Ingrid: [00:00:19] Hello and welcome to Infinite Shelf. I am your host, Ingrid Milman Cordy. And I'm here with our glamorous, fabulous, beautiful, smart, intellectual... I feel like every time I have to just up the ante on your introduction as my Season 3 co-host. But Orchid Bertelsen is here with us again and she's here the whole season and we're so excited. Hey, Orchid, did you mute yourself again, my love?

Orchid: [00:00:48] I did. I did. {laughter} We like, basically, we spent the last ten minutes trying to figure out what was wrong with my mic and I accidentally muted it. So I'm having a moment today, but I will say I will keep coming back to this podcast if you open everything with like new superlatives. I should do the same for you.

Ingrid: [00:01:10] {laughter} Yours would be like stuffy nose, cranky, pregnant lady who is late too often.

Orchid: [00:01:18] No. Mother of dragons, world builder... You are creating human life and looking fabulous while doing it. I mean, what more could you ask for?

Ingrid: [00:01:29] Why, thank you. Why, thank you. It's my Ilia face lotion that I have a friend visiting. And she, like, saw my little makeup thing in my bathroom and she was like, "That shade of Ilia is for African-American women. What are you doing?"

Orchid: [00:01:48] Oh, no.

Ingrid: [00:01:51] She totally dragged me for my shade. And it's just it's me faking the funk because otherwise they don't make extra white corpse tone.

Orchid: [00:02:05] We got a workshop. That name. It's not a great name.

Ingrid: [00:02:09] It's not. The marketing on it is just really sad. Anyway, hi. How are you doing this week?

Orchid: [00:02:16] You know, just trying to hold it together. I think my problem is that most people, when they ask, "How are you doing?" You should just say, "Good." For me for some reason.

Ingrid: [00:02:29] Just keep it short?

Orchid: [00:02:29] Yeah. I feel very compelled to give an honest assessment of my mental health, which usually just takes me down a rabbit hole.

Ingrid: [00:02:34] I want honesty.

Orchid: [00:02:35] So I'm holding it together. Mother of two, you know, so working a full-time job, trying to do good things, trying to really bring the thoughts, bring the smart thoughts to this thing. How are you doing?

Ingrid: [00:02:53] I'm good. And I think actually, this is a good way to start this conversation because I think a lot of what we're trying to talk about here is relatability versus aspiration. Because the topic of today's episode is sort of influencer brand, messaging, creator... What do brands, DTC brands, but I think all brands look like in 2023 and beyond with where we're at now? And so I am feeling well, a) I don't know if you can probably hear, I'm super congested. I have this nose-cold thing. I have 5'2 height frame and a large, I guess, child inside... I guess, well I'm certain, a large child inside of my body that is squishing my lungs. {laughter}

Orchid: [00:03:47] Is that why you sound out of breath?

Ingrid: [00:03:50] Yes. 100%

Orchid: [00:03:50] Just kidding. You don't.

Ingrid: [00:03:52] I totally do. I also probably should not be sitting crossed legged on this chair. Anyway, my I'm just all sorts of red flags here. But, hey, I'm so relatable, aren't I? Who hasn't felt like this who's been pregnant, eight months pregnant and recording their podcast and talking about how squished their lungs are and how stuffed their nose is? So yeah, that's how I'm doing today.

Orchid: [00:04:15] It's very relatable I mean, as the baby grows, it actually pushes all of your internal organs further up your body. So I was promised that I was able to eat anything I wanted, but by the time the baby's pretty big, you really don't have room. But I will say, in this motherhood journey, I mean, I've got to now, I want to bring it back to what we're discussing today, which is the idea of influencers. The idea of you going into a space, and I think as a first-time mom, you're not really quite sure what to expect. And so I know I started my journey by following a lot of those mommy bloggers or Instagrammers. But as a first-time mom, there's just so much noise out there about what you should and should not be doing. And for me and my husband, we were really the first in our friend group to have kids. So I didn't really have anyone to ask. And I'm an only child, so I kind of took to Instagram. There are so many mommy bloggers and mommy influencers out there, and I actually had to stop following them because of the topic of relatability. They always looked so perfect. They really talked about the pregnancy glow, which for me was just a little bit of sweatiness. I don't know that I really glowed that much. And so it just felt so foreign to what I was experiencing. There really wasn't this candid conversation about it.

Ingrid: [00:05:38] Yeah.

Orchid: [00:05:39] And so now when I look at... Now, the people who influence me, I think are ones who are very open about struggles, who are very open that not everything is sunshine and roses. And I take that to heart more for sure.

Ingrid: [00:05:56] Totally. Yeah. I was pregnant with my first in 2020 into 2021 and that was already with the switch over from the beautiful, highly curated world that Instagram created that was just really, really far from reality and into deep pandemic let's-keep-it-real-language and YouTube and TikTok sort of starting to take over that stuff. And so thankfully, I don't know how I would have reacted to just the few years earlier of the world where everything was curated and perfect. And here's this 17 step breakfast that I just made for my toddler and like, f that, like f all of that. And I would have probably flipped a table daily having to see that and going through what it actually feels like for everyone else or most people who don't have 24/7 help. But so I think that it's actually you're hitting on such an interesting point in not only is it different for what the creators are saying and how they're coming to life and how they're connecting with their audiences, but I think actually I look at all of the social media platforms as different neighborhoods in a city. So I'm from New York, so everything is about New York City. And so there's Instagram is the Upper East Side, and so everything is very polished and beautiful and on the park and curated. But underneath it, everyone's kind of addicted to painkillers and hates their husbands and...

Orchid: [00:07:44] {laughter} Very, very Gossip Girl. It's Gossip Girl.

Ingrid: [00:07:46] Very Gossip girl. Yes. That is Instagram. Gossip. Tv shows is probably even more relatable. I love this. You're so tracking. So Instagram is Gossip Girl. Facebook is, I don't know, Staten Island. Where do Boomers...

Orchid: [00:08:02] Wow you punted them. They're not even in Manhattan. I was thinking Upper West Side. I don't think that's right. That's not right. You're thinking...

Ingrid: [00:08:14] Definitely bridge and tunnel. We're not in the city anymore in Facebook.

Orchid: [00:08:19] Okay. All right. I'm still tracking.

Ingrid: [00:08:22] Okay. TV show, but, I guess, like a broad, relatable show that maybe isn't in its prime.

Orchid: [00:08:31] Like Friends.

Ingrid: [00:08:33] Yeah. But Friends is still. I don't know, maybe I was actually thinking of what's the one with... Modern Family is like Facebook.

Orchid: [00:08:43] Oh, okay. Well, yeah. So is that like Connecticut?

Ingrid: [00:08:50] Yeah, except Connecticut's a little bit more bougie. But you get what I'm saying.

Orchid: [00:08:55] I get what you're throwing down.

Ingrid: [00:08:56] The neighborhood of Facebook is just like, yes, you kind of go on there every once in a while and figure it out. There are people who live and breathe in it and don't leave it. And you're just like, "I don't know what goes on inside of your brain, but it's not my happy place." And then there's TikTok, and I think TikTok is like, I don't know, the like East Village, Lower East Side, where the youngsters are hanging out and they stay up late and they...

Orchid: [00:09:23] I can't believe you just called them youngsters. But I get it.

Ingrid: [00:09:27] They're on my lawn.

Orchid: [00:09:27] But what about Brooklyn?

Ingrid: [00:09:31] Oh, Brooklyn. Brooklyn is definitely TikTok. Yes. Yes.

Orchid: [00:09:34] Okay.

Ingrid: [00:09:35] Okay. That's a really good one. What's a TV show? I mean, I guess there's no... It would be a TV show.

Orchid: [00:09:40] Just literally anything on TikTok. {laughter}

Ingrid: [00:09:43] Yes. {laughter} That's what they're streaming. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, and I think there's a time and a place to go to most of those places, as a brand and as a creator, but just [00:09:56] knowing the neighborhood that you're in and knowing how to navigate it and who's there and what to expect, what kind of restaurants and stores and whatever, is an important way to think about as a brand, how you want to show up to your consumers. [00:10:13]

Orchid: [00:10:13] Yeah, I agree with that. And I think to your point about what is the context in which you exist, so if we think about being on Instagram, your content and the context it's in, everything's extremely polished. We know this. Everything is very thought out. It is planned. It just has this high level of gloss in there that really isn't on TikTok. TikTok is a little more ephemeral. It feels a little more unhinged in the best way.

Ingrid: [00:10:45] Yes. Real.

Orchid: [00:10:48] That you just don't know what you're going to get. Ingrid, speaking of TikTok, I was thinking about this last night. I would like to do a little exercise. Okay, this is a trust exercise and we've talked about this. I would like for us to both open up TikTok and download the first video that shows up on our For You page. We're going to download that video and then we're going to text it to each other. Okay?

Ingrid: [00:11:56] Okay, this is fun.

Orchid: [00:11:56] After we receive it, we're going to both watch it and then we will verbally describe the video that was sent to us. Does that sound good?

Ingrid: [00:12:06] Done. Done. I mean, definitely a trust exercise. I don't know what the heck's going to come up here, but here we go. Okay.

Orchid: [00:12:13] Yeah. No one knows. Okay, hold on. Let me pull this up. All right, get ready. This is not as embarrassing as I was hoping. I was actually hoping this would be a little more embarrassing.

Ingrid: [00:12:21] I don't even actually know what mine is, so let's watch it together, I guess. Okay. So there's a group of women who are singing and the text is "POV. You're in an abandoned gymnasium singing Billie Eilish in six-part harmony with 52 beautiful humans you've never met before." This is such a Zen For You page.

Orchid: [00:12:49] So to be fair, I did have to reset my For You page yesterday. So what I've found is that sometimes when I go down the rabbit hole and it starts to show me way too many tarot readings or Vanderpump drama, I will go to my Following tab and then go through that and like a couple of things and it allows me to kind of recalibrate my For You page. Have you experienced that?

Ingrid: [00:13:16] I have not, but that is brilliant. And that is such a good way of training your AI minions to do your bidding for you. I have though, and this is such a great time to talk about this because I really hope an executive at TikTok is listening to our sweet little podcast. So there is so much content on TikTok and so many categories of content that I love in that right time and space. There is a time and place just using what your examples were. There's a time and place where I want the tarot card version of TikTok or I want the, probably never that I want the Vanderpump Rules one, but like at some point somebody will want it.

Orchid: [00:14:03] {laughter} You're missing out.

Ingrid: [00:14:05] I know, I know. All of that, I think, I wish that there was... And I don't want it to overcomplicate it because so much of what makes TikTok so rad is the simplicity of it. But I just want to tell them which version of me is like, "Oh, I'm looking to get inspired creatively." And so they'll give me stuff that I get on brand development and Logo nerding out and creative director focuses, all that kind of stuff. Or there's a version of me that just wants silly ass, hilarious, cute videos of kids and animals and goofy things happening. You know what I mean? I want like 3 or 4 different pillars of content that I can opt into for that session. That's all.

Orchid: [00:14:51] I love that you contain multitudes and you would like your algorithm to speak to each one. And I think that's fair. I think it's interesting, though, because it's if the entire, for me, the entire appeal of TikTok is that it speaks to the mood that I am in without me telling or dictating it.

Ingrid: [00:15:14] Is it putting you in that mood or were you already in that mood? What came first?

Orchid: [00:15:21] I don't know. I don't know. I mean, we're going to have to ask our AI overlords as to what came first. And I think there might be a generational thing in liking or saving or bookmarking different TikToks. Because I could just enjoy a TikTok and scroll past it, but I feel the need to double tap it to show them that I enjoyed their content. Is that is that an old person thing?

Ingrid: [00:15:50] You're such a millennial. Yes. So I mean, we're aging. So yes, it's an older person thing, but you're just like, "Oh, congratulations creator. Kudos." I understand that instinct, but I don't do that because then I don't want to punish myself because I know the algorithm is going to go, "Oh, she likes this," and you're just being polite. You're like, "You seem like you work kind of hard on this. I'm going to give you some kudos here," which is so admirable and cute and sweet, but like you're kind of screwing yourself in that, and there's just no time for that.

Orchid: [00:16:30] {laughter} Oh, no. All right. I might need to delete the entire thing or create a new account. What happens if I'm just savage and I just don't like anything? But I do feel like... So I follow a couple of food TikTokers who just create this, I mean, some of them are a little thirst trappy, to be fair, but a lot of them just create this amazing dish, and so I do feel like I need to support their work by double tapping. It's like tipping. Am I tipping them through my engagement?

Ingrid: [00:17:02] I just... And I'm not an expert on how the TikTok algorithm is working, but you bring up a very valid point. I do wish that there was a distinction. I wish there was a kudos or a tipping kudos, some kind of "I appreciate you," versus like, "Yes. Algorithm, send me more of this kind of thing, even though it's not 100% up my alley. But I respect the hustle."

Orchid: [00:17:32] Yeah. So Erika, our producer, is reminding us that there is the TikTok creator fund, but I couldn't remember if it was based on views. I think it's based on views and not engagement, though, right? Oh, it's both. She thinks it's both. She's the resident Gen Z'er.

Ingrid: [00:17:47] I know.

Orchid: [00:17:48] That's why I feel, I mean, not that they're making a significant amount of money on there, but for me, it's like, "Yay! Content creation is hard." I'm encouraging them. {laughter}

Ingrid: [00:18:00] I totally agree. And ultimately, I would be curious of the Venn diagram of the things that you want to give kudos to the creator versus the things that you just genuinely like and are like, "Oh, I'm so glad that this made it into my day."

Orchid: [00:18:16] {laughter} All right. Well, now we know that I am aging. But no, I mean, I think TikTok, again, just it's interesting the type of content you have on there. And I want to you mentioned was it Ilia, the makeup brand before?

Speaker3: [00:18:30] Yeah, my flawless foundation, yes.

Orchid: [00:18:35] So with makeup influencers, it's also fascinating because you have someone like a Mikayla, who I think was early on TikTok and had worked at Ulta a while back. And she always gave this very honest assessment of what the makeup that she was using was and how it works. And she swears a little bit, which is nice because she's not entirely perfect about it. But [00:19:01] I have found that TikToks where someone is actually giving a verbatim or like taking you through the product and how you use it, that's been a huge purchase intent driver for me personally. [00:19:14]

Ingrid: [00:19:14] Oh, big time. And I could spend an entire season talking about beauty and skincare and makeup influencers, not just on TikTok but on YouTube and the evolution of it and that's so the foundation and the groundwork for what content creation has become and what the evolution is. And it's fascinating. It was very much Instagram polished, full-face beauty. And truly, I'm not exaggerating, probably a hundred-step routine that took like 40 minutes and that's why all the younger girls like the Gen Z girls, know how to do makeup like professional makeup artists.

Orchid: [00:20:05] 100%.

Ingrid: [00:20:06] They grew up mainlining that stuff and they would literally... I had a friend who I would ask like, "Oh, how do you?" Because I was in makeup and beauty for so long and she was in high school. This is my niece. My niece is very, very cool. She's in college now. When she was in high school, when she would wake up in the morning, she would watch makeup YouTubers, just in the background while she was getting ready. That was her ambient television.

Orchid: [00:20:39] Wow.

Ingrid: [00:20:40] Where we would watch Full House reruns or something like that, probably. That's what they watch. And it's like her and all of her friends. That whole generation just grew up truly mainlining makeup and skincare and stuff like that. And that's how they know all their angles. They know how to contour. I have worked in makeup and skincare for a decade and I still don't know how to contour.

Orchid: [00:21:07] So I think that's fascinating too, because when we talk about creators and I would love to actually get a history lesson on this of how it started on YouTube, but there is more diversity out there. So, I mean, us growing up, it's not like I could find... So I have a monolid and so it's not like I could find content around how to create the best makeup or draw the best cat eye for a monolid. But now with just the wealth of creators out there, I can find someone who has similar features. I mean, there are a million videos on there on specifically how to use liquid eyeliner for Monolids. So I will say that before I think while we were growing up, you had all of the supermodels, and so there was only one way of applying makeup because that messaging was still very much push messaging. It was still very much branded. And now when you have creators out there, they'll actually speak to a lot of the flaws or challenges you have with skin texture or whatever it is, and they can actually highlight that. So I love that about it. I will also say that [00:22:18] the idea of makeup and how we use it, culturally, has shifted as well. Makeup used to be about covering things. You wanted to look flawless because you wanted to cover certain "flaws" that you had. Whereas I do think that there's been a shift in the beauty conversation about a celebration of creativity. [00:22:39]

Ingrid: [00:22:39] Totally. Totally. And it is always like this pendulum of skincare and makeup, and usually, when it goes to the makeup, it's all about coverage, and here's the formula for making a beautiful face. And then skincare, it's the same thing, but with like skincare products and moisturizing and the dewy look and all of that kind of stuff. Whereas I think now it's possible that that same generation that grew up watching makeup influencers have a basic foundational understanding of how makeup works and what can be achieved. And now they're experimenting so much more with color and expression and makeup has really grown and evolved based on you almost have to it's... What is that famous line where it's like, "Know the rules like a master, so you can break them like an artist?"

Orchid: [00:23:40] Oh, I did not know that thing. But I love it.

Ingrid: [00:23:43] I love that saying. And I think that this is a funny way to embody it. But that younger generation learned the rules like a master. They're all in high school doing incredible professional-level makeup. And now they're kind of like, "Cool, I get that. Check. Great. It's not very inspiring anymore." And now they're playing around with color and shapes and different blah, blah, blah. And I think that's so cool. Now the artistry is coming into makeup and I'm here for it. I think that's very cool and I think that's another step into what we were talking about earlier with going from the like, flawless, supermodel, Instagram in the beginning of that to TikTok, which is just like fun and expressive and playful and relatable but still aspirational. And I think that's where, at least right now, everyone who understands brands, modern brands, and the modern consumer is sort of moving toward.

Orchid: [00:24:46] Yeah, and I will say that creators allow brands flexibility in terms of addressing those different need states, addressing the different types of artistry. And just I think proliferating that content around specific communities in a way that if a brand had to create it personally, that they couldn't. They just couldn't keep up with the volume. They couldn't keep up with the creativity. What are your thoughts around that?

Ingrid: [00:25:15] I think that it just opens up. It's just content. You have so much, and I hope this is sort of answering your question, but it's kind of the monoculture or what used to have happened where it was one group or one small group of just following the supermodel example and the small group of magazines that like told you where the authority on what's cool and what's not and where you should shop and how you should look and what's in style and what's aspirational. Now [00:25:50] that definition of what's cool and what looks good and what feels good and is trendy has expanded infinitely. And I do think that that's more of a result of the people who are creating input into the new generation and hopefully expanding out more is just the diversity of thought and experience [00:26:13] and people and like you were saying, different skin conditions or even outside of skincare and makeup, different tastes in cars or homes or hobbies or whatever. It's not just this is the blueprint for what is cool and right and the way that you should aspire to be, and to keep up with that, you need a ton of content, you need a ton of people. And so that's what I think is underlying in the dynamics of how a brand goes to market, which makes it really, really complicated.

Orchid: [00:26:48] Yeah, I think so. Inherently the brand needs to behave differently because if we talk about the history of communication, of marketing, it was all push. It was all push. Brand campaigns took forever to create. I mean, I've been part of the process for TV shoots and those take months and months to produce. Whereas now the brand, I mean, it's going to relinquish some kind of control. It has to. And this has been the conversation, I think, the tension for a lot of brand owners for a long time and that they have to cede control over how exactly their brand looks. They have to be less precious about it. But what they can do is provide a framework or general guidelines for a creator to shine. Because I think you and I, being at the early stages of digital marketing and of the rise of influencers, a lot of brands, especially the big ones, wanted to put these creators in a box. They said like, "Hey, this is according to a brand guideline. You can say this, you can't say that." And they were so restrictive that the creators were like, "Hey, I feel like a shill."

Ingrid: [00:28:02] Or they just ended up saying yes. And then everything that they created was so boring and defeated the whole purpose. And so I think taking... What you're saying is just brilliant. This is so exactly on the money of if anyone cares about what maybe you and I both have to say about [00:28:22] going to market in the modern ecosystem, it's yes, it's not rules, it's tools. So here are the boundaries, here are the guidelines to a certain extent, but then be you and turn that into your own content. And I think that is the biggest differentiator between people who ran brands 20 years ago and people who will run modern brands. [00:28:50] Modern brands, of course, you can't just not have any boundaries and not have any guidelines because then you're not a brand. You're just like a thing. But the flexibility and the ebbs and flows and how you talk to an audience is so much more nuanced and complicated than it was back then. And so I always, even now, people will give creative feedback or whatever, and they'll be the people who are so incredibly stringent about the brand and how the product is photographed and even to the drop shadow, like stupid, stupid things like that. And in their minds, they're like, "This is my job. If I'm not talking about where the drop shadow of the product image is, I'm screwing this up."

Orchid: [00:29:40] "Why am I here?" {laughter}

Ingrid: [00:29:43] Right. And that is so just like you're not seeing the forest through the trees in the sense whereas before that's all there was because you have that one shot, that one print ad that's going to show up in that magazine, and you have to nail it. And it's just not that way anymore. So things are not as precious, things are run faster and more freely and so yeah, I think it's such a key, important takeaway. I love that you brought that up and you said it really thoughtfully.

Orchid: [00:30:11] I think we should... In terms of the creator conversation as well as okay, when we really lean into the theme of direct "with" consumer and creating constructs and inviting people into it, I would love to spend our time using a couple of great examples of how brands have done that. How do they create something that allows someone to interpret it for themselves in a way that feels meaningful and personal to them? Because I've seen it done wrong. So I worked on an ice cream brand, a million years ago, and one of their guidelines was that it was sold in pints and one of their guidelines, they're like, "Hey, health and nutrition says that we should not show people eating directly from the pint. So you cannot show people eating from the pint. You have to scoop it out into a bowl and that person needs to enjoy it from a bowl." But in order to get the logo and the branding in, they have to be sitting next to the pint and you're like, "What world are we operating in? Everybody eats from the pint. Just show them eating from the pint."

Ingrid: [00:31:13] Yeah, I mean, and that one is complicated because you're regulatory gets involved.

Orchid: [00:31:19] Exactly. {laughter}

Ingrid: [00:31:21] That's where all creative goes to die. So thanks, you guys. But yeah, I mean, I think just in general, the spirit of what you're saying is really hitting home for me right now, which is just how do we make it feel relatable and still somewhat aspirational? Because you're trying to sell something. You're selling a dream. So that sentiment will never be beaten out of me because of where I come from, from fashion and beauty. It is aspirational, but we have to loosen the reins a little bit. And actually, I do think that you end up loosening the reins and really figuring out what your brand is versus resting on these 4 or 5 really specific things that you think are about your brand, and you just tunnel vision your way through. Whereas now brands are dynamic, they're three dimensional, they have a tone, they have a voice, they have all of these attributes that don't work in this very, very rigid world that was created before. So I think the takeaway of this episode and thank you for taking this journey with me. It's been really fun. The takeaway of this episode is know what your brand is fundamentally, but then in practice and the same way with humans, you know, we are humans and I can tell you five different attributes about me that are indisputable. But that doesn't mean that every single time you see me or talk to me, I'm going to demonstrate all five of those attributes. I'm going to be over in attribute three versus attribute five on one day. And you know what I mean? We fluctuate and I think that we need to start building and fostering brands that allow for that.

Orchid: [00:33:07] Yeah. I mean, again, you contain multitudes, and so brands contain multitudes. And so the question becomes how do you shift from this rigid, very dictated, and mandated way of how a brand acts? And then how do you allow the oxygen of creativity of consumers to really help feed and grow and evolve this brand, which I think is really exciting?

Ingrid: [00:33:35] It really is exciting. It makes marketing not boring, which I'm always here for.

Orchid: [00:33:43] Yeah, I tell my teams all the time. It's marketing. If we're not having fun, then the consumers aren't having fun.

Ingrid: [00:33:50] Totally. Totally. And I think everyone, we just get really lost in some of the big metrics and things like that. But it's important to keep in mind these are living, breathing things that are imperfect. Orchid, this has been such a fun conversation. Thank you so much. And we'll see you next time.

Orchid: [00:34:09] Where we will actually review the video from your For You page, so you're not off the hook. {laughter}

Ingrid: [00:34:16] Damn it.