What brands can learn from Beyonce | Alain Sylvain, Sylvain Labs | OnBrand '17

[Music] hello can you guys hear me this is so bizarre what's up this is this is weird because I don't hear myself so this is strange but um hello my name is uh Atlanta I am the founder and CEO of a company called cement labs we are a brand and product design company so we help companies envision and develop new brand and product ideas as was mentioned we have an office we're headquartered in New York I came all the way from Brooklyn hello can we clap for Brooklyn maybe yeah ok and we have an office here in Amsterdam and we have an office in Richmond Virginia and one way to get people to show up at your your talk is to put Beyonce in the title so what I'm gonna talk about is what brands can learn from Beyonce and actually it's a we can take a lot we can learn a lot from from her we're gonna talk about shifting the brand dialogue or shifting away from dialogue no longer speaking and saying and doing instead so I want it I want to set some contexts and talk about the 80s the 1980s was a fantastical time the economy was booming there were all these amazing images on television that transported consumers and people to new lands it was about luxury and it was about aspiration living a life that was well beyond that everyday and that was that was the the prevailing zeitgeist at the time and then move thinking about brands brands adopted that same sort of language to project these ideas of escapism this idea is that if you buy this brand if you consume this product we will take you away to a whole other place and brands were sort of playing a role that people had in their life and that was certainly true in the US and we and I know it's true here in in in Europe I like this commercial because there's this great clip of this um this woman who smiles and it's that sets hilarious I think that's hilarious she smiles like this brand just took me away it transported me to a whole other universe the roles of brands in the 80s was to take people else the places they couldn't actually achieve themselves now the 80s were important because of media and television television reached a whole other level in the 70s and 80s it became ubiquitous for the first time you had a network of media that really worked globally so for the first time you had global brands and this can't be on unders underestimated in the US television just exploded it just exploded and became the prevailing medium of the day and it fostered the creation of celebrities and super celebrities and global celebrities and the Ed Sullivan Show launched The Beatles in the US which really shifted the entire pop culture world at that moment I would argue Michael Jackson wouldn't be Michael Jackson the one that we know now if not for television the television was the ultimate platform for that celebrity he came about at the ideal time when MTV and television penetration and VCR and video production all it was a perfect storm for an ideal artist who happens to be a musical genius and so television is the reason Michael Jackson is what we know him to be and that's what really drove his global dominance and people are crazy people flip out people flipped out when they saw that Michael Jackson and that again is because of television television was super powerful so my argument is that with the rise of television we saw the rise of super brands and the celebrity super brand and let me tell you a little bit about how brands really took that to life first brands were righteous super Ernests they were there were that they used to project these platitudes they like think different or just do it or you know never leave home without it these are these ideas that these brands are the key to your own fundamental and emotional subjective well-being and that really entitled brands to do whatever the fuck they want they could do anything they were they were super invulnerable they could put their their logos anywhere alia on the right eye counts it there's like three mentions of Tommy Hilfiger on her body this this is of course is absurd today you couldn't imagine a brand's plastered on somebody's body that many times McDonald's in the in the US they launched a song a record I mean it was like it was a legitimate record and it was and I remember as a kid singing it it was the recipe for the Big Mac and it was like a really cool song and this this is absurd you couldn't imagine a brand do that today really publish a song and my argument is that these brands that we know of today these super power brands among many others are what they are today because of their ubiquity brands were everywhere and television was really the key to that now I don't need to tell you what happened in the same way that television was the key to brand success in the 80s and 90s the internet and digital communication is the key to brands in the future now what's happened is that the interactive nature of media has completely dismantled the way we talk about brands today we work on brand strategy at sylvain labs we think a lot about how you talk about brands and there's a crisis in brand language there's a crisis in the brand world because people are not aspiring to brands and the way they did before because of the internet the internet is all-consuming even as I talked to you there people using their phone right now which is amazing it's it's a it's everywhere it's it's what we do people spend more time on social media than they do consuming food actually this is a picture of a hamburger but I'm in Amsterdam so it's a stroopwafel people consume food like crazy but yet and that of course is a primal need but yet people are consuming the Internet so to speak even more so which might be a new primal need our our internet addiction is a new primal need and of course people are looking to the Internet to make decisions and it's driving so many purchase purchases it's completely shifted to power structure as I said brands were here and we looked up to brands to tell us how we should live what should we want what decisions should we make how do we identify ourselves what's the collective identity all these things brands were the way to do it but now the power structure is completely shifted technology and social media have brought the power back to the people so while brands were once ubiquitous and literally everywhere because of television now because of technology they're muted they've taken a recessed step back now why is that that's because of the incredible amount of contents we are gluttons when it comes to content how is a brand supposed to be everywhere if you're consuming 10 times as much of your friends social media content brands are competing for content in a way that they'd ever did before they were on 24 hours a day on three channels in the 80s and that's all you knew and now it's a whole different world and as I said brands once were righteous they had all these platitudes and these really serious things to say about what you should and shouldn't do and now they're scrutinized you put there they're put under a microscope they're questioned 84 84 percent of living will say they don't trust advertising everywhere in the world and I know this firsthand in the u.s. there's a real skepticism about media about any brand language in fact people know people as we watch commercials as we consume advertising content people now have a view behind the curtain that they never did before they know that this celebrity was paid they know that production was involved they know that media was paid for the ruse that we're gonna trick you into loving this is over it's completely over marketing the way we understand it let me project an image for you to love it is gone it's completely gone so brands were also at one point invulnerable super powerful they could put their logo three times on a celebrity and it was cool now they're submissive they're taking a step back and this of course is the Pepsi debacle last earlier this year you guys know about this story I don't know if you know Wendy's in the u.s. we have Wendy's which is a you probably do know Wendy's it's a fast-food restaurant and this this kid posted on Twitter you know Wendy's how many retweets for a year free chicken wings and Wendy's replied with some snarky remark and sure enough homeboy got three and a half million retweets and and Wendy's made good so for the first time you not for the first time but over the past couple of years you've seen consumers having a direct dialogue treating brands as peers which has completely shifted the dynamic and this of course is true with many other examples if you look at travel and hospitality and this is an example at Tesco so where the brand used to be a sort of a sought-after influencer it now looks for consumers approval it's kind of desperate brands are submissive brands our second brands are fighting for relevance in a way that they didn't before if you were in a meeting at Nike in the 90s you weren't wondering how am I going to get people to care about what I'm saying because because people already believed in you people already identified as Nike I am a Nike person and now Nikes trying to fit in your life now they're sitting around at Nike is how can we get the attention and really be adopted by the person themselves so there's this crazy shift that's happened an amazing transition a seismic change in the world of branding and marketing and how people talk about the products that they love and I'm gonna tell you a little bit about some of the experiences we've had at seen that labs thinking about some of this stuff as I said we're a brand and product design company these are some of the brands we we are lucky enough to work with and I'm gonna share a little bit about what I've learned in this this new world towards what I'm calling the utility brand it's a brand that's not about saying some things not about a promise it's not about you can do it it's about providing something useful providing a value a fundamental functional value to to people's lives it's not who you are underneath it's what you do that defines you a very famous philosopher said that named Batman here I'm gonna go through a few examples just just to make the point Uniqlo is a client of ours are you guys familiar with Eko oh of course you are Uniqlo is a fashion company yes but if you're in those halls if you're at that company if you're in Japan and talking to them they view themselves as a technology company they view themselves as providing some sort of functional value and so all of their all of their gear all of their clothes has a deep utility story whether it's about you know agility or Heat or you look at in the food and beverage space you can't launch a food and beverage brand without putting first and foremost the functional value of your food and beverage I'm talking about in the store there has to be a claim about calories about health about what I might do for you it's it's now the new race the race before was what's the sexiest promise I can make for you now the new race is like what's the new utility I can provide for you I can I can tell you having worked in the with beverage brands for the past ten years it's been a it's been amazing that's the new functional benefits that have been rolled out whether it's energy health weight loss you see calming these are these are their meetings and workshops and projects all about what's the new thing we can tell people that will really give them belief in our brand technology of course is is all about this although the new brands and apps that provides some deep functional benefit this is a crazy bag by the way that I wanted to mention it's a bag you carry that's also a washing machine so we will clean your clothes as you carry it and this is the new sort of confounding nature of products these days that are providing some ruthless utility for people and utilities really the key to love utility for me is the key to loyalty and the best example for that is as my grandmother who who was an incredibly generous person in that she she took care of us she cooked for us she was incredibly attentive but she never once used the words I love you she never once said I'm there for you or you can do it it was really through this ruthless attention to me and to detail that that really resulted in a deep and profound love and loyalty and I think there's something we can learn from from my grandmother in the past car brands Mercedes BMW all these brands have these amazing images of beautiful landscapes of cars swooping through you can do it you can drive like a like a race driver Tesla the new aspiration in the automotive market and doesn't do that the Tesla story the reason to buy a Tesla today if one can is lucky enough to afford it is about the story of sustainability it's about performance it's about being part of the future it has nothing to do with a promise it's about Elon Musk's vision of a better world it's not about this will make you look cool although it probably does or Spotify you know this modifies a great client of ours we love working with Spotify and when you think about music brands 20 years ago 30 years ago what what was a music brand you would think of you know Sony Music or MTV or Rolling Stone Spotify is one of those brands you think about today and that's because again of this ruthless utility that they provide I don't know if anyone's ever tried the artificial intelligence on Spotify it's the most advanced to sophisticated I think you'll see in the world of music where literally if you go into a discover Weekly it will play music that you you or you'll be mad that you've never heard before the value is just tremendous and the irony is Spotify is not really a music company Spotify is a technology company so if you aren't making a difference in other people's lives you shouldn't really really be doing this and that's that's because it's so competitive it's hard to find a place in the world in a mindset of people to get people to really see you so what does it mean to be useful it means to be essential so I'm gonna go through the three principles that that I think help get you there first is the hero the product over the trademark we use that we used to really hold up the logo and the brand name has sort of this this thing to be revered but now I believe it's about the product here's the line of direct-to-consumer CPG products it's called brand lists and the whole things about we don't have a brand or you think about Muji which literally in Japanese means plain there's nothing there's no fanciness there or rx which arcs bars which literally lay out all of the ingredients front and center it's not a beautiful product shot it's not a beautiful promise really consumers are looking for value and brands are looking to provide a greater value to them and this is this is best seen in the world of private label private label is completely dismantling brand strategy in general PepsiCo coca-cola they're freaking out about private label brands all these rows a wine which sold for 599 pounds ranked one of the best in the world three times beating on many other brands that were three times the price you know we used to talk about Apple in our in our world of brands I think today we talk about Amazon Amazon doesn't evoke an idea about accomplishments or your sexiness it's really about again a ruthless utility in their line of private label products is completely freaking people out selling batteries and cables and cell phone cases it's for a quarter of the price so the first is about here owing the product the second is about empathize ruthlessly ruthlessly brands need to behave like the peers that they are and treat treat consumers like they're in a relationship which means things like emotion and channeling their experience becoming important óscar an insurance company instead of hiding data from consumers they put it front and center B so that there's a real understanding we have your data we want you to have your data this is a really equitable relationship and 26 is a mobile Bank amazing it's all about just cutting through the bullshit and just providing some real value one of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say and that's a new thing in our world brands always did research and they've observed but now brands are trying to understand and really introspect and and really take the steps that one might in a relationship you might speak in the language but others might and here's a here's something from Harry's which is a as you might know as a shaving brand or heist which is a tights brand which is really they all they do is they talk about what these tights allow you to do or citizen em the the hotel really Frank language really honest cutting through so the third arouse values values have now become the new idea of a new aspiration Airbnb another client of ours did something amazing and they do this quite a bit around national other international crises around hurricane Harvey they mobilized people to find places to stay they use their platform to do that and that set a mess that sent a message about values and probably did more for marketing than anything else a rousing values isn't an aspirational perk it's kind of its kind of the thing you need to do it's the thing you need to do to evoke some real love and some real passion from people today so I'm gonna go through a few other few other examples just this pilot a fashion and style brand that doesn't retouch pictures at all it says something about about the fashion industry and really being honest about about that medium or spark which is a convenience brand a convenience store sorry that does a great deal of work in community projects or vets mom which a year or 18 months ago or two years ago no one knew about is fashion brand that is completely flipped the industry upside down because of its call it Frank language or its frank discussion around what fashion means medmont literally means clothes in French Nestle has a Health and Science Institute which they just launched recently which is kind of amazing it's a new thing that food companies are actually conducting original research the way an academic institution might to explore the potential of nutrition and the potential of health a food brand so those are those are the three things here are the products empathize ruthlessly and arouse values are you guys with me yeah all right now all of that all of that all those things you can learn from my girl Beyonce okay I'm giving it to you okay I waited to the end to give it to you the Beyonce Beyonce is amazing she's an education platform there are classes you can take in Texas and then you know in universities all about Beyonce she's a mode of communication people communicate using the language of Beyonce the the the B emoji is a thing now on Twitter it wasn't before she of course is a force of social good but it wasn't always that way she started out like any other artist I'm trying to get seen on TV she was one of many as part of Destiny's Child and they all kind of blended into each other and they all had these kind of super glossy veneers and she projected this hyper sexualized version of herself and then and that's and if you remember about ten years ago that's what Beyonce was she was kind of like a sex symbol you know think about her music it was all about laced with sex and innuendo and this was kind of at the height of it she almost became a caricature of a black American woman I'm a whole lot of woman you know this this idea this this really radicalized stereotype of black women in the United States which is is untrue and of course there are many other facets to that person this all kind of came to life in Sasha Fierce which was an alter ego she created this really badass sassy woman that can kind of get through anything and is kind of perfect but what's interesting in 2010 she put Sasha Fierce to bed she said that Sasha Fierce was not relatable anymore that there was something that was detached from reality about Sasha Fierce and what's interesting about 2010 is that's really a my my argument is that's really when this internet technology boom took the place of television in a whole other way for brands and I think we can we can really learn from what Beyonce has done since 2010 if you look for one her music is different she famously said that crazy in love was written in two hours and kind of boasted that crazy level was written in two hours for her self-titled album Beyonce she brought in 80 different musicians to live with her for a month and and worked on that groundbreaking album if you look at how she's projected herself this is the cover art for her her albums early on you see the logo is really well designed you see a picture of her booty right there with a sassy look over the shoulder second album just had her name boom with a black background really straightforward she stripped away the trade market so to speak and then the lemonade which is a groundbreaking album doesn't even have her name on it doesn't even have her face on it in fact it's a more of a provocative artful picture even the music if you think about the music if you think about the music that Destiny's Child made early on about the music now it's much more thoughtful much more stoic it has the chamber sounds it's full the lyrics are much more profound and if you and I'm gonna keep talking about cuz I'm obsessed with music I wanna keep talking about some music so if you if you look at at what the music she made early on dimensional artists that make sounds they began to town all very very similar I think a convention that she was trapped in but if you look at lemonade the diversity of music that she made it wasn't one note it wasn't one-dimensional anymore there's a rock sauce there's a country song Danny mainly spares your traditional R&B song [Music] have heard so while once her image was really perfected and really refined it's now become vulnerable and she's and it's now about again vulnerability if you look at the song the lyrics of all of her songs pre-2010 and we put them all in a word cloud you see things like boy sex ladies hustler dress like if you look at the words in her lyrics post 2010 you see freedom the worlds don't shoot so she's also taken another step she's exposed her life behind the camera and you see her in a much more vulnerable way empathy is what happens to us when we leave our bodies I find ourselves either moments let momenta momentarily or for a longer period of time in the mind of another we collectively channel Beyonce's experience we look through the world look at the world through Beyonce's eyes she's sort of the prism in which we view the world again she used to be trapped in in these kind of sex tropes her lyrics were were about hips and thighs and now they're much more thoughtful she defies all that stuff she defies that language she's being much more critical about the role of the female artist I want to play one more song for you here do you guys know this song no song the song is catered to you the whole song is about let me cater to my man let me take care of you come back ridiculous and now she's she's a super feminist now she wept she is it for a period of time especially 2017 there was a moment there where she captured the world as a feminist icon because of lemonade and many people view her as sort of advocate for women's rights in a way that others don't while she was kind of passive in the world of politics now she's much more active she did sing a song at a at Obama's inauguration but now she's playing a more of an active role in politics in 2012 she actually hit the road for Obama she didn't just sing songs and you actually saw black women vote higher than any other cohort in the US and some might attribute that to Beyonce's presence and of course she's a political force formation itself is a an uncoded approach to talking about political movements so while she's not perfect she does represent a new way to be critical and interrogate the world and I think that's that's what brands can learn is that brands can play a deeper role for people and do the things that Beyonce did so well here are the product empathize ruthlessly and arouse values thank you very much [Applause] [Music]