Exploring the Nuances of Global and Luxury Marketing with Influencers

The primary reason I like to interview people about this wild, wonderful world we work in is that I know I don’t know everything. Even though we talk about a lot of the topics that I consider myself fairly well schooled or experienced with, someone else always brings a different perspective to the table.

It’s the accumulation of those different perspectives that I feel makes me, and I suppose, you, smarter. We’re better at our jobs because we listen to someone else’s perspective, even if it’s about something we fell comfortable that we know well.

I had the great pleasure of being a guest on Lara Schmoisman’s podcast, Coffee No. 5, a few months ago. I didn’t know Lara before we did the interview, but as I prepared and then chatted with her, I realized … here’s someone with a world of different perspectives I need to know more from.

Lara is a luxury marketing specialist which is a category I definitely want to know more about. She’s also a global marketing expert. She works with clients around the world and can bring the experiences of working in different countries, cultures and languages to the table, too. Lara is based in L.A., but is originally from Argentina.

Her take on marketing and branding has created a nice following for her in the industry, not just on her podcast, but through her work at her agency, The Darl. I invited Lara to come on the show and talk to us about all those things and give us a little different perspective.

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Lara Schmoisman Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Jason: On this episode of Winfluence.

[00:00:01] Lara: Social media algorithms are changing all the time. For me, it’s all about engagement. It’s about how my influencer portray themself and connect with their audience. It’s not about the number. It’s not about the popularity contest. I think that was a few years ago. Now a change is more about the quality and how the influencer connects with their audience.

[00:00:24] Jason: There’s a difference between being an influencer and actually influencing. I’m Jason Falls and in this podcast, we explore the people, companies, campaigns, and stories that illustrate that difference. Welcome to Winfluence the influence marketing podcast.

Hello again, friends, thanks for listening to influence the influence marketing podcast. The primary reason I like to interview people about this wild, wonderful world we work in is that I don’t know everything. Even though we talk about a lot of the topics I consider myself fairly well, schooled or experienced with someone else always brings a different perspective to the table.

It’s the accumulation of those different perspectives that I feel makes me. And I suppose you smarter. We’re better off at our jobs because we listen to someone else’s perspective. Even if it’s about something, we feel comfortable that we know. I had the great pleasure of being a guest on Laura Schmos man’s podcast, coffee number five a few months ago.

I didn’t know Laura before we did the interview, but as I prepared and then chatted with her, I realized here’s someone with a world of different perspectives. I need to know more from. Laura is a luxury marketing specialist, which is a category I definitely wanna know more about. She’s also a global marketing expert.

She works with clients around the world and can bring the experiences of working in different countries, cultures, and languages to the table too. Laura is based in Los Angeles, but she’s originally from Argentina. Her take on marketing and branding has created a nice following for her in the industry, not just on her podcast, but through her work at her agency, the darl, I invited Laura to come on the show today to talk to us about all of those things and give us a little different perspective.

You probably know by now I recorded the interview with Laura the way I always do using Zencaster. They are a sponsor of influence and one that I have used for quality audio recording over the internet for years now, Zencaster builds itself as an all in one podcast production suite that gives you studio quality, audio and video without needing all the technical know how, and that is accurate.

I love Zencaster because it records each guest locally, the audio or video file is saved to their computer. Zencaster then uploads the crystal clear audio and video right into a cloud folder and the Zencaster suite. So you have high quality raw materials to work with. Your recording is awesome because it’s on your machine.

Oh, theirs is two because it’s saved on their machine with local settings then uploaded. So you can go. Stop recording. One track in zoom and other softwares do it the professional way. Like we do here on win, influence. As a member of the win influence community, you get 30% off a pro account. There’s also a free trial, so you can test before you commit, just go to zen.ai/winfluence that’s Z E N.ai/winfluence.

Take your podcast, recordings, video and audio to the next level. Sound good. Just like me and our guests. zen.ai/influence. And I know you’re wondering how I keep all my work organized for this podcast and all the influence marketing strategies I work on for clients out there. Well, that answer is easy, base camp.

They also sponsor influence to make it easier for me to bring you these shows each week, I’ve been using base camp for project management and team communications for about as long as it’s been around, which is 18 years base camp is all about simplicity. It’s designed to give you and your team, the tools you need to get work.

Messages to dos file storage, chat, calendar, and more. Bring all in one project management to your business. There is a 30 day free trial and you do not need a credit card to try it. So there’s literally nothing holding you back. Go to jasonfalls.co/base camp. That’s jasonfalls.co/base camp and use the project management software they literally write about in books.

It’s really, really good. Serious. Folks it’s time for a little perspective, luxury marketing specialist and world traveling thinker. Laura sch Mosman is next on influence.

Laura. We had a lot of fun on your podcast, coffee, number five, not long ago, talking about influencer marketing, but I did all the talking. So I knew I had to have you on win, influence to share your perspective with the folks here. First of all, let’s tell folks about your podcast. We had a great talk and I also saw not long ago, you had Martin Lindstrom on your show.

Fascinating guy talks a lot. Consumer psychology and such. I love his stuff, but tell folks what they can expect outta the interviews and such on coffee. Number five, in case they wanna jump over and

[00:05:15] Lara: subscribe. Well, I’m all about emerging brands and helping brands grow. I come from working in big agencies and I realized that my passion was in working with small, the smaller guys and help them thrive and grow and evolve.

And so that’s what I tried with my podcast to get people to come in and to talk and give us key and clues and inspirations of stories that if they happen to them could happen to you too. You.

[00:05:45] Jason: Very good. Well, it’s a very good show for everyone. So jump over and search for coffee. Number five, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Wait till you get done here. We want you to listen to the whole show first, but definitely go over and subscribe. Laura. I think you’re, uh, I think you’re based in LA I believe, but let’s go back ways and start from the beginning. I think you’re from Argentina, right? How’d you find your way to the states and how’d you find your way into market?

[00:06:06] Lara: I am. You didn’t recognize the sexy accent. That’s where it’s from. um, yeah, I’m from Argentina, but I’ve been in the states half of my life already. So even though I’m a Jewish Latina, which is an odd combination, born and raised Jewish in a Latin country. So I’m no people feel sorry for my kids already, but it is what it is.

[00:06:29] Jason: Well, you definitely bring a lot of angles of diversity to the conversation, which is good. And a lot of guilt. Oh, goodness. Oh my goodness. Well, influences if one thing we’re not as a therapy show, so I think we’re gonna move past that. and go in talking a little bit more about what I know or at least what I can, I can ask about.

So your agency is called the darl. I know you and your team do really great work there. I think one of the areas of specialization you have is luxury marketing. Now I wanna learn more about that segment.

What are the two or three biggest differences between marketing a luxury brand and marketing the stuff for the rest of.

[00:07:09] Lara: Well, my background is I’m always, somehow was connected with entertainment industry. My background is when I came to the states, I was working in red carpet a lot and you know, red carpet, fashion industry it’s always related. And when I start get involved in digital marketing, I always was really passionate about fashion industry, which led me to become a professor lecturer at Cal poly Pomona for digital marketing, for the fashion.

And slash beauty industries. So make sense that when I was working on my agency, that’s what I feel connected with. And that’s what I understand. I mean, if you go back, I think fashion industry is one of the, was disrupted the most by the digital world. I mean, I don’t know if our audience here are familiar with the fashion industry, but the fact that the fashion industry had to change their seasons and how they, they did things just because of the digital world.

It’s crazy. So I always was fascinated by that and how, how you portray that. And it’s very different because it’s a luxury, it’s not something that you can sell to people with that because they need it. Nobody needs really fashion. nobody needs beauty product. I mean, you can get away with buying a cream in CVS, but there is a difference in the products, but also we need to explain why.

Why is luxury, why you want it, and we need to learn how to sell it as well.

[00:08:36] Jason: Well, I definitely think that the people who know me out there in listing land will agree that when you look at me, you definitely know that we don’t need fashion. Cuz I don’t have any, you do have your own style. I okay. I’ll take that.

I’ve got a little bit of style, but fashion is definitely not something that’s in my purview. So is the difference then really sort of taking a product or an idea and either. Explaining and educating the audience more about it, or is it really about just sort of pointing to it as something that’s aspirational that they need to have?

Because it changes the way the world perceives them. What are the nuances of that?

[00:09:17] Lara: I think they’re both, but I’m always in my agency, at least I believe in education. I think that we need to inform, we need to entertain. We need to make things that they are memorable we need. And that’s why it’s really important for a luxury brand.

To create that brand awareness. So people get to recognize the brands because those brands that their emerging brands at the end of the day, what they want is to be placed, that they’ve been picked up by Macy’s Nordstrom. And none of those, uh, stores will pick them up if they don’t have brand awareness.

So we, it’s a little bit of both. It’s about creating the need and explaining why this product is better than others, but also create that aspiration of, well, if you wear this run or you’re gonna feel better about yourself or it’s gonna, or have these products that make you look better or is anti-aging, there is a reasoning because. Of the cost of the product.

[00:10:10] Jason: So when a brand is, is looking for connecting with that luxury consumer out there, and they’re looking in the digital space to social networks, or even perhaps looking at social media influencers for a luxury audience, are there niche places they wind up looking that the rest of us don’t know about or is your best chance to reach consumers still gonna be Instagram TikTok and the, you know, the main players.

[00:10:34] Lara: The audience is everywhere. I mean, you need to identify where your audience is and I mean, you are the experts in this, but we need to talk their native language of the platform in whatever we are and connecting with our audience. And maybe it’s a different, slightly different audience that we’re gonna have in Facebook and Instagram in TikTok.

But at the end of the day, they’re buying the same product. So it’s the same brand and we need to create the same narrative, but twist it a little bit and tweak it. So it fits the, the platform and the native language of the platform.

[00:11:05] Jason: Very nice. All right. Let’s talk about choosing influencers and creator partners for luxury brands for a second. I’m curious, and, and I’ve done this a little bit. I don’t deal a whole lot with luxury brands. Although I have dealt with some premium whiskeys and things like that, that you could argue. Fit in that category. So when, when we’re looking at influencers for luxury brands, is it as simple as kind of spot checking the content, looking for creators that post more of that aspirational content with the latest fashions and the she locations?

Or is there something more specific you look for in the data around influencers that tells you that they might be a good partner for a luxury.

[00:11:45] Lara: For me right now, you know, social media algorithms are changing all the time. And for me, it’s all about engagement. It’s about how my influencer portray themself and connect with their audience.

It’s not about the number. It’s not about the popularity contest. I think that that was in a few years ago. Now it changed. It’s more about the quality and how the influencer connects with their a. And to have an influencer that is responsive and is just not creating great content is creating content tailored for the brand and their audience.

[00:12:19] Jason: Yeah. Excellent. I can’t, I can’t agree more with that for sure. I have said recently, even if an influencer has a really good engagement rate, but they themselves, aren’t part of it. They’re not responding themselves. To drive that engagement rate. I have questions as to whether or not they’re the type of influencer I wanna work with because I want someone who really does have a truer connection with their audience, because that means they’re gonna be able to persuade their audience to do things better than someone who maybe isn’t

[00:12:47] Lara: Absolutely as creators. They need to create a content that you know, that they’re gonna resonate with their audience and know that I prefer smaller audience, but that the content creator is connected and say, oh, this person. Leaving all these comments, or they have this point of view because we learn from our audience. So I want creators that actually are learning, educating, and using that data.

[00:13:12] Jason: Absolutely. We’re talking to Laura Schmoisman from the darl. She’s the host of coffee. Number five, a great podcast. You should go. Subscribe to when we come back on the show, I want to go global and talk to Laura about marketing beyond the us or the United Kingdom, where most of you are, if you are, or are planning to expand globally, it’s not as simple as you might think. We’re gonna find out why after the break stay tuned.

Back on wind Flo with Laura Mosman, who originally hails from Argentina. Laura, how would you describe. Your home country to people. Who’ve never been. I’m curious what it’s like

[00:13:52] Lara: there. Oh my God. It’s such a fun country to be in. Uh, if you like meat, you’re a meat eater. You should go. If you like fashion, you should go.

Uh, you can have, I mean, I always say that it’s a European city in South America. That’s how I can describe it. It’s a lot of fun. It has a great night life and great food again.

[00:14:13] Jason: Yeah, very nice there. And as I understand it from just, you know, my paying attention to history and whatnot, there’s a lot of European influence in Argentina.

A lot of Europeans as they either got older and they, you know, wanted to kind of move around the world, find a better climate, whatnot, Argentina, for whatever reason, back in the thirties, forties and fifties was a location that people went. So it’s not just people from South America. There. It. Also kind of a, a very worldly country. Am I, am I wrong on that?

[00:14:41] Lara: No, actually my family immigrate from Russia to Argentina and the end of the 18 hundreds. Nice I’m fourth generation, but like I was, my family was escaping the war from Russia. There are people coming from a lot from Italy. There are a lot of Armenians, a lot of Spanish people, and I love that mix of cultures actually, Argentinian slang is almost pure

[00:15:05] Jason: Italian. Oh, interesting. I didn’t know that. That’s good to know. Yeah. Well, I I’m, I’m actually getting ready to take my first trip. I’m sorry that I’m almost 50 and haven’t done this before, but I’m getting ready to take my first trip to south America. I’ll be heading to Bogota Columbia the second week of September.

I know it’s not Argentina, but I’m very excited to see a new country in a new continent. I’m really curious about marketing and influencer marketing there.

From your experience, working internationally are influencers just as big of a deal in other countries as they are in the.

[00:15:36] Lara: It is, but it’s very different how they use platforms.

Like for example, in south America, Facebook data doesn’t exist. And something that for us is so common. They use the internet in different ways. Also in many countries in Latin America, they only start buying online heavenly because of the pandemic and they weren’t ready for that. So right now, the process accelerate, but they have a lot, each country has a different way that they communicate, like they have their own slang and their own sayings.

It’s the same, how they use the internet and how they work with the influencers.

[00:16:10] Jason: Interesting. Let’s pull back from influencers just a bit and talk about marketing on a global scale together. What are the nuances that brands and agencies need to look out for when they’re breaking into some of these international markets?

Now, I, I know from my own experience, it’s a big mistake to assume that Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, or even Japan, Malaysia, Germany, Norway. I know you can’t assume everything there functions just like it does in the us are great Britain. So help us guide through the what to watch for us. What are the big things that people need to

[00:16:40] Lara: look out for?

Even in the. And the UK, there are different things. Like, for example, if I’m doing an email campaign, I wouldn’t use the same words or the same trigger words, email for luxury brands, email campaigns is a huge thing and email marketing. I truly believe that. And it works. Social media is fantastic, but the conversion is gonna come from email marketing and creating that run awareness.

But you need to talk to your audience and people don’t talk the same in the. Than in the UK. I always say that you need to understand what a culture laugh about to understand the culture, how they connect. I mean, even if you have a target audience of woman that they’re 45 and 18, I need to talk to them differently.

You cannot talk to the same happens in a country. So even if you use even the same graphics, you cannot use the same wording, maybe.

[00:17:33] Jason: Exactly. Yeah. And, and, and for those of you out there who haven’t had the good fortune. To work beyond your country’s borders just yet. The first thing I think you need to know is translation is just the tip of the iceberg. It it’s way more than just a language barrier, right?

[00:17:49] Lara: Absolutely. It’s again, it’s about when I move here to the states, I honestly didn’t understand what people were laughing about because I was translating it and I didn’t find it funny, like Seinfeld for me, wasn’t funny. until I understood the culture.

[00:18:05] Jason: That’s a great point. That is an absolute well, and of course there’s the legendary, you know, sort of marketing story or advertising story. When the marketing slogan for Coca-Cola was originally presented in advertising campaigns in China, the translation was something, the wax tad poll, the translation was just lost on people.

So it’s way more than that. It’s really about immersing yourself in the culture and understanding. So on that note, do you think. For a us, or maybe a British based agency, who’s trying to help a brand expand to another country. Is it better for them to find a consultant who can help them close that cultural gap?

Or do you think they might need to go bigger and find a partner in market or in country to ease that learning curve.

[00:18:49] Lara: Depends of your budget? Depends of so many factors also depends what you do. And like for example, you have clients. Now with marketplaces, which is huge. I have clients that I manage their accounts for Mexico, for UK, other countries in Europe and Canada. And because Amazon goes everywhere, but you need to create a store for different countries in different ways and creating campaigns that they support that in social media, email marketing. So is it better that one agent int, multiple. I don’t have the answer for that. It’s like how it depends of your budget, how you feel comfortable with and what are you trying to achieve?

[00:19:31] Jason: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I, I definitely wouldn’t recommend anybody go it alone. You gotta have something. I, whether it’s a consultant or whether it’s an agency, obviously as Laura pointed out

[00:19:40] Lara: Well, at least if you’re gonna work with someone, a lot of people at different places, I will suggest that you have like a core consultants or core agency that is overseeing the whole brand.

I will take it as, you know, a licensing deal that you can, when you have Starbucks here and you have Starbucks in Argentina, it still looks the.

[00:19:59] Jason: Very true, fascinating stuff. Well, Laura, I think everyone can tell why you and the Dar are so good for your clients. We certainly appreciate the wisdom today.

Before we go tell everyone where they can find you and the firm on the interwebs.

[00:20:12] Lara: They can find me at thedarl.com, the Darl agency, everywhere else. And also you can look, look me up LaraSchmoisman.com and Lara Schmoisman everywhere and good luck spelling out my last name.

[00:20:27] Jason: It’s actually just like it looks, I think it’s not that hard.

I don’t think, but.

[00:20:31] Lara: Okay, you can try it.

[00:20:33] Jason: We’ll we’ll make sure that there’s links to it in the show notes and all that good stuff. So people don’t have to remember how to spell, just go to Jason falls.com and click over to see the articles where the show notes are. And you can, you can find that. Well, Laura, thank you again for being here. And I just wanna let you know if I get stuck in a Columbian jail in a couple weeks, I’m calling

[00:20:50] Lara: you. Oh, please do . At least I’ll translate for you.

[00:20:57] Jason: not guilty.

Always great to get that new perspective. Isn’t it really appreciate Laura stopping by and sharing her wisdom with us. Go check her out and do go over to search for coffee. Number five. Wherever you get your podcast. She’s got a great show interview, some really smart people, myself not included. I don’t, I don’t call myself smart.

I’ll let y’all do that. If you think I am. If you think I’m not, then that’s fine too. But anyway, coffee, number five, go search for that show. Wherever you get your podcasts. Folks real quick, the fall is fast approaching and that means conference season for the first time in a while, I’m gonna be back out on the road, speaking at some influencer marketing events and about influencer marketing at some other events.

And I want you to join me. Probably the most relevant to talk about right now is content marketing world. That’s coming up quickly, September 13th, through the 16th in Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve spoken there before, but not for a few years. So I’m excited to get back contentmarketingworld.com is the URL. If you use Falls100, you get $100 off the ticket price.

That’s at contentmarketingworld.com. Super excited to be back in Cleveland and see all my friends there from the content marketing world. I am gonna be talking about influencers, so I hope you can make it. I will see you there. You can always check the website at jasonfalls.com for more information about the events where I’m speaking.

I normally include a call to action in the show notes and other articles there about all of that good scheduling stuff. In the meantime, please do help me spread the good word. Tell someone who might wanna know more about influence marketing. About this podcast, send them to Winfluencepod.com or share a link to this episode on your social network of choice.

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Winfluence, the influence marketing podcast is an audio companion to my book, Winfluence, reframing, influence, or marketing to ignite your brand. Get your copy online at wininfluencebook.com. While you’re there, sign up for the latest ideas about influence marketing delivered in my periodic newsletter. Or book me to speak to your company or organization about influence marketing.

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