Building Cultural Relevance for a Legacy Beauty Brand | Urban Decay

In this episode of Connected Thinking, we're joined by Caner Daywood, Senior Advocacy Manager at L'Oréal Luxe for Urban Decay & IT Cosmetics. Having led global content and influencer campaigns for brands including Charlotte Tilbury, Fenty Beauty, Tommy Hilfiger and Cartier, Caner shares his perspective on what it takes to build culturally relevant beauty brands today.

We're chatting about:
→ How Urban Decay gave a cult favourite a creator-first comeback
→ What today's beauty consumers expect from brands
→ Why creating cultural moments beats chasing trends

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Connected Thinking, our series of chats with standout voices from the world of marketing, where we unpack what's trending, what's shifting, and what's coming next. I'm Liv, Account Director at Scene Connects. Today I'm joined by Kana Daywood, Senior Advocacy Manager at L'Oreal Lux for Urban Decay and at Cosmetics. Previously, Kana's led global content and influencer campaigns for brands including Charlotte Tilbury, Fenty Beauty, Tommy Hilfiger, Cartier, and so many more. Kana, welcome to the podcast today. Thank you so much for joining us. Tell me a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Thanks for having me. Um, God, what do you want to know? I've been in this industry a long time, nearly like I think 16 or 17 years in the kind of marketing social media PR world. Specifically led across like beauty for the last four or five years. Um, loved it. Live and breathe beauty, a makeup pro by trade. Um, I've been a style, I've lived many lives, but yeah, loving what we're doing at L'Oreal and Urban Decay. So yeah, fun stuff.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Exciting. We're so happy to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Thank you for being here. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Having worked in both agency and in-house roles, what perspective has that given you on how brands and agencies can collaborate effectively?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I think it's interesting, right? Because one of my big agency roles was at WPP, and a network agency is always an interesting space. And I think the way that you engage with brands is very kind of to some degree performative, right? And there's a performance that you do, and there's like fluffiness and air that comes with it that clients are kind of expecting. They want some of that smoke and mirrors, some of the glamour and all of that, some of the pitch theater as well. I think pitch theater was lost for a minute. But I think when you're in-house, because I was in-house at Charlotte and I've been in-house before that as well. I think what's really interesting is you don't need all that BS. You know, you don't need all the, I already know that shit, because I used to spew that stuff as well. It's almost like just get down to business. What can you do? Thinking smartly about clients not always having the budget, what are efficiencies that you can make? Because that's really what the client and the agency are going to really take away, or the client specifically when your brand side is how are they looking to help my life? That's what you really want as an agency partner. So I think it's being a better partner and then also not being a dickhead when you're a client as well. I think we've all had difficult clients that are super demanding, unrealistic timelines. Because I think I've done the job of the agency so many times in different iterations, like as a creative strategist, um, always helped out like count teams and creatives. I know what's realistic for timelines. So I think it's just not being a dickhead client and no BS from being an agency side.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

From your point of view, what are one of those efficiencies that you know would absolutely sell you on an agency partner?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

I think it's going a bit above and beyond, right? I think the agency-client relationship becomes so pragmatic after the pitch moment, um, in as much as like, you know, after the pitch is done, you either get like a different, different members of the team that suddenly start to spring up out of nowhere, and you're like, okay, why don't I meet these in the original setting? Um to like unrealistic timelines and things get falling by the waist, and everything just becomes a bit like, oh, you wanted this, we've given you this, and it all becomes a scope thing. I think it's almost like you didn't ask for this, but we've just gone away and done this. It's a bit of like the the conviction to want to do more for the client in a realistic way. No one's expecting you to make up like decks out of nowhere and come up with additional strategies for free. No one's expecting that. But I think in the world we're living in, um, which is harder, it's harder to get cut through. Clients are struggling with budgets. It's like little things like, hey, we just spotted this creator, do you love them? And having more of a personal attitude, I think that's what I've always found. Like, you're great at that. I think that's that's the connection that you want with an agency. You want to kind of get around the corporateness and the sort of the bodies of everything, the institution of everything, get into the meat of it. That's what I like.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

I mean, ultimately you want to be an extension of your brand's team. Yes. And that means like having personal time and really getting to know each other and knowing the nuances and how you work together because ultimately that's what helps you form the best partnership. You actually brought up a really interesting point that I want to go back to. When agencies pitch, obviously, like the A team is generally in the room. And then, you know, you might work with different people later on in the process. Is it your preference to have, you know, who would actually be working with you in those initial stages? Or do you kind of see a place for both, both paths forward?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

I'm gonna give you a kind of mixed answer, in as much as I like it if the people that you're meeting are in gonna be on the team, but that isn't always the way, right? You always put your A-class people, depending on the pi the level of the pitch and the budget, etc. I also don't want like a freaking army to show up of like 20 people and you've got like an account exec who's just sitting there silent. Like, if you I have a big thing about if you're not meant to be in the room, as in like you don't have anything to add, you know, there's no real reason for you to be there, don't be there, go do something else. There's so many other things you could do. So for me, it's a bit of a mix. I think if you're gonna have like the senior A team there, at least have just the squad just below them, like an account manager, if you're gonna have an account director, have an account manager there, just to meet them, they can understand and they can then pick up that stuff. Because we've all seen it in the whole grind and the churn of agency life that, you know, the revolving door of it all, you know, if that person then moves on and then the account manager has to take all that um pick up the mantle, they may have lost some of that context from the pitch. So I'm a bit like, have your A team there for sure. And I do like that. And it's always good to have that connection, but you also need to be sympathetic as a client that you're not really necessarily always going to be paying for like a strategy director 100% of the time. Do you know what I mean? So a bit of a mixed one.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

I mean, and that's you know, where your experience from being on both sides of the coin really like lends that insight. There has definitely been a wider shift away from blanket creator briefs towards more collaborative approaches. How do you approach balancing brand objectives with creator freedom?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Oof. It's a tough one, I will say. Um, particularly where somewhere like L'Oreal, which is so kind of commercially driven, you know, we are still and remain the highest-grossing beauty brand in the world, which is like very BDE energy for us and fun. But what comes with that is expectation on sellout. It's like monthly analysis of how products are doing at the bottom line, um, which kind of does, even if you don't want it to, does impact how you think about creators and that relationship. I think it's also, because I've been client side and agency side as well, I've seen so many clients just cluster all of the objectives into one. You know, it needs to be views, it needs to be engagement, it needs to be this. And you're like, whoa, as a strategist, you're like, what's your hierarchy of what you want to do? So, for instance, for our big launch that we did for TubeJob, you know, the big emphasis on that was around brand awareness and views. And that's the metric we really focused on. So that helped with our briefs and helped with our curation of creators that we wanted for that. Then for our recent campaign that we're wrapping up for All Nighter, it was more about engagement, richer engagement, finding creators that are more niche and community-driven and catering the brief towards that objective. So I think it's just being smart about what you want to get out of it, having like a view of a helicopter view of long-term, what you want for the brand, whilst being able to like telescopically look at, okay, so what objective makes sense and where are we going? I think a lot of brands have lost that kind of strategy side of it of why we're doing this. It's not just to appease the big senior board to make money. Like, what's the point in what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

We actually worked together on a campaign recently, the all nighter setting spray renovation. Uh, you know, tell obviously I know, but tell our viewers and our listeners how that came to life and what was your kind of like ethos about that?

SPEAKER_00 7:27

All night assetting spray is synonymous with urban decay. It has been since, you know, when we launched the product very, very long time ago. Um, and it's kind of what everyone knows about Urban Decay as well. So I think when we were coming to a reformulation because it hadn't been reformulated for years, um, which is an interesting one, I think the whole setting space, setting spray space, that was a lot of S's, um, transformed. You know, Auntie Charlotte launched her one, which is amazing on one of the top ones. One size has done an amazing job launching a suite of setting sprays that are majoratively amazing. So I think we were feeling a bit like, you know, there's been amazing new players in the space. What are we doing? So the reformulation was a big thing for us that we wanted to launch. And because of that, as well, because there's been so many launches, it's like, what can we do that's different in this space? Everyone's done dancing, everyone's done, you know, the stereotypical Pilates princesses and all of that jazz. So I think for me, being a bit of a dynamic profile and urban being a rebellious um brand that represents people that are a bit more old or a bit different and a bit more bratty. We were thinking, you know, what could we do that's different? Came to you guys, we word played together. I think we had I had an idea of like performance that can, I can't even remember what the original line that I had was now. Um, but it was like some a performance element to it that we really wanted. And I think when I was coming to that, I really had the idea of like wrestlers being something different, and that's why we've got our big event next week, which we're very excited about. Um, but that just felt like a different space. I've I've been in this world for a long time. I've seen every beauty launch and seen what they've done. It was just like, what could we do that was different? And you guys really understood that brief, shared creators that worked and were different, and spoke to that kind of niche communities that we wanted to find for this one.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

And when we're we were coming up uh with the strategy for it, you know, we ultimately just dove home on the proof points. All nighter setting spray has 24-hour, like lasting power, and so it naturally lends to that performance. And you know, it was that idea of lasting, and that's where we came up with the concept for the outlaster. And, you know, that led us to work with so many different archetypes and the different ways that they outlast their lives. And we got to work with some really cool creators, um, you know, journalists, uh drag queens, obviously, they turned up for us, you know, roller skaters, the gamers, the whole deal. And so we got to really see how the product worked in that proof point. We got to show consumers why. I mean, I loved working on the campaign because it was like a point of difference, especially in the beauty space. But like, you know, the idea of working with a wrestler, like who else is doing that in beauty?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

I know it was a bit rogue. Even for me, I was like, this feels a bit different, but I think it's those, those moments that I think set you apart. You know, people will remember that. I think that's what Urban is known for. You know, I joined when we'd just started working. What interested me and what drove me to this position opposed to some of the others that were in there running was we just worked with Ari, the um the self-proclaimed mattress uh mattress actress. Thank you, thank you, who I loved before. And I was following already on my TikTok. And I was like, ooh, this is cunty that we're doing something like this. This is different. I was like, this is really fun, and that drove me and it was very different. It was a conversation point. Um, so I think I wanted something similar with this whole idea of working with a wrestler and working with wrestling as an idea for makeup and not even just wrestling, but performance in general and that being different things. I just wanted to widen the scope of what that meant for everyone rather than going down some of the more stereotypical routes, which other brands have done.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

And I think also nailing down those objectives and sharing them with the creator. Yeah. You know, looping them in to help them understand what output you want out of the campaign. You know, too often we see with clients they kind of want to keep that stuff close to their chest, but that's how you build those long-term relationships. That's actually how you get that buy-in and how you get that really strong output for creators because, you know, more and more we're seeing that they're so tapped into the world and what's happening and what they need to deliver based on the different objectives of the campaign. Um, so totally line. We just see so much out of creator briefs when they're, you know, so insightful for creators so they can actually use it as a springboard for their creativity.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

And they like to be peek behind the lid and see what you're up to. Like, I think when we briefed um tube girl Sabrina on stuff for tube job, and like, you know, I did the whole shebang of like creating a deck that's curated and wrapped for her and all of that stuff, you know, creators we love them, but they do like a nice ego rub, like we all do, right? And I think it just it gave her a peek into like the strategy behind the work and why we went with her, what we want from her, the inspiration. It kind of tapped her into what we were doing and kind of got her creative juices going. So it just ends up getting a better result rather than a blanket approach and just making them like a uh a machine or a tool or something.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

But when you invest in those, in that opportunity and give them a really personalized deck and you sit on a one-on-one call with them, it you know, it comes back to that buy-in. And also if you put more effort into that briefing stage, give them that really personalized experience, it actually helps, you know, in their output. You know, you know, you see them really put work and love into their concepts, like there's no chat GPT around here, which we're seeing like all too often in the creator industry. Lots of, you know, briefing decks being created with Chat GPT, so you're met with chat GBT concepts or AI-related concepts. Um, and so when you give them that love and you show them that effort early on, they just reciprocate that.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah, I think the thing that we're finding is like the connection between agent to client to creator as well is always an interesting one. Uh no judgment, no T to agents. You know, you're doing a great job. It's not easy either to keep wrangling work. Like we get bombarded across the laurel advocacy team with like agents every day. And I think there's just ways that you can be smarter. You know, if we're an for a client and we're after X, Y, Z and you know some of the metrics that we're after, share how your creator is done against that. Don't just share me like a picture of, hey, here's Liv, here's some posts that she's done, she loves the brand, send us stuff we'd love to be thought about. Be like, okay, that's so blanket. Like, unless I'm really bothered and I have free time, which I don't, I'm not gonna be clicking on that profile. Send me like, here's some stuff that she's done on her thrown back, these are some statistics that she's done, this is the this is what she's driven. They need to be as strategic because they're just not representing creators well enough. And I think that's why a lot of creators are going solo and thinking about what that looks like as well, which is an interesting space.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

When it comes time to selecting creators, 50% of it is their vibe and the content that they they create, but the other 50% of it is actually their insights and what data drives in. Because you know, at the end of the day, like you say, working for a very commercial brand, you do need those data-driven insights off the back of a campaign. You do need to reach those, you know, metric goals. Um, so when agents deliver that data up front, it you know, it just sells itself for creators.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

This, and it's sometimes the different differentiation point between one creator to a next. Like if I've got a creator that's very much aligned with what we are as a brand and what the brief is, and then you've got another creator that's very similar, maybe similar aesthetic, maybe similar point of view. If one has a 14% engagement rate and one has five, who would you go with? You know, it's just like there are some like nitpicking hairs because the beauty industry is so saturated that you have to kind of be particular about that.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Speaking of the beauty industry, we Urban Decay has such a strong heritage within beauty. Obviously, like the producer of so many OG iconic products, all night a seating spray, the naked palettes, like literally ruled the 2010s. How do you approach evolving a legacy brand for newer audiences and platforms?

SPEAKER_00 15:07

It's a fun one. I think we're seeing it a lot more and more now. Like the the new Marc Jacobs beauty revival, which I'm so gassed for, um, is really interesting. I love what they've done. I think it's it's being smart, it's acknowledging your legacy lovers, people that have remembered the naked palette, the heated palettes, um, moondusts and what that meant, you know, when I was a makeup pro and, you know, using moonds and like Space Cowboy for brides and that bridal aesthetic. It's so synonymous with that. So I think it's acknowledging your past, but then staying modern. It's like acknowledging those heroes, but then looking at the beauty industry now. It's so driven by NPD innovation. There's a lot of brands out there, so many indies. I think it's thinking about your brand, what other brands are doing, where you fit in that space, and then looking at the industry and where you can do something different. You know, we've just had an amazing launch in NPD for tubing mascara in Feb. There was loads of other tubing mascara, and I think what really helped us. The component looks different. Our branding has had a big relift. Um, it's a challenge, I think, to revive a brand that's so well loved. People know the packaging, know the aesthetic, but then trying to meet that in today's market where beauty has changed just much more every day. I don't like the clean girl makeup. I think that I'm really glad that that's kind of seeing its way out. But I like the pragmaticness of it, you know, the way you can do a face really quick. There's products that are multifunctional. So I think it's taking elements of what's happening, attaching it to your brand and thinking of new innovations to make that better.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Well, arguably, Urban Decay was a heralder of the, you know, anti-blandemic. Um, your iconic campaign, you know, which really spoke to us like the the way that Urban Decay has evolved over the, you know, time, but still really staying true to those like loyal, um, you know, the the vibe of what Urban Decay was about. Obviously, the aesthetics changed a little bit. We've gone from like rock to like, you know, a little bit more of like a modern day, edgy, rebellious sort of bratty girl or um, you know, brat bratty creator, I suppose. And so it just brings that really nice that you've taken customers on a journey, I suppose. You know, off the back of the blandemic and you know, that amazing campaign that has like had such strong response. You know, how did that sort of land internally? What was the next move after that?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

It's a it's an interesting one, right? Because I think Urban is the sort of rebellious, naughty but fun, colourful, creative kid of L'Oreal, right? Because you've got the kind of the big dragon brands of like YSL and Armani who are doing amazing stuff and you know, really led the way and are great makeup icons. I think Urban has always been that alt queen, and we still want to have that alt energy of what we're doing. Um, and that's why L'Oreal got the license in for it. And that whole Americanized LA energy that is so part of the brand as well. It's just upping that, but then thinking about the modern consumer. And I think that's what works for pushing that up the funnel is understanding the commercial viability of that as well, right? It's all cool being alt and all of that jazz, but look around you, like how are alt queens being received now? How are how is culture being received now? I think it's really interesting to see that in not just the LGBTQ plus community, but seeing it in the creative industry as well. People are dimming their light a little bit to be able to acclimatize. So if that's happening, how are we both allowing them to shine, but respecting them, dimming their shine a little bit too? So it's kind of playing where you want to be. And I think that education piece has been interesting for internals as well to understand that and move the dial a bit and still be rebellious, but rebellious in a new way now. It's quite fun.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

I mean, it gives you license to just like push the boundaries a little bit and you know, you know, go back to the values of what started Urban Decay is like boundary pushing and being a little bit fun and being a little bit naughty and tongue in cheek, um, but staying true to you guys as a brand. We often talk about the cost of virality. Yeah. When you go, you know, you're like brands, we see it oftentimes when they're just hunting, hunting, hunting for that viral moment and they lose their brand ethos in the process. And then that just dilutes, you know, your um efficacy with your audience when you're constantly hunting after that next trend. Um, so yeah, it's something that we see all the time. And like you say, like Rhode what she did with uh Beba Chella. Obviously, that was a massive cultural moment. Like we can't ignore that, like what like two the biggest brands in the world coming together. But still, like it wasn't in like a trending way. It was like in a really culturally nuanced way. Um, you know, what did you love about Bebachella?

SPEAKER_00 19:42

I think for me, it's like, I think your point being there is it's she's creating her own culture phenomenon, right? And I think that's what that's the big energy that people should be hunting for. It's not like, how we're not jumping on trends quick enough, which is the perpetual battle for all clients and agencies. You know, we need to be quicker, we need to be more agile, and there's loads of contention there. I think it's not there's definitely an element to that, and you know, people can always move faster, you can hire own social teams and move faster and jump on things. I think it's more like, what have you got to say? There's a lot of conversation, there's a lot of opinions right now in the space, in beauty, in brands, trying to chip in. What have you got this interesting to say? Like, Haley is a fabulous, her and her team, I'm sure it's not just her, bless her. Um, have got a fabulous team. And as much as, you know, she was just about to launch those blemish um spot things, the blemish stars, whatever they're called, um, and then she put them on her husband, then they were doing a set, it's all very smartly planned, and it's all part of her brand, but it's just that was just her marketing calendar, and then just became something that they did. So I think it's it's curating it a little bit and letting it happen. I think people have lost that a little bit. People are trying to force the moment too much. Just let it happen. That's not to say some trends aren't great. I've worked on some fab trends, like I worked on something for Dyson before with like Victoria's Secret, which was really fun. I think he's thinking of moments and how you can tap in. Like the Met Gala was interesting this year from makeup point of view. There's been a lot of decide divisive makeup discussion right now. Like, um, who's the cute kid from Heated Rivalry? Hudson Williams, like his crazy makeup that he did, that his artist did, which I had mixed feelings on. I'm not about to set up some massive um makeup debate about it, but it was divisive, you know? People were like, it's not good, it's messy, they could have done it this. Those people in reinterpreted it. It was an unintentional moment that happened that creators jumped on. I think that's the thing that you want, right? Um, same with like the Gucci Demna moment that they've just had in New York. Like the makeup was heavy, like heavy, heavy eye, heavy big lip. Um, and I think it's interesting to see makeup is causing a bit of a stir now and becoming its own little thing, which is fun.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Especially that Gucci came in, it was like summer or resort wear or something, like crazy, banging around Times Square. Iconic, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I love Gucci's doing amazing stuff. They're so back. Like, I love. Vintage brands that can be revived from somewhere. Like Dior is another one as well. I love what uh Jonathan Anderson is doing right now. It's so fresh, it's so modern, it's so cool compared to what was happening before, which was just, you know, just circling the drain. It's interesting to see bribes get uh brands get revived again.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

I mean Urban Decay.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

That too. I mean from us as well. Yeah, yeah. I'll always uh respect indies and what they're doing, but yeah, Urban's definitely one that we're doing that as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

That um puts us quite nicely at our next question. A lot of brands talk about being culture lit. What does that actually look like in practice when building social and influencer strategy?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

It's like I said before, it's not always looking at competitors. I've worked for brands that are obsessed with like being number one or always looking at competitors and looking at what other people are doing. And I think that's it's worthwhile looking at what you know your sister and your competitions are doing, but I think you lose focus on what you can do as a brand. Um, you know, if you're so focused over here, you forget what's over here. So for me, being culturally led is having a smart team as well. I think team is really important. Like if you've got quite an anachronistic team or a very young team, you'll miss out on some opportunities somewhere. You need a mixed team of like ages, demographic, point of view, just to build a wider picture of culture because culture is so many different things to different people. Um, and I've seen it with a few brands where they just get so obsessed with being cool, being culturally led, they forget their consumers entirely. Like it's all cool being culturally led. I love that. I'm very creative, dah, dah, dah, all that jazz. You go and make money, you know, we're all getting paid. We all need to get money. So, how are you selling? What's the end goal of that consumer? If your consumer isn't this cool bratty kid in the middle of nowhere or in like London or something like that, who are you speaking to? How are you speaking to, you know, the person in the Midlands who's a mum and just wants to use all nighter all the time? Like, how are you speaking to them in different ways is quite important as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

And like, there's so many people who use beauty across so many different age demographics, sex, race, you know, and like you have so many individual needs. And like the reality is that we're seeing such a shift with our beauty consumers. They are clued up, they're educated, like they know what ingredients works, and like they want brands to kind of meet them there at that really educated space. Like, gone are the days where you can just like bang out of a scar and just like, you know, flick it on on TikTok, you know, like people want to know why it works, which I think is, you know, going back to your tube job campaign, like you really got to get into the benefits and like sh give people a good reason why to buy.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Yeah, I think pro brand isn't enough anymore. I think whilst brand is brilliant, um I think it isn't enough. Like tube job is a fantastic launch. It was one of the first things I worked on as soon as I joined um the team as a new NPD. And I was like, wow, this is this is freaking sick. Like the effect of it, the length of the lashes, the components fab, the removal's great, like all the key touch points. It it showed consideration of the consumer, what they're after, what you're after in the market, and it was different enough. I think efficacy is a huge one in beauty. Brand will only get you so far, you won't buy it again. You know, I would buy tube job. This is I'm on like my third or fourth component myself, you know, because once you've bought it and you're obsessed with it, you will keep buying it. And we had that with All Night as well. You know, people love that formula. Redoing the formula was a bit of a risk for us, but you know, the people that have been enjoying it love it. So I think efficacy is a big one in our game. Skin is even harder. Like, I'm much more of a makeup head than I am a skin um obsessed person, but skin intellectuals are crazy. Like they know so much about skin. You really can't back in the day, people used to pull the wall over each other's eyes and like use terminology that they didn't understand. I love that whole ordinary campaign to that end. But I think it's, you know, brand because consumers are so savvy, there is a lot of brands out there. You really need to think about what's what's a great brand and who's doing cool stuff that actually works.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

And you know, we're seeing the rise of really educated creators as well: dermatologists, beauticians, makeup artists. There is such a space for those, like, you know, creators with those skilled credentials. And more often than not, that's who brands want to work with, and that's who audiences want to hear from. They are totally aligned. We're on to our quick fire questions. What is your favorite book or podcast that you'd recommend?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Favourite book. Um, I actually love the night and moth. It's a bit of a fantasy. I'm a book top girly. Have you read it? Yeah, yeah. Uh, one of my favorites, because I'm a romantic person, you know, I'm an Aries, so we're kind of hard on the outside, soft on the inside. Um, so love that. Podcasts that I love. I like um, they used to be called Day One Agency. I think they're called, they've got like their new thing is called like side side quest, side project, whatever they're called. They're amazing. Love them. They're out in the States. I've been following them for years. Um, well, since they've started really doing podcasts. Love them. Kind of like an American version of like an agency discussion discourse thing. But podcasts, I mean, you can throw a stone. There are a lot of them. There are a lot of them. So it's a fun one.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

So I mean in your one now.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

No, no, I like this one. This one's cute. This one's cute.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Um, what is the best piece of advice we've ever received?

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Ooh. Ooh. The power of ignoring. I think that's a really that's a really strong one. I think when I was agency side, um, and I think, you know, we all lose our patience. We all kind of, I'm a hothead by nature and passionate, and that's what drives my creative spirit. But I think sometimes there's a power of just ignoring a message. You don't have to, the way that we live and work now, everything's so instant. You have to get back to someone immediately. I think learning to let things breathe, letting your mind settle, letting mood settle is a good thing that I think we could all learn a little bit from. So the power of ignoring and just letting things sit for a minute was a great piece of advice. And shielding and shining as well. I've seen a lot of, you know, discourse around Gen Z and how challenging they can be to work with, which is somewhat valid. But I think it's also protecting them and helping, giving them tools to what that looks like. How be the boss that you wanted to see rather than just like delegating out and making their lives hell because your life was hell. How do you make their lives better and make your own self better? Is a good piece of ice.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Last quick fire because you are our certified glampa. What is your favourite beauty product?

SPEAKER_00 28:05

You know what? I'll always be an eyeshadow kid because I love to paint. Um, so I think the makeup by Mario, I know it's not an urban product. Um for urban, I would say tube job is probably my favourite product that we've done so far. The new ones coming out in July that I think are probably my second favourite. Um, but in terms of product that I love, I love an eyeshadow palette. So the makeup by Mario Master Matt's, I use that for my wedding. I've it's one of the only palettes I've rebought like two or three times because it's just so good. Like it's an artist palette for artists. That and the naked palette, I'll throw that in there as well.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Oh jee of OG.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yes, that's cute.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

I have loved our conversation, Kenith. Thank you so much for joining us on Connected Thinking.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Thank you.