client side
with an agency that has purpose, with an agency that
is actually potentially making you better, not just in your creativity,
not just in your strategy, not just for you, but
(36:07):
also making you better because they are choosing to be better.
And I think what Allen has done with you know,
the more tangible example of becoming a be corp. I'm
pushing himself there when a lot of agencies weren't. But
also the way he works in terms of really acknowledging clients.
What I am going to be doing in the future
(36:28):
is really looking at where can I help my clients
become more conscious and better and more thoughtful by doing
business with me? You are better by doing business with
me exactly. So on that note, here's to being shareholders
in doing better business at Landia. Laura hit it with
a list of all of our friends and family. I
heart who have been so good at us and helped
(36:50):
us get back on Eric. Thank you to Bob Donald Carter, Andy, Eric,
Gayle Val, Michael Jen We appreciate you. Thank you so
much for this opportunity. We'll see in two weeks.
What's up. I'm Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome
back to Atlantia. Allen Sylvain from Sylvain, a strategy consultancy,
is joining us today. Before we get into the interview,
Laura and I have a little riff. What have you
been thinking about lately? What have we've been talking about lately? Alexa?
As you know, I've played sports the majority of my
(00:25):
life and I'm constantly thinking about ways brand marketers can
get in and support women's leagues, female athletes. And recently
I caught an ad from CarMax that features Sue Bird
and Steph Curry, and an example of where a brand
not only got in to highlight a narrative and celebrating
(00:47):
Sue Bird's accolades, you know, juxtaposed against Steph Curry, but
also want to step further and signed on to be
an official partner of the w n B. A that
type of next step action of not only leveraging media
and marketing, but to actually go to the next level
and invest in the growth. I think it really brings
(01:09):
it back to a conversation we've been having, which is
not just how consumers are shareholders, but us as as
media buyers can think about approaching the work we do
through a shareholder lens, and so I think again, this
CarMax example is one in which, um, I hope to
see more of you and I are very different. You
(01:30):
were in sports, I was in the arts. So I
totally agree in terms of from the marketing advertising side,
and I love the kind of perspective as an athlete.
I don't think you're alone. So a lot of females
out there who are the decision urs on dropping money
on a car and many other consumer products. So how
(01:51):
do we have a conversation at a brand inside, at
the table with a partner to say, yes, okay, I
want the big volume numbers, but actually, if I go
left where nobody else's I'm going to have something that
is so much greater, with so much more fandom potential.
(02:11):
And I'm doing the right thing. I'm standing up for
what I believe in, you know, like a building on that.
I think it's a difference between being a marketer that's
there to borrow audience to being an active participant who's invested. Yes,
it's being invested in the growth not just of the sport,
(02:33):
but of the audience and community that exists within it.
These are the buyers of your service or product and
the future buyers. And we were at to E we
used to talk about this all the time. Who are
the future buyers and who are the future shareholders of
this company? Are we even talking to them and not
(02:53):
talking at them? Are we opening them up to how
we're creating something that they can either A be a
part of B invest in right to say, not only
are we looking for our buyers, were that's how you're
investing in your buyers in a different way. I would
actually say that this is really in a girl at
(03:13):
the top at the CMO level to be thinking about
this right and the buyers on the agency side should
be thinking about this on the day to day. Cmos
should be requiring this type of thinking and so that
when they're sitting down with a media plan, they are
not just looking at where they're showing up, they're looking
at where they're investing. Period. So with that, Allen Sylvain
(03:39):
from Sylvain, we'll be right back. Welcome back at Landia.
We are here with a good friend, Ellen Sylvan, founder
(03:59):
and CEO of Sylvain. Welcome, thanks for having me. Yeah,
that's that's fantastic. I'm happy to be here. I have
been lucky enough to work with you, and I'd love
to hear from you not only your description of Sylvain,
but what kind of work you've kind of evolved into
over the years. Yeah, thanks for asking, and you're asking
a good time too, because yesterday was our eleven year anniversary,
(04:22):
So yeah, thanks. The answer to that question has changed
a lot over those eleven years. But basically, UM Sylvain
is a strategy and design consultancy. UM. Really, what we
try to do is help companies imagine the future of
their products and their brands, and we do that through
innovation consulting, so helping companies like imagine what new needs
(04:43):
are around product experiences, and also brand strategy, so thinking
about you know, what is the brand, who is it for,
where does it fit in the world. It's really all
designed to to help companies progress and help society and
large progress, uh, you know, help the needs of people
progress all that. What's the origin story? Yeah, I mean
I don't know when you start these things, UM, sometimes
(05:06):
it's a little bit of the dream of entrepreneurialism, which
was definitely my case, Like I wanted to make something,
I want to build something, from scratch. But also I
worked at Mother, which was like a and is at
the particular time was like a very avant garde and
UM creatively driven agency UM, And so I wanted to
I wanted a little bit of that, but I also
wanted a bit of the management consultancy, buttoned up, rigorous discipline,
(05:29):
marketing best practice, and so I kind of I worked
at a similar place to Sylvan and really felt like
if my boss could could do this, I could probably
do it the way I want. But I convinced a
couple of people to join me, and those people are
still with me, and and yeah, that's that's the that's
the origin story. You guys are a B corp. You're
one of the only consultancies that's a B corp? Why
(05:54):
why was that important to you? It wasn't. It wasn't
right out the gate. It was maybe four years ago.
But I don't know, I mean, I they struggled with
the work we do. You know, how do you advocate
for brands and advocate for consumerism in a world like
like we live in now? And is there a way
to make our work will feel a little bit more
virtuous and feel like it has a soul and has
a purpose, you know. And um, the b LAB set
(06:17):
up the certification, which is pretty amazing. You know, companies
that live up to a certain standard, and there's not
easy to live up to these standards. You know. We
we we applied the first year, we didn't get it,
and and we have it now. And by the way,
you need a score of eight out of a hundred
to get it, and we have like an eight point four. Okay,
so we we barely made it. And that explains your
other point, which is that it's really hard for consultancies
(06:38):
and agencies to get the certification. They're very When we
did it four years ago, there was one other one
in the entire world out of the twenty and they
were a consultancy like ours, and they were focused on
a nonprofit space. You know, we work with some pretty
serious violators of the environment and some pretty some pretty
fucked up companies. Can I say that, Yeah, oh yeah
(06:58):
you can. So, so the b LAB certification really helped reconcile,
you know, what, who we were as people, the work
we do, and just make sure we're doing right by
the consumers, we represent, the employees, clients, all that and
for anyone who is not familiar with that certification. It entail. Yeah,
(07:20):
they track a number of things. They tracked like your
environmental footprint, like how do you how much impact do
you have in the world when it comes to the environment,
They track you're you know, how much are you engaged
with the local community? Um, do you volunteer and and
that sort of thing. And then also how do you
treat your employees, like thinking about employee well being and
(07:40):
policies and so on. So the thing about us is
that we were treating our employees well, but we didn't
have policies in place to really hold us accountable to it.
So the BE certification helps us just really be buttoned
up in terms of like, you know, what is our
parental leaves policy? Like we of course we always had
it down, but why is it among the best in
the world. Let's put it to let's put it on paper.
(08:01):
I don't know if that it's among the best of
the world. I'm just saying. And things like that really
forced us to just put pen to paper and hold
ourselves accountable. So so Patagonia is the biggest UM certified
the corporation and and their famous obviously for their environmental friends.
So we we we kind of looked to companies like
that Ben and Jerry's and something, you know, some of
(08:22):
these other companies that are getting a lot of attention
these days for making wise choices, and we want to
be among that group. Getting the bi core certification, you
talked about holding yourself accountable working with companies or partners
that we're doing things maybe that are less than ideal,
(08:43):
right for society, for the environment, etcetera. Has that certification
cemented even a way of thinking about who you partner with,
like what clients you do take on did they have
to adhere to something? So we're working on that. We're
thinking about whether we need to create some sort of
policies to make that, you know, some sort of um
(09:03):
litmus tests for what qualifies as the client in the
work we do. There is still like an internal sort
of evaluate evaluation you make um to determine, you know,
who do you want to work with him? Should you
work with them? And that that's like, uh, that was
true all alone and for me, you know, for the
most part, it's about companies that are responsible when it
(09:24):
comes to environmental impact and so on, but also does
it make you feel good, like do you want to
you want to really be among And it's a hard
it's it's it's a really hard thing to do. The
thing I've learned in leading an agency is recognizing it
as much as what you know you do well, Um,
it's as important to understand the areas in which you
should not operate. And I'm curious to know over the
(09:44):
last eleven years what you've learned distracts from the mission
or at least the mission for for where we're headed
in the present sense. Yeah, it's a it's a good question,
you know. For what we do in election those is
what we do. We do a lot of upfront strategy work,
so we help build brands and you know, developed ideas
that are ready to go to market. And as soon
as we're done with the project, clients are like, let's
(10:05):
take it to market, you know, so that immediately they
want a creative agency or design agency or something like that.
And if I'm honest, we really were a strategy driven company.
We do strategy better and I'm among the best in
the world, right, that's what we aspire almost. I'm a strategist,
the founder and CEOs of Strategist. Over the years, we've
developed a pretty solid design capability, and Alex and I
(10:26):
have talked about this too, you know, I wanted to
get better and we're still bringing on people. We have
about five or six designers UM. So sometimes we it's
only natural for us to take the brand work to design,
but it's always a weird sort of things, like we're
building our design capability, um. But we've we've worked on
some pretty amazing design challenges. So that's just designed. The
(10:48):
next step though, like the creative communication side of things,
or even potentially even the experiential side of things, like
we don't know how to do. So what we often
do is will clients want us to take that Clients
want us to own at work because they feel like
it's got some strategic foundation and some strategic rigor. So
we'll do is we'll bring in fronts um. You know,
if if an agency like Giants Mool that we like,
(11:09):
or if it's like a people that we've worked with
in the past, will cobble together something and we'll play
the collective collective tissues. So over the eleven years, we've
done that. A few times. We did we had we
did like a huge campaign launch for Amazon last year
for their luxury stores. Um, it was, it was. It
was not what I was expecting to do. Who wants
to talk about luxury stores like campaign work? Like campaign work?
(11:30):
All of a sudden, we have like our directors and
we had freelancers and all that. So to answer your question,
or like, we don't do campaign development stuff, but we're
kind of thinking about it as as a natural extension
of where we can play, whether that's bolstering our design
capability or even going all in on agency work. What
are the watch outs, um for agency leaders, particularly independent
(11:52):
as they're thinking about navigating and where you're saying, I
can get up until this point, Could I take it on?
Should I? Maybe? But if I clicked it in this
capacity with another partner, one plus one equals three. Can
you talk about that experience? Sure? You know it's definitely
something I think a lot about. You know, there's a
there's a big trap in this work that we're doing.
You know, we're trying to launch something and let it
(12:13):
grow fast and be better than anybody else. We're stressed
about cash flow, so it's very easy to be you know,
a new opportunity presents itself. We've been trained to say
we can do everything Like that's kind of our jam, right,
like you need that. Yeah, we can figure out a
way to do it. But the real lesson the trap
is is hubris and arrogance and really believing you could
do everything. And I follow in that trap anytimes. And
(12:35):
it's it's important to stop and realize when you can't
do something. But meanwhile, you also have to be clever
about how you grow. And if I can just tell
you one quick story, and I think I may have
even shared this story, we want to be before um
we we work on this huge project for a strategy
project for a financial services company, and I had this idea.
I was like, Yo, you guys need to do this event.
(12:57):
I have an idea for an experiential concept. Put it
on the part of Davos and the aspin is to
like something crazy. It's gonna bring people together from all
over the world's really interesting about profit and purpose. And
this is like five years ago before people were talking
about profit and purpose, okay, And and the clients were like,
and I came up with a name, I came up
with a sketch, I came up with a whole concept, right.
I I pitched it to the clients and then they
(13:17):
that was the project come up with ideas and they
loved it. They were and this is a big multinational
and financial organization and they were like, let's go. And
they looked at me and they said, go, we will
give this projects. You go build this event for us.
And I was like what. I was like, I don't
I don't know the first thing about events, like putting
together an event. I don't know the first thing how
(13:39):
to pull that off. And so I had to go
back and say we can't do it, um. And that
I think was a huge lesson for me. It's like,
and a very smart lesson is you know no when
to say you can't do something. The clients and then
asked me to be the play the client on the
on the project and hire an experiential company. So we
went out and hired an experiential company and I got
(14:01):
that invoice and I was like, I need to be
in that business. Um. But but yeah, that's that's the
trap I thing when I've worked with agencies that don't
have a certain capability or skill set. In fact, Laura
and I when we work together when I was at GE,
we used to we used to think about publishers and
media companies like this. We would go to them and
(14:22):
we'd be like, this is what you're really good at.
These are your best assets, these are the assets we
want to work with, and this is how we want
to do it. And I think that clients actually need
to do that more. They need to do the work
on the agency and say, this is why I want
to partner with you. This is your special this is
and nol En, you and I have talked about this,
(14:42):
right like, this is your special, this is what you
crush at. I need you to keep crushing there. And
if you can be a partner to me in other
areas and help me get to an agency or someone
who can do that other thing really well. I trust
you because I trust your tape East, I trust your compass.
I think that more clients actually need to need to
(15:06):
think about that because I think it's also really easy
to go to a big, big network and hand them everything.
Talk about both of you, actually, Laura and Ellen right
are with independent shops. There are not a lot of
independent shops around, especially post COVID. Do you talk about
(15:26):
the decision to stay independent post the last year of COVID.
You know, independence is a virtue is who we are
and it allows us to do a lot of really
exceptional things. And I have no quants, Like I'm very
clear about the places I would want to work in
my life, and they're very very few. Um and also
(15:47):
in places I want the people I work with to
work for, and so it makes it very easy. They're
very very very few places where I would feel comfortable,
um working knowing that we're certified the corporation. You know,
I'm a black amer again, Like you know, minority owned
is important part of how I view the world and
who we represent. And if we were to get acquired
(16:07):
that that ethos would need to carry forward. And so
it's it's not something I think about, like let's stay independent,
let's say independent. With that said, um, you know, we
we sometimes have conversations and it's interesting and you know,
which gets to your other question about COVID. We're out
here hustling, like we're just trying to survive out here.
(16:28):
I think the key thing I would I would say though,
to answer your question Alexa, is like we quickly pivoted,
you know, we we were really instead of waiting and
to see what would happen, like what clients are gonna emerge,
like what's what new questions are we going to ask?
We immediately started to do stuff and you'll remember this,
like we we created like a digital learning school, like
(16:48):
a school on how to how to deal with prices.
We we just started making stuff like crazy. We created
a podcast, like we just started making tons of tons
of I started speaking like crazy and went, you know,
conferences and stuff like that. We ended up doing well well,
not nearly where we wanted to be, but probably, but
it was it was just a good way to stay
(17:09):
busy when you're talking about hustling right and and thinking
about finding ways to pivot, how do you get further
upstream in this moment and not necessarily focused so much
on the output, but finding ways to be a strategic
partner that's helping organizations, brands, businesses transform their overall footprint.
(17:32):
You know. I mean that that's it's really to me
been about business transformation UM, and that transformation doesn't necessarily
have to be ripping up an entire playbook and starting
from the beginning, but finding ways and and new moments
to provide value UM that isn't solely rooted in the execution.
We've got to rewrite some of the rules upstream in
order to be effective downstream. Yeah, it's a great thing
(17:55):
to bring up. I mean, we we are privileged in
this way, if I'm being honest, because we're strategy consults.
So strategy was already what we were doing, and so
we were well positioned in this regard. It doesn't mean
it was easy because even the most you know, the
savdiest clients had no idea what was going on and
what to do. I talked to some clients who really
felt like this was going to be a short term thing.
(18:16):
Other clients thought it was gonna be a long term thing.
Your clients talking about L shaped processions, V shape processions,
K shaped recessions, Like, I was like, how many shape processions?
But being upstream and already being in a place where
we're talking to clients about their vision and they're already
in the midst of transformation, it made it easy to
to to to be relevant um and for them to
(18:37):
continue to ask us to do stuff. That's not true
for all clients. And if you look at if you
look at our client lists, we had a few that
we were doing a lot of work within the hospitality
space for example, UM and so, and it was chilling
to send emails to those clients on March their teeth
and for something to get bounced back. That's like those
same clients we worked with are no longer at the company.
(18:59):
Was like a sobering thing. On the flip side, we
were working with digital services companies that were killing you know,
like you know, the unicorns, you all know what I'm
talking about. We're working with a lot of those, and
they they just continue to to to do work and
look for insight and it was almost like a luxury
for them to have to think critically upstream. But if
(19:22):
i'm I do think there's a there's an inherent challenge
in strategy companies for being upstream and that you are
not relevant for the entire cycle, in the same way
as a challenge for companies that are downstream who fight
to be taken seriously when it comes to upstream strategic decisions.
You know, I talked to so many production companies or
experiential agencies or creative agencies that are like, you know,
(19:44):
we wish we could shape the product or the brand
that we're working on right now. We just have to
We're just given a brief and we have to execute,
and that's not where we believe we can add the
most value. There is this inherent tension between brand and product.
Do you ever sit down with the chief product officer
and you've sat with the chief marketing officer and you're
(20:06):
seeing kind of a tale of two cities? Oh yeah,
all the time. I guess the question is is like,
how do you reconcile that? How does how do you
reconcile that? And I think that we're in a really
I personally feel like we're in a really interesting place
right now where brand is incredibly important, probably more important
than it ever has been. Yet there are a lot
(20:27):
of people sitting in boardrooms and leadership positions saying we
don't need it. How do you reconcile those things? And
has the conversation changed in the last year. I don't
think the conversations changing the last last year. I think
the rub has always existed, going back when I was,
you know, in the nineties, you know, like it's always
been a thing. It's probably well before that, right But
(20:48):
what I think is interesting is that I think the
way to answer that question is not through the eyes
of the company or even through the eyes of Sylvan
is through the eyes of the consumer. And the reason
you you can unopause ethically say what you just said,
which is that brand is everything that you do is because,
as you know, consumers consume things on that basis. But
in some categories and among some consumers, they believe there's
(21:12):
a serious distinction between brand and products. They don't believe
that they're they don't believe in brands. I think brands
are confusing and a distraction. They believe like, I just
want something that works, and why are you charging me
so much? If it's if it's like I just want
something that works, And I think that's actually where the
distinction lies. It's not so much on the company side.
I think it is on the company side, and I
(21:32):
think you know, the best marketers are people that get
that sometimes they need to reconcile and sometimes consumers view
things differently. UM. It's really on the consumer side where
I think there's act not a disconnect, but there's like
people are different, people are complex, they're human. I think
looking at a number of UM campaign messages that were
(21:53):
out in market over the last year, brand as permission
is something that I've been thinking about based on action
you take over time that give you permission or don't
um to engage in conversation, to show up, you know,
uniquely in people's lives and what that means. What are
the best you're making ine, What are the things you're
(22:15):
hearing from clients and other executives in the industry that
are inspiring or shaping how you're approaching the immediate future
thinking about like what you know, some of the conversations
we're having now, some of the things we're being asked
about now, And it's it's pretty clear in my mind,
you know, we we we're in the middle of a
huge project right now with Nike UM and I usually
(22:36):
don't talk about our clients and I'm not going to
get into the specifics, but we're working on a huge
project with Nike that's really about the transition from being
a wholesale brand to be to being or a retail
driven bad to be something else. And that's something else
is really about being directed consumer UM. We are getting
(22:57):
tons and tons of briefs about how to maximum as
the one on one to one relationship with consumers. So
DTC is everything, subscription is everything, membership is everything, premium
services everything, and we're doing that for every client. You
look at our client lists, every single client of ours
is talking to us about, well, how can now that
we don't need retail as much, or now that people
are online more, or now that we as you said,
(23:18):
which I think is a great point, like the permission,
Now that we have permission to play a greater role
in the lives of consumers, what does that mean for us?
So we're developing models like DTC models, and all you
gotta do is look around like you know, Airbnb, Ubert Pro,
Spotify Premium, you know, trip Advisor plus. You know, it's
just and we're doing that every single cdit. We're doing
(23:40):
that in luxury where we work with clients like Chanelle
and Gucci, and and we're doing that in mass retail
we're working with Nike and Amazon. We're doing it in
finance with you know, American Express and and you just
I'm not This is literally every This is like the
foundational change that's happening with co it where people expect
(24:02):
more from brands. They have captive at home. They're willing
to spend money in the in the right way brand
as products, so they're looking for experiences that are rich,
you know, they want in a month, you know, so
and so of the month club, Like that's that has
a new significance and value now than you know, more
than it did two years ago. So I think I
think that's a big one, Laura. Like the the idea
(24:24):
of these like one to one relationships we're getting asked
a lot about and I don't know that there's an
answer yet, you know. It's so interesting down to like
this very tactical example, and I have been thinking about
it for months now. I am waiting for the direct
mail campaign of the year. The canvas has changed the
(24:46):
level of intimacy that you can create, and unlocking these
things is down to the one to one level, you know,
to your point, and then the ability to do that
at scale through data and on all of the other
resources and tools we have available to us. I am
all in an alogue one. Like I was reading something
today about you know, the Amazon box being the new
(25:06):
out of home interesting, you know, like like thinking of
that as a billboard in your house, like that that canvas,
you know, And so I'm just really interested in how
those things can come to life a new and meaningful
ways at an individual level, which I don't know in
modern media. Have we ever had the opportunity, um that
we do now to really leverage that in a meaningful way. Yeah,
(25:29):
I mean people are listening. You know that they're waiting
for the first time. Right, we're in a marketplace. Marketing
is all about interruption before and now it's it's a
completely different situation where people their ears are perked up.
They know there's some value to come in the mailbox,
you know, not only the analog mailbox. But you know,
I've never heard people talk so much about email newsletters
in the past year. People are hyped about email news Like,
(25:51):
what's your favorite email newsletters? Did you get you know
about this newsletter? What is your favorite? The Progress Report
by Sylvain? It's a weekly. I don't know it's it's
of course we have a news letter. Of course we
have we have a podcast too, Like but you get
what I mean, Like there's a there's a new climate
where not only are people paying attention a little bit more,
(26:12):
I think people are also more aware of what marketing is.
And I'm curiously here what you both think about this,
because there's no mystery anymore. There's no mystery there. There
isn't like a Super Bowl spot that's gonna come out
of nowhere. It's come blows away, and it's got aspirational
It takes us on a journey, in an emotional journey.
Things people get how these things work. They have access
to these brands directly, they have access to celebrities directly.
(26:35):
They themselves are brands actually, you know, you know, they
present themselves as brands. They have their own logos and
they have their own shopify and whatever. Like huge people
are brands. So what's the what is the role of
like big brand promises these days? And I think because
of all that, people are much more open and sober
about like brand messages and how to assess them. You know,
(26:58):
there's there's tons of research around Jen's rights, and people
were talking about gen Z, how the they're gonna rip
it up and they're different and they're political and we
can go to Parkland, we can go to Greta, like
there's so many great examples about gen Z's just truly
impacting the world. And the funny thing, a lot of
people think they have like an eight eight second attention span,
you know that they're just you know, I don't know
(27:19):
what my kid, I have a fourteen year old kid
who's like tunes out really quickly. But I saw I
read this thing the other day where the author said
something about it's not an eight second um, it's not
an eight second attention span, it's an eight second bullshit
meter that they can evaluate stuff super fathom. It's not
it's good. Hold on. I would love to ask this
question is is you think a lot about purpose? Um,
(27:40):
how do we know we're effective or created an experience
that is going to have a lasting impact on the
consumers and people that we're engaging with through the work
that we do. Yeah, yeah, we So there are a
number of ways I would I would answer that. I
think first just on purpose for a second, Like the
(28:00):
the A lot of people think of purpose just means
doing something socially good or politically motivated or good for
the community, when actually the term purpose and the idea
of a purpose is just that you have a reason
to exist and you're really you have an agenda, you're
doing something, You're up to something. So that the point
is businesses need to have a purpose that's bigger than themselves. Um,
(28:23):
And that's that's a very generic and big thing and
hard to quantify. But when it comes to like how
do you how do brands really know that they're impacting
people's lives? And this age where purpose and attention and
all that is so limited. I think I've seen clients
engaging in to really prove out and make an argument,
rational argument for how they're changing. But this is not
(28:46):
rational them. And and the reason I say that is
we're talking about companies as organized humans selling things to humans,
and that's a very emotional, qualitatively driven thing. And I
think the interesting question to me would be like, how
do you measure it qualitatively? How do you measure that
you're really impacting people qualitivity? Like how does that does
(29:08):
that work for an investor? I think the answer is
increasingly yes. I think the role of companies is much
from more and more civic and much more of like
community driven and political. And as a result, I think
the expectations of investors is changing, as evidence by game
Stop like in the nature of the investor's mindset is
(29:29):
changing where it's going beyond rationally. It's still there, of course,
because that's how you get your checkouts, how you get
your dividends, but it's getting to this other place where
you're thinking that you're capturing your understand the nuance of
brands and the emotionality of brands, and like how it
takes time, you know, sales overnight or brand over time,
you know, and I think I think people are increasingly
(29:49):
getting them. It leads me to a question a lot
for you brand and brand strategy. How do you think
the makeup of a brand now versus a year ago?
For me? You know, we always talked about brands needed
to have purpose. We always talked about that, But today
(30:10):
I think brands are in fact political entities, that they
are active political voices in this climate. So they not
it's not about Republican and Democrat, but they are. They
are animals of this political beast. They need to have
a point of view and they need to represent something.
And in a way, when you buy something, you're voting
for something. And these brands are um part of the
(30:32):
democratic process and they represent their consumers and they need
to advocate for their consumers. So that's different than where
we were before, where Marlboro Man showed some chest hair
and people got hyped and they were like I need
I want to smoke and look like the Marble Man.
Now it's like companies are taking a stand and organizing
movements and driving traffic where it needs to be an advocate,
(30:56):
truly advocating for causes. So I think that is something
that wasn't on the brand pyramid a year or two ago,
like and it wasn't just about purpose. Again it's not
about purpose, but like, what truly are you contributing to
the political climate today when it comes to health, when
it comes to race, when it comes to gender equality,
when you know and so on? Where though, does bravery
(31:19):
come in? Are we in a time that requires a
different level of creative and business bravery from leaders and brands?
What a great question, because I think, yeah, bravery is
an interesting way to put it, because I think a
lot of clients believe it takes bravery and as results,
(31:40):
they are paralyzed and you're afraid of being canceled and
all this other stuff. Bravery, I think might not be
the right way to think about it. I think it's
it's responsibility, you know, you know, bravery, it's just a
it's just a reason not to do it. And you know,
it's hard to tell your investors I'm going to be
brave if and I'm going to take some risk on
(32:02):
your behalf. It's like, well, no, it's easy. I I
think it's less. It's less about bravery. It's more about responsibility.
Like if if you are in um you know, thousands
of doors or whatever, or if you have you know,
a database of millions of consumers, or if you have
the ear of a political candidate, you have responsibility to
(32:22):
advocate for what your consumers care about. And that could
be UM something truly political, like a political agenda, like
the environment, but it also could be um from high
quality experiences and high quality products and and so I
I think bravery might be a trap because it's it, yes,
of course, but it's also not everything. And again I
(32:45):
mentioned I have a fourteen year old kid, so you
imagine a lot of it. I'm talking a lot about
responsibility versus bravery, you know. And you imagine my fourteen
year old kid on the playground, he sees a fight
in the playground, if it would be brave to break
up that fight and to tell him. We could it
in the context like be brave and stand up for
what's right and bring up that fight, or we can
(33:05):
put in the context of like you are a citizen
of the world and you have to be responsible for
for justice and you just have to do it. And
that's kind of how I view the role of brands.
It's like, it's not about brave, it's about being responsible
to a code that you committed to, whether that's through
your consumers, or that's in your charter or that's your board,
and that's what you're really meant to help yourself up
to before you go. Um. We play a game at
(33:28):
the end of every episode Alan if you could get
rid of anything in the world, what would it be?
Oh man, can we be abstractors have to be like physical? Nope, nope,
abstract anything I think. I think bias. I can put
it that way. I mean, and it's not revolutionary, but
we all carry so much bias from that we inherit
(33:50):
and that we are socialized. Um. I experienced it every day,
not only as a victim, but also as a practitioner
keep someone with bias, UM, And I often wonder what
would the world look like if it was just, you know,
people were less inclined to favor of the things that
they're used they've been told to favor. I think my
life would be different. Um. You know, not only again
(34:12):
as evictive, but also as a practitioner of it. What
would you buy If I could buy anything, I'd buy
the ability not to buy anything. I'd truly buy a
sense of freedom so that I never had to buy
anything again or buy you know, time, and by time,
I would buy time. And what would you do yourself? Yeah?
Good question. UM. I mean, if I was a better person,
(34:35):
I would truly kind of sacrifice my own which is
and agendas that put those of others above mine, and
I would actually work on behalf of other people. Thank
you for making the time, Thank you for coming on
when I first saw Sylvain, And the more I've talked
to people, You're kind of one of those consultancies and
partners that if you know, you know, and UM, I'm
(34:59):
hoping that all lot more people discover you and they
get to know if people want to talk all things Sylvain,
product brand or anything in between. How can our listeners
get in touch with you? Yeah, thanks for asking and
thanks for that, Alex. It's awesome, um Sylvain dot com
where you can find us, UM and yeah on the internets.
(35:21):
So great to get a chance to talk to you,
and thank you so much. UM. I hope you'll come
back and visit us again. Soon. Yeah, and I hope
to see you in person, both of you said Laura,
I could have gone on with the land for a while.
I actually do believe that there is a structure of
a brand that is changing fundamentally. But the thing that
(35:45):
I think not a lot of folks are talking about
is aligning your brand if you're on the client side
with an agency that has purpose, with an agency that
is actually potentially making you better, not just in your creativity,
not just in your strategy, not just for you, but
(36:07):
also making you better because they are choosing to be better.
And I think what Allen has done with you know,
the more tangible example of becoming a be corp. I'm
pushing himself there when a lot of agencies weren't. But
also the way he works in terms of really acknowledging clients.
What I am going to be doing in the future
(36:28):
is really looking at where can I help my clients
become more conscious and better and more thoughtful by doing
business with me? You are better by doing business with
me exactly. So on that note, here's to being shareholders
in doing better business at Landia. Laura hit it with
a list of all of our friends and family. I
heart who have been so good at us and helped
(36:50):
us get back on Eric. Thank you to Bob Donald Carter, Andy, Eric,
Gayle Val, Michael Jen We appreciate you. Thank you so
much for this opportunity. We'll see in two weeks.
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