Daily Horoscope 6/22/18

June 22, 2018—The fiery energy of the day is helping you press on with projects you have in the works. Set things in motion now, Leo. Move out of the background and onto center stage. Your rocket is fueled and ready to take off. All you have to do now is ignite the engine. Use the power of your emotions to deliver a boost that will propel you to the stars.

            Today started with the session Redefining Miss America in the Age of #MeToo, hosted by Y&R London. The session got into how the advertising firm Y&R is helping rebrand and restructure Miss America by ending the swimsuit competition and making many other changes to keep up with the modern times, while also making sure the integrity of tradition is maintained. The two speakers both emphasized how the pageant is a scholarship pageant and how it is more about the substance of the being of the women participating, rather than the physical attributes of the candidates. This, to me, begged the question, of how will Miss America and Y&R find a way to quantify “beauty” in order for it to be fair to all the participants of the pageant? Also, I wish they had done more emphasis on the kind of benefits of outreach that Miss America creates for future winners of the pageant because there was not much depth or insight into how the winners will better society.

            The next session, The Strange Power of Confidence, hosted by SunTrust and StrawberryFrog was all about how to help people find confidence in themselves to create work and content that reflected belief in themselves and the brands they are working for. They emphasized that there are three steps to finding confidence: 1. Knowing what matter most to you 2. Getting educated by using the tools that are out there and 3.  Forgetting shame and pride and leaning on a friend. The most interesting idea I learned from this session is “movements > advertising.” I find this really important with the climate that advertising has at the moment of creating social phenomenons to gain audience attention, rather than just another normal campaign trying to sell a product. From this session, I wish there had been more emphasis on how the importance of confidence has translated into the work of the speakers, and how advertising plays into the that confidence. I, also, wanted to know if maybe a lack of confidence is also good as well as a way to build perspective between great, good, fine, and bad work. 

            After this session, I stayed for the Sir Martin Sorrell in Conversation with Ken Auletta session, hosted by Sir Martin Sorrell, and it was the most uncomfortable session I went to amongst all the session I attended throughout the festival. The elephant in the room of Sorrell’s recent exit from WPP was on the minds of everyone in the audience, and Sorrell would not give any direct or significant answers of his indiscretions. 

            As an attempt to cleanse myself from the Sorrell session, I, then, attended the Can We Redefine Femininity with Creativity?session, hosted by Covergirl and Droga5. The panel discussed the juxtaposition between femininity and wanting to feel beautiful, specifically with the usage of makeup; they also discussed the rebranding of Covergirl to truly align with society. The SVP of Covergirl said, “When I look at ads, I want to see my version of beautiful that looks like me, so I can know I’m beautiful too.” From this, the integration of societal movement of geographical, age, racial, vocational, and gender inclusion into the core of the brand has really made Covergirl a more “every person” kind of brand. Something I wish the panel had covered is how Covergirl ends up deciding the representatives for their brand to go along with their message, because the faces of Covergirl are the most integral part of the brand. I, also, would have liked to have seen more of a discussion of why Covergirl encourages femininity over overall expression of self because there are “Coverboys” who also represent the brand, and the fact that they wear makeup does not technically make them feminine. 

            My last session of the day and festival, Parkland Survivors: The Real and Raw Power of Conviction, hosted by Insider Inc., was an incredibly powerful and call-to action panel. Something I thought was very interesting about this session compared to the rest of the session I went to all week was that no one had any technology out: no phones, no laptops, no cameras, no nothing. Not only were the speakers so compelling that the audience wanted to grasp every word, it also almost seemed disrespectful to be distracted from hearing their stories,making it an incredible note to end the festival on.

Stargazing (Commercial Critique 3)

The McCain Commercial, We Are Family,begins with a question, “When it comes to family, what is normal?” By starting the commercial off with such a rhetorical and open-ended query, it opens up with just as many answers as you would assume. The commercial flips from families with different races, different parental situations, and different definitions of what families can mean. In a genius yet simplistic manner, this variety of family structure creates a parallel to the different varieties and structures of different potato products McCain has to offer. This usage of hitting on the inclusion of families of all kinds reaches audiences that may not have been reached if a singular, generic, nuclear family were to have been featured because it allows acceptance to all in peoples’ definition of “family,” making it incredibly effective. In addition, this ad is effective in this kind of social climate when although “family” defines so many kinds of social constructs, the togetherness and unity that dinner creates, specifically with McCain products, provides an intuitive yet subliminal commentary on the time that we are living in at the moment. One way I would improve this commercial is by maybe cutting down on the amount of different varieties of what family means and focusing a little more on providing a story of each family’s connection with how dinnertime allows unity. Also, I think the lighting kind of made the tone of the commercial unnecessarily gloomy when the copyrighting was incredibly uplifting and unifying, so I think production factors such as that should have been considered more in creating a form follows function. 

Daily Horoscope 6/21/18

June 21, 2018—The kind of energy and excitement the stars are sending your way is likely to have you feeling totally connected, full of life and raring to go. It’s also likely that you’ll have other people taking plenty of notice of you—the positive, admiring kind. And if you shed the inhibition that’s got you feeling a little bit confined, well, you’ll just turn up the volume up on all of it. When almost anything goes, almost anything can happen!

Day four: another day, another pain au chocolate, and another morning starting with huffing and puffing after sprinting for the temperamental train. I started my day at the festival with the talk with Jason Kreher, UGA alumni and Creative Director of Wieden + Kennedy, who provided insight into the ups and down of the creative world of advertising. I, then, went to the session, What Creativity Can Do, hosted by Google, which explored how Google has transformed itself into a technologically focused company into a human-experience. I think the tone of the session was set when the speakers said, “the best search results are from people’s lives,” which I think is the message of the whole festival of trusting personalization is the new wave of advertising. They showed how Google has taken initiatives in helping the Syrian refugee crisis as well as the Grecian bankruptcy situation, but what I wish they had further explained is how they found certain world issues more important than others to put emphasis on and aid as well as how their creative advertisements of their services impact future. However, I do appreciate the insight that Google provided that “Creatives can invent the future” because the invention of these technologies and outreaches allow further exposure by audiences, giving more availability for moving forward into the future productivity.

The next session I attended was Hollywood Meets Madison Ave: Does This Ever Work?, hosted by Blk-Ops. This session was all about how stars and talent from Hollywood in the film industry can impact advertising world for the better in perspective and creativity; Common, the hip-hop star and actor as well as two Hollywood producers discussed their involvement with Microsoft in providing new commercial content. Something, right off the bat, that I noticed that the session did not cover is how the collaboration of Common, the producers, and Microsoft came to fruition, especially because all the speakers put emphasis on the trust and respect they all had for each other in the collaboration. I think one of the most important points of the talk that resonates with the notion of the whole festival is the idea that Microsoft has pulled away from talking about the “things” they can provide; they, rather, focus on how these provides “things” are impactful for society for real people. Something I heard and noticed that was to Microsoft’s detriment is that of verbal comparison to Apple in the sense that they acknowledged their need to measure up to Apple, their competition. This idea of competition was quite a juxtaposition from the overall message of “collaboration” and “empowerment” that they were attempting to bring across.

      The third session I attended, The ‘Fearless’ Interview with Tommy Hilfiger’s Avery Baker, hosted by The Lookinglass and Tommy Hilfiger was probably the most disappointing session of the festival for me thus far. The description of it being a lesson in Tommy Hilfiger brands’ pioneering in disruption was just not what was presented in the session. Instead, I saw more of a marketing ploy of the same iteration—in a more boring way—of how brand authenticity and social understanding is integral in the brands’ new “disruptive” plans. I wanted to know why the company even needed a cultural remodeling for disruption as well as why
Hilfiger’s new business model will continue to thrive for the next five-ten years. However, from an empowerment perspective, I thought Baker’s personal story of moving from Swatch to becoming the CBO of Tommy Hilfiger is what shone from the mediocre presentation.

Finally, I ended the day with the session called Alpha Audience: Finding the World’s Most Receptive Audiences, hosted by Live Nation, which explored whether live performance is still socially and emotionally relevant in the upcoming generation. The global president of Live Nation explained their new studies in biometrics to measure the emotional discrepancy between live and digital performances, in which the live performances trumped the metrics for digital metrics every time in every emotional capacity; this was tested by measuring sweating rates, heart rates, and brain stimulation. I think the session did an incredible job showing the digression from digital-focused back into the physical presence of live shows, because shows allow a range of human emotion and transcendence from every kind of stress. What I was curious about from this session was the comment by the global president that “the best brand managers are artists”—why? Is it their ability to curate as well as create a vision? Or is it just because they are able to understand emotion as a means to connect with an audience? All in all, however, this session was incredibly impactful, for me, as a person who is genuinely curious in how to connect human emotion in a non-manufactured way into the content of brands.

Understand my Universe

Hi there! My name is Anna Gardner. I am a person who is incredibly proficient in playing Hot Cross Buns on the recorder as well as sniffing out where the nearest pain au chocolat is located. I am an upcoming third year at the University of Georgia, studying Advertising with a minor in Fashion Merchandising and Theatre. On here, I will document a curation of my experience at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, and I will avoid pretentiously using the word “curation” from this point forward on this blog because, although I wish I was, I am not Gwyneth Paltrow. Anyways, please enjoy my totally unqualified perspective on the most innovative and groundbreaking advertising festival in the world!

Stargazing (Commercial Critique 2)

The Google Pixel 2 Commercial, Ask More for Your Phone, flips the script on the normal technology advertisement of “this product can do this for you,” and, instead, has the actors in the advertisement ask what the product can do for them. The actors ask questions like “can it tell me if I need an umbrella?” and “can it take a selfie just by telling it to take a selfie?” in which the narrator answers yes to all the capabilities. The people presented in the commercial are people of all ages, races, genders, and geographical locations, giving an expert reach of mass target audience in an incredibly specified way, which made the ad incredibly effective right off the bat. Because Google was fitting in so many characters and technological possibilities within the commercial, there is a fast-paced and dynamic tempo that the ad maintains, keeping the audience engaged and curious for the next feature the Google Pixel has to offer. In addition, this ad is effective in its subliminal attacks on phones such as the iPhone in which the Google Pixel claims to not have storage limitations, unlike the iPhone, and it can get wet without damage, also unlike the iPhone. One way I would improve this commercial is by cutting down on the excessive actors in the commercial that do not answer the true capabilities of the Google Pixel, such as “Can it order me a sandwich? And another one?” The commercial is already long at just before two minutes, so I think the attention span would be kept if some of the fluff had been lessened. Also, I think it still needed to speak to the capabilities that are carrying over from the first phone such as music storage potential and app integration into the innovation of the phone. This way, the audience knows that the product, although innovative, is still solidified in its ability to perform simple tasks.

Daily Horoscope 6/20/18

June 20, 2018—Your calm will be put to the test today, Leo. Try not to fall into this trap. You should try to show people that you’re a thoughtful person and your past experiences have given you wisdom. You don’t necessarily have to respond to aggression. However, you shouldn’t forget about your own point of view. Try assert yourself calmly and steadily.

My third day of the Cannes Lions Festival started with a Coca-Cola and a pain au chocolat, waking me up for my first session of the day, Fashion as a Cultural Influence, hosted by Naomi Campbell and Tania Bryer. Naomi Campbell, supermodel, explained how her role in advertising for print and walking in fashion shows has changed to advertising for herself, an influencer. Her whole point of the talk was to exhibit her philanthropic efforts which she has been a part of since the beginning of her career which now associate her brand with being an authentic person. Her whole point was using your platform as a brand with a social cause to create a more authentic, trustworthy, and transparent brand. What I wish Campbell went more into that she barely dusted over was her impact on diversity, specifically in the fashion industry, and how creating diversity in such a monetarily and socially prominent landscape creates a domino effect onto society itself. Her message of how her own brand of herself is specifically philanthropic with all her different involvements, but I did not see how she—as well as the industry—utilized their power for the betterment of social issues such as diversity, poverty, lack of education, and so on. However, I found it interesting that she continued to go back to the importance of using new photographers and modeling for designers before they got famous, to continue to give back to the creative internal society of the fashion world. 

After this session, I had an incredible and random run-in with a woman from Ascential, the company that helps put on the Cannes Lions Festival, while waiting in the Lumiére stage. We bonded over fashion, and at the end of the conversation, she revealed her position and willing Linked with me on LinkedIn. Needless to say, I did not think my day could have gotten better. However, the next talk I went to, Reimagining the Retail Experience, hosted by
Apple was the most intriguing talk I have been to thus far. Angela Ahrendts, the SVP of Retail at Apple, described Today at Apple which is Apple’s initiative in stores to create a “Town Hall Experience” where it is the apex point of a city and people can come and learn and be inspired there. She points this new retail idea as an direct reaction of Steve Job’s emphasis on the Geniuses in stores to not be able to sell, rather enrich lives. Apple is now moving their quantitative measurements to measurements of how well they enrich lives of others. This is something I wish Ahrendts went into more detail with because how do you quantify a purely qualitative measure of data? However, I think her insight into the idea that “retail is dying” was one of incredible logic. She recognized that digital is growing and 75% of shoppingis done online, but 75% of the buyingis still in stores. What I think is incredible is how Apple is creating a seemingly experiential experience in a native environment, creating a subliminal intrigue to these Apple stores. My only critique on this almost perfect session was that I wish Ahrendts had gone more into all the creative opportunities that Apple is using these new retail stores for outreach. What kind of classes are being taught and how do these classes and facilitations help with the brand of Apple?

My next session I went to was Finding Film in Fact, Fiction, and Feeling, hosted by Pulse Films, which was an incredible session from a non-advertising perspective, but I was even more inspired by the next session I went to: Conan and Shaq—Jacks of All Trades, Masters of Some, hosted by Turner. Honestly, Shaq did not add much to the conversation of how he views his own brand and expands it, but Conan had some great insights from personal conversation. Although he is a comedian first and foremost, he has to act as a kind of influencer and person of substantial social persuasion in order to stay relevant. He talked about his personal experiences of incorporating movies like Get Hard 2 into his “driving instructor” bit as well as his travel pieces of learning about different cultures with a humorous spin on it. Something I was still left wondering was how Conan and his team chooses certain brand and entertainment promotions and how they know they are right for the “Conan” brand. I also would love to know how much of the content that goes on Conan’s different social media platforms is prompted by endorsements or brands, just to see how well Conan’s brand creates these subliminal promotions.

The last session I went to was called Johnny Marr: A Life in Music, hosted by ATC Management. This whole session was based on how Marr, former guitarist of The Smiths and Modest Mouse, uses his creativity to make his art. What I found most interesting from this session is what he defined as “good” in any creative field. Using Hey Ya! by OutKast as an example, he said that although the song lacks in emotion and great content, it still makes you feel something, which makes it great. I found this impactful because advertising is the same way. Although much of the winning advertisements that we see are rooted in making a heartfelt or heart-wrenching creation, some of them are great because the audience was entertained and laughed. On the other hand, I wish Marr had gone more into how he has built his and maintained his own brand and identity aside from his connection to the bands he has been a part of. Also, he put much emphasis on how he was still unsure how he tries to not define his brand, as a way to keep his audience wide, which I just did not agree with his logic. I think in order to have a true brand, stances have to be taken to maintain and engage an audience long-term. 

Finally, my day ended in the most random yet magical way. I was eyeing the food I had just received from CNN, and a woman across from the bar asked me if it was any good and a conversation spurred. She asked me about my goals in advertising, and I told her my “dream dream” is doing in-house advertising in strategy for a fashion brand, in which she, in return, revealed to me that she is a digital strategist for Burberry. Then, I went to the awards ceremony and got to see incredible talent, and strut on the red carpet (where the Leo, center of attention part of me thrived). All I can say is Cannes is a magical, unreal place that is actually an augmented reality, and we are all playing a part in the simulation.

Daily Horoscope 6/19/18

June 19, 2018—Modesty definitely becomes you right now. You’re putting aside a kind of rewards you could be angling for—whether at work, in a relationship, or in another area—and you’re simply operating on the strength of your desire to do the right thing. The goodwill you’re creating is reflected in everything around you, making your world both calm and bright. The bonus is that your karma is getting better by the minute.

My second day of the Cannes Lions Festival started with the session called F**k-Ups. The Mother of Reinvention, hosted by Untitled Worldwide. The talk was based around Jimmy Choo’s co-founder Tamara Mellon, who was fired from Vogue, and how this failure catalyzed her into creating Jimmy Choo. What I found most intriguing from her talk was the discussion of the fashion industry being incredibly archaic and having to catch up with consumers’ need for instant gratification, in relation to e-commerce. Because the fashion industry does the fashion shows and exhibitions which, in a sense, creates a “look but can’t touch” dynamic. However, her recognizing this need for the movement from the archaic way of fashion allowed Jimmy Choo to rebuild itself when it was going down a money-pit of sorts. The biggest idea I got from this talk, however, was the idea of test-failure-retest-failure-retest-success. Mellon recognized that data gives much insight, but you can never truly predict how markets can react to brands’ decisions and new products. A topic I wish Mellon had gotten more into is how she felt that advertising of her own self and product caused failure, and how she has recovered from it, in reference to her return from rehab.

The next session of the day, Is Technology the Downfall or Savior of Creativity, hosted by Samsug and Cheil created an interesting vision into the fourth industrial revolution of how big data and artificial intelligence are changing everything. This movement into the “one-person marketer,” meaning that anyone can be an artist, designer, filmmaker, or any other creative type if given the right technology provided great understanding into how technology allows for improving not only self but also improving the world. The three mega trends of technology: personal empowerment, people demanding brand to take a stand, and people seeing technology as a force for good. I really appreciated this talk because it took the common theme that I have been seeing in every session of the festival of “social empowerment” by brands to better the world, while also taking it a step forward. This is because Samsung showed how technology has now made it that there is infinite room to create and innovate because it will only continue to become more available and advanced. My only issue with this session is that I wish Samsung expanded more on why technology could be considered the downfall of creativity in any capacity.

After this session, I saw the Fame or Fail? Promoting, Protecting, and Entertaining in Untrusted Times, hosted by Edelman, which featured the actress Ellen Pompeo and Richard Edelman from the PR firm Edelman. They provided a professionally dichotomous, yet culturally coinciding perspective of the importance of creating an authentic brand with emphasis on true, authentic societal missions. The talk cited companies such as Starbucks and Heineken as examples of how to maintain transparency and recognition of the “uncomfortable” when it comes to company social mistakes, which brought Pompeo to the standpoint of celebrities and influencers. Pompeo also discussed how the line between celebrity and influencer is slowly deteriorating because there is an emphasis of creating conversations and breaking down walls of celebrities to make them more “influencer-like,” so transparency and authenticity in their brands are more important than ever. All in all, I think this was a wonderful talk about how to better brand culture and acceptance; however, I do wish that Edelman provided more tangible examples of how this has been and can be applied in the advertising and PR world.

What Matters Next, hosted by YouTube is the next talk I was at, and it explored, similar to the theme of most of the talks of the festival, the importance of openness and transparency. YouTube paired with L’Oréal to discuss the importance of YouTube, specifically in the beauty world to allow access of content in a more accessible way. Because both brands’ missions are focused on embracing diversity and self-expression, whether it be by tutorials, how-to’s, or just simply sharing content, it was incredible to understand how they collaborate to provide audiences with exactly what they want. I thought their solution to how to hack this exactness of audience was beautifully simple: just figure out what people are searching, literally just listen to the consumer. From this, the only aspect of the talk that I would have like to explore more is how YouTube and L’Oréal have created such an inbred and seemingly native kind of advertising and what it will look like in its evolution in years to come.

To finish off my day, I went to the Inside the Jury for Pharma, which was incredibly interesting to truly see inside the minds of the jurors. What made this talk even more incredible was being able to listen to the Jury President from FCB and then get to hear him speak about his own journey into advertising, specifically pharma advertising. It truly made me rethink my anxiety that I will forever be stuck in one kind of advertising once I enter the workforce.

Stargazing (Commercial Critique 1)

The Windex Commercial, Windex: The Story of Lucy, shows a progression of a connection between a father and daughter as well as a physical evolution from the day the daughter is born until the day his daughter has her first child. This shows how windows and mirrors constantly are between the father and daughter, yet this distance unites them to be even stronger. The ad then ends with the slogan, “What’s Between Us Connects Us.” Although the commercial could have been for any kind of product due to the advertisement’s focus on emotion rather than tangible product, the ad was effective in the sense that I felt like I, myself, wanted to keep everything in my life as clear in memory as the glass throughout the ad. For instance, the ad features a the young girl looking through a clear, clean telescope, then into a mirror, and, in the end, through a hospital window holding her daughter, showing her father. The usage of using the father-daughter experience from the beginning of childhood, through adolescence, into adulthood made for a relatable and well-rounded audience reach that connected to people at every phase of life, showing Windex’s continued and archetypal usage. In addition, the treatment of the daughter as a seemingly gender-neutral child, showing her interest in astronomy and progression of height throughout childhood are not gender-specific qualities, which I applaud. In addition, I think the full-circledness of the ad made for a trusting message in the sense that it is a passed-down product that encompasses usefulness at every generation. One way I would improve this commercial by making it shorter because the message of the product gets lost after two minutes, especially because I could not tell what product the ad was for until the last few seconds. Also, I would find a different song to play throughout the clips of the ad to show how dynamic both the relationship of the father and daughter is as well as how dynamic the physical life changes shown in the story are. 

Daily Horoscope 6/18/18

June 18, 2018—Enthusiasm and energy will be your allies today, Leo. Something different is in the air and inciting you to move forward. You will make decisions and go in new directions for your owngood and for the good of the people aroundnd you. Your dynamism will have a beneficial impact on your family. This newfound strength will give you a great boost. 

My first day of the Cannes Lions Festival started with the session called Technology is at the Heart of Beauty, hosted by L’Oréal at 11:00 am. The session discussed how L’Oréal acquired its first ever tech company Modiface, which they are utilizing to create an artificial intelligence experience that allows consumers to view certain makeup look and trends on their face through their smartphone and smart mirrors. L’Oréal actually gave an exclusive look of their new technology coming out of a facetime-like tool that will allow consumers to consult with L’Oréal makeup consultants to figure out what looks look best on them as well as what products to use. The biggest idea that came out of this session was the movement towards transformation and acceleration, with digitalization at the core of everything; although L’Oréal was created 110 years ago, they still continue to be a leading innovator not only in the beauty industry, but also the overall e-commerce network. I appreciated how L’Oréal emphasized the continued idea of personalization, which leads to diversification and inclusion which is the biggest social movement in advertising at the moment. The only talking point I wished L’Oréal had expanded on is how this usage of AI creates a seamless way of native advertising that, to the consumer, does not seem like advertising at all.

            The next session I went to, Unbreakable Entertainment: A New Way of Storytelling, hosted by TBWA, gave insight into the usage of brand storytelling in a new and “disruptive” way. Theodor Arhio, the representative from TBWA, described his partnership with FOX and how instead of commercials, they were doing these stories called “Unbreakables” which tell of stories of fighters dealing with copious types of hardships to inspire viewers, instead of regular advertisements. The whole goal of these “Unbreakables” are to create branded entertainment pieces which will lead to brand affinity for FOX. I found it interesting how the whole origin of the “Unbreakables” stories started with TBWA’s interest in data and how they found that stories about triumph and hope made viewers come back; they found three reasons viewers turn to media: to learn quickly, to be motivated, and to be inspired. Something I would have liked to see from this session is to see more tangible content from the series from the developmental process of analytics into the actual creative process of the series. After this session, I explored the world of Facebook beach and became enamored with the larger than life and almost Truman Show-Like reality that the cabana had.

            After my Facebook Beach break, I went to The (not-so) Secret Lives of Creatives, hosted by Pinterest which explored the importance of creativity in personal lives. “The hidden cost of connection to the world is the disconnection of self,” said Evan Sharp, CEO of Pinterest, which left an interesting thought that social media needs to get back to the connection of self, rather than the connection of self to others. However, the conversation got more tangible and interesting when the Chief Creative Officer of Wieden + Kennedy was interviewed by Sharp in the second half of the talk, and she discussed about what creativity is to her. “Creativity is connecting dots that have not been connected before,” which I find interesting, especially with the rise of usage of “big data” to create specified content because it allows creatives to find certain untapped markets or subjects and connects them to the relevant marketing world. Something I wish she had gone further into is her statement that you need to be relevant with distinction because many companies, according to her, stay relevant without distinction. With this, I would have loved for her to expand on this topic.

            My final discussion that I went to was Joanna Coles in Conversation with Whitney Wolfe Herd, which I was incredibly excited about because Coles served as Editor-and-Chief of Cosmopolitan and now works for Hearst as the Chief Content Creator who interviewed Herd, the CEO of Bumble. I found this session not as interesting from an advertising perspective, but more interesting from the perspective of what it is like to be a female entrepreneur and continue to expand as the times continue. One of the most beneficial ideas I took away from this session is Herd’s emphasis on building a product or a brand on what you hate, makes you frustrated, and breaks your heart because, from that, you will stay truly passionate and focused on whatever product or brand affinity you are trying to create. I also found it interesting that she said that Bumble does not pair with 95% of companies that approaches them because of the companies’ missions and actions which do not line up with Bumble. Something I wish Herd had gotten more into is how she has used pairing with companies to further her business model and expanded her company.