Episode 12

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Published on:

3rd Apr 2025

It's a wrap!

In the final episode of Season 1 of Hitmakers, Rei and Ana look back at the core themes that their discussions revolved around: how great products build great brands, why creativity is a mindset not an output, and why the most important thing of all is to care about the work that you are doing.

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Transcript
Rei:

how are you, Anna?

Ana:

Oh, well.

Ana:

How about yourself?

Ana:

How was your trip?

Rei:

My trip was, fun.

Rei:

It was only for a few days, but I was in Dubrovnik Croatia.

Ana:

I know you went all the way across the world.

Ana:

How was that?

Ana:

How was the weather?

Ana:

I.

Rei:

it was supposed to be raining three days straight, but after the first half day it cleared up and it was sunny.

Rei:

But did manage to, take a couple of walks, a tour of the city and all that.

Rei:

Yeah.

Ana:

it?

Rei:

I loved it.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

I've been there twice.

Rei:

this one, you know, this time was for work.

Rei:

The first time was a couple years with my wife.

Rei:

And really, really beautiful place.

Rei:

Beautiful place, great seafood.

Rei:

great people too.

Rei:

Welcome to Hit Makers, how Brands Influence Culture, where every other week Anna and I explore cultural influence and how brands can create it.

Ana:

I'm Ana Andjelic.

Ana:

I'm a brand executive author of the Business of Aspiration and Hitmakers, and writer of the Sociology

Ana:

Of Business with us We have Vanja Arsenov, who is our producer, and make sure that we look and sound great.

Ana:

Welcome to the final episode of Season one of Hitmakers Rei.

Ana:

I cannot thank you enough for being such an amazing interlocutor.

Rei:

Thank you.

Rei:

And I'm Rei Inamoto.

Rei:

I'm a creative entrepreneur and a founding partner of an innovation firm called I&CO based in New York Tokyo and Singapore.

Rei:

as Anna mentioned, so this is the 12th episode of Season one of Hitmakers.

Rei:

And, starting with the next episode, you have a different, partner that you'll be sparring with Anna, and then I have a, a different, platform.

Rei:

I have a podcast called The Creative Mindset, which also releases every two weeks.

Rei:

I also have a newsletter called Intersection, so you can find me, at those locations.

Ana:

So with that said, like Ray, you and I started this back in October.

Ana:

We are on like it's six months ago

Ana:

and

Rei:

even to, to go back, I think we started talking about this, I think last spring, because remember you and I met in Cannes in June of 2024, and

Rei:

we did kind of like a test run, and then we massaged a little bit, and then we officially started in the fall of 2000, 24 and yeah, 12 episodes.

Rei:

But yeah, it's been almost six months.

Ana:

Six months.

Ana:

I know you're absolutely right.

Ana:

And, So how was the judging?

Ana:

Did you see any good stuff?

Rei:

you know, like I, I have mixed feelings to be completely honest about these types of judging, opportunities, because it may not

Rei:

be a, an accurate reflection of what's going on in the industry, and it's a very skewed one dimensional view of what's going on, however.

Rei:

Putting my hat aside, it's a great way to look at a volume of work in such a short, concentrated amount of time.

Rei:

And, and also just to talk about the work with fellow, marketers and, and creatives.

Rei:

And, you know, when it comes to these types of creative and marketing endeavors, there are no right or wrong answer.

Rei:

And different people have different perspectives and different opinions.

Rei:

So, and then, yeah, the, the debate got pretty heated by, in a good way.

Rei:

It was never mean, but it was, it was a healthy, healthy disagreements

Ana:

I see, I see.

Ana:

Yeah.

Ana:

Yeah.

Ana:

See, I have no patience for that.

Ana:

I did that.

Ana:

Like, God bless you.

Ana:

No, Ray is really nice he's known as a nice guy in the industry, and I mean, he's all about the next generation.

Ana:

He created like young lions, you know,

Ana:

like.

Ana:

I never had, I had patience as a stepping stone, like selfishly early in my career.

Ana:

And then I was like, there is nothing for me in this.

Rei:

No, it does.

Rei:

It does take

Ana:

after, after phi I was like, bye.

Ana:

I,

Rei:

Oh, so you did their fees?

Ana:

I did, I did when I was, still at agencies, when I was at Havas Slack hub.

Ana:

So

Rei:

okay.

Rei:

Okay.

Ana:

in 2000, I 17 maybe.

Ana:

And after that I was,

Rei:

no, no, it

Ana:

And also I went brand side and they don't,

Rei:

No, we, we had people from the brand side.

Rei:

It wasn't

Ana:

I know, but I don't know if, I usually just, because then, then they, they invite you for some other stuff like le book, like luxury, some like Yeah.

Ana:

I did go once when it was in Cheval, so it was some luxury and it was like one afternoon and the rest of that was just fun and games in Cheval.

Ana:

It was

Rei:

no, this was like leading up to the, leading up to the in-person judging, like it was weeks of judging online and literally like hundreds of entries.

Rei:

So like I was clicking through case studies case, case study after case study endlessly.

Ana:

But then you have that sort of education mindset, which is admirable, honestly.

Ana:

And you know, pushing.

Ana:

I think there are different ways, actually.

Ana:

I don't wanna sell myself too short because I think there are different ways to put discipline forward.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

Yeah, yeah,

Ana:

And educate.

Ana:

And I see my newsletter as that and you know, like based on subscribers and so on.

Ana:

That's number one.

Ana:

Number two is actually bigger picture.

Ana:

And I think that maybe that's a nice segue into, our, three main takeaways, which is every time I was like looking and judging that.

Ana:

Work.

Ana:

I was always like, but what does it have to do with the real world in a

Ana:

sense, the business, you know, especially when I went brand side and you see how much of decision making is actually not that front end creativity.

Ana:

It's actually creativity as a mindset at the so-called backend.

Ana:

So that's a good way maybe to introduce our, first topic.

Ana:

as you and I discussed and what we wanna share with our listeners as, as in Lee of summary for this season was like the themes that emerged and the first one

Ana:

was related to what we were just talking, just now about judging about work and about what creativity is and how often creativity actually comes at the end.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

Yeah.

Ana:

Of the process.

Ana:

No matter what industry you are, you can be CPG, you can be hospitality, you can be to automotive, you can be fashion no matter what.

Ana:

creativity is something that is considered.

Ana:

It's something for judging a product and output that comes at the end of that helps marketing sell things.

Ana:

And I think both of us in our work, you with I and Co and your clients, my work with my clients and my brand work.

Rei:

Mm-hmm.

Ana:

On the brand side, the she brand officer is that creativity is actually a mindset and what, rather than that

Ana:

being like a marketing catchphrase, it's actually solving problems in a creative way throughout the entire value chain.

Ana:

And I would like to hear your input and then I'll share examples.

Rei:

one of the things that, when I started my company, nine years ago that I didn't do was to have a creative department.

Rei:

Or call a group of people, creatives or you know, creative, creative department because the minute that you label a

Rei:

person or a team or department, creative, it implies whether intentionally or not, that other people aren't creative.

Rei:

So it's kind of ironic to, for me to say, because I grew up being a quote unquote creative throughout my career, I stopped my, my background is des

Rei:

designed by trade but as I grew up in this industry, I always belonged to the, the creative department.

Rei:

But I always felt guilty about that label because like I said, it implied that other people couldn't be, creatives or creative.

Rei:

I was talking to, I don't know if you know this guy, Stefan Sagmeister, who's a really influential graphic

Rei:

designer, and he was talking about, apple and how much dedication that they have to creativity and quality.

Rei:

Jonathan, ive, when he was still at Apple, he was designing, a new generation of, of iMac, which had, didn't have a body, it was just a screen, and then there was a stand behind it.

Rei:

And the manufacturer that they were using in China, in order to create that stand, it had to be done in two pieces.

Rei:

But what he requested.

Rei:

All the way through the, the, the company and the manufacturing team, the operations team and the, the finance team was to change the factory so that they can manufacture the stand in one piece.

Rei:

So there was no, no scene in the back of the monitor.

Rei:

Now, had they stayed with the, the, the original manufacturer that was, making the, the stand in two pieces, financially it would've been much better.

Rei:

The customer would not even realize because it was on the back of the stand that you couldn't even see it.

Rei:

But he convinced other people in the, in the company, in other functions.

Rei:

And then the fun, the, the other functions I. Of course, you know, it was gonna be expensive and it was gonna be such a hassle to, to change the, the, the

Rei:

factory from factory A to factory B. But it's that kind of commitment that business functions had because the, the creative, creativity as a business

Rei:

mindset, not just a business function or business operation, but business mindset is, is shared across functions.

Rei:

Because if it's not shared, it doesn't, it, it makes absolutely no sense.

Ana:

It has to be.

Ana:

Exactly.

Ana:

So that's when I, when I talk, I usually say, Hey, creativity.

Ana:

In my presentations is the approach, not the output.

Ana:

And I say doesn't mean that everyone, you, you don't need financial controllers, you know, to know PowerPoint or whatnot, you know, keynote or Figma or what, it's not the point,

Ana:

you know, because the tools then what you said, Bo box you in, it's sharing that.

Ana:

That is also financial vision, which means that you have a CFO and CO on your side.

Ana:

Then you are trying to put forward a specific.

Ana:

Plan a specific promise and deliver on that promise and what does it take and what the compromises are.

Ana:

That's unbelievably important.

Ana:

That alignment with the CFO, that's why I sort of brought that up, and it's not about, oh, you need to be creative with your accounting.

Ana:

Like, no, it's not about that.

Ana:

It's about bringing them in the process from a get go and saying very clearly, Hey look, we are gonna do this.

Ana:

Maybe brand marketing, this cultural influence program, you're not gonna see a result.

Ana:

For the first six months.

Ana:

For the first year, but then you can expect X, Y, Z. So there are always KPIs there's always return on investment, but a lot of people make a mistake of sort of adhering to that.

Ana:

Excel spreadsheet, year on year.

Ana:

That's basically finest dream because there is not that alignment.

Ana:

And obviously if you have a good rapport, good relationship with the C-O-C-F-O, as as Chief creative

Ana:

officer, chief marketing officer, chief brand officer, then you see, hey, in the first month you can see X, Y, Z.

Ana:

That's how we are gonna know if we are on the right.

Ana:

Second month, third month, and you can course correct.

Ana:

That's how trust is built in that sense.

Ana:

And I, that's absolutely what you said, that alignment towards the common vision, which in your example was Apple is all about creativity.

Ana:

Tools for creativity, innovation, one step ahead.

Rei:

Have you in your, in your either direct experience, working, Within brands or working with brands, or have you

Rei:

seen a ca a recent case where creativity was a business mindset and then that manifested, in a positive result?

Rei:

What, what would be an example, like one example that I mentioned is one, but what, what would be an example

Rei:

that, that

Ana:

me, the example is also like that we've been doing at Banana at ri, which is like you start product design with.

Ana:

Product deliverability and discoverability in mind.

Ana:

You all already think, how is that this going to look on Instagram?

Ana:

How is this gonna look as a campaign?

Ana:

How is this going to be presented to customers in terms of styling?

Ana:

What is the image that we wanna project?

Ana:

Because traditionally you sort of like, look what sold best last year.

Ana:

You create more of it, right?

Ana:

Like this, you're proactive, you're putting forward the vision, but with the end customer in mind, how are they gonna find about this on Instagram?

Ana:

Do you need specific colors?

Ana:

Do you need specific way, our direction?

Ana:

What models?

Ana:

Like, that's why you sort of have to have the discipline from the beginning of the process and say,

Ana:

Hey, these are the signature products, which means we need to repeat them season after season after season.

Ana:

So when that conversation starts.

Ana:

Marketing conversation starts.

Ana:

Creative conversation starts before anything was even designed.

Ana:

You can really embed the, the marketing, the creative, the cultural influence from, from a get go.

Ana:

And merchandising is obviously super important, but then you say, Hey, what is there?

Ana:

Wholesale marketing, what is there?

Ana:

Web, what is their social like?

Ana:

You go from the same starting point.

Ana:

It's almost the opposite.

Ana:

CFO and marketing or creative goes towards division and this is the same starting point.

Ana:

All departments have the same creative springboard.

Ana:

You wanna, you have that sort of playing field that is maybe seasonal or, or, or, or, or annual.

Ana:

So that is the process that I can attest you

Rei:

Yeah.

Ana:

was introduced at Banana at, so that's a process as an example.

Ana:

And you see more and more brands doing things that are good for Instagram, that would be an example,

Ana:

like, you know, food packaging, for example.

Ana:

Or those little like chains that I was just playing with, like now key chains for brands or, or Jackie Mu,

Ana:

that little bag that's like anything that's very Instagram or retail like, you know, you are already thinking.

Ana:

So I do think there is sort of that kind of shortcuts between cre, creative departments, quotation marks for those who can't see us.

Ana:

and other departments, but process is the most important.

Ana:

Everyone needs to sit in the room at the beginning.

Ana:

It's not sequential.

Rei:

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, as you and I were talking about at the beginning, so I just came off of, a few days of pretty intense creative judging, process.

Rei:

So I was judging an award show called, Andy Awards, and in the past few weeks or so, I had to look at like literally hundreds of, case studies and, examples of creative output of the past.

Rei:

Year and a half or so, and one company that kept coming up, multiple times wasn't necessarily the company that I would've expected to be creative.

Rei:

But it was a French car company, Renault,

Rei:

they had multiple pieces that were getting recognized.

Rei:

And what that said to me was that they had, you know, different like campaigns and different initiatives that they entered into an award show.

Rei:

And our award show, not, that's not the important part, but the.

Rei:

what was notable about that was that one company, consciously putting effort in creativity and a lot of the initiatives that were getting

Rei:

highlighted, they were not typical like campaigns or marketing initiatives, but it was a company initiative and everything that they, they did.

Rei:

You could see that it wasn't a function that owned it and that they just executed it independent of other functions.

Rei:

You could tell.

Rei:

So for instance, I, I'll just give you an example.

Rei:

there was a, a, an, it's, it's, again, it's not even a, a campaign but initiative called a plugin for business.

Rei:

And basically, it's Renault getting behind small businesses across, the country and working with small business owners to install, plugin, power stations at local, local stores.

Rei:

And then if a, a driver goes to that, uh, power station.

Rei:

And it uses that power station, they get a coupon from that small business.

Rei:

So it's an infrastructure, right?

Rei:

And it's not a small investment that they made.

Rei:

They had to make a, a, a fairly significant investment to, to do it.

Rei:

And it was a small idea, but like a very big vision for them.

Rei:

And you could tell that multiple functions had to collaborate to make something like that happen.

Rei:

And that's just one example.

Rei:

But they had.

Rei:

And an initiative like that multiple times, like other initiatives, and you could tell that the company, embraced that creative mindset as opposed to, Hey, this is just a functional thing.

Ana:

I love that.

Ana:

I love it.

Ana:

And that reminds me, of Ikea,

Ana:

and that's probably a good.

Ana:

Segue into our next team is because you know how IKEA really quickly responds what's happening in culture with their spoofs, but then also they have those like I think three departments.

Ana:

One is like innovation, the other is sustainability, and the third.

Ana:

Consumer products or something, and they have a lot of collaborations and you can't do those collaborations like send collaboration with, Bayo,

Ana:

for example, or light collaboration with, with lighting brands or offwhite back in the day 10 years ago.

Ana:

Like if that doesn't happen or the level of supply, production, marketing, creative distribution, it just won't happen.

Ana:

So I think that IKEA is sort of unified and has a sort of holistic approach, whereas each one of

Ana:

their, those verticals, even sustainability, how embedded they are in providing sustainable, energy.

Ana:

Communities in Africa and so on.

Ana:

So it's kind of like having multiple legs and being very connected with culture is also showing flat organization or organization that has a process that can

Ana:

respond very quickly, which is again, the easiest way to see that is like how nimble they are in their, how quickly they catch what's happening in culture.

Ana:

But that's mostly, that's also a reflection of how their entire organization is nimble and changeable.

Ana:

Because they figured out in order to stay relevant with, I mean, because their products are almost, almost CPG, they're so cheap.

Ana:

How, you know, in order to get more people to buy, they need to collaborate.

Ana:

There's something always needs to hear to be new.

Ana:

Otherwise they're in mature market.

Ana:

How do you grow in mature

Rei:

yeah.

Rei:

The thing, the thing, another thing that, now that you mention, iCare, I. Is that their, way of behaving as a

Rei:

company, whether it's product centric or marketing centric, it's always linked to or rooted in their products.

Rei:

You know, they don't do a lot of like brand marketing.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

But it would, it's very much about the product.

Rei:

which is the second point that, that, you know, products are what build builds brands.

Rei:

It's not just market like brand marketing, but it's pro product led.

Rei:

To use your words, you know, product led marketing is the, the new brand building basically.

Ana:

Yes, and I would like to add aesthetics because product needs to be good.

Ana:

You can't build, you know, like you're, which is, but then again, I do, I do believe that like the most iconic brands

Ana:

of today, as we, as we talked in a very early episodes, are those that, that spun the entire brand around them.

Ana:

Levi's dog, Martins, Nike, even, even Ikea, because the innovation, the value innovation that.

Ana:

The founder of IKEA did was like, oh, the most expensive part of the value chain with furniture is its shipment.

Ana:

It's like, how do you transport the fully assembled furniture?

Ana:

So for him it is like, I'm gonna slash prices and I'm gonna make that up.

Ana:

But making, but putting the cost of assembly on customers.

Ana:

But that's again, product innovation because you make products such that it can be assembled at home, you

Ana:

know, and I do think that IKEA does have brand market, you know, those print ads that are always funny.

Ana:

And so, but it's kind of the, that tone of voice that is very humble, doesn't take itself seriously.

Ana:

It's always cheeky.

Rei:

Yeah.

Ana:

They don't pretend to be something they're not.

Ana:

They're in sync with their product.

Rei:

Speaking of, of which, and this is another thing that I saw in the last couple days, at the war show, but did you see this, text messaging campaign that did, that IKEA did last year?

Ana:

No.

Rei:

So, you know, like at 1:00 AM in the morning, you know, you are, you have your Instagram up, just scrolling and.

Rei:

They created this super simple campaign.

Rei:

They, so last year their fo, their product focus was sleep.

Rei:

A lot of it was about sleep.

Rei:

You know, how do we, how does IKEA as a brand, as a company help people sleep better?

Rei:

So it's mattress, it's the beds, it's, you know, the, the duvet and,

Rei:

yeah, yeah, exactly.

Rei:

All products are sleep.

Rei:

So that was their, their their product focus.

Rei:

So last year did this, this really simple, smart and cheeky thing.

Rei:

Imagine you are up at 1:00 AM 2:00 AM and you get a dm. It's from IKEA and it just says you up, you as in, like you and up question mark.

Rei:

That's it.

Rei:

And then if he responds, it will send you a link with a coupon to buy a mattress.

Ana:

Oh, I didn't know that.

Ana:

But OP is a famous pickup line.

Rei:

That perhaps that's another culture.

Ana:

For many, many generations, so.

Rei:

Yes.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

But I, so, but what, what I, I love the simplicity of it.

Rei:

I love how it's directly tied to their product initiative.

Rei:

I also love subtle technical aspect of it.

Rei:

So like, on, you know, those social media platforms, they know when people are using the, the app, actively, right?

Rei:

So they targeted people who are up.

Rei:

Then sent that message.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

So and so simple, so technically, you know, sophisticated enough that it was contextually the right moment, and then

Rei:

culturally also, you know, speaking their language but very natural, link to, to the, to the, to the product.

Ana:

Amazing.

Ana:

I mean, but they, they do that a lot.

Ana:

I

Ana:

love that

Rei:

a lot.

Rei:

It's

Ana:

I mean, but I love that doesn't, I mean, that's amazing example because it's, everything is tied up.

Ana:

You know, like when, when there was like last year at Met, met Gala, which is like, you know, everyone is watching

Ana:

or at least everyone in fashion, and there, there a cat was like in a towel immediately.

Ana:

There was a re like a replication of someone like in the towel and there is a price and it's, you know, like they're just so quick and the way,

Ana:

again, going back to that synchronization on, on product and brand marketing is really how the language is saying,

Ana:

you know, they know that their target audience is those who are furnishing their first apartment.

Rei:

College.

Rei:

College students or college

Ana:

So that's you up, that's it.

Ana:

That's, that's, you know, they speak that their, that language.

Ana:

They're not really pretending to be anything.

Ana:

They're not.

Ana:

And that's really refreshing because, you know, there is such thing as aspirational and so on.

Ana:

But Ikea dives into lifestyle and, and, and finds funny moments there.

Ana:

Have you seen today's April 1st joke?

Ana:

That ikea, the IKEA decided like their stores are too confusing, so they decided to do one long store that's two kilometers long and it has the departments one after another.

Ana:

and it just looked amazing and very real.

Rei:

That is, that is a real problem.

Rei:

I mean, there's so like a maze and you know, I mean, on purpose it's kind of confusing because you have to go through pretty much every aisle to get to the, to the exit.

Ana:

Exactly.

Ana:

I'm pretty sure like nine, that it's, April's full.

Ana:

But what do I know?

Rei:

It's brilliant.

Ana:

it's very ikea.

Ana:

It's very IKEA to do that I don't know.

Ana:

I'm just gonna leave that out for you guys.

Ana:

But

Rei:

No, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sure this is, April, first joke.

Ana:

I know I like, I mean, you park your car like

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

'cause like, it's not realistic.

Rei:

I mean, you can't, you know, if you park your car on this side, then what

Rei:

are you gonna do?

Rei:

You know,

Ana:

it's like long ways to go.

Rei:

But, you know, so on, on this note, products, building brands or product, you know, we are in an era where products do build brands.

Rei:

This sounds like a contradiction to what I said, I think in a, an episode a couple episodes ago.

Rei:

But I have a feeling.

Rei:

That Apple is on a slow downhill slope as a brand.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

And recently, I think like two weeks, two or three weeks ago, they had a, an announcement, with new product lineup and it was so underwhelming.

Rei:

There was nothing new.

Ana:

Yeah, I think there hasn't been nothing.

Ana:

There hasn't been anything new in a while.

Rei:

the biggest thing, biggest new product that they had was the, the Vision Pro two years ago.

Rei:

You know, and it got a lot of press back then.

Rei:

But I mean, I don't, I, I know a couple of people who own it, but I don't know who's using it regularly.

Rei:

I think that was the last product innovation that they had.

Rei:

they had a, an interesting and potentially smart announcement maybe six months ago with apple Intelligence and, but when he came out.

Rei:

A few weeks ago, or a couple months ago, it was like, you know, you, you create, AI emojis or you create an AI summary of your email

Ana:

By the way, that's so annoying because the moment gr.

Ana:

Acquired personality quotation marks, they, Chad, GPT became cheeky.

Ana:

They all do like the

Rei:

Oh, right,

Ana:

know what I mean?

Ana:

So I'm like, no, I don't need you to be funny.

Ana:

Just like, tell me what, you know, summarize what I need you to summarize.

Ana:

But I, I agree and I think that what, what you just mentioned is very important because Apple is late to ai

Rei:

Like, yeah, yeah,

Ana:

and that's the company that was 10 steps ahead.

Rei:

yeah, so, you know, apple, I mean, yeah, they, they do use to do a fair amount of, brand marketing in the past, but in a good way.

Rei:

They haven't done a lot of brand marketing, because their products were good, their products built, their brand.

Ana:

It is.

Ana:

And honestly I think because they're like, what, how many trillion dollar brand?

Ana:

So their customer, their market penetration is really high.

Ana:

And I think what is important, the customer loyalty that.

Ana:

Renewal is also really high.

Ana:

I'm not gonna switch anytime soon.

Ana:

Something really bad needs to happen for me to switch.

Ana:

So I think they have, cus they calculated what is their customer lifetime value and they're like, you know what, we are fine.

Ana:

We can cost for next X, Y, Z.

Rei:

yeah.

Rei:

So the good news is, to your point, the good news is that they, they're such a massive, rich company that they can cruise control for the next several years.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

But, you know, you and I, we are older in terms of generation, the younger generation coming into the, into the market.

Rei:

You know what, Samsung is definitely cheaper.

Rei:

You know, they have more, variations and they, if they're Samsung or other products are as good as Apple.

Rei:

Then why do they need to buy Apple?

Rei:

Why

Ana:

Yes.

Ana:

And I will say one thing, even though Apple, as you said is, you know, it's still cool.

Ana:

Don't ask me why it's maybe not as cool as it was 20 years ago.

Ana:

Definitely.

Ana:

But at the same time is like you still wanna have accessories that your friends have.

Ana:

So in a se like tax accessories, you're, so, you're gonna still, like, for whatever reason that is still, that

Ana:

equation is like, oh, if you're a creative person going back for the, to the first point, you're going to use Mac, not pc.

Ana:

So for better or for worse, I think that

Ana:

it's sort of, if your parents use iPhones, you're gonna have iPhone.

Ana:

If your friends have iPhone, you're gonna ask for an iPhone.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

There's the.

Ana:

when that changes, like again, it's, I like it is a product led branding because you see with Nike, customers expect, don't ask me why

Ana:

Zeitgeist is that they're not as innovative And groundbreaking as Hoka, as own products and so on.

Ana:

So when you have that perception in culture, you start having expectations.

Ana:

When you start having expectations.

Ana:

The perception of product changes.

Rei:

I think another interesting company to watch is Nike, now that you mention it and.

Rei:

That's another brand that's on a slippery that has been on a slippery slope for the past year, year and a half or so.

Rei:

And you know, they've had some interesting announcements in the recent, couple of months or so.

Rei:

They had a Super Bowl spot that I thought was great, but then a week later they had this, collaboration announcement with skims, which a lot Yeah, exactly.

Rei:

A lot of people are questioning like, is that the right thing for the brand?

Ana:

Well, it's a shortcut.

Ana:

Look, you know, if you wanna, you know, cultural relevance can't be bothered trying to buy it.

Ana:

It's a cultural shortcut.

Ana:

Look, we don't know what's happening in the company and so on.

Ana:

At the end of the day, my point is that they can have the, the, the schemes partnership.

Ana:

They can have the best brand marketing.

Ana:

Their product needs to become amazing Again,

Ana:

Do you wanna go to hit list and

Ana:

I think that mentioning Nike is a great thing.

Ana:

They did something really, really well.

Ana:

how Nike throw New Balance in the Cooper flag.

Ana:

Cooper Flag is this young guy and he had like unbelievable, like last week unbelievable scores and he's

Ana:

still wearing Nike, although he signed, signed up with New Balance and they said delivered by swoosh.

Ana:

Just on social media and I love that.

Ana:

Such a simple example of brands being real people, you know, like calling each other in a really good humored way around an amazing young athlete here.

Ana:

So because until he gets to MBA, he's under Nike's

Ana:

contract,

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

So like that sort of reaction to culture, what's happening in, you know, in culture real time.

Rei:

And they, they've had some good moments recently, being quick on the foot, on the feet and, being part of the conversation real time and, has been, a few small moves.

Ana:

Yeah.

Ana:

What's your hit?

Rei:

so I think that IKEA text messaging Is pretty high on the list.

Rei:

Another one, or a couple other ones that I can think of.

Rei:

One is, this, product review for, plant-based mayonnaise.

Rei:

I mean, there are a lot of plant-based mayonnaise products, but all of them, what they say is that it's as good as a real a mayonnaise.

Rei:

Right.

Rei:

But this company, it's a company called Naco, N-O-O-T-C-O, naco.

Rei:

it's a joint venture with Kraft Heinz.

Rei:

They have a plant-based mayonnaise, but in order to promote it, what they did was they went to, Reddit and they found a bunch of mayo haters.

Rei:

You know, there are a lot of people who don't like mayonnaise, right?

Rei:

They just like physically

Rei:

can't accept it.

Rei:

And then what they did was they created, they, they made sandwiches with this, plant-based mayonnaise and let, these mayo haters eat those sandwiches that was made with plant-based

Ana:

So wait, how did they find them?

Ana:

In real life.

Rei:

so they, they actually, they the, a bunch of threats on subreddits, right?

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

And then they, they asked for people to apply for it.

Rei:

You know, if you're a mayo hater, get in touch with us.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

So they got a bunch of people.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

And then they created these, product, review videos

Rei:

of Mayo Haters eating the sandwiches made with this plant-based, Mayo.

Rei:

the reactions from these mayo haters are, so they, they, they're like literally vomiting.

Rei:

And it sounds disgusting, but it's actually really convincing.

Rei:

So it's sort of reverse psychology.

Rei:

Hey, you know what?

Rei:

These mayo haters hate this

Ana:

It's so real that they created with equal passion.

Ana:

I love

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

So instead of saying, Hey, hey, no, I, I'm a my Mayo lover and I love it, you know, this, plant-based mayonnaise, they actually took the opposite direction.

Rei:

And I

Ana:

That's

Ana:

really good.

Rei:

so clever and so simple and very authentic.

Ana:

yeah, definitely.

Rei:

yeah.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

So the IKEA text message and, this, you know, reaction films.

Rei:

From

Ana:

It's And then what else do we wanna, like, what do we want on a very high level?

Ana:

Leave our audience with?

Rei:

I would say that I. There's still a lot of room for creativity and for fun, engaging and serious business opportunities for many, many brands.

Rei:

I think it's easy to be cynical.

Rei:

Everything has been done and yeah, true everything has been done, but at the same time, there's like the, the Ike example that I just mentioned.

Rei:

It's such a simple execution that nobody, I mean, you could have done it 10 years ago if you wanted to, you know, but nobody thought of it until now.

Rei:

So I am, and especially coming out of a recent, experience with judging things, I felt quite en encouraged that, you know what?

Rei:

It's kind of up to the individual, up to us to think of creative, playful, fun ideas to impress the world.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

And I, I, I think the other thing that I would say is, and this is something that, that I talked with my colleagues recently, pretty intensely.

Rei:

You know, like AI is everywhere these days.

Rei:

And the bad news of I ai.

Rei:

is that it's actually already having tangible negative impact, particularly for, for, college graduates.

Rei:

So a lot of companies are hiring.

Rei:

If you look at the job labor market at large, I. We, it looks like the job market is, is actually pretty good.

Rei:

But if you actually look at particularly college graduates, they're in a really tough spot because especially big companies, they're not hiring.

Rei:

And then, you know, I teach, graduate level college, college students.

Rei:

And compared to, say, like five years ago, they have a lot more trouble getting a job like five years ago before the graduation.

Rei:

I. 90% of my students had job offers from Google, Amazon, Facebook, what have you.

Rei:

Now it's the opposite.

Rei:

Like only 10, 20% of them have job offers and 80% of them are still looking for job.

Ana:

Wow.

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

So that's the bad news.

Rei:

That's the bad news, right?

Rei:

But the good news is that just because you use AI doesn't mean that you are better.

Rei:

What?

Rei:

What matters is, do you care about what you do enough that you spend more time than the other

Ana:

It's, that's it.

Ana:

That's it.

Ana:

It's a thoughtful use of ai.

Ana:

You

Ana:

can partner with AI to help you do your job better.

Ana:

If you care, you are going to use it in a way, Hey, do research on this.

Ana:

Save me the time.

Ana:

But you're still going to train it on your material.

Ana:

You're still gonna give that imprint.

Ana:

Absolutely.

Ana:

I absolutely agree, and I think it's great in that sense, and I do think it's great that those college graduates and a plus I have that AI literacy in that sense.

Ana:

But again, that is gonna to create a big difference.

Ana:

Among those who are very ambitious and driven and thoughtful and caring and those who are not necessarily that yet.

Ana:

You know, it's, it's, it's really what you see.

Ana:

You know, sometimes it's obvious and sometimes it's just your, your partner in kind of like distributed cognition, so to

Rei:

Yeah.

Rei:

So I would say just as a, a final thought, I would say on that note, those who care more will win

Rei:

regardless of the age, regardless of the profession, regardless of the expertise, those who care more will win.

Ana:

I love that.

Ana:

I love, I did such a lovely note, so I'm not gonna interrupt that.

Ana:

Let's just sit with it and, because my thing was like, I agree.

Ana:

Like, like mic drop, mic drop.

Rei:

My job.

Rei:

Yes, my job.

Rei:

I have a mic right here.

Ana:

Because that's what that season one was, was, was really about our conversation.

Ana:

And so thank you very much for, for, for being part of it.

Ana:

And thank you everyone who listened to season one of hitmakers and stay tuned for season two coming soon.

Rei:

See you around everybody.

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About the Podcast

Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture
How Brands Influence Culture
Hitmakers is an exploration of cultural influence and how brands create it. Every two weeks, Ana Andjelic, a brand executive, and Rei Inamoto, a creative entrepreneur, talk about brands that made a dent in culture - through their product, aesthetics, content, business model, or technology - and unpack how they did it.

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Rei Inamoto