How Modern Brands Build Loyalty, Purpose, and Identity | Andy Stalman | Shekhar Natarajan Podcast

Tomorrow, Today

In this episode of 'Tomorrow, Today,' Shekhar Natarajan interviews Andy Stalman, a renowned branding expert with a global perspective shaped by his upbringing in

Key takeaways

• True brand loyalty stems not from technology but from emotional connection and love.
• Resilience and innovation are cultivated through enduring crises, as seen in Argentina's cultural fabric.

Main topics

• The role of crisis in fostering innovation and resilience
• Building brand loyalty through emotion and authenticity

Notable quotes

Being in a crisis loop year after year gives you a sense of creativity, of resilience and of innovation.

Safe bet for sports in the future is not AI, it's love.

Conclusion

Andy Stalman's journey underscores that the most powerful brands are built on emotional authenticity, resilience from adversity,

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Being in a crisis loop year after year gives you a sense of creativity, of resilience and of innovation. Speaker 2 (0:14) Most of the problems in a company is unresolved deliberations. You know, that is my 23 years of like... Only Speaker 1 (0:27) safe bet for sports in the future is not AI, it's love. Speaker 2 (0:37) Imagine what happens if the CEO spurs a water cart. And it is not like very difficult to hack something like that because you could send five different signals at five different instances. Speaker 1 (0:52) That's very comfortable and that's very safe. But it's also a trap because you are not free. Speaker 2 (1:28) Welcome to yet another episode of Tomorrow Today with Shekhar Natarajan. It's my honor to have Mr. Branding. That's how he goes by. Andy Stallman. It's a true honor to have you here on the show. I want to understand everything about what is a brand? How do you create a brand? What does it actually take to build a beautiful brand? And maybe like, how do you protect that brand? Right? Like, you know, those are all the discussions I would like to have. And then your journey in life, you know, we all relate to, everyone is going through some sort of suffering or some sort of challenge in their life. And I would love to understand yours so people can relate to like, you know, to theirs to be able to draw inspiration because you're truly an icon in the industry. It's an honor to have you here on the show, sir. Speaker 1 (2:28) No, no, it's a big pleasure. The honor is all mine. I'm looking forward for this amazing conversation. Absolutely. Speaker 2 (2:34) So you were born in Argentina. Absolutely. In Buenos Aires. And then basically, then you moved to Spain. Then you were, you know, you moved to Europe. So you traveled across, you know, the world. So help me understand. Speaker 2 (2:53) How did that early days, the formative days, sort of prepare you for the role that you became? Speaker 1 (3:00) Well, Buenos Aires, capital of the Argentine Republic, southernmost country in South America, one of the most vibrant countries in the world, also a country that lives in a crisis loop year after year. But being in a crisis loop year after year gives you a sense of creativity, of resilience and of innovation to deal with it. It's never easy. At the same time, you can see how Argentina was prepared to be one of the best countries in the future. We have everything. Ocean, we have agriculture, we have water resources, we have all the weathers, we have, you know, immense land. We have everything. And some say that God to compensate. all these blessings. He came to Argentina. Absolutely. I've heard this. You've heard that, right? Javier, Javier Bejer. Speaker 2 (3:59) Okay. I've heard it. Speaker 1 (4:02) Well, yeah, but still, Buenos Aires is, to me, one of the most vibrant cities in the world. I have never met someone that lived or visited Buenos Aires that was not thrilled and amazed by that. So, Buenos Aires is a very good platform. for getting ready to conquer the world. If you survive Buenos Aires and Argentina, you can deal with almost every single challenge in life. But Argentina and Buenos Aires are also young. It's a very young country with lots of challenges ahead regarding almost every single aspect of... Yeah, of a country being built and culture being set and the future being shared by all Argentinians and all the people that come to Argentina. So moving from Buenos Aires to Barcelona first and then to Madrid, from Madrid, leading projects in the five continents gave me a very good balance. So I have a young continent and an old continent. I have a young country and a very ancient country. I have the south of the world and the north of the world. I have, you know, this balance that gave me a very good sense of culture, history, future needs, and very deep differences in some aspects and very small gaps in some others. I think having been born and raised in Argentina and then, yeah, I think establishing my company and my career in Europe gave me a very good platform to be where I am today. Very beautiful. Very beautiful. So like, what is your family like? So I married my wife in Buenos Aires. She's Argentinian also. My older son, Felipe, that works with me, he's a... Guru on J.C. and A.I. Very smart guy. Industrial engineer. Super, super smart. He's been doing some on stage conferences and keynotes around the world in more than 10 countries. Yeah, very nice guy. Then I have my daughter that is 22. She's studying law and business administration. Speaker 1 (6:33) She likes music. She's a music of the 80s kind of girl. She's a crack in Argentine crack, like super great on playing the guitar. Speaker 2 (6:46) And Speaker 1 (6:46) then she was born in Barcelona. And then Max, my younger son, was born in Madrid. He has just turned 18. So he's studying the university right now. So three sons. Speaker 1 (7:01) Each of them very, very different from the other, but all connected by a common thread of values, respect, responsibility, and being good people for them and for the rest of the world. That's very important. Speaker 2 (7:17) That's fantastic. And your parents and mom and dad? Speaker 1 (7:21) So the history of the family is very common for an Argentine family where most of our grandparents came from abroad. We are a country that was pretty much shaped by immigration. Of course, the main immigrants came from Spain, from Italy. But my grandparents from my father's side came from Poland and Ukraine. And my grandparents from my mother's side came from Spain and UK. So it's a very... As you can imagine, it's a little United Nations family. And, you know, two generations ahead, I have cousins living in Canada, in the U.S., in Spain, in Brazil, in South Africa. So we are a very global family. I was going to say company, a very global family. And my father and my mother are still living in Argentina, both very hardworking people. My father finished his career as an architect, but then he became a businessman. Very successful, very smart, very intelligent. He came from very low. He lived in the Patagonia, very south in Argentina. Very poor family at the beginning, but then he, by studying and by working and all that, he opened his path through life. Extremely intelligent, super smart guy. Thank God, still alive with his 88 young years. And my mother is a very nice compliment. She's extroverted, super creative. Everything she does, she does it well. She paints, she crafts, she designs. Everything she does is amazing, I think. They're so different that maybe that's why they get along so well. And for me, it was a gift and a blessing. to receive the best of both of them that somehow helped me land in a very good way in the branding world because everything I learned from them, I'll tell you later, how it helped me a lot to build a space in this job that is so amazing. Speaker 2 (9:41) Very beautiful. I like it a lot. Speaker 2 (9:45) Then you moved to Lacoste. Speaker 1 (9:50) Lacoste? Speaker 2 (9:51) Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:51) Yeah, I worked with Lacoste before coming to Spain. I was marketing director for the Southern Cone. That is Spain, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Was that your first job? Or was it like, was it job number one that you did? No, no, no, no. You had other things. In Argentina, most of us, we started working. as soon as we finish high school. Some even started while being in high school. So when you finish the university, when you are 22, 23 years old, maybe you have already six, seven years of experience. Really? Yes. Why is that? I don't know. I think we are sons and daughters of a generation that was raised and educated on hard working and effort and sacrifice. Most of our grandparents arrived to Argentina with almost nothing. And for them, the big ambition was to have my son, the doctor. You know, to have a son or a daughter that could go to the university, get a degree. And that was like the status ambition for them. And then our parents educated us on almost the value they got from their parents. Speaker 1 (11:14) Work hard, have values, be respectful, ethics first, respect seniority, and so on. And it was normal to start working. We never saw it as a punishment like some Gen Z people see today, where effort is not seen as part of the reward to achieve goals. Now, it's more about... well-living and well-being. And I respect that, I have to say. But in our age, it was different. We work, we study at the same time, and we still have time to go out, hang out, do some sports, and enjoy life. I don't recall that stage of my life as something I didn't like, but on the contrary, I think it was part of the craft. of my character for dealing with the challenges that life was preparing for me in the future. Fantastic, Speaker 2 (12:18) fantastic. So you said you did like six, five or six jobs. Speaker 1 (12:22) So what were those jobs like? So on those times, I was really confused about what I wanted to be, what I wanted to become, what I wanted to do. So I was somehow... discovering, exploring, experimenting. I was trying to find my path or my road, my way. And at the same time, I was building it. That's the good thing when you are old and you see backwards, you understand that everything that happened to you happened for a reason. You don't understand that at the moment, you understand it in the future. So I worked. In one of the most important media company in in South America. I was part of a very small team of four people that will launch the first 24-hour news channel in Spanish in the world Wow. Yeah that happened in Buenos Aires then some other networks launched them, but we were the first I worked on news cable on business newspapers tell it open television It was all about media. And it was a very interesting job. I'm talking about beginning of the 90s. It was all about satellites. Internet was about to start, not even, but almost. I also worked in Lacoste, as I mentioned, as marketing director. So I needed to bring a very successful and valuable brand from France and the world and position it and keep it valuable. in the perception of people and also make it part of a new generation needs and ambition. Because somehow when I started, Lacoste was more seen as a brand for old people rather than for young people. So it was a big gap we needed to fill and we did it very successfully. I had a very good experience working in one of the largest airport operators in the world. private operators in the world. What is that? Which one is that? It's called Aeropuertos, airports, Argentina, Argentina in 2000. Speaker 2 (14:45) So Speaker 1 (14:45) in the year 1998, a conglomerate by US, Italian and Argentine companies won a pitch to run 35 airports, first in Argentina, then in some other countries in the world. So I started in the... In the company, we were, I don't know, 20. Now they are like 2,000, I think. It's a big, big growth. It was a fantastic... I love traveling. I don't know, I can do six travels around the world every year. Wow. So it's an amazing amount of miles that I do every year. From Australia to Singapore, from Israel to UK, from Mexico to Argentina, all around Europe. So to me, traveling was always something that I really love and I admire. Because when you travel, you don't only change a place, you change ideas. You discover how tiny you can be in a world that looks so, so big and at the same time is so, so connected. And the more I travel and the more I know people and the more I discover cultures, the more I love humanity. Then we can go deeper into that. But coming back to airports, Argentine 2000, due to some circumstances, I became the marketing and commercial director for all the airports. Very, very fast, like a year after entering the company. And I was 27 or 28 years old. It was a big, massive challenge. So I went to the CEO and I say, this is too big for me. And he said, I got your back just through your job. I know you are capable of doing it. So one of the first challenges was we were having like 95 % of our revenue was from an on-air income. You know, planes, parking, handling. Et cetera, et cetera. And they say, okay, we need to take this to 50-50 with off-air traffic. That means, you know, shops, retail, F &B, et cetera, et cetera. I say, okay, how many years do I have? One year. Very easy, right? Piece of cake. I have a fantastic... And he has your back. I can say, yeah, of course. I got you. Amazing. I'm going to set you, but I got your back. Yes. So, no, but we did it. We had a great team. We were all young, passionate. We had no self-doubt, bias. We were all new in the business. That was very risky somehow. But on the other hand, we have a new vision, a new way of doing things. We didn't copy. We create. We innovate. We transform. People from all over the world started to say. what are these guys doing? This is very unorthodox. And we started to grow. And also at the same time, I was very keen to have my people, my team, happy, motivated, engaged. In fact, funny story, one of the young professionals I hired, Danny, is now the company's CEO. Oh, wow. I have a good eye for... Speaker 1 (18:10) So that was a great job. And there were some others. I work in a foundation helping young children educate on the weekends where the parents were really tired and help them find different ways of getting more connected with self-esteem and trust in themselves. Very small children. I work on many other companies. But yeah, I think the big jump. And the leap of faith came when I left with my wife and my older son, Felipe, Argentina, and moved to Barcelona. Wow. And when was this? This was on the year 2002, September. You know, Argentina, in 2001, we had a massive crisis. Another massive crisis. We have what was called the Corralito. And the Corralito mainly said that no one can use the money that was in the banks. No one. So, you know, riots, very complex times, insecurity. Why did that happen? Speaker 1 (19:20) Argentina was coming from a decade of what was called, I don't know if the word in English is convertibility, but maybe the explanation is for every peso, the Argentine peso, there was one dollar. So that means that the peso and the dollar had the same value for some time. Yeah, that was 80s, right? That was the 90s. Yes. Yeah, it was the 90s. So Argentina was... Amazing. Speaker 2 (19:45) Yeah, it was growing. Everyone was loving it. Speaker 1 (19:48) Yeah, we all love Argentina. We were earning money. We could have savings. We could travel around the world. Argentina, yeah, it was some kind of, you know when you're in the desert and you see water and palms and everything, but they are not there? Mirage. Mirage. It was some kind of a mirage. Speaker 1 (20:10) What happened is that people wanted more dollars. The pesos were not enough. There weren't enough dollars to back that peso dollar thing. So everything collapsed. When everything collapsed, yeah. all the economic growth and all the stability and everything went down. But the issue was not that because we were used to economic crisis. We have hyperinflation in the past. We have new currency that was replacing the old currency. All those kinds of crises we were very used to. Even we have, you know, dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, everything. Argentina, you know, very interesting country. That phase of like the 90s was like the most... I think popular Speaker 2 (20:55) phase for the country itself, like, you know, like Maradona was out there at that time and then, uh, it was high growth and everyone was like just sending praises of Argentina. And like one fine day you wake up and it's almost bankrupt. Speaker 1 (21:10) Yes. That's, that's very Argentina style. Uh, there is a saying, uh, if you, uh, travel away from Argentina for two weeks and you come back in two weeks later, everything changed. Oh, wow. If you leave Argentina, like me, 24 years ago, and I go back 24 years later to Argentina, everything is the same. So they went through the cycle and then they recreated themselves. Yeah, hopefully this time is not the same because we have a good president. A president that is doing the hard work that has to be done. And hopefully the population, society, and everybody, and especially him, can stay strong on doing the necessary changes to become a more serious, stable, safe country in terms of investment, in terms of... Was that Speaker 2 (22:06) not the Speaker 1 (22:07) problem Speaker 2 (22:07) of the 90s too? Like there was overinvestment? That like came from the Speaker 1 (22:13) 90s where a decade of privatizations. Yeah. Speaker 2 (22:18) And also there was a lot of like investments that got pumped in from North America. Yes. We just pull the money out. Speaker 1 (22:24) Yes. We have a by those years there was an expression say carnal relations between the U.S. and Argentina. Argentina had a very. privileged access to American economics and politics. And that helped a lot to keep this thing alive until it collapsed. Yes, it collapsed. But yes, it was not only Maradona. Argentina was, you know, music and culture and literature and design and fashion