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World-Building 101: Create a Brand People Obsess Over

completed 31:25 Feb 18, 2025 Watch on YouTube

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World-Building 101: Create a Brand People Obsess Over
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Brand storytelling isn’t just about making good content, it’s about creating a world that people want to be part of. In this episode, we break down how brands like Jacquemus or Malbon Golf are redefining marketing through world-building, social-first content, and community-driven storytelling. Plus, we explore why voyeuristic content and brands collaboration are changing the game. Here’s 5 things you can get done faster on Wix Studio: ● Scale content with dynamic pages and reusable assets ● And integrate with Meta CAPI, Zapier, Google Ads and more in seconds ● A/B tests are a given—create them in days, not weeks with intuitive design tools ● Connect tracking and analytics tools like GA4 & Semrush in seconds ● And manage all your clients’ social media from one dashboard All of that right here: https://l.marketingexamined.com/wixpo 📱Follow Us On Social: -------------------- Instagram Alex https://www.instagram.com/alexgarcia_atx/ Brian: https://www.instagram.com/brian_blum/ Twitter www.twitter.com/@alexgarcia_atx www.twitter.com/@brian_blum1 -------------------- Want Alex to develop your brand's content strategy? Apply to work with us here: form.typeform.com/to/FeHceWpg -------------------- 📈Growth Playbooks, Directly To Your Inbox For growth playbooks, deep dives, and marketing case studies, get subscribed at https://www.marketingexamined.com -------------------- 🎥Checkout Brians Content Agency https://www.nibble.studio -------------------- CHAPTERS: 0:00 Intro 2:06 The Power of World-Building in Branding 3:10 How Jacquemus Masters the Art of World-Building 5:20 Why Most Brands Get Storytelling Wrong 6:26 The Fashion Industry Sets the Trends for Everyone 8:39 Vision Board, Content Strategy and Guidelines 11:37 Content: The Glue That Holds It All Together 13:06 Alright Marketers, Listen up 13:40 Malbon Golf’s Winning Formula for Brand Culture 17:09 Why Every Brand Needs BTS Content 18:49 Why Voyeuristic Content is Taking Over Social Media 24:13 The Two Sides of

Summary

Generated by claude-haiku-4-5-20251001

World-Building 101: Create a Brand People Obsess Over

Main Topics

  • World-Building Definition: Going beyond storytelling to create a complete brand ecosystem across digital and physical touchpoints
  • Content as the Core: How content serves as the connective tissue for brand perception
  • Brand Partnerships & Collaborations: Leveraging complementary brands to scale reach and lower acquisition costs
  • In-Person Community Building: Creating physical experiences that foster genuine connections between customers
  • Content Strategy Framework: Teasing, documenting, and showcasing as a three-part launch formula
  • Voyeuristic Content Trends: Behind-the-scenes, authentic content that resonates with audiences

Key Points

What is World-Building?

  • Not just storytelling — it's how brands show up digitally, in performance metrics, through community, and at in-person events
  • Inspired by how J.R. Tolkien created Lord of the Rings: building the entire world first, then writing the story around it
  • The combination of all brand elements creates a perception that customers want to be part of

Examples of Masterful World-Building

ALD (Aime Leon Dore)

  • Content pillars: music (DJ sets in retail), car partnerships (custom Porsche collaborations), basketball aesthetics
  • All elements reflect founder Teddy Santis' personal interests (Porsche, basketball, Queens culture, DJ culture)
  • Creates hybrid experiences like a New Balance gym with ALD's aesthetic

Malvin Golf

  • Uses a three-part formula: Tease → Document → Showcase
  • Teases collections with narrative-rich content (e.g., Willie Nelson collection with Austin/cowboy aesthetic)
  • Documents rollout through community events and BTS content
  • Showcases products with urgency and collector's mentality

Retro Muscle

  • Nails the golden-era weightlifting aesthetic with dreamy, retro filters
  • Opportunity to connect customers in real life (lifting buddies, local meetups)

The Three Pillars of World-Building

  • Vision Board & Perception Building
  • Define your ideal customer's aesthetic
  • Ensure all visual elements (background, colors, composition) align with your brand narrative
  • Example: stone background vs. white background creates completely different perceptions
  • Content Strategy (Narrative Building)
  • Craft stories that create associations with your brand
  • Nike's resurgence: returned to legendary athletes and iconic moments
  • Content is control — you determine the perception, aesthetic, characters, and narrative
  • Brand Guidelines & Consistency
  • Ensure world-building stretches across ALL touchpoints: content, email, SMS, landing pages, ads
  • Disjointed experiences break the narrative
  • Content is the connective tissue that ties everything together

The Modern Content Funnel

  • Top of Funnel: Attention and awareness (doesn't change)
  • Middle of Funnel: Affinity-driven content (BTS, behind-the-scenes, design process) — this has shifted from being bottom-funnel
  • Bottom of Funnel: Action-driven (purchases, email/SMS signups, conversions)

BTS Content is No Longer Optional — it's a necessity. People want to see:

  • Inspiration behind products
  • Tech packs and design process
  • Manufacturing details
  • The "why" behind creative decisions

Voyeuristic Content Trends

  • Behind-the-scenes of regular people's lives (popularized by creator Hubs)
  • Resonates because it shows unglamorous, relatable moments
  • Works twofold:
  • Shows alternative lifestyles/paths people want to experience
  • Resonates with people living similar lives (pattern recognition)
  • Why it matters for founders: People root for authentic journeys. A founder story ("I quit my job because existing products were bad") outperforms generic product ads

Physical World-Building (2025 Priority)

  • Demand for in-person events is skyrocketing
  • Coffee + DJ sessions, run clubs, community gatherings
  • Brands are uniquely positioned to build community
  • Simple tactic: Connect two customers in the same area via email
  • Creates lasting connections rooted in the brand
  • People remember who introduced them to great friends
  • Extends customer lifetime value (LTV)

Smart Brand Partnerships

The Formula: Partner with brands that share similar demographics and lifestyle aesthetic but don't compete

Examples:

  • Cadence × Bandit Running × Raw Nutrition × NYC bagel company (NYC Marathon activation)
  • 818 Tequila × Chamberlain Coffee (similar demographics)
  • ALD × Porsche (luxury, aesthetics, lifestyle alignment)

Benefits:

  • Lower customer acquisition costs
  • Fill content calendars (collaboration posts = 10+ days of content)
  • Cross-pollinate audiences
  • Create network effects and K-factor (people talk about your brand organically)

Notable Quotes

> "World-building is thinking about it through the lens of film. J.R. Tolkien would create the entire world first, and then write the story around it."

> "Content is control. I determine what goes out there. I determine the stories I tell. I determine the aesthetic. I determine the perception."

> "Fashion is always ahead of the curve. If you see what they're doing, figure out how you can do it before anybody else does."

> "If you introduce someone to a great friend, they'll always remember you as the person who introduced them. Imagine if brands started doing that."

> "People don't want to see a meta ad for a protein cookie. They want to see your journey of why you built it and why existing products suck."

> "Voyeuristic content resonates because your brain wants to recognize patterns. When it sees something relatable, it captures attention."

> "BTS content isn't just a staple — it's a need. You have to do it."

Takeaways

For Founders & Brand Operators

  • Start with a vision board — Define your ideal customer's aesthetic and worldview
  • Build a content strategy — Create narrative around your brand that people want to associate with
  • Establish brand guidelines — Ensure consistency across email, SMS, ads, landing pages, and content
  • Create BTS content — Document your process, inspiration, and manufacturing; people want to see the "why"
  • Leverage voyeuristic content — Share authentic, behind-the-scenes moments of your journey
  • Build physical world — Events, community connections, and in-person experiences are crucial in 2025
  • Connect customers to each other — Facilitate real-life friendships rooted in your brand
  • Partner strategically — Find brands with aligned demographics and aesthetic; collaborate on content, marketing, and events
  • Use collaborations to fill content calendar — Partnerships provide 10+ days of content automatically
  • Remember: Perception = Association. If you influence perception, people will want to be associated with your brand

The Bottom Line

World-building isn't a luxury — it's the foundation of modern brand success. It's the combination of compelling narrative, consistent aesthetic, authentic content, and meaningful community experiences that creates brands people obsess over.

Transcript

6223 words en Processed in 176.0s

Tell them how to world build. Tell them how to world build so they can steal all the game. This is what we've been dealing with. I got five pages of research here, and everybody's just going to take my research. It's all right. Create viral videos, and that's just the way the world goes. We're trying to deliver free game to anyone who wants it. People choose how to take it. They can't use it on their brand. I have a few moves up my sleeve, though, that I just know that they can't replicate because a lot of people taking our shit, or taking the things that we talk about aren't actually working with brands. There's some moves up my sleeve. One of the things I'm talking about today is a brand that we talked about before in this podcast, Retro Muscle, because they did a really good job with the world building stuff. I was, man, why don't I do just a crazy, this is a campaign I would do for him. I think that's something people will find interesting. Taking it a step further, we do a breakdown of a brand, and then we show what we would actually do for them if we were the CMO or founder. The crazy thing is you're going to give that segment. It's going to drop next Tuesday. By Wednesday, there is going to be a video that says, if I was creating a campaign for Retro Muscle, this is how I would do it. I'm honestly just trying to hostile take over that guy's shit. Do you want to work with him? I saw you wore the shirt on the last episode. Yeah, yeah., the shirt was dope. Everyone, I wore that shirt to Collective. I wore it to a couple of different places and had many, many people be, yo, that's crazy. I just think it's such an inesthetic. Retro, futurism, nostalgia, all that stuff that's been hot over the last two years, they're nailing it. And there's no,, every single apparel brand, Fabletics, Gymshark,, Viore. It's, what is the soul of Viore?, it just feels like a divorced, mid-40s California couple. And I think that's where like the, when we talk about a soul of the brand, this is where the world building comes into play, Like the thing that I've been thinking a lot about world building is because people will say it's just about storytelling. And it's, no, no, no. It's a lot more than world building. Like world building is thinking about it through the lens of in film. Like when, who's the author of Lord of the Rings? Is it JK? J.R. Tolkien. J.R. Tolkien. She would create the, I read about this where she would create the entire, I think it's a dude. Yeah, I was thinking JK. Yeah, yeah. I promise we're well read. But he would create the entire world first. And, and like the monsters and everything that would happen. Yeah, and like write the language. And then would write the story around it, And so from world building, world building is really how brands show up digitally on social, within their performance pillars in real life, and then through the community and their in-person events, et cetera. And the association, the perception that they create, like that is world building. Because the combination of all of these different elements is like the perception that you create around your brand, which is then the world that the customers and the consumers want to be a part of. We talk a lot about these brands already, but there's a lot of brands that do a phenomenal job at this. Giacomoose is probably one of my, up there is one of my favorites. They do a phenomenal job of world building from the content that they create and then the in-person experiences that they create. I think that, and, I had a video, and I think you talked about this as well, but like ALD I think is the most dialed when it comes to world building. When you think about, one, the content that they create, They have their content pillars. There's the music side of it with the DJs that come into the actual retail spot and perform their sets. Then they have the different car partnerships that they'll do with Porsche where they have the custom ALD Porsche that then sits in the retail spot. They'll also have like their, I think they've done like two or three other Porsches that then are part of the campaigns. Yeah. Also part of the, some of the jobs that they do. You've seen the gym too, The gym that they'd made with New Balance. Yeah., that place is like a,, basketball shrine, ? So it's just all of the different things that Teddy, the founder, cares about., bro loves Porsche. He loves basketball. He's from Queens. He loves DJ sets. he turns those things into an extension of the brand. Exactly. But instead of it being,, here's this DJ. It's, it's a hybrid model., it's new. If New Balance had ALD's aesthetic in a gym. And I think that's pretty much the core way for people to think about this is,, how do you create a shared vision, This vision that your brand stands for and that your audience,, potentially wants to be a part of. A lot of people will maybe struggle with that at the beginning of their brand too, because it's hard., you don't necessarily know when you've only got like 500 to 1,000 customers. Like what do people want to participate in? Like what are they missing? And ultimately there's not a great answer other than testing. And,, that's why content is such an insane lever for people. Because if you put something out and it doesn't resonate, chances are,, maybe that idea just wasn't great compared to if you put something out and it resonates. Well, now you should just double down on that and go,, further into that world building exercise. So couldn't agree more. Sure. And one of the things I think people don't understand as well is like from a world building perspective, you don't have to have it completely mapped out from the beginning. Like your world can expand. Yeah. Right. It could start as a small niche world or thing that you are building and then it could expand as you grow. Almost think of it. Different categories. Think of it like one of those video game maps. Yeah. what ? you're on this part. You're unlocking. You're on this part of the map and it's, well, the next level. And that's where seasonality is so important in all of this too. Like allows you to capture current events and put your brand's little aesthetic, like twist that to your own narrative, but also still leverage, well, it's about to be spring. Like people have certain feelings that they're expecting during that time. There's also,, say you're an apparel brand. How do you plan for spring? You got derby days, horse racing, like all these things are like coming up. There's March Madden. Who knows?,, if you want to do like a March campaign, it's you could do some March Madness style thing,, and you just got to like inject yourself into the culture. And people will come at this pretty often on our podcast being, why do you always talk about streetwear brands and fashion brands? And it's, the reason we talk about them is they're the ones setting the tone. They're the ones always ahead of trends. So if you're trying to understand how to world build for your waffle company or, that's a terrible example, but, I think it's a great example. Like that company, look at what fashion is doing and figure out then how you can, what are they doing that then you can replicate for your own brand. So if you see, okay, like why are all these fashion brands doing these coffee and DJ sets that are like now popping? Oh, maybe there's something there that I need to be doing as well. Like what is my, how do I bring people in with, with music and in an in-person space or a third space? you have to look at the people that are setting the trends and then figure out how you can do those before anybody else does. Cause fashion is always so ahead of the curve. That's why we're always talking about the fashion brands or even some of the brands that act as fashion brands or move like fashion brands. I don't have a choice. What is it? They don't have a choice. You have to stand out through content. If you don't do that, then no one's going to care about your brand. Whether that's like any emerging workout apparel brand is like that. But, particularly in streetwear, it's a market that's already won. you're trying to charge $400 for a jacket. you better be some artistic direction that's differentiated. Cause it's all like with fashion, it's, it's all about perception. Cause perception association. If you could influence somebody's perception of your brand and then so that they want to be associated with it, you win. A great example of this was, and you've probably seen this, but it was that viral stunt that Payless did. Did you see that where like Payless turned one of their stores into like a high luxury store? They took everything that they made. Paylessie or whatever. Yeah. And they, they made it sound French. They changed the, the, all the products were the same. They were all the $15, $20 products, whatever. But then I might've, did I write that thread for you back in the day? I think I actually, I don't know. I don't know if I've ever posted about it. I feel like that,, potentially, I think that was in, that was in like a ghost writing era. I think I might've ripped that thread. Maybe. Yeah. Well, it's fine. I don't know if it was like Dubai or something where they did this, but where do you start with world building? The first thing is you need to start with the vision board. To me, this is perception building. You want to be able to build out that vision board for your ideal customer and then understand, okay, how can I build up this perception around myself? How do my content pillars? How does my content, how's my aesthetic, how does my art direction match this vision board? Right. That is simple as if we talk about this coffee, If I do this on a white background versus like a stone background like this, that is, that is such a different perception than you're creating, Like this stone background matches a specific aesthetic and, and talks to a different individual than like a white background. And so you have to understand those things. The next layer then is content strategy. This is now your narrative building. What is a story that you want to create in somebody's head that you want them to, to know about your brand and be able to associate with your brand? Very similar., the, the most obvious example is like the Nike and just do it. But I'm sure you've seen the last two, three weeks they've been on a tear with their content. And it's been building up that narrative back in your head. The thing that they've been lacking for the last two to three years. Yeah. Go ahead. You're, I don't think you agree, but. No,, I, my, my take with that is,, so many brands at that fortune 500 level lose sight of what made them successful, ? Oh, shocker. Nike started leaning into their legendary athletes and legendary moments and creating iconic campaigns around it. And now everyone's, Nike's cool again. It's, they just lost the plot for so long and they just tried to wade into so many things that were not the main thing. And,, they're creating their, their world building. Amazing. Like the easy money, easy money KD thing they just did. So sick. And like this Jalen Hurts stuff is amazing. they have a Jordan brand athlete that just won Superbowl. Yeah. That's amazing., they're, and they're actually leaning into that. And so it's just cool to see the difference in direction after that CEO took over., he understood. He was, we're going to make Nike Nike again. And because they just started caring about like being a discount brand. And, they just assumed they want,, instead of doing the thing that made them special. The cool thing to pay attention to as well is how fast they're shipping. They're shipped. they're, they're definitely, these are all pre meditated. They're looking at these moments and then coming up with these concepts and then being able to ship them very, very fast. Yep. The third aspect of world building is guidelines. What by this is you have to have your brand and like world building guidelines so that you're world building across all touch points. If your content is dialed, but then your email feels like a completely disjointed and disconnected brand, you're not world building. Right. Like that experience has to be tailored and stretched across from content to email, to SMS, to your landing pages, to your ad creative, like to every touch point in any interaction that somebody has with a brand. Now, the way I think about this is, okay, what is the core of all of this? And to me is content is connective tissue. Right. And so the core of world building is your content because content is control. Content is, and what by content is control, it controls how somebody perceives your brand. I determine what goes out there. I determine the stories I tell. I determine the aesthetic. I determine the look, the people I use, the characters. I determine all of that. And therefore, I control the narrative. I control the perception and like content is that. And so content is really the connected tissue of the entire thing. And then if, so if you can put all that attention into content and then content talks with email, talk, email team, SMS team, ads team, landing pages team, or CRO team. And you now look at everything as, okay, how do we make sure that what we're doing on the content side and when we're getting in front of millions of people is also getting relayed to these individuals. And that's how I think about this because content is the narrative builder. It's the perception builder. And without it, you don't control what and how somebody thinks about your brand, which is a bad place to be. Yeah. Absolutely bad place to be. Especially in today's day and age when that's all their attention is just focused on content., it's, it's the only way you have to be able to shape their narrative these days. it's people, it's so hard to reach someone for the first time in retail. There's foot traffic is just down across the board. you just got to look where the attention is going, ? Yeah. And I think it's a good thing for a savvy operator because. All marketers, we know you love the TLDR. So let's get right to the point. Here are five things you can get done faster with Wix Studio. Number one, you could scale content with dynamic pages and reusable assets. Then number two, you can integrate with Meta's conversion API, Zapier, Google ads, and more in just a few seconds. Then number three, which is a given, and this is A-B tests where you can create them in days, not weeks with their intuitive design tools. Then number four, you could connect to tracking and analytical tools like SEMrush. And GA4 in seconds. And manage all of your clients' social media from one dashboard. All if you're ready for more, then go to wixstudio.com. Again, that's wixstudio.com., you have so much less risk of a bad outcome if you can control your inputs with content. So one of the brands that does an amazing job of world building is Malvin Golf. Have you heard of Malvin Golf? Brother, I'm friends with Colin Landforce. I know about every golf brand known to man because I work with a micro-influencer in the golf space. Yeah. Does Malvin like him? Do they show love? I feel like Malvin. No, I think there was some beef, actually. I think there was some... Well, because he was talking crazy about Jason Day back in the day, I remember. But I think it was in support of the feds. I don't remember. He had a video that went absolutely... I think it was for Malvin that went absolutely viral. And then it got taken down., they reported it. They somehow got,, three videos taken down. So Malvin does an amazing job world building because they do three things. They tease, they document, and they showcase. So when they tease a new collection, they use these,, settings. This is crazy. That boy just ripped the Instagram script live. He's so good. So they tease, they document, and they showcase. So how do they do that? So when they just dropped their Willie Nelson collection, they launched it with a video that was set in Austin with people dressed in cowboy attire, and they were just chipping and putting. So they integrated the Western country aesthetic, the cowboy culture with Willie Nelson, and they also integrated golf. And they just hit it, and then they just put up a little graphic overlay, like Willie Nelson Malvin coming soon. Went super viral. Did great. However, what they do next is they document the rollout. So they have events where they bring people together. They do,, a little DJ set,, similar to this coffee and chill stuff. But instead, they'll bring people together, and just, they have an NFT community that they launched a couple years ago. I know, but they're actually,, activating these people, which is cool. And what's fascinating is when they're documenting it, well, they tease this world that you want to be a part of., the content resonated with people. It got 15,000 likes. By far, they're most engaged with posts over the last,, six months. And so there's precedent that people are going to want to engage with this world. So what do they do next? They feed that attention by documenting the process, by showcasing all the different products that are in that collection, letting people know as they're getting sold out that there's urgency to go buy them, that this is going to be a collector's item., Willie Nelson's obviously creeping up there in age, so there's not going to be another one of these collections, and that really builds that precedent for people where they say, well, okay, now I want to go take advantage of this collection. They do this for all of their collabs., they're a very collab-heavy brand.,, they roll out, they rolled out,, a partnership with Evian Water, for example. And,, they always do,, a BTS, They always do a making of when it's related to the collection. A lot of the times,, these aren't going crazy., this is a brand with,, 500,000 followers on Instagram, only getting 850 likes. But these videos get devoured by their diehard audience. And that's what people really care about with Malvin, is they care about, oh, this is an aesthetic that I want to be a part of, ? That's where the documentation serves the people who got teased, They want to, they're indicating they want more. And so that's the power of the teaser, is if you can use that teaser to be something that is,, packaged in a way that's going to reach the maximum amount of people, they're going to want to see the documentation, and they're going to buy whenever you showcase those products. I've been thinking about the content funnel more and more, and,, actually thinking about, okay, top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel. Has it changed lately? And I think it has. And I think it's what you just brought up, where top of funnel, it doesn't change. It's attention and awareness, But I think middle of funnel now is affinity-driven, whereas,, you could have thought affinity-driven content was going to be, or affinity-centered content was going to be more bottom of funnel. I think it's more middle of funnel. And I think it's that content that you were just describing, where, yeah, it's BTS-driven, it's behind the process, it's behind the designs, it's all that. It's bringing the people that already follow you into the brand. And then, at the bottom of funnel, then it's action-driven. How do I, when I do launch, how do I get them to buy something? How do I get them to get onto the email list, the DM list, the SMS list, whatever the case may be? But I do think the BTS content is becoming not just a staple, but a need for brands. A need. You have to do it. Absolutely a need. Yeah. We, working with Tear, and they'd never done,, a BTS piece of content before, really. And for the last drop,, we're not really working on their product launches, but we're working on their socials and,, some of those different layers. And, but I was still, hey, this is a big launch., this is when you're top selling products., we should do this. Yeah. And we got on the phone, and,, we scoured to get all,, this BTS footage, tech packs, the inspo for the tech pack,, all these different things. And we pieced it together, and it was one of the best performing pieces of content. Yeah., people like to see that. People want to see the inspiration behind the shoe. Oh, my God., your shoe's inspired by a jet and,, this sound system and XYZ. That's sick. Yeah. what I'm saying? Totally. And, it's cool to put that together. There's something that I'm starting to really pay attention to, which is voyeuristic content., this is that, this is my five to nine after my nine to five. But I have a video today. You're putting that out? That is like that. Yeah. And it's, it's. But it's my, this is my five to nine. Before my nine to five? Well, before my nine to whenever I'm done is what I'm saying. Oh, okay. Nice., you had to be hard-o about it. Yeah. Because it's true, bro. No, I'm kidding. We're not, we don't do nine to five. No, that's the funniest part about everyone's, escape the matrix, escape the nine to five. And it's, so you can have like instability and work 24 seven., you can just get bitched at by. Being an entrepreneur is fantastic. But,, it's this voyeuristic, voyeuristic content is taking over social media right now. It's this behind the scenes of a regular person's life. It got popularized by this guy, Hubs. Have you seen him? He's a Dallas guy. Where he would always be, this is a day in the life of a nine to five,, 29 year old and he would always,, include the caveat regular,, he's getting bagged up 10K to put this freaking wallet in the shot. But I got that behind the scenes. he was getting paid crazy. You just exposed this man. Oh, expose the fuck out of him. Hell yeah. That's what you come to sweat equity for. Is this like personal input?, do people know this? Has he put this off? I have, he has my, wherever my backpack is, we have the same backpack and I know the brand that makes that backpack. The leather one, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I know the brand that makes the backpack. I saw the backpack in his video and I was,, I know that's not a mistake, bro. I had to pay for that. He did not. And in fact, he got paid to feature it because he's getting them crazy amount of impressions on that backpack. He always like slides the laptop into it. Like real, real, real slow, bro. Real slow. Just so you get that three second exposure. Anyways. So voyeuristic content is working because people are living other people's lives., it's, it's a very interesting method of consuming media because it gives you this,, alternative path almost, oh, I,, I live my life. It's twofold, So number one is your life is your way. And then this is a way to experience another way, which I think is really interesting for people is seeing an alternative. However, I also think it resonates for people that are going through the same thing. So a lot of these,, behind the scenes of a nine to five for a regular 28 year old. Well, a lot of people who are 28 are going to see that it's going to resonate., just eating a little pack of Doritos at your desk is something that doesn't really get glorified or,, shown on social media as sexy. And so when you see it shot on iPhone, it feels it's, it's a crazy mental impact that it has because you're almost,, the brain wants to recognize patterns. Like when the brain is scrolling, it wants to see something and be, oh, I remember that. I've seen that before. And that's what captures attention a lot of the time. So I think this guy giving an unglamorous view of things has really caught on with people. Why does that matter for founders and brand operators? Because who the heck would have thought that anyone would care about this guy's life three years ago? Nobody. And so many brand founders think no one's going to care about the behind the scenes of my product. No one's going to, no one's going to want to see this unsexy thing when in actuality, that's, what's going to make people root for you. As long as you state your mission, I'm a 27 year old that dropped out of his nine to five sales job because it was killing me to start a protein cookie company or whatever it is. That's going to be a lot more interesting than just seeing a meta ad and it's,, 20 grams of protein cookie that already exists. Lenny and Larry's is already on the shelves. They won. You're screwed. So your meta ads aren't going to perform. But if you start talking about in your content, you tried Lenny and Larry's and you didn't it. And it's Lenny and Larry's for references, like a protein cookie company. They're really early., and you're, I didn't it. It had seed oils in it. It made me feel like shit. And I talked to like three people and they said the same thing. So I knew I was onto something. Dude, all of a sudden you're storytelling and giving people a reason to actually pay attention to you and root for you. I just linked you to a brand where these are my friends here in Austin., yeah, I've seen these guys. Oh, okay., my boy Jono talks about them., yeah, my good friends. So Scott, one of the guys down here, I don't know the other guy, but Scott and Charles probably knows him as well., we used to work together a long, long time ago in the, in the past. And this is exactly, they're doing exactly what you're saying, they, they also have a,, protein cookie with 20 grams of protein. it's not a new concept. It's not a new product in the, it's not new at all. Yeah. they, they have some different things like made with avocado oil versus like some other stuff, but that's still not going to be the main thing why people are obsessed with your brand. If you look at all of their content, their story or their storytelling the entire time, like how do you make your protein cookies so soft? And they take you exactly behind the process. they, they share everything with you as they,, if you actually look at their, their content, their entire feed is them. It's just BTS. Yeah. Like 90% BTS. So world building is two parts. It's digital and it's physical. Yeah. These guys have nailed the digital part, but what brands need to focus on in 2025 to me is how do you build that physical world building? Yeah. More and more,, the demand for in real life events is through the roof. People just want to do shit, bro. Like there's like these coffee DJ sessions popping up. There's like seven different competing coffee, coffee parties at 11am every Saturday in Austin right now. And that on the rise of run clubs, people don't want to be hung over. They want reasons to congregate in real life. They're lonelier than ever as a brand. If you can build community, who, who, who better than brands to, to build community. Everyone that supports your brand is going to be somewhat like-minded. It's the same thing when I tip my cap, when I see a guy wearing ALD or wearing some brand that I support,, you, you see someone wearing shoes. Like if you see another guy in Jordans for the longest time, obviously, that you and that guy probably have pretty similar interests. Yeah. Brands have the same opportunity. Like when I was thinking about,, what would I do if I were the retro muscle CMO? I would actually build a campaign around a digital world, which was this golden era of weightlifting and exercise fitted in retro clothes with the big muscle tank, super,, short shorts, like big hair, but also that,, golden aesthetic that they put on it. Like that retro filter., and it feels like dreamy almost. Yeah. Yeah. You feel you're in a fever dream, which is really cool, but also the other thing they have such a cool opportunity to do, especially while they're early and they're in the weightlifting niche,, powerlifting. Like think about all your friends in the CrossFit space., I just think about you and a chase from C4. Like y'all are boys because of like CrossFit and lifting, ? And so that opens up so many doors and what's a way that retro muscle can connect people in real life. Why don't you just connect two of your customers? If they're in the Austin area, connect two of your customers via email for just a warm intro and say, Hey, you guys both love the brand., I'm sure you both lift., why don't y'all go become lifting buddies and like try and coordinate some in-person interactions, not even at the full on event level., why don't you just connect people via your brand? That's a long lasting connect., if you introduce someone to a great friend, they'll always remember you as the person who introduced them. Imagine if brands started doing that.,, ALD is too big to do this., I think cuts clothing, like Malvin could do that. I don't think ALD is too, well, maybe at that scale, but like ALD could put on like car showcases with Porsche and bring the people that love Porsche and the, cause it's going to be very similar people to people that love Porsche and people that love ALD to the same area. People will pay by the way. I actually think,, there's this thought that this is just a straight marketing expense. The events line item. I think people would totally pay. Yeah. I'd pay $40 to go to an ALD Porsche event and with, with a non open bar,, like if, if I got to pay for two drinks at this event and I know that I'm congregating with people who are going to be fans of that brand, fans of the other collaborator, and it's going to be an excuse to get a fit off, get outside the house and a dope venue. Dude, that's, that's an amazing activation for people that are going to only extend that LTV in with your brand. Especially if you're thinking about through the lens of just brand partnerships, Like smart brand partnerships is how your brand, your brand's world continues to scale. Right. I think about it like this brand a has a specific customer base brand B has a specific customer base and they both have, in many ways they have a matching customer base and they don't sell the same product, but their products live within the same world. That is the perfect brand partnership that you need to have. So an example is like cadence has a partnership with brand at running. They have a partnership with raw nutrition and they, when they did like the New York marathon, they did a partnership with,, I forget the bagel company, like one of the most high end bagels in New York. Right. And so now you're getting the fans from the bagel company, the fans from raw nutrition, the fans of bandit running to now become fans of cadence. I had on here actually portion ALD, but then 818 and Chamberlain coffee. Like that's another great example of, okay, I have Chamberlain coffee, 818 tequila, both have similar demographics. Let's do a partnership. They did a partnership. It's fine. You bring over your people. I bring over my people. Hey, you just lowered my acquisition costs. I lowered your acquisition costs. There's something here. Like that's such an easy way to be able to do, do this. And so how do you leverage this? You find brands with similar demographics or slash like ideal customers who match your brand's lifestyle, aesthetic, vibe, and tone. And then you partner on content, performance marketing events and products. Yeah. You do that. You have a recipe to win. Totally. It's, it's, it's, it's one of the, it's collaborations., and I also think it's a way to fill up your content calendar., the biggest thing for a lot of these brands is, and you and I go through this as creators all the time. I can notice when you're in like a slow period of like producing,, cause you're probably grinding really hard right now. And,, we, we both have had this with the podcast, which is amazing. Like the podcast fills up our dead, dead periods on our personals because you're going to have like four clips from this pod to post takes the weight off of you having to come up with net new concepts to like an original stuff. And it's the same thing with a collaboration for a brand. Like if you don't have something to talk about, well, you can do a collaboration and that's going to allow you to have,, stuff to fill up the feed for like 10 days. You collab posts, you're bringing in their audience, all that stuff. So it's just a win-win. And this is why brands should introduce their customers to each other in real life. You think about a brand like Malvin golf,, they're making products for people that want to dress a certain type of aesthetic in the golf world. Those people are very likely to also be friends in golf is a social sport. It's something where people can easily make friends through their local golf club, through even a random scramble that they play at a local course. This is how a lot of men in America make friends. So now imagine if you're the brand Malvin, you've got all these people that are not only golfers, but interested in streetwear and street style and being different and like standing out on the course, like actually injecting some swag into their outfit. If you can facilitate those in-person connections as a brand, that's a huge win., not only are those people going to be grateful to the brand for it, they're both going to continue to talk about your brand. Like that's that K factor. That's that network effect that allows you to stay in the conversation. Anytime you drop something, you guarantee those two people you connected are going to talk about it. And if you could do that at scale in every metro area in the United States, not even metro, any rural area, it doesn't matter. you're creating more relationships that are rooted in your brand. And that's going to really lower your acquisition costs over time. Couldn't agree more, but I did hear that you lie on the golf course. Your boy shoots a 140. So I don't know. I don't know if I would trust anything he says. As always, appreciate y'all tuning in. We'll catch you on next week. Please, subscribe, share with somebody if you think this information is valuable. And yeah, we'll catch you on next week. See you on the flip.