The Ben Mulroney Show - The internet's favorite branding expert -- Camille Moore!

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

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This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Everything these days is branding. Everyone's got their own personal brand. And when I first heard this explosion,

everyone talking about themselves as a brand, I thought it was a little silly. But the more I hear this woman talk about, the more I realize she's probably, I know she's onto something, but she's not more onto something. She's at the tip of the sword. Please welcome to the show.

Camille Moore. She is the internet's favorite branding expert and she's on the podcast, the art of the brand. Camille, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to be here. I'm geeking out that we're next to Q107. I grew up to with this.

And just so everybody knows, as she wanted to go live on what on Instagram? I did. I tried. You tried. You tried. Okay, so explain that to me. Like why?

What does that do in terms of engaging? That's a good question. So one third of people on the internet are now consuming live content because we're so sick of over-polished, over-edited content, especially with how much AI has flooded the social feed. I know it happens all the time now. I send him half the stuff I send him is either outdated or it's not real. It's not real. So the thing with live is like people love almost you blundering, like pausing, having to think. And also it's actually like old school media.

You know, you used to have like sports net playing in the background and like you would tune in and you would tune out. It's the same thing with lives. You can just have something kind of going. Yeah. And it's definitely for a younger audience. But again, if you want to be ahead of the curve, you got to listen to art of the brand. So we're ahead of the curve. Well, I want people to listen to a little bit of your show.

If they haven't heard you before, this was your take on Lulu Lemon. Lulu Lemon has a new CEO, and this is going to be a hot take. So former Nike executive, Heidi O'Neill, that did over 25 years at Nike, is coming into Lulu Lemon, which is crazy considering she's being tied to one of the reasons why Nike stock is in the toilet. And she's being named in a securities lawsuit for misleading. the shareholders for saying that the direct-to-consumer strategy was an effective strategy when ultimately was not. I think Lou Lemon is committing brand Harry Curry by inviting the virus into their organization and calling it the cure. I think it'll go down as one of the stupidest appointments of the CEO in the history of any company that needs to reinvent itself.

And the stock plummeted the first day of this announcement. And we need to dig into why. So that was Phil Mila with you as well. Between the two of you, it's a shame you don't say what you really mean. Yeah. But I find it interesting. But I'd love for you to compare for me, them hiring the Nike woman and the stock going down. And then when, what happened? Starbucks hired the Chipotle CEO. And he got a huge signing bonus or a huge salary like $250 million, which was more than made up for in how the explosion in the stock overnight.

Yeah. So why one goes, why does one go down the air goes up? this is like literally like I like I think Lou Lemon is like trying to sabotage itself like it makes no sense yeah so Nike who is in is in one of the worst positions one of the greatest brands of all time has ever been in they're in a massive crisis during COVID they pulled out of their like foot lockers yeah and they went into direct to consumer retail but because they didn't do like they took out their position so it's complicated is so many people ambiently buy Nike from these like shoe retailers. Like you don't think about only going to a

Nike store. You think about going to foot locker in the mall. So instead of straddling both, like going into like direct to consumer retail and maintaining a position, they pulled out and only went into Nike stores. Yeah. Yeah. And it like crushed them because people didn't know where to buy the product and they forgot about Nike as Hoka and On are coming into the market. We're way cooler shoes. Anyways, so she's tied to like This strategy of absolutely tanking the company. And then on top of it, there's a securities class action lawsuit of her allegedly, with knowledge that it wasn't working, telling the shareholders, everything's great, guys. Like, we're ahead of the curve.

Like, shit's going to pop off. And so she's tied in the securities lawsuit to, like, ruining the brand and then lying about it, or misleading, rather, let me use proper language here. And Lulu Lemon, which is in like a disastrous position, nobody knows the brand, nobody knows what's going on. This is who you bring in to save the day. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. So that's why it's Tyken. Okay. So explain to me because, look, Nike is, it's a brand that everybody has access to, right? It's, you know, you'll see it in every demographic as a Nike stuff. But is it supposed to be aspirational? It was. It was.

It was. So when you wore it, it's because you wanted to be, you aspire. Like Mike. You wanted to be like Mike. So aspirational doesn't necessarily mean the most expensive thing. Well, okay. So really interesting. Branding is, it's one of my favorite questions on the show.

Whenever we have guests come on, I ask the last question of the episode is, what is a brand to you? Yeah. And we've interviewed some of the most prolific people in marketing and advertising. And the answer has never been to the same. twice. And it's because brand is such a massive spectrum. You have a brand, you have a good brand, and you have a great brand. I've kind of created these three levels of a brand. And people talk about brand in a vacuum. So Nike is so ubiquitous because it's been, it was, it really came

during a time of when branding became identity, right? Like that transition between really like, obviously they're much older than the Michael Jordan era. But that Michael Jordan era, it's like when you could show your values of like, this is who I want to be. with and Nike piloted that. So Nike can go back to that, but the problem is that these huge brands, it's often brand death by a thousand cuts. They make so many small decisions that over time you don't outright insult the customer until you do that ad for the Boston Marathon that they did two weeks ago. It's often more like a Lou Lemon experience where slowly over time, you start forgetting about the brand because you go in and it's got too many skews and you don't know what

it means anymore. It doesn't have that ethos of what made it once great. So Nike could be great again. But it's it's now, it's operating as too big of a hydro monster with too many cooks in the kitchen that are too afraid of risk. I actually was just flown to Nike to teach them on a rural building. And it was such a fantastic opportunity because they gave me a full tour of the campus. I got to see the original logo. It was crazy. But they're, they need to get, I actually, my leaving point to them was, you guys have to start thinking again like you're a small business. And like they've just gotten too big. So I think that it doesn't, the aspirational of the language that Nike represents,

it's touched enough people. And I think that's why the Lulmon video struck such a chord. And it's whenever we do a video on Lulmin or Nike or Allo or Sifora, we want these big brands to be great. We don't want them to suck. But they're all starting to suck. See, I've actually become less slavishly devoted to brands as I get older. And I think it has a, I mean, for me it's simpler.

It's simpler to just go black. T-shirt. You're Steve Jobs, man. Yeah, it's easier. But also, I think my kids don't care about brands the way I did. Because one of the reasons is I signed up for YouTube premium. So they don't see ads when they watch YouTube. And that's what they consume mostly.

And I don't know what they're watching on TikTok. But my son's, I mean, there's a few things that they like. But when it comes to food at the grocery store, I go grocery shopping, they don't ask for particular brands. Like they don't say, and they don't care, which is weird. When I was a kid, I saw. other commercials for cocoa puffs. They don't have that.

They don't, they don't, they're not genetically. They're not asking for Starbucks? My daughter wanted the refreshers and then I saw how much sugar was in it. So that, that lasted two days. Starbucks and Sephora has gone to the kids. Yeah. They're obsessed with that. But you're not wrong on the grocery front.

I mean, like, we don't have monoculture anymore. We don't have commercials that can buy your time. Like, that's why socials and like larger than that is so powerful. It's why I've got the best job in the world because everyone's fighting for attention and it's never been harder to get. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, uh, it's, uh, that's why, what, that's what we do on this show at the time.

That's what I'm screaming so much on my show. I wanted, when we come back, we're going to take a break in a minute, but, um, I want to, I want to get to know you a little bit more. Okay. And then I want to ask you about a couple of ideas on, like, how certain things should rebrand. Ooh. Yeah, because there's, there's, there's some things out there that may be a little tired or there or there might be an opportunity.

Maybe there might be a person in there as well. Uh, but there's, uh, but there's, this is, and I want to talk to you about, you know, because the gap apparently is doing better again. Crushing. I know. A billion dollars in profit. I was told they were DOA.

You thought. Yeah. But the thing that's crazy is that the reason is because they've just been crushing it on collapse. Okay. And like across the spectrum from like girl pop groups to Victoria Beckham. Really? And it's because it's just such high velocity.

But the thing is, though, is it took time. Yeah. And that's what makes it branding, not marketing, is that it took 16 months to really see the success. I can tell this is going to be one of those conversations I wish we had an hour for. Mike Drillet, pay attention. I'm calling it now. Don't call me out on air, man.

You do it to me all the time. Hey, all right, we're going to take... Well, deserve. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, the internet's favorite branding expert, Camille Morris sticks around. This is the Ben Mulrenu show. Twizzlers keep the fun going.

Yeah, I know. I just stopped whatever you were listening to to tell you that Twizzlers keep the fun going. Well, irony isn't my forte, but twisty, chewy, yummy Twizzlers sure is. So think of Twizzlers as a little palate cleanser for whatever's queued up, which, by the way, should be coming very soon. Like any second now. Okay, Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going. Puck drops, tip-offs, first pitches, kickoffs. When the game is on, you call the shots. Head to betway.com.ca and bet your way. Must be 19 plus. Ontario only. Play responsibly. Concerned about your gambling, visit connectsontario.com. Welcome back. And we're in

conversation with Camille Moore. Camille, how did you become the internet's favorite branding expert? Well, it's a really good, long story. I'll give you the spark notes from it. I grew up in very humble beginnings. My mom is a Canada post worker. She's been there her whole life. And I had to pay my way to go to school. And I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. And when I, was I got myself an internship because I didn't want to go in debt for a career that I wasn't sure that I would love. And I actually interned at Phillips Law Firm. Really? Yeah.

Really? And as I was interning at the law firm, I realized that he gave me such a great opportunity to intern and learn the law. But I was at the time actually doing a computer science course as my elective in my undergrad. And I redid his logo and I started doing his social graphics because I hated the law. And it was the best thing I ever did. And anyone listening, I would recommend your kids get an internship before they spend time in school, especially with where school is today. And he sat me down one day and he said, don't get into law, get into marketing because my phones are ringing off the hook. This was like 13, 14 years ago before marketing for businesses was a big thing.

And all I asked was like, can I be successful doing this? Because all I wanted to do was like, I wanted to be the first person in my family. They'd be university educated and to like make a difference. And the other part to this too is because I grew up poor, I realized young that if I bought brands, people wouldn't ask me questions. So like I started at 14 wearing, I had a coach bag and I had a bench jacket and I had brands that nobody asked me if I was from Scarbrokes. I went to school downtown Toronto. So I realized the power of branding and marketing young. And basically when he helped me incorporate third eye insights in my undergrad, the rest is history.

So it's been 10 years next year. And I started creating content somewhere along the way. when COVID hit, I was, I had a mortgage at that point because I got a place downtown Toronto and I had employees and I was in my early 20s and I was really stressed out because at the time the banks were like, we're not going to help you. And I was self-employed. I ran this business and people started pulling out on their contracts. And I said during that time period, I was like, I could get rid of my house and move home and just like coast or I'd, I can use this as an opportunity to make sure that nobody beats me. And I took that time and I read

every single business book, every case study, every founder's story. Because I take in English at Western so I could synthesize information really well. And I said, I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I sure as hell will be the most well read. And that's why the content does so well, because I've outread probably anyone that wants to go toe with me. That's the pro tip, huh? Yeah. That's the pro tip. The pro tip is do the work. Do the work. Yeah. Isn't that a crazy concept? say that all the time when I used to do red carpets, right? I was, the fight was between, hey, we want to keep it loose, or do we want to over-rehearse?

And I was like, I don't want to over-rehears, but you have to prep. You've got to do the prep work. To make a great interview. So that you can improvise on, but you have to know what you're doing first, right? If you want to think on your feet, you have to know how to stand. Yeah. All right. So I wanted to play a game with you.

I want to talk about rebranding something that, you know, might need a little spit and polish. All right. Okay, so let's start. Let's start with Spirit Airlines. In receivership right now, it's in the American airline, in receivership. And for reasons of social media, it is having a moment because this one guy is trying to, is trying to, wants to see if the public can buy it. And I think he's gotten up to like $30 million in interest from people on a GoFundMe.

And now the unions are involved. And he's, he's posting every single day. You have to. Yeah, meeting with the unions. They like the idea. Now it's getting to the point where it went from a kind of a joke to something real. And people are sending him videos asking to be his CEO and all this stuff. And so it's having a moment.

So what do you do with a moment like that? Well, I mean, the whole thing is you want to create a moment, right? So like you want to create buzz because anywhere that spirit is going to go, it now has like lift and market, which is amazing. I mean, that would be such a cool story because that really hasn't happened before, which would be a cool first. and it shows you how much the power of media has shifted to these people who are like effectively air quotes,

nobody's compared to like OG celebrities that used to be what the world turned around with, right? But not only that, he said he's not going to do any traditional media. He's a New York Times where he said, he doesn't talk to anybody, he's doing it all through social media. But what I find interesting is people hate Spirit Airlines, but they love the potential of what it could become because of this guy. People love an underdog.

Yeah. Like people want, and I think that's the thing that's the craziest to kind of segue from it is the biggest trend right now is building in public. Yeah. Because people want to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. They want episodic content. They want to follow along with this journey. They want to tune in every day.

Oh, you know what? You're right. I see that all the time. I quit my job and I want a 22-year-old trying to build the first Canadian protein company. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's because we, it's like social media. is what TV was.

Yeah. But it's different. And that's why this concept is so fascinating is you want to tune in every day to hear the updates. Midday squares did that. Midday squares did that. Oh my God.

And Jake's a great friend. I went to Western with him and they crushed it. Yeah. So is Sammy News rep and Medellee and I interviewed him in the show and Hot Girl Pickles. And like they're because this Gen Z mindset doesn't get anxiety over picking up their phone and like and talking about things. And actually before we move on.

the biggest thing that people gets tripped up on is they think it has to be polished and perfect. And in fact, it's the opposite. People want the highlights and they want the low moments. They want you to talk about everything that's going on. And that's why they're avoiding traditional media because traditional media wants to sanitize it and it takes too long to get out. So you need to lean into episodic content. I hope that this turns around. I actually hope Elon by spirit.

I think it'd be awesome for them to bring back the Concord concept, express air travel. I think everything Elon touches is brilliant and it's about time that air travel got a refresh. Okay. Well, what about does X need a refresh? Absolutely. Okay. Because you know why? Still to this day, people when they're like on panels, when they're talking, they're like

X, aka Twitter, formerly known as Twitter. So when you are this long in market and people are still needing to do those reps, it shows you have a brand problem. I think it's the one area of weakness that he really needs to go back because Twitter, has been changed, has been transformed. And honestly, Elon, like, I would pilot that for you. If anyone wants to flip this over to the E-man. What about that? What about Sifora? Because you said it's now gone to the little girls. Sephora has gone to the kids. Okay, so actually, I've got a really interesting insight. I was at a Sephora then I got to speak to the executive team.

And I said to them, I was like, ladies, and this is the thing is all of the Sephora execs are moms. Like, literally moms. And I'm looking at them and it was kind of crazy to see kind of, the faces behind the monster because it's easy when you're in a podcast setting to be like you're the worst you're selling to kids what's going on and i spoke to them and i said hey like what's the plan here because every adult that i talk to is so overwhelmed by the candy that is now sephora like it's jam-packed it's so inundated it's for the kids and they're like well the problem is is that lisenza girl shut down yeah justice shut down limited to shut down clares has declared bankruptcy, all of these places that were designed for kids have left the market. So now

there's this gap that isn't being filled and kids always wanted to be like the older kids. And the older kids want to be like the older kids. And because of social media and YouTube, they're watching these young girls do makeup routines. And that's what they want. So it's problematic because there's a brand problem of once you start, once you stop servicing who your original brand customer was, it's that brand death by a thousand cuts. It's not a they're doing they're killing it right now they're super successful but where will it be in three years where will it be in five years so what do they have to do they have to come up with like a sephora kids i think that they should create a separate brand that's called sephora kids i actually

think it should be sephora kids because lulu lemon tried a kid's company under a different name it didn't work and it should be sephora kids and it should be brands like sincerely yours which is owned by salish matter she is like the most like famous kid she's like 16 and her skincare line fills that gap and there's other brands like rennie who i also deeply respect owned by shay mitchell like it's and i think that if it was more focused on being truly clean there's a lot of moms that are struggling that like don't want to give makeup to their children but like who wants to be the mom that's like yeah when you've got your kid asking every day 20 times a day and Starbucks has the same issue too it's gone to the kids oh gosh the the the order that i had to my when for those two days

when I got her the refresher, I had to pull it, I had to pull it out of my phone because it was, like, it's unbelievable how much, like, but it's also crazy how, like, much with social media, they've, like, so advanced. All right, do you remember the unicorn,

the unicorn, the unicorn, are we, oh, we're done. Oh, look at that. I've got to go now. I didn't know that. The unicorn. The Starbucks drink that was all over social media,

like three, four years ago. That was that, once that happened, and I was like, this will be back. This will be back. And I hope you come back, Camille. I hope so, too. Thank you.

There's Camille Moore. and the internet's favorite branding expert. Seriously, I love this. Please come back another time. We'd love to. All right.