Idalia Salsamendi attended PHLUR's Fleur launch dinner in Madrid and saw how the brand built something real. After twenty years in marketing, she argues that trust and community matter far more than reach or engagement numbers. The conversations there worked because they were rooted in long relationships that compound over time.
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I was in Madrid last week for the Fleur launch in Spain, and I'm gonna be spilling the tea of everything that happened. So last Tuesday I traveled to Madrid 'cause my dear friend Christelle Lam, the founder of Fleur, invited me to the launch. And if you've been following me for a while, you know that I have worked with Christelle for a decade, and I have spent the better part of these past two decades working across marketing and media and influence and brand strategy. And attending events like this has become something very common in my life and in my career. I think what really interested me about this particular event wasn't the fragrance itself, which by the way, I love, like chef's kiss, Rose Whip and Deep Skin. Um, I think it really showed a pattern that I have seen repeated so often in my career, in a pattern that really works phenomenally well. And I think when people talk about influence, it's— they think about just visibility, right? Like, or vanity metrics like engagement and reach and shares and metrics that are easy to quantify. And yet when you spend enough time in this industry, you begin to realize that people and brands with the greatest staying power do not operate on visibility alone. They operate on trust. And when I was in that room for that dinner and I was looking at creators and founders and media and press and just, you know, longtime collaborators, most of the conversations that were taking place were built on relationships that had been there for years, right? Some for over a decade. That's something that I think is so overlooked especially in today's society where everything has to be quick and we expect quick results, you know, instant gratification. We have AI, we have ChatGPT, there's so much being thrown at us constantly that we forget to take a breather and realize that time is your greatest ally. And that is something that is overlooked time and time again in modern marketing. Like, the most successful brands understand community, and community is an investment that you build Over time, you build it with consistency. You build it through shared experiences, repeated interactions, and a clear understanding of who you are and what you stand for. And by the way, the same principles apply for creators, right? Like, one of the reasons that creators continue to grow and evolve and create year after year and get this more opportunities year after year is because they have the trust of their audience. Like, they've developed that relationship with their audience that extends beyond one platform or a trend or a viral moment. I get asked all the time why creators have this longevity and some don't, why some creators are able to launch successful products and some can't. It's trust. Trust allows them to launch the products. It allows them to expand into new opportunities, and it allows them to continue to build new businesses even as the landscape or the algorithm or the platforms change. Because they do, and they do often, and they're so unreliable. So I kind of looked at the Fleur dinner from like a 10,000-foot view, and I wasn't looking at the fragrance, I was looking at the broader mechanics of brand building. Brands that are thriving right now understand that people want and need that connection. They want experiences, they want to feel like they're participating in something, like they're part of a story, and it's not just transactional. So yeah, Technology is gonna change and it's gonna evolve. Platforms are gonna change and it's gonna evolve. Consumer behavior is going to evolve. But the fundamental truth about community and trust, that's the thing that has stayed the same since I started my career over two decades ago. So I don't care if you're building a brand or you're launching a product or you're building your next step in your creator career, trust remains the number one global currency. It's difficult to earn. It's not something that just happens overnight. But I always say it's like the stock market. Trust has to compound. And for me, that's what made this entire event worth talking about. It really offered a clear example of what thoughtful community building looks like when it's done exceptionally well. If you're a creator, a founder, a brand, an entrepreneur, and you love this video, don't forget to like and subscribe, and I'll see you next Thursday.
