Creating Credible Content and Community-Building Collabs

Emma: [00:00:00] I didn't know when it was going to become something, but I was obsessed with the name Great Collab. And I would say to my friends even, we'd be like, "Oh, let's go get dinner at this place." And I'd be like, "Oh, it'd be such a great collab." And so it was kind of like this phrase I threw around. And so, yeah, there is definitely a long origin story behind getting here.

Brian: [00:01:53] Hello, and welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast at the intersection of culture and commerce. I'm Brian.

Phillip: [00:01:59] I'm Phillip. And, hey, before we get started today, Brian, I put on my VISIONS shirt.

Brian: [00:02:04] Oh, man. I should have worn mine.

Phillip: [00:02:05] By the time well, you're actually the one who got dressed for this call because of this. I look dumpy, but I put it on to remind myself we are at the time of this recording, will be about two weeks, when you all listen to this and when you watch it on YouTube, two weeks from our annual MoMA event, and that's VISIONS summit. It's coming to New York City, June 11th. Don't miss it. Tickets are probably sold out. So so maybe you could stand outside with a sign or something that says, "If you have VISIONS tickets, let us know."

Brian: [00:02:32] {laughter} Scalpers.

Phillip: [00:02:33] But, hey, just in case there are one or two spots that we opened up for you. Yeah. Go on StubHub. I'm sure they're there. But just in case, go and see the lineup. It's going to be incredible. And I hear, a little birdie told me, all the content from VISIONS Summit will be making its way to the Future Commerce Plus program. And so if you're a member at Future Commerce Plus, you'll get it all on the backside of that event. But we'd love to have you there in person. FutureCommerce.com/VISIONS, and I will see you there. And can't wait to see you in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art. Today, we have an incredible guest, somebody who we've known for a couple of years now and who was sort of there at the beginning and did a great collab, if you will, between us and her former employer Thingtesting. These days she is, I think, breaking down the world of cultural events and brand partnerships and also a little bit of the explainer content that's telling people, I think, broad consumers about how the world of business works and how companies show repeated success by creating and maintaining cultures that hire and create amazing talent. Of course, it's Emma Apple Chozick. Welcome to the show, Emma. Glad to have you finally.

Emma: [00:03:46] Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

Phillip: [00:03:48] You are incredible on the TikTok and social media game right now. Tell us what you've been working on.

Emma: [00:03:56] Yeah. So for the last 6 months or yeah, in November, I started posting on TikTok. I was still at Thingtesting at that time and wanted to just learn the platform. I feel like it was so interesting to me that a lot of brands that we worked with at Thingtesting, some of them were popping off on TikTok and other brands just, like, weren't hitting, but people seemingly were posting quite similar content to me. And so I was like, I wonder how this platform really works. Why does this happen? And I just had this curiosity that was like, let me just try this out. So I committed to posting for 30 days on TikTok, one video a day, ended up posting 84 videos in the 1st month and grew a following of 10K people. And it just, like, started something for me. I really wanted to talk about, I was already doing so much curation at Thingtesting obviously, and wanted to talk about brands in a way that I didn't see anyone doing it online. I felt like there was a lot of kind of consumer experts on the Internet and I don't really consider myself to be a consumer expert even though I spend a lot of time with consumer brands. I think everyone is an expert of their own thing and I just wanted to be someone approachable to talk about what brands were up to. Obviously, I had a lot of knowledge because I get a lot of press releases, so I knew what launches were coming. And so started posting. Obviously, it kind of like blew up, took on a life of its own, and over time started getting inbound freelance work. Did a couple of freelance projects, and at the end of February decided that I should just take the leap. I'm sure you guys are familiar with Grace Clark. An amazing consultant.

Phillip: [00:05:45] Yeah. Friend of the pod.

Emma: [00:05:46] Friend of the pod. She sent me or she sent a lot of people, but she sent me her planning guide that she was doing for 2024.

Phillip: [00:05:54] Yeah.

Brian: [00:05:55] So cool.

Emma: [00:05:55] I've never really done a plan like that before. It's very regimented. It's very organized. And I sat down to do it over three days. And the big thing that was, like, a theme for me was, take the leap. And I didn't know what that was going to mean. And it just kept coming up for me and did take quite a big leap leaving my full time job deciding to go freelance. And so now I've been working with design-led brands across commerce, hospitality, and tech, focusing very specifically kind of on this world between community building, content strategy, and strategic partnerships. And now we're here.

Phillip: [00:06:38] Congrats.

Brian: [00:06:38] So cool. Wow.

Phillip: [00:06:41] You took the leap. Congratulations.

Emma: [00:06:43] Took the leap. Yeah. A big one.

Brian: [00:06:46] Yeah. That's such a cool thing to do. It's so much motivation to do that. It takes a lot of, well, really guts to make that jump. So congratulations. And also, 84 videos in 30 days. That's impressive. I can't help but ask...

Phillip: [00:07:06] Yeah, teach us how to do that.

Brian: [00:07:07] Yeah. How did that evolve? I'm sure it evolved very quickly as you started to get into it. What was your first, video number 1 versus video 84? What was the arc that you took to get to where you're at now?

Emma: [00:07:24] Yeah. So I had in my notes page on my phone, literally just on my iPhone for months, ideas of this could be a cool TikTok, and I always joked that I kind of think in TikToks. And I was not on TikTok in 2020. I think every other Gen Z was, like, deep on TikTok doing dance videos. I was like, my For You page is bad. It's not anything I like. And then about a year ago, I started realizing that you actually have to curate your For You page. And so I started typing in chairs, Danish design, like the stuff that I wanted to see, you have to train your algorithm. And so that started to happen. And then I kind of started being like, there's not really anything on here that I'm, like, that excited about, though. Nothing that feels like an interest in my day to day life. There were funny, silly videos that I was watching. And so I created this notes page where I was just jotting down ideas. And the first video I ended up doing was about Rocco, the smart drinks fridge brand that launched, which actually is now a client of mine. So it's very full circle. But, yeah, that was the first video I did, and it took off. In the first couple of hours, it had 30k views. And I was like, okay, I have 300 followers on this platform. Interesting.

Phillip: [00:08:49] Wow.

Emma: [00:08:49] And then people kind of were like, "Hey, can you do any more launch videos?" And it happened to be a very fruitful week in launches at Thingtesting. So we had the Rocco launch and then Tulip which is a shade that covers like boob lights if you're familiar with those.

Phillip: [00:09:04] Yeah.

Emma: [00:09:04] You know. Yeah. That ugly light that's in every apartment.

Brian: [00:09:07] That's such a great idea.

Phillip: [00:09:09] Brian has one of those around him now, I think.

Brian: [00:09:10] I think I do.

Emma: [00:09:11] Yeah. You gotta get a Tulip, I guess. So I did a video about that, and it was definitely very much like these were two design-forward brands that were existing, and people were just, like, eating it up. They were like, "Can you do renter friendly brands?" "Can you do this?" And in the beginning, I was really I wanted to listen to what people wanted because I didn't really know what I wanted. I was posting every day, I was basically posting a video of something new that I wanted to introduce and then kind of answering to comments. And I think I created this kind of community that I didn't really think could exist on TikTok. So like by the end of the first month, I had people who were commenting on all my videos being like, "Oh my god. You did another one. Do another one." And I think being someone who was and is approachable and I'm not here to act like I know more than you, people really took a liking to that because there's obviously on the Internet, there's just a lot of experts and I just didn't care to do that.

Phillip: [00:10:19] "I'm the Internet's Creative Director." There's interesting stuff that is, like, approaching things from that element of curiosity rather than just saying, you know, "I'm a curator." I don't know if you have any hot takes or if you have any points of view around having started a content creation journey after the era of everybody's a curator, everybody's some sort of an expert in these emergent behaviors or community.

Emma: [00:10:57] I mean, listen, my job was, Head of Curation at a company, and I think I do feel like that gave me a bit of confidence in what I was doing because I felt I didn't want to outwardly come out and say, "This is what I do for a living and this is who I am and I'm the expert." What I wanted to happen was for people who wanted to do more research or I kind of plugged things here and there that felt maybe strategic or moments to kind of up my credibility. So like if I was talking about design and there was a story that I had written for Architectural Digest, I might plug in, "Oh, and I actually wrote about this for AD." And so these moments of credibility without being, like, "I'm the expert on this topic." And also admitting, like, "Hey, I just found out about this brand. Does anyone else know about it?" Or, like, "Let me tell you about it because I'm super excited about this."

Phillip: [00:11:53] Just looking at our content, Brian, on our YouTube  our top five videos are all brand launch critiques. So, I mean, there's something really interesting and inherently sort of mimetic about that is if you want to get the early interest in something, having an unfair advantage certainly on the content that's coming and being able to prepare for it and find an interesting avenue, I think it's always harder, and this is what's so impressive, Emma. It's always harder to then find a voice outside of that that's dependent on a newsbound ecosystem because there has to be a bigger story. So let's talk a bit about the journey and the sort of the broadening of the content and this notes doc. How did you sort of test your content strategy over that month, and what have you learned since that you feel like you hadn't anticipated would be interesting pieces of content that you could go deep on?

Emma: [00:12:54] Yeah. So I had no content strategy, and this was very intentional because everything I do is, I care a lot about doing a good job at things. And this was the first time where it was actually not only a challenge to post on a new platform and put myself out there and do video content, but it was also a challenge in, like, no rules, no KPIs. And I was kind of like, if I want to post an outfit of the day, in the beginning, there were a lot of different things happening. Obviously, the videos that did really well and, you know, now became kind of my content style were, like, these green screen style educational ish with, like, a bit of an opinion, but also the quick visuals changing, that became the content style. And now when I don't have a green screen, I, like, always joke that I feel like I'm, like, naked. I'm like, I can't post anything without a green screen. But there was no strategy. I wasn't trying to become a content creator. I wasn't trying to get brand deals. Actually when I first was getting inbound, it was a lot of like people wanting me to post about their products. And then something shifted in that first month, and I think it happened during Art Basel, actually. So it's actually the second month. Because in the second month, I doubled my following. So I hit 20k in the second month. And then from there, obviously, it's been 6 months now, and I have 35K followers. But it slowed down the pace of growth, and I also was not posting 84 videos a month after the first month. It was not a sustainable way to be posting content. But it was really interesting that during Art Basel, I decided to post this video of, like, here's a roundup of 10 things that you should see during Art Basel. And some of it was, like, pretty small niche things. I wasn't going based off of what Wallpaper was posting or what AD was posting. I was like, "Here's a bunch of invites I got. I obviously don't have as many invites as the big design people. But this is stuff that I think could be interesting." And that video blew up. It got 100K plus views in the first 24 hours. And I had big brands reaching out to me. And everyone wanted me to post about what they were doing. And I realized that there was a lot of currency to what I was doing, and the opportunity to take it in a lot of directions. But I also realized that I could use this platform to become more of a curator and gain credibility through it versus let me just do money grabs for brand deals. That just, like, didn't feel authentic to me, especially coming from Thingtesting where, like, everything I did was un uncurated. Thingtesting really stood on this whole idea of, like, being unbiased. And we didn't really have an affiliate for the first two and a half years I was there.

Phillip: [00:15:54]  [00:15:54]There's a short term opportunity that we all have in business and in brand building where you can quickly and probably pretty effectively monetize some opportunity. But if you think long term, the question that really begins to make itself apparent is do we have a viable strategy? Over the long term, how do I grow a very trustworthy audience? How do I have a relationship with an audience if my entire relationship with them from the very get go is based on some commercial nature? [00:16:33] And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. No one's a bigger fan of commerce than me. Yay capitalism. But the other side of that is this is this side of brand building. It's not just personal brand building. It's authority and being able to say something and being able to have the authority later on when you do strike brand deals to say, "I am going to have an opinion about this. And regardless of the nature of our commercial relationship, I'm going to speak my mind on this. And the reason you're still going to partner with me even if I say something that you don't like is because I have the authority, and that's what makes me trustworthy. And that's what makes when I say something positive that much more reliable." And I've seen that happen in larger creator accounts over time that the longer they wait to monetize that relationship with their audience, the more sustainable and the greater, I think, opportunity exists in the future for them for that. But I'm sure, you also have a consulting side of the business, so there are all these ways for you to make a living out of this. Let's talk about that opportunity. How are you thinking about building out something beyond? Or are you thinking about doing something bigger than just freelance at the moment? What's happening on that side?

Emma: [00:17:43] gr8 collab now has quite a bit of brand equity because we have the TikTok. I launched a Substack, which also is a constant question in my mind of when do you monetize that? Do you monetize that? People can pledge, and I have quite a few pledges, which is very flattering. And if you're funneling people from different channels, there are a lot of questions that come up about when to monetize. And I don't know if anyone has the right answer. I was waiting for... I thought you were about to say what the answer was, and I was very excited for this moment.

Phillip: [00:18:17] {laughter} When it's existential, that's the answer. When it's the absolute last resort. Although Brian's always pushing us to monetize more early.

Brian: [00:18:27] I mean, gotta make money.

Phillip: [00:18:29] It's a healthy tension. Sorry. I'm sorry. You were saying. Yeah.

Emma: [00:18:32] No. No. I agree. I think if it was a year ago and I had this opportunity, it's so easy to say when you're not in the position where it'd be like, "Oh, yeah. If I had x amount of followers on an account, of course, I'd monetize it," but then you're like, "Wait. I want these people to trust me." I want these people to stick around. And I want to be really thoughtful and intentional about the way that I build this.

Brian: [00:18:57] Yeah.

Emma: [00:18:57] So what does that look like? And let's take it one step at a time and figure it out. And also, if a brand comes along that I love, hey, IKEA, and you want a partner, and you want to pay me for it, let's do it. Whoever it is. But if it's a brand that I don't really resonate with then it's much more challenging for me to even think about what that could look like. But on the consulting side, it kind of it unfolded very organically kind of over the past couple of months, but gr8 collab was an idea that I had many years back. When I was in college, even before that, I've always been obsessed with brand partnerships and brand collaborations. I wrote about this in my newsletter last week but my family used to stay at The Standard in the East Village a lot when I was a kid. And I just always was obsessed with the hospitality experience there. They were always doing really cool collaborations. And there's obviously a lot of big brands that were doing cool collaborations. But that was my kind of introduction to brand partnerships. And I just always thought, of course, brands should be doing partnerships. And it's not just about brand to [00:20:13] brand. I think about partnerships as people to people, brands to people, and brands to investors. All of these different moments in which you're bringing in new people into the conversation and they can bring their community, you can bring your community, and let's make something big and exciting and thoughtful here. [00:20:34] And so that was always like my wheels were always turning on that and I didn't know when it was going to become something but I was obsessed with the name great collab. And I would say to my friends even like we'd be like, "Oh, let's go get dinner at this place." And I'd be like, "Oh, it'd be such a great collab." And so it was kind of like this phrase I threw around. And I do have a notes page again in my iPhone from, like, 2018. That's, like, great collab strategic partnerships agency. And I had this thought that I was going to have this loft office where the upstairs would be an office and the downstairs would be a curated shop where it would be like collaborations between great collab and all of my clients. Like these one off products, which I'm totally giving away this secret now. But whatever.

Phillip: [00:21:21] Nobody listens to this. Don't worry about it. It's fine.

Emma: [00:21:23] Well, I'm going to do this. So don't steal my idea. So I ended up last year, almost a little over a year ago now buying the domains to thegreatcollab.com, greatcollab.com, whatever. Everything that I needed. Didn't know when I was going to use it, what I was going to use it for, but kind of started collecting the equity and got the Instagram handle actually a few years ago. And for a while, it was just posting images of great collabs, like brand collaborations that I loved. Wasn't really growing it. People, like, randomly would find it, but it wasn't anything. And then when I started posting on TikTok, I was like, "I need a name for this, and I don't know what to call it. Let me not, like, invent another name." And, sure, I could use my own name, but, like, I like the meme type of vibe on TikTok too. So I went with gr8 collab, kind of just, like, started doing it. And so, yeah, there is definitely a long origin story behind getting here.

Brian: [00:23:19] It's interesting you brought up Art Basel because I think the last time we saw you was actually at Art Basel at Marty's party.

Phillip: [00:23:31] That's right.

Brian: [00:23:32] Is is interesting because first of all, I think you just wrote about Vacation as one of your most recent newsletters, which I think is amazing. But also I think you've done a really good job of covering events as well as brands and events being such a great opportunity to collab. What do you think the role of physical events has in new collaborations that are happening?   how essential is it for there to be an event or something to go alongside the actual product?

Emma: [00:24:14] I mean, brands that I work with are going to hate me for this, but I think it's super essential. And the reason I say that, like, they're going to hate me is because you need budget for it, and it's not always the easiest thing to put together an event. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir.

Phillip: [00:24:29] Sure

Emma: [00:24:29] You know this. But it's just such an opportunity to bring something to life and not at the rate that people are doing collaborations now, even as a collaboration lover, [00:24:43] I do think that people still need to be thoughtful in the collaborations they're doing. And sometimes you look at a collab and you're like, okay, this feels a little bit of someone trying to reach for press, and that's not really how I look at collaborations. I think they genuinely need to make sense. [00:25:01] And also I care a lot about functionality to products. So having events around a collaboration, I think, is really important because it just furthers the mission of bringing communities together. And that to me is the purpose of any collaboration. And I think even the way that you guys do events is so incredible and so thoughtful and bringing together not just physical brands but also people and people that you respect in the industry and kind of like giving people a voice and amplifying what they're doing. And I think that's what events do as well.

Phillip: [00:25:42] Agree. Agree. I'm going to put you on the spot. Did we make your Art Basel cut off? And if we didn't, how do I make the MO list next year? What do I need to do to make sure we're at the top 10 Art Basel events?

Emma: [00:25:54] Gotta have some cool chairs.

Phillip: [00:25:56] Yeah. {laughters}

Brian: [00:25:58] Cool chairs. I love it.

Emma: [00:26:00] It's like a lot of design stuff. I think I did a few art things, but I don't know. I'm really more into the design side.

Phillip: [00:26:10] A thing that I see come through in all of your work, and it's something that you seem to care a lot about is this sense of form and function. In a lot of ways, in design, in particular in chairs, I think you've created a real strong personal brand about chairs. But at least that's what I know about you.

Brian: [00:26:31] Are you my chair talk, Emma?

Phillip: [00:26:33] Yeah. We should. We should do a little chair corner with Emma. What do you think brands often miss out on in not paying attention to these spaces where design is present? Do you see it or how do you sell it into an organization that overlooks the value of these more cultural affairs, especially around the design industry?

Emma: [00:26:56] Yeah. I think, like, at the end of the day, like, the brands that last and the brands that, you know, exist for more than just a season are the ones that think about what is going to make their product timeless, and a lot of that has to do with craftsmanship. A lot of that has to do with building not around trends, but around a brand that feels like it can exist for a long period of time. And I think the design fairs and these cultural whether it's art fairs or other types of conferences that happen around the world are moments where a lot of these brands do come together. And even at Salone this year, we saw a lot more not design brands popping up and hosting events and fashion. There are a lot of fashion brands that popped up. And I think it's an opportunity to be part of a conversation. Design really touches every category.

Phillip: [00:28:02] Yeah.

Emma: [00:28:02] Even if you don't think about it that way. I think people think about design as, like, furniture. And that's great. I love furniture. And that's like that's just like the tipping point of design, but there's so much more to it. And it's also a really big opportunity to get in front of other brands. It's an opportunity I think when you're looking at like an Expo West, every brand category is there. Like, go pop up in an event or a conference or a fair where you can really stand out and you can build something and people can turn their heads and be like, "Oh, wow. I didn't realize x y z brand was going to be here. That's really cool." And so it's also a moment for talk about press around it. Let's pop up in unexpected places. And, you know, what does that look like when you pop up at a culinary show and you're a direct to consumer brand? And are you partnering with a chef? I think there are just moments to think outside of the box and push the envelope a little bit when it comes to showing up in physical spaces.

Phillip: [00:29:09] What's the event calendar that you have ahead of you where you think that there's opportunity to activate? And is some of that on your sort of, you know, personal bucket list versus a professional research bucket list?

Emma: [00:29:24] Well, everything is professional research these days. No. But, I mean, we have design week coming up in New York this week. It actually already started. I'm heading there on Wednesday. You have three days of design in Copenhagen. You have Shanghai is having a design week. I think I don't know if they have that every year, but obviously, you know, there's a calendar of big fairs that happen every year. Right? Like, you have Basel in Basel. You have Basel in Miami. You kind of I'm not as deeply in this space as some of my peers are. And if you are deeply in the design space or you write full time for a magazine, you kind of are I feel like it's like a magic school bus that like goes around the world of like all these events. And so there's a lot of moments to pop up at like, there's even a really cool art fair that happens in, I believe like Baja, California. There's a lot of stuff happening. And I think if you know, Salone is the big design fair. Right? And so every brand wants to go to Salone, but it's also, like, maybe you could be big fish in a small pond somewhere else.

Brian: [00:33:23] So design fairs are one thing, getting furniture sold is another. Have you started to see new connection points to how furniture gets into retail and is that through collabs with brands that have their own physical footprint? I know High Point is the pinnacle of furniture shows for actual B2B selling. Do you see a pipeline from these shows to a show like High Point where things are actually getting sold? And is that shifting as a result of new collab opportunities, more direct to consumer like  opportunities.

Emma: [00:34:12] I've talked about this in videos before, which this is one of the videos that I got, like, absolutely trolled for. I talked about the millennialization of brands. And I said that, like, Williams Sonoma doesn't really resonate with me, and that I wish that they would do a collaboration with a younger brand. And the Internet was, like, very unhappy with me for this. People were like, "What do you mean? Williams Sonoma is the best place in the world." And I just walk into there. And I don't really resonate with the space. And it's not that I'm looking for, like, pastel pans, but I just want to see something new and interesting. And I think, I don't know, maybe even some chrome I'd like to see in there. They have, like, a Star Wars collection. I'm like, what's going on in here? So no disrespect to Star Wars. But I think we're going to see, and we've already seen this happening, but these bigger home brands, you look at a West Elm or a Crate and Barrel, they kind of want what's new and shiny. And so they're going to partner with these younger brands, and it's great for them. It's great for younger brands to get a little bit of that credibility and also get into retail. Direct to consumer furniture is really not sustainable, and it's not super scalable. It's very challenging. I mean, even on the consumer side, to purchase furniture online that you've never seen in person. I don't know if you've ever done it, but anytime I've ever done it, I'm like, this is the biggest nightmare. You're on the phone with Wayfair customer service being, like, "Help me. This is horrible." So I think there are definitely a lot of opportunities for smaller brands and bigger brands to partner. I'm not super familiar with High Point myself, but maybe that's because I'm not on the B2B side.

Phillip: [00:35:59] I think the real question here is, how can anyone that might be listening to this in their own context or they're watching this in their own context and they think to themselves, we already have budget allocated to x show where we're going to be supporting with a full team, like, a full sales team, account team? How do we activate in ways that don't require us to have to go and marshal new budget? That's the thing I hear a whole lot is that a company has created a culture around these are the things that work for us. They have a calendar that they sort of commit to. And now we have to find ways of continuing to modify and question whether those things are sustainable for the future. For instance, in the retail and ecommerce trade ecosystems, there's been sort of a set fixed calendar around trade expos for such a long time that they have diminishing returns. Now we're a decade in to a lot of these shows, and a lot of people are starting to say, "I don't even go to the show anymore." Some people don't even buy a ticket to the show anymore. They only do the halo events. And so you start to wonder about the economics of things like that is, okay, how do I take this idea and principle of DTC brands activating at cultural affairs and apply it in my own context? I think that's more the thinking. Right, Brian? It's how do you sort of find the commonality?

Brian: [00:37:29] Yeah. Definitely. Things, like, ways around some of the traditional selling opportunities. Definitely. Emma, I'm going to put you on the spot again.

Emma: [00:37:40] I'm in the hot seat.

Brian: [00:37:41] I know. I know. Are you ready for this one? If you had a dream collab for Future Commerce, who would you match us up with?

Phillip: [00:37:54] This is like asking for free consulting, Brian.

Emma: [00:37:56] I was kind of just feeling like I was like, am I on a consulting call right now? Yeah. This really is putting me on the spot. Like I said, collaborations need to be intentional and thoughtful. And I'm not using that as my scapegoat to get out of answering this question. But can you come back?

Brian: [00:38:17] Yeah. Yeah. Come back. Come back. Come back.

Phillip: [00:38:18] Here's a role play. Here's a role play. What are some of the questions that you ask your consulting clients in order to identify what the sweet spot collabs could be?

Brian: [00:38:27] Now we are getting free consulting.

Phillip: [00:38:29] No. No. No. But this is interesting. Right? Because I think this leads to funnel for for Emma. So Emma, call Emma right now. gr8 collab. But the real question being sometimes I believe that some collaborations are just because that's what the owners and founders really wanted. Like, they wanted to work with people that were personal heroes or something. I've certainly been guilty of doing that in the past. And sometimes those work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're vanity projects and those are okay. But how do you graduate out of that, I guess, is the question.

Emma: [00:39:03] I mean, the first question I always kind of start with is about audience of, like, okay, who do you think your audience is, and who do you think their audience is? And is that the same, or is that different? Or what does their audience provide to you that, you know, you don't have? Or what does your audience provide to that brand? Everyone wants to know who they're going to get in front of when they do a collaboration. And, yes, you want it to be thoughtful and you want it to be beautiful, but at the end of the day, time is money too. And so [00:39:36] you have to think about who you're getting in front of and why you want to get in front of those people because if that audience demographic is not going to resonate with you as a brand or your product or whatever the mishmash of the two products is, then it's not really worth anyone's time to invest in creating that partnership. I think the best partnerships happen when the audiences are aligned on something. [00:40:05] It doesn't necessarily need to be like, okay our audience is also, like, 35 year old men, and your audience is... It doesn't need to be that specific, but it could be location based. If a restaurant does a collaboration with a brand, what does that look like? So definitely starting with who are you trying to reach, and is this the right partner for that? Other questions are like, what type of collaboration are we doing? A collaboration could be, like, as simple as are we doing a social media giveaway? It could be creating a whole new product. It could be doing an event. It could be bringing in a tastemaker or talent and doing a partnership. And so that's why I talked about kind of all these different ways that partnerships exist too because I think people think of, like, just brand to brand collaborations. And I think about it on a lot larger of a scale of it could be people. It could be the founder of another brand coming in and designing something for you. What does that look like? And so starting with what are we actually trying to make here too is really helpful versus just like, oh, we want to partner with an artist. Let's search for artists online.

Brian: [00:41:23] Right. Right. It could be ephemeral. It could be time tested. I think also, like, accessing new audiences. You said they don't have to be a perfect match. That's super smart. Those are all really good pieces of advice. Thanks for the free consulting, Emma.

Emma: [00:41:44] No. I'll just bill you after. No. I'm just kidding.

Phillip: [00:41:47] Thank you. Yeah. Go ahead and send that. Send it to Brian. Brian, you'll have to process that one.

Phillip: [00:41:53] If people are interested in working with you, tell us where, and maybe give us a little bit of a hint of what's next for you and some of the things we can expect from you in the coming weeks and months.

Emma: [00:42:03] Yeah. So if you want to work together, you can just email me. You can find me on the Internet. I'm on every platform at this point. Yeah, I really want to focus on partnerships and community building. I think and I talked about this before. I kind of think about it as, like, this Venn diagram of content strategy, strategic partnerships, and community building, they all kind of need to coexist and happen together because if we're doing a partnership, we need to push it out places. What does the campaign strategy look like around that? Where are we showing up? Is there a retail moment around this? Are we doing an event? Is it an activation? There are all these different pieces that fall into the content and community that happens around a partnership. The same thing if you're doing community building. Who are you partnering with to amplify what you're building? And so really, like, thinking about this as a trifecta of opportunity to drive conversation, drive growth, and create moments that feel really special and are worth it for a brand. Also budgets are tight, and it's a hectic time. So thinking really thoughtfully about what those partnerships are. And, yeah, for what's up next for me, just working my job, my new job that I have and honestly, figuring it out every day. Someone asked me, "Who are you working with in the Fall?" And I was, like, "I don't think that's how freelance works." Like, I don't know. I feel very lucky. I have 6 clients at the moment. I have 3 retainer clients, which are amazing. But I don't know what the next few months look like. I would love to spend some time on a pre launch brand. I would love to spend some time kind of doing some creative direction stuff. But I guess we'll just have to see. Maybe we could do a check-in in a couple of months.

Brian: [00:44:13] Yeah. That sounds great.

Phillip: [00:44:14] And that is, I think, actually, how that works is you you do have to your first point, you have to take the leap. And I'm a firm believer that you get what you put out into the world and so far I think you have put out really valuable and incredible things, and I wish you all the best. Emma, this was a great collab, I think.  

Emma: [00:44:39] It's a great collab.

Phillip: [00:44:40] You and Future Commerce. And it has been. I thank you so much for championing partnership while you were at Thingtesting. We did some awesome stuff together over there. And, you know, I think speaking of people, I think Thingtesting had created and had some incredible, incredible talent that came through there. And I know whatever you do next is going to be incredible. That's why I think that this just makes so much sense for you. Go check her out, Emma Chozick. gr8 collab. Go subscribe everywhere where content is found, especially on TikTok. I think it's really engaging there, especially the comments. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks, Emma.

Brian: [00:45:19] Thanks, Emma.

Phillip: [00:45:19] And don't miss our activation coming up, and I'm going to give everybody a little bit of the inside track here. Future Commerce Plus members save 20% on all of our events, and you also save on print and merch at shop.FutureCommerce.com. So join the membership, and you can cancel anytime. Little tip there. Pro tip from Phillip to you. Join us at the MoMA, June 11th, FutureCommerce.com/VISIONS. And thank you so much for checking out this episode. See you in the future.