when you finished school like at the age
of eighteen or nineteen we are supposed
to make a decision of our lifetime it is
a decision which will determine how our
alive or at least the next couple of
years will look like am I going to be a
doctor or a lawyer or am I going to work
at a clothing boutique some people
already know what they want to be in
life but honestly I had no clue I just
wasn’t ready for a decision like that
but let’s start a little earlier in time
so I come from a good home with loving
parents and no financial difficulties
and even in school I had good grades I
had a good relationship to my teachers
and I had no hard time studying so all
in all you can say that my guthe was
rather trouble-free or some might say my
youth was pretty boring and then during
the last two years of school I was
extremely motivated although I didn’t
really know what I wanted to do in life
I understood that studying for school
has to be my top priority because I knew
that with a high school graduation you
only have one single shot and that’s why
I wanted to give it my everything and
then long story short I finished school
with the best score in the German system
and I can honestly say that I’m not
highly intelligent and I am not highly
gifted or something like that
I was just motivated and I knew what I
wanted to achieve and I was good at
studying as some people might know and I
knew what teachers want to hear and want
to read in exams but let me tell you
something finishing school with the best
score in the German system doesn’t mean
you know anything about life itself the
life outside of school I had no clue
what I want to do I had no clue what to
do with my graduation so I was basically
standing there surrounded by all the
expectations of my parents my family
the teachers my friends and everybody
else who all saw me as the little blonde
girl with the best foundation
become a successful doctor or lawyer or
engineer and I just didn’t know what to
do I even considered studying medicine
although I knew that medicine wasn’t
something I was interested in and I knew
that blood was the last thing I want to
see on a daily basis but I just wanted
to do it because everybody expected me
to do something stable and reasonable in
my life and then I did some tests
because what I was desperately looking
for something that I could see myself in
and those tests said that my abilities
are 80% mathematics 10% economics and
the other 10% I don’t know were
somewhere else so I ended up applying
for Business Administration and before I
started studying Business Administration
I luckily remember the quote by Mark
Twain which said find a job you enjoy
doing and you will never ever work a day
in your life so I decided to take a step
back and look at my life and ask myself
that I really start studying just
because my parents want me to do it just
because it’s the normal way to live your
life after school just because it’s
normal in our society and I realized
that my eyes don’t begin to sparkle if I
think about mathematics although I’m
good at it and it doesn’t fill me with
happiness so I ask myself why should I
spend the majority of my time in my life
with something that doesn’t make me
happy so I wanted to be as authentic as
possible with my life and my own
decisions
and I asked myself what makes me happy
and what do I like investing my time in
and you know there was this little and
until then unimportant hobby of mine
called Instagram which I started at the
age of actually I was 16 and I just
liked taking pictures and I started it
at the age of 16 and at the age of 18
when I finished school I already had
about 400 or 500 thousand followers but
nobody really considered theirs as
important because nobody knew what
Instagram is nobody had a vision what
500,000 people are
and nobody had a clue that Instagram
might become a big thing one one day but
I for me I like taking pictures I like
taking pictures of my life my fashion
ideas my beauty secrets my fitness
journey and everything and just checking
them really unprofessionally editing
them with some Instagram filters and
afterwards sharing them with the world
and everybody else so I did that and
since day one I had really strong
connection to my followers I loved
answering their questions and just
chatting with them as if they were my
real friends so Instagram was always
really important hobby of mine but I
always did it on the side because it
wasn’t that important to everybody else
but I loved it and you can remember that
Mark Twain basically told us that if we
find something we love we will never
have the feeling of working in our life
so I decided to give Instagram a shot I
believed in myself I believed in my
abilities and I believed in myself
discipline that I always had I knew that
if I did something with passion and with
the dedication I would be able to build
something great from there so I was
basically confident enough to go my own
way and I also I don’t know why but I
kind of noticed that it was the right
time to take the chance because
sometimes in life you are at the right
place to the right time and you have a
chance and if you don’t take the chance
at this particular moment the chance
will be gone forever
so I decided to do Instagram and I had
no strategy and no structure or anything
I just had the dream of course people
told me Pamela what a narcissistic and
superficial hobby you have aren’t you
ashamed to show your parents or your
grandma would you what you are putting
up on the internet the internet never
forgets everything anything or what a
waste of your intelligence to do
Instagram or how can you even earn money
with iPhone pictures so regarding the
last point earning money I didn’t even
have had an answer to this myself
I have never focused on the financial
because I didn’t have to thanks to my
parents so I have never heard of
influencer marketing before I had no
clue that Instagram could possibly offer
you business opportunities one day but
what I did notice that after about two
years of me just posting pictures and
building my audience companies started
contacting me in order to do promotions
and collaborations for them because they
saw the value that I built over the
years and the value of the connection
that I have with my followers and that
is the point where our paths crossed but
let me explain to you how I got to that
point in influencer marketing me myself
– I went to high school obviously I was
actually quite fortunate that I could
graduate quite earlier skipped two
grades in school and graduated when I
was 17 that’s quite early for German
standards where everybody else regretted
around 19 and to my parents to peers to
other people in school that meant I had
now saved two years or got an advantage
of two years which I should use and
capitalized on in the best way possible
and similar to Pamela everybody else of
course suggested go to university study
a serious subject whether it’s medicine
or law or business whatever you like but
go to university use this time get
started ahead and move forward I myself
back then I was 17 so still young I had
even done internships in a bank in a
hospital so I had general ideas and I
felt like business was the way to go but
I didn’t have a clear concept in mind of
where I saw myself but FL the
reassurance of everybody else was good
enough and from myself my perspective
back then I also thought okay now I have
saved two years I’m sort of ahead of
everybody who was back then in my class
so I should go to business school so I
did apply actually to the rivalry school
of where we are today I I got accepted
and I went there so now I was there I
was 17 I was at university I knew
business was sort of the field I was in
so I wasn’t a good area but I didn’t
know where I would go I didn’t have
any concrete specific goal in mind that
I would work towards and that meant that
in everyday life I didn’t have any
specific use to make of my time my new
University was sort of important but I
also felt there were other nice things
and I wasn’t giving up anything by going
after the nice and easy things by giving
up university because there wasn’t any
goal I would pursue that meant that I
would party more than I should have
study less than I should have and attend
less classes than I should have and that
meant that every time the exam phase
came around every semester I wasn’t
prepared for example at all so the only
way out was to get a sick note or
somehow get out of the exams and that’s
what I did a lot of times and so I did
that for one and a half years I even
went to the semester abroad to Paris
which made it much worse because there
was even amazing to party so I would do
that even more so than before but once I
realized that after two years when I was
going back to start my last year of
university the rules were changed I had
to now graduate complete all my studies
all my exams that I should have had
taken before entering the last year but
you guys know the bachelor has 180
credits usually and after two years out
of the three should have 120 of those
which caught up with me in a way maybe I
should have maybe I would have had the
power to take all of all of those exams
that summer study really hard do it and
get it done but I still didn’t have that
goal in mind so there wasn’t anything to
work towards or study towards and that
meant I those exam times came around to
when I still failed and at the
university being a strict university
that didn’t mean somebody asked me to go
or look for another university or look
for a different space but I was forced
out of university I was kicked out so
after two years of my three years in The
Bachelor everybody else had expected
Duty oh really ahead you’re on a good
path sad to break it to everyone say
guys I’m kicked out I had to break to my
parents to my friends you guys know what
the expectations are all my peers on my
fellow students also thought it was a
big failure and in a way that was back
then it was a really horrible time for
myself now it is easier to look back but
back then it was really
difficult so I said this is probably the
point to listen to myself to be more
authentic in Who am Who I am who I want
to be and I knew I wasn’t in the place I
should be so I decided to take a step
back as well
Pamela did it already when she was after
high school I should have done that too
maybe but now I did it later and I
decided I would spend distance and be
apart so I applied two internships at
startups which were in the field that I
liked went to Spain in South Africa for
a year and really confronted myself and
decided I want to change things I wanna
set a goal I learned a lot of
interesting stuff at these startups stop
smoking stop going out became more
diligent and decided to hit the ground
running I hadn’t been diligent before so
now I knew I’d started something I’d
started my studies and wanted to come
back and show everybody I can do it and
show myself most importantly I can
finish it well and then move forward so
that’s what I did I found the University
in Spain I went there I studied very
hard and graduated with distinction a
year later and then followed that path
and you start ups and it will put
entrepreneurship where my passion so I
applied to a lot of investment banks in
M&A firms so I had changed I knew where
was I knew what I could bring and
generate and help for business but
everybody else was obviously seeing my
CV and that looked really strange and I
send a lot of applications I sent over a
hundred applications I wasn’t even once
interval inter invited to an interview
which for myself was difficult but I had
now I had the energy to do it so at some
point I was I think overall just over
200 applications I was invited to one
interview at the end it was very honest
it was a firm where I was very honest –
just saying this was a weakness of mine
this was a failure but now I’m dedicated
and I can bring value so let me in and I
went there and they accepted me and I
spent a summer there seeing a lot of
super interesting companies very smart
people incredible opportunities but
always felt during that time that I was
sort of on the sidelines
it was incredible business being done
but I was advising we were advising and
somehow not active and I knew I wanted
to be active at the same time my
girlfriend if graduated who’d studied
more diligently at the same age with her
master and was writing her master thesis
and she could choose the topic
she was she chose a business plan so she
chose to write about a business plan to
start a fashion label and I knew I
wanted to fund my own business I didn’t
have that great idea to revolutionize an
industry but I knew I wanted to get it
done and this seemed very reasonable to
me to get it done we had a plan we can
do it so I called her up every day then
actually and said I think this is the
way we should go
you are complementing with great skills
in marketing very design oriented and so
on I myself like this business and sales
perspective so let’s do it and we did it
we didn’t have any money so we had to
move back home we move back with enough
in with our parents
we started our fashion label she design
clothing I sold it we had good results
in wholesale sold it was women’s dresses
so we sold it to hotel boutiques around
the world to Hilton Viceroy ritz-carlton
but we never managed to build our brand
at the beginning because we couldn’t buy
any ad space and that meant we had to
look for different methods I started
calling up a lot of editors a lot of big
fashion magazines because for us that
felt like the way to go this is where
people interested in fashion go and that
must have an impact if we get placed
there so we were very persistent and we
were eventually placed in magazines so
one morning I went to a kiosk about ten
editions of that magazines because I
knew back then my perspective was now
today is going to be a crazy day we’ll
get crazy results on our website online
store and so on but after all nothing
happened we didn’t see any results we
were placed in one of the biggest
magazines next to the most respected
brands in industry and didn’t see any
traffic and we didn’t understand why
that was in any case we knew we didn’t
have capital to buy ad space this wasn’t
working so way to resort to alternative
methods and what we did was speak to a
lot of bloggers we started to work with
fashion bloggers send them our clothing
ask them to write about it and post
about it and some of them didn’t have
any impact at all as well but others had
tremendous impact we didn’t exert her
then out of the blue we got incredible
traffic in our online store we saw all
of people talking about our brand giving
us feedback and so on and we started to
get the hang of this concept influencer
of marketing we didn’t know it that back
then but this was it and one Sunday
night we’re having a glass of wine we
said this is a huge opportunity there
must be so many other companies in our
same position why can we not help them
or use this positive energy to build
something and that nights and then
I decided to found parts advertising two
and a half years ago now went home that
Sunday night register registered the
business bought a domain so then have
too much money to look to youtube videos
to build our own website start calling
up people and today two and a half years
later we’re working between Europe and
the US and at the forefront of this
influencer marketing world of this game
of advertising and what’s important to
underline is why is influencer marketing
so so important and why is this
authenticity so important when you talk
about traditional advertising there are
two basic assumptions that are very
difficult and are from our perspective
bringing a long term problem one is when
you think about your day you get up in
the morning to the time you go back to
go to bed at night you listen to the
radio you go online you see a lot of ads
you see a lot of ad space intervening in
the content that you want to see in the
radio you will leave the music and
listen to the movies you watch that the
most interesting part of the movie it
stops and then a draws in
so what do consumers do they shy away
from that you sort of blurred out you go
to Netflix go to Spotify you dis on an
ad blocker so your attention doesn’t lie
on the direct communication from a brand
that approaches you at the same time
there is ten different brands for
example in with one same product all
saying their product is the best so you
cannot trust all ten but who do you
trust people resort back and back to
mouth to mouth and peer to peer
recommendation you ask your friends you
ask other people you know and an example
is the way you book your vacation do you
go to the hotel website look at the
panoramic view of the room probably not
because in the end it’s always going to
be smaller than you expect the
difference so you go to booking com you
ask a friend you see get some sort of
way to understand what the product is
and to go into that there’s lack of
credibility in traditional advertising
which makes you refocus your attention
also here and this is where inference of
marketing comes in social media
influencers have connection with their
followers 24/7 they explain personal
problems they give insight into general
feelings opinions and so on that’s how
they built their following with the
great relationship actually the other
day yesterday we were walking down the
street and there were two teenage girls
passing by and I noticed them looking at
Tamela
we’re not sure to recognize her we
walked past and then at some point they
started running after her and said
Pamela is it you and and and said we
you’re beautiful you’re so beautiful we
love you and hugged her right away and
that’s just a different concept these
girls have built a relationship with
Pamela Pamela with them in a way that
has a much deeper connection that any
traditional celebrity has or anything
else has so this care is a huge
opportunity with incredible size of
following of course at the same size or
even bigger sometimes than the
traditional media we know so it’s a huge
opportunity in this game of influencer
marketing as at the same time a huge
responsibility which is very important
to focus on and to look into when
speaking about in fronts of marketing so
authenticity I hope this is one take
away from my story in my part look into
yourself and trust the power of
authenticity in decision-making and look
into the power of authenticity in way of
business and where this leads and by now
I have as most of you probably know
build a community of over 2.8 million
wonderful people all over the world who
I can share my passions with and luckily
they believe in what I say they value my
work my words and they value the content
that I share with them on a daily basis
but if you zoom out again why am i
standing here just because I once was
brave enough to follow my heart I was
brave enough to go my own way and after
two very short years I am now standing
here living my dream and I would have
never ever expected everything to turn
out this well I would have never
imagined like launching my first book at
the age of 20 or having my own fitness
programs or seeing myself in magazines
like the Vogue magazine or the insel
magazine magazines that I at once used
to buy to get my own inspiration from
and I’m actually pretty overwhelmed by
myself by what happened in two short
years so I’m standing here and I want
you to I want to empower you to go your
own way and listen to your dreams and to
your abilities and to not listen to all
the things that you’re that
your surroundings want to tell you that
society considers as normal because the
power of authenticity is much bigger
than you might expect and if you believe
in yourself and if you believe in the
power of authenticity and you will in
the end succeed thank you for your
attention thank you [Applause]